I live by the timer. I don’t have Attention Deficit Disorder but I definitely have my own form of ADD – Attention Distraction Disorder (there is also a third form – Attachment Deficit Disorder, when a person sends an email and forgets to attach their document). I am very easily distracted and understand my triggers and what I need to do to overcome them. One thing that helps is the timer. I use the Pomodoro Technique and Timecap my Timesucks™.
What are my timesucks? Almost any form of social media, RSS feeds, research for purchases and my Netflix queue. I cap it to 25 minutes per day and set a timer on my desktop called Focus Booster. If I don’t use Focus Booster I just use my watch. I may break it up into two chunks a day, like Social Media, but I definitely don’t do more than 25 minutes for any of these things. Why? Because it is so easy to get sucked in to reading post after post, looking at photo after photo, clicking on link after link and so on until I have six tabs open and can’t even remember what I was initially intending to do! I also am a premium user of Rescue Time, which shows me how much time I spend on distracting websites by day and week, as well as block access for a specified period of time to sites I have marked distracting.
Timecap your Timesuck™. I’m sure there is something you do that you can start with. Try just one Timesuck and Timecap it to increase your productivity.
What’s your Timesuck?
