Two-Hour-Tether (or better name someone else comes up with)

An everyday system, TM, is a simple, commonsense solution to an everyday problem, grounded by a pun or metaphor. Propose/discuss new systems here.
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gingercake
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Location: western U.S.

Two-Hour-Tether (or better name someone else comes up with)

Post by gingercake » Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:51 pm

Kind of in the weekend luddite vein...

I've got a deadline for a big project. The closer the deadline gets, the more time I spend not working on it. 90% of my non-working time is spent on email, blogs, bulletin boards, and all of that delicious stuff.

I've figured out (I think) that two hours a day should be enough online time to deal with my email, keep up with the blogs related to my industry (including my own), and monitor the sites I read for my own enjoyment. I could do the two hours all at once, or break it into chunks - preferably not chunks of less than 30 minutes, because I can see that 8 15-minute sessions could be harder to manage and the idea is to not have constant small interruptions. (Of course if I were doing this in true everyday systems tradition I guess I would make it like "114.5-minute-tether" or something. But I wanted to alliterate.)

Problem is that the project I'm working on all has to be done at the computer, so the temptation is right there. Like trying to No S while sitting in front of an open fridge all day. But I know everyone pretty much has the same problem these days as life revolves around the computer, so that's just an excuse.

I'm going to start by trying this tomorrow. (Yeah, yeah, "Do. Or do not. There is no 'try.'")

kccc
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Post by kccc » Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:25 am

I use this for my "home page" at work: http://www.marktaw.com/getbacktowork.htm

(And I take great pleasure in clicking off of it at the end of the day.)

I also use my index card on which I write my to-do's to make little boxes for 15-minute intervals on the Current Big Project. It's very satisfying to mark them off. I tell myself "just one box..." (which is usually enough to pull me into work, but don't tell my brain that).

On a bad day, I make myself mark every time I go "off-task."

And my favorite trick - since I'm a morning person - is to do a quick check of email before I leave the house and NOT TURN IT ON AT WORK until I've gotten a block of time in on the Current Big Project. Nothing will explode in 2 hours, and it's amazing what I can get done when I focus.

Will be interested in seeing what you come up with that I can steal... er, emulate. It really is a pervasive problem.

kbits
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Post by kbits » Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:29 am

The OCD in me loves that site, KCCC!

gingercake
Posts: 110
Joined: Fri May 30, 2008 5:19 am
Location: western U.S.

Post by gingercake » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:49 am

little update: going along with the No S philosophy of simple, strict rules that you can't bargain with, I've made my rule "no internet until after dinner." Today was the first day of that, and it worked out well. And I'm enjoying my online time much more because there's no guilt, and also there is a finite amount of time between dinner and bed so it's another natural limit.

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OrganicGal
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Post by OrganicGal » Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:54 pm

Good decision Gingercake, sounds like it will work for you. :)
Creating and sustaining the No S habits are the only thing that will take me in the direction I want to go!

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:03 pm

I think rules like this can be very helpful, though it can often take a bit of fine tuning to find ones that will stick.

Procrastination is a little like snacking. Every instance seems to little and harmless in itself, that without clear and firm limits you'll never stop until you've gone way overboard.

My current distraction management rules are:

1. weekend luddite
2. anti-bookmarks (no certain small list of trigger sites 9-5)
3. blimit ([we]b limit: can only check personal email, bulletin board 4 times a day, keep track on daily card)
4. have two small children to reduce free time to virtually nil. When there's no slack, you can't slack :-)

And then of course there is the positive pressure of all those other daily tasks on my card waiting to get done so I can get a green on my habitcal.

Between these I think I've eliminated almost all procrastination. Now I'm down to the problem of working on the wrong things to begin with :-)

Reinhard

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