Working on the Web and Having a Life: The Complete Guide to Being Free from Mindless Addictions, Busy Work and Procrastination

Today has been a great day. Nothing particularly amazing happened. It was fairly hot so I just sat at home and delved deeper into the Zombie apocalypse in World War Z, managed to start and finish an article, and am now writing this.

Why has my day been so great then?

I experienced the end of my internet addictions: email, Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics – the common culprits. Sure, just one day of it is not great feat of accomplishment, but it’s mind boggling how much time I’ve previously lost in mindless and unnecessary browsing, and how simple it was to have a day of focused output and genuine entertainment. And that simplicity is the key, because I believe that is what will make it easy to create this habitual shift.

But before I go into how to do all this, I’d like to paint a picture in your mind, or paint a feeling maybe, that might be more appropriate. Today, in one word, has been calm.

I was able to move so much slower than usual and with that slowness comes focus and purposefulness in everything you do. I didn’t get lost in reading 100’s of regurgitated blog posts, or getting sucked into the Twitter funnel.

In terms of my working life, it was the perfect day. Huge quantities of work wasn’t completed but at no point did I feel like I was in a rush to complete anything, everything felt easy. Even so, I did manage to write 1000+ words in a single stroke, which I haven’t done in a while (note: this was written before I wrote my post on effortless writing).

Start the day disconnected. Too many times I’ve turned my computer on in the morning with the though “I may as well turn it on now, so when I go to it in 1-2 hours it’ll be ready for me.” Of course that 1-2 hours then shrinks to about 30 seconds once I realize “Oh, the computer’s on now, I may as well do this one thing…”

That one thing transforms into 50 things and all of a sudden my morning is gone. The afternoon arrives and I figure it’s time for serious work, because all that other stuff was fairly mindless. Before it hits me the day is gone, I go to sleep, and the cycle repeats.

When you wake up in the morning avoid any computer or work-related activities for at least one hour, but preferably two. Eat a healthy breakfast, read a few chapters of a book, drink two glasses of water and, if you’re feeling up to it, go for a short walk.

The major benefit of this goes beyond just the physical aspects of being energized. This process gets you in a favorable mindset for the day. You’ll feel great and less likely to indulge in bad habits that you might otherwise succumb too.

For a more practical example, think about what happens if you have an unhealthy breakfast, like at Easter. You may stuff your face with chocolate and then you’re in the mindset of “Oh, well I’ve already eaten like crap, there’s no point to eating healthy for the rest of the day.” Be pro-active to avoid this vicious, life-sucking cycle of ultimate doom.

Move your computer. This is anotehr new change that I made about 6 hours ago and has noticeably effected my mood and thought processes. Previously my Macbook Pro would either be in my room, or on my lap on the couch upstairs. The problem was, upstairs is where my family is most of the time, and where most of the leisure takes place – eating, sleeping, watching TV etc.

Having access to my work in this space made it difficult to separate my work and play times, and although work feels like play most of the time, I feel it’s important to make the distinction because too much of anything is damaging both mentally and physically.

Now my computer is downstairs on a table that’s always been unused most of the time.

This new work space gives me a larger area to get stuff done in, is more ergonomically sound (my neck isn’t perfectly aligned, but I can fix that soon enough), has less noise during the day and most importantly, is separated from leisure activities. The computer isn’t beckoning me to it when I’m trying to sit back and enjoy a book or tickle my funny bone with repeats of The Simpsons.

Move your computer into a room separate from the rest of your life. Don’t balance, separate.

Use a laptop. Aside from a vacation to Hamilton Island (I had to catch up on an assignment unfortunately) and an afternoon at a mate’s place, I’ve never taken my laptop out of the house. A friend who took his laptop to school would berate me because of that (eventually the teacher joined in too – good times) because it did seem odd to spend about twice the money buying a portable computer (compared to the cost of a desktop computer) and then not making use of its portable-ness.

The reason I initially bought a laptop because I did think I’d take it more places than I ended up taking it, but two unrecognized advantages have made themselves clear since then.

You can physically close a laptop. This is a bigger deal than it sounds. Regular computers with their increasingly large monitors, humming towers, and overall presence almost beg to be used. They’re always taking up some mind share when they’re in your view.

But a laptop doesn’t do that. You can simply close the lid down and it’s that physical act of closing the lid that signals to your brain that “Okay, I’m done.” Work doesn’t feel unfinished and there’s less eagerness to do “just one more thing.”

Plus, if need be you can store your computer away in a cupboard to block it completely from your mind. I haven’t need to resort to that yet though.

Work areas can be tested. The tower of my previous desktop computer weighed 20kg. Sure, I could lift it, but because of the size and weight it was fairly cumbersome, especially when it came to taking it up and down stairs.

If your office is perfect that’s no real worry, but the portability of a laptop has meant I can try out different locations around the house without any hassle at all. I doubt I would’ve ever bothered to move my office down here if I’d stuck with a desktop machine.

Simplify your aims. What do you want to do in your work and life? Can you describe it in two words? I’ve broken down my “career” as create and care. Create branches off into writing and other creative pursuits, while care is the simple act of replying to emails, talking with people on Twitter and all those other people-related activities.

With this clarity of work-life aims it becomes much easier to make distinctions between what’s necessary or not. If I can’t easily place an activity under one of those headings, it either gets eliminated completely, or at the very least scheduled after the truly important work is done.

