How to work efficiently and not get distracted on Internet

Internet is great, there’s a lot of information, tools, entertainment options but that big set of pipes means things are harder to reach and there are a lot of ways to get distracted from what you should be doing, and that’s work.

We all loose hours and hours watching clips on Youtube, following people on Twitter, posting on someone’s Facebook Wall and so on. All this time would have been better used to do constructive things, earn more money and free up more time for our offline life, you know, the one we had before the Internet was all over the place.

Now we are all spending at least 8 hours at work in front of the computer and then a few hours more in front of it at home. Besides the health factors involved here there is the problem of alienation, which I’ve talked about here. Thing are not getting any better, as the Internet becomes more and more addictive, especially to young people.

So, in this post I’ll try and present a short list of things I do when I want to get a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time. It doesn’t always work, but when it does it makes me realize how much time I’m loosing on a usual day at the office, time that I’ll never get back.

How to be more efficient while working on Internet

No, without too much ramblings, the list of things I do to be more efficient while I work on Internet (a dream job, by the way).

1. Take a paper notebook and make a list of the things you need to do each day, putting the most important tasks on top. Put an estimated amount of time needed to finish each task. Check the ones you’ve completed and put the remaining ones on the list for next day
2. Make a habit to check your email at most two times a day’ preferably at lunch time and afternoon. Both sessions should include reading and answering to emails
3. Do the tasks that involve writing and thinking at the beginning of the day, when your mind is still fresh. This way you get things done faster and better
4. If you must check social networks, post pictures, status updates and so on do that in your lunch time, or at night, when you get home
5. Same goes for Instant Messaging, a total waste of time if you get bothered a few times an hour while you concentrate on a really important task
6. Get a QWERTY phone, as you might use any precious minute to write a post/article for your blog while you’re waiting for your next train/metro or whatever

Well, that’s my list of things I do when I want to get some work done and don’t really want to be distracted by all that ‘junk’ on the Internet. It doesn’t always work for me but when it does I can really see the difference. So how about you, what are your tricks?