The 15 Day Freedom Blog Challenge for today is to block distractions! Wow, that’s a hard one. Let’s see…my biggest distractions are the husband, the kid, and the dog. I don’t think there’s an app for any of those distractions! LOL
I already use noise-cancelling headphones to get in my zone with Spotify. I spend my days working hard while jamming away to Lecrae, Toby Mac or the Newsboys usually. That helps to block out most of the distractions around me that I can’t otherwise control.
The dog needing to go outside is ok, because that forces me to take a break now and then. When he gets in a “let’s bark at everything” mood the headphones again save the day.
So the one big distraction for me that CAN be controlled beyond that is Facebook. I don’t know how many times I am truly in the zone and all of a sudden I realize I have just wasted 20 minutes on Facebook. Then I’ll stop and ask myself WHY was I even there? Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. Usually its because I wanted to share something cool, or often because I needed to go to Facebook for a client, either to send a message or to log in as them or post something to their business page. Instead I spot the top item on my newsfeed, and I like it or comment on it or scroll down… well you know the rest of that story!
Hmm…so I can probably find a way to prevent myself going to Facebook at all. Heck, I could do like some folks and just delete my whole account. Lol But that’s not a very good solution when you work online, network with business people ON Facebook and manage dozens of FB business pages like I do! So I guess I should just schedule it all for specific times.
In Natalie’s day 4 video today she mentioned a couple of apps that will block access to social media sites for a set period of time that you decide. I am going to check those out.
1st up is MacFreedom, which works on Windows and Android as well as a Mac. Looks like it blocks ALL of the internet. Well, that’s not going to work for me at all. So their site says Anti-Social does the same thing but only blocks out social media sites. That may just work!
What distractions keep you from being productive during the day? Even if you are like me and have managed to block out most of the distractions, there is likely still something. What is it and what are you going to do about it?
I can completely relate to losing track of time on Facebook, and yet not being able to give it up completely because of using it for business. I just might have to try out that anti-social app.
I forgot to add that I am very interested to see if you decide to use the app yourself, and how it works for you if you do. I share a computer with the family, so I’m not positive it would work well for me.
I did download it and just finished installing the trial version. It seems to be blocking Twitter; I’m getting an “unable to connect” screen. But Facebook is working just fine. 🙁 Unless it starts blocking that soon it won’t be worth paying for! I will update if I figure out my “glitch”.
I think it may have been just cached or something. After a while I went back and Facebook was no longer accessible. One drawback is that I could not share something that I came across. I do that pretty frequently throughout the day as a way of keeping my interactions going. But I can just use Hootsuite or something like that instead, or save it for my social media time. For the most part, this app seems to be a winner! I set it for 3 hours, there is about 20 minutes left at this time, and I found myself wanting to go to FB a time or two, not just to test if it was working. And I couldn’t! So I stayed focused. 🙂
Facebook can be a “blessing and a curse.” As you said, it can be a distraction, but it has also connected me to people I would most likely have not met otherwise.
What I do now so that I don’t get “sucked in” is to check it in the morning (as I am with the UBC), engage & interact briefly, and then get about my day. If I’m taking a break I might check in mid-day, but if not I go back at night when my work day is done.
🙂