Guest Post By Sandy Sidhu, Founder of SidekickPM (Learn more about Sandy at the end of this post)
Let’s face it, we all have 24 hours in a day but why does it feel like some entrepreneurs get more done?
Are they not sleeping? Do they have superpowers that you and I weren’t blessed with?
Fortunately, for the rest of us, who do enjoy our 7 hours of sleep and haven’t managed to clone ourselves (yet)- there’s hope!
I am a multi-tasker at heart and for the longest time something I took pride in. Thinking about and switching between tasks was just a normal part of my day. However, lately I’d been reading more and more about how it probably isn’t that great for you and that you don’t necessarily get more done. Context switching has a price.
So what’s the remedy for those of us who twitch whenever we see a new message in our inbox pop up and are not quite ready to go all 4 Hour Work Week and only check our email 2x a day?
Distractions are all around us- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+…try as you may- what do you do when pure self-control doesn’t work?
Pulling the plug on the ‘net isn’t always an option since for many of us our livelihood depends on it.
Since the beginning of the New Year I’ve been experimenting with the 50/10 method-so fifty minutes of focussing on one particular task and then either a break, phone call, answering email or something else for 10 minutes and then I move to the next task. So far it’s been working well but to block out distractions?
There’s an App for That
And guess what..one of them is appropriately named ‘Self-Control’.
Self-Control is a free app for Mac that helps you avoid distracting websites.
Others that you may want to check out:
Anti-social is a productivity app for Macs blocks you from distracting social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and other sites you specify.
Productivity Owl is a plugin for Chrome but instead of just blacklisting blacklisting certain websites, the productivity owl is present on every page and allows a certain amount of time to get the info you need and then get out.
You will twitch and probably shake a little and try to reboot to get out of it (but some tools even block that- they’ve thought of everything) but before you know it you’ll be acing that to-do list and you’ll never look back.
With a little training and use of some of the above-mentioned tools, you too can get more done- no superpowers required
About the Author:
Sandy Sidhu is the founder of SidekickPM where she helps women entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life by supporting them with the techy aspects that get them stuck and overwhelmed. She also has two communities for entrepreneurs to collaborate and connect: Thrive Hive and Get Tech Savvy Club.
Fess up Gayla, you wrote this with me in mind, didn’t you? 🙂
Funny, I was thinking Sandy had written it with me in mind lol. Great minds do think alike – even when distracted – it would seem Marijke 😉
Productivity Owl is a plugin for Chrome but instead of just blacklisting blacklisting certain websites, the productivity owl is present on every page and allows a certain amount of time to get the info you need and then get out.
I like to use social media, checking the news, etc as a reward for having completed tasks. I also have filters set up for emails that come in which are related to non-work things (shopping, music, etc) so I am not distracted by reading them.