How many times have you sat down to work with a full list of things to do, spent the whole day at your desk working along and by the end of the day realized that you didn’t really get much done at all? Yeah, me too. More than I’d like to admit I’ve been on the “what in the world ate up my time?” train.

Today we’re going to talk about turning off unnecessary distractions. Why? Because on days like described above, chances are your time was eaten up by a very real thing–unnecessary distraction. Before we go much further, it’s important to realize that you can’t avoid all distractions–especially depending on your particular work-at-home situation. For example, if you have young children at home, they will pull you away from your work and 99% of the time this will be a necessary distraction. What we’re going to talk about today are the things that pull you out of that mental work zone that can really wait until later. Let’s take a look as some of those things:

• Email–Email can be a real time-sink. What starts out as a “I’ll just take a quick peek” scenario can turn into 20 or 30 minutes reading and replying to stuff that can wait for a while. Multiply that if you’re a consummate mail checker, and you could lose up to over an hour of productivity.
• Facebook/Google+/Twitter/Other Social Media–Depending on how involved you are in social media, these sites can turn into a downright time hog. It’s easy to lose track of how much time you spend keeping up with friends, chatting and playing games.
• The “Oh, I wanted to…” Things–This is a phrase that still comes out of my mouth often. “Oh, I wanted to [insert any number of random tasks here]!” Sometimes when you remember something you want to do, it’s easy for to feel like it’s something you need to do now, which leads to you break off in the middle of a task and attempt to get into the meat of the newest one. If you’re at all easily distracted, this could snowball into a whole mess of half-finished tasks in the span of one work day.
• Phone Calls/Texts (in some situations)–Your phone rings or beeps. You pick it up and Caller ID tells you it’s your sister, or there’s a text from your friend. You spend anywhere from 1-2 to 15 minutes in conversation. If this happens often (especially with texts), those quick minutes add up. Not to mention you’ve completely shifted mental gears and have to pay the price of getting “back into” what you were working on.
• Random Internet Browsing–This door can open without you even noticing it. A little bit of necessary research for a task leads to an hour of Googling and reading about the “mental sprawl” that was caused by that initial research. What you reasoned as a 2 minute diversion has turned into a huge chunk of time spent on something (or many things) that haven’t helped move your task forward much. This one is an especially dangerous trap for me. I’m kind of a curious person. One unfamiliar concept in a bit of research will lead to a search and some reading, which usually spawns another “hmmm…how does that work?” type of search and another–and so it goes into the Google death spiral. :p

Let’s say you’re now realizing how much time you sacrifice to the activities above–how do you solve these problems without throwing your phone out the window or unplugging your internet (both of which you probably need for your work in some capacity)? Self-discipline. I never said the fix was going to be easy, people. :p However, here are some strategies for instilling (and maintaining) a little self-discipline:

• Close Your Email–If you can cut yourself off from your email all-together, that’s ideal. If being responsive to email is part of your work, keep your work and personal email in separate inboxes and only keep the work inbox open and only reply to those emails. Otherwise, designate 10-15 minute blocks of time to check and respond to email 2-3 times a day. Then ignore it until your designated times! Some very successful people I know set up auto-responders to let the sender know that email is checked at specific times of the day and to expect a response after that time. This does two things: it keeps them from getting lost in their email for longer than expected and it also helps them keep their replies succinct and relevant. If you allocate 15 minutes to read and respond, you’re not going to spend a great deal of time making sure your email reads like a novel. You’re going to say what needs to be said and move on.
• No Social Media During Work–If interacting with social media is part of your job description, then limit your use to work related stuff. Give yourself a strict no personal social media policy during work time. Save the social media for break times or after you’re done with your work for the day.
• The “Oh, I wanted to…” Things–Put these things that you remember in the middle of a task on your to-do list, but don’t stop what you’re currently working on! So much time can be lost shifting from one topic or task to another that you’re really hurting yourself if you flit from task to task in a willy-nilly fashion. Just make sure these tasks make it on a list so that you don’t forget them, and prioritize them into your schedule once you’ve finished up what you’re working on.
• Phone Calls/Texts–Use Caller ID! If the call is from your son’s teacher, answer it. If it’s your brother, let him go to voice mail until your next block on non-work time. Prioritize what calls need to be taken now and what can really wait for a while. With texts, take a moment to read the text and gauge whether it’s something that needs to be addressed right now or not. If it’s a social text, let it wait until later. Realize that most of the time everyone is going to feel that what they have to say is time sensitive–evaluate the reality of that. The biggest problem with always being connected and reachable is that people are being conditioned to expect an immediate response–whether it’s warranted or not. As with the email, I know many successful folks who let all of their phone calls (business calls included) go to voice mail. Their voice mail message defines the times during the day when they return calls. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. It’s a very smart, time-conscious strategy.
• Random Internet Browsing–Just say no! Limit browsing to only what needs to be done for your work. If you find yourself wandering off the intended path, put a stop to it pronto. If you’d like, keep a list of things you’d like to browse later during break time or after your “work day” is done.

Some of these items on this list may not seem like serious time wasters, but when you start looking at the sum over days or weeks, you’ll most likely see that you’re spending much less time working than you intended. Trust me, the harder you work at streamlining your work process, the more work you will get done, leaving more time open for free time. You tell me which is better: mid-day Facebook visits or opening up entire days of free time because you work so efficiently? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like Facebook that much! ;)