Limit your inboxes. Email is an inbox. Twitter is an inbox. Facebook is an inbox. Don’t fill up your life with inboxes. Too many and you’ll be overwhelmed as your thoughts and interactions become scattered across various communication protocols.

Eliminate any communication platforms you can. As few as possible is best, although you may need to balance this with convenience if you have clients or customers who want to get in touch with you. Email is the platform that gives you the greatest spread, but Twitter is the most useful for making announcements and answering quick questions.

Facebook is what I use for my personal inbox. I’m not sure if most of my friends even know what my email address is as all the online communication with folks I know in real life comes through Facebook in the form of messages, wall posts and live chatting. And that’s another important point: delegate inboxes for different purposes.

When an inbox has a purpose it suddenly becomes a lot clearer on how and when you should be using it. My email inbox for example has become purely business-centric, and that means I feel more comfortable with not checking it constantly because I know nothing is ever that urgent. I use Facebook in a similar way, but I understand when my friends use the platform and can work within those time constraints.

Install LeechBlock for Firefox. If you’re not a Firefox user then LeechBlock is reason enough to become one. Safari was my browser of choice previously, and it works very well, but Firefox drew me in with this, at the very least, work (life?) changing extension.

What LeechBlock does is let you define different sets of websites that you want to block yourself from between certain times, on certain days or after spending too much time on them.

The system I’m using is to block my main internet crutches between midnight and 4pm every day. The “Email” set on the other hand (not shown in the picture) blocks access to my Gmail account all day, every day, except between 4pm and 8pm.

Right now these limits are fairly generous, and eventually I’d like to move Gmail time to only 2 days per week, for 2 hours at a time, perhaps moving that up to 3 days per week eventually if the blog continues to grow at this rate. In the testing stages though I wanted to make the shift easy on myself.

This is a plugin I’ve known about for many months, but never felt it could make a huge difference so I never took it seriously. Take it seriously. Enabling this barrier keeps you out of your inbox, and if you really don’t trust yourself then you can make it so the extension can’t be disabled, but it probably won’t need to come to that.

Work in blocks. Block work is effective work. Instead of trying to run a marathon, working for over 4 hours at a time, do one of two things:

• Set 20 minute deadlines using e.ggtimer.com and then take a short break (food, drink, bathroom etc) for 10 minutes after that time is up.
• Have a short break after you complete an important item from your to do list.

Either method is fine and I alternate between them depending on how I’m feeling. The first is best if you’re feeling distracted and procrastination is looming, but the second option is certainly more freeing if you’re in a highly motivated state to work on whatever you’re working on.

Funnel content. We have the ability to consume a ridiculous amount of content each day and in many cases, we do. But after a certain point what was originally the digestion of useful knowledge and application of insights becomes filling your brain with irrelevant mush.

The best way to avoid this is to release yourself from the vacuum of surfing the internet, and that’s possible by funneling the content you receive.

Make a list of all the outlets where you regularly consume information from – blogs, podcasts etc. If you’re too lazy to do this, or simply aren’t mindful of your consumption habits then use RescueTime.com to help you along.

Once you know where you’re spending your time look at each resource individually and answer this question honestly: Have I received significant value from this outlet in the past 2 weeks? If the answer comes back “No” then cross it off the list. Don’t consume information “just in case” something valuable could pop up. Above 75% of the content you seek should be fulfilling, either in terms of education or enjoyment.

Now you need somewhere to funnel the content too. If you’re looking to save time and money then head over to Google Reader and subscribe to all the blogs there.

Alternatively pick up a copy of Fever to install on your own web server. It’s feature set isn’t hugely different to other feed readers, but the interface is brilliant and the use of shortcuts and arrow keys does make the whole experience much tighter. Use LeechBlock to assign a time of the day for information consumption.

Podcasts require some different care depending on the platform you want to use. On the desktop side of things iTunes is probably the simplest podcast catching tool, but as an iPhone user I funnel all my podcasts into the RSSPlayer Pro application. It’s not bug-free but it’s the only app of its kind and serves its purpose well enough.

Define disconnect times. Any form of technology, specifically computers, has been proven to disrupt your sleep, both before and during, if it’s use too close to the time where you fall asleep.

At times I still pull a late night computing session because I often write my best at around midnight, but if you’re not planning to do any work I’d recommend shutting down your computer by 8pm at the latest. You’ll notice a quick improvement in your ability to drift into dream land once you give your mind a chance to calm down after hours overloaded with bits and bytes.

Go lo-tech. As I talk about in my guide to hacking your life, use analogue mediums such as pen and paper where your computer is unnecessary. This includes work such as brainstorming, writing to-do lists, outlining articles and anything else that doesn’t need a digital counterpart straight away.

Not only will this switch fuel creativity in everything you do, it makes you realize that you’re not as reliant on your computer or the internet as you first thought. That thing popped up between your shoulders (your noggin) has most of the answers you need and brainstorming doesn’t need to be more complex than crude circles and barely legible handwriting.

Fill the void. This is my weak point, the void, the time you save by putting these measures into place. I’ve recovered literally hours of my day today, and even just 1 extra hour is a lot of time to fill. It’s not made easier when you’re a web worker as most of your friends will either be working or at university.

And that’s why I want to leave this point open: how do you fill the void? What do you do, or what do you want to do with the free time I hope you will recover using these methods?

Photo: blupics

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