I’ve been pushing myself to be more productive during my work hours, especially since I now have two days of the week where I watch my boys. Since I often work from home and am usually alone most of the day I have found services such as AIM & Twitter keep me from going insane. I am very much a people person so these services really help me enjoy my work more. I not only use these services socially but I also find myself getting a lot of feedback and work help over AIM and twitter.
But, with most things, there are negatives to these otherwise good things. The biggest one is obvious. They can be really distracting to productivity. These social services, combined with the RSS Feeds (NetNewsWire is my reader of choice), my iPhone and E-Mail, often get the best of me and zap my work flow.
So, I’m taking on a new practice during days when I really, really need to focus. I am calling it “Airplane Mode.”
That means…
- The iPhone is off.
- E-Mail is off.
- AIM is off.
- Twitter is off.
- RSS Feedreader is off.
- And, if i am not needing to be online, the wireless connection is off
…Just like I am in an airplane. The only thing that is on my computer is some good tunes. I tried this today for a bit and it was amazing how well it worked.
I am not sure about you, but when I have my lap top on airplane I get a whole heck of a lot done. While I can’t totally duplicate this, it’s a good step forward for me. (In fact, my desk is a whole heck of a lot more comfortable than those stinking airplane seats!)