Staying on task

I've recently learned of some techniques to keep yourself productive and on task. One very prominent idea in these techniques is to limit, sometimes drastically, your actual work time. This means that instead of working a semi-to-non productive 8-hour day, then you should work a very productive 2-3 hour day.

The idea behind this is that if you think about what you actually do throughout the day, a large majority of it consists of facebook, email, IM, and sometimes games. While these things really help in other ways (staying creative, etc), it does nothing good for productivity.

In order to buckle down and get things done you need to not just reduce distractions, detours, and roadblocks; you need to completely obliterate them for at least a short time. So how can we do this? Most of us are email addicts or addicts of other online services that we simply can't live our day without. Well, I never said it would be easy.

The trick seems to be to start small. Start working, REALLY WORKING, 50 minutes at a time. 50 solid minutes of solid, productive, work - no more, no less. In this 50 minutes you need to shut out email, close IM applications, and close your browser (if you can). If your work doesn't REALLY require an internet connection then don't use that either. You can also keep your door shut or put on a pair of headphones to keep out local distractions like other people - make it clear that you're in the zone and you want to stay there for at least a little while (someone actually just walked in and interrupted me because I didn't do either of these).

Bottom line is, productivity is #1. If you can get any amount of really great, productive, time then you're on the right track. Try not to work too much and get too little done - it doesn't benefit anyone.