That Foul, Time-Sucking Beast... The Internet

Earlier in the week, I posted about my new plan to stay on track- The “Jordan Gets All Trav’s Money, Trav Dies Penniless and Alone” Plan. The long-term plan that I’ve employed to (hopefully) keep my ass on track.

In the shorter-term, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, there’s a small handful of tools that I’ve found very helpful in keeping me focused on that day’s tasks.

Knowing that in addition to being lazy, I am also a gigantic procrastinator (maybe they’re the same thing?), I decided it’s past time that I do my best to destroy my biggest distractions.

So long, Internet.

At least, for most of the day. Though I really didn't have many problems when delivering paid/client work, my personal work was another story. When I should have been working on my passion projects, instead I would frequently let the Internet distract me. The sites I tended to waste time on (HuffPost, Facebook, any number of comics/geek-related sites) had taken up too much of my life already.

I found a good widget for Google Chrome called StayFocusd, installed it, and set my options so that it blocks Internet sites for much of the day (I get a two-hour window at lunch, and another few hours in the evening). Thus, I'm now forced to do all my emailing/correspondance, facebooking, blogging, and (most importantly) photoreference-gathering within those windows. I can tell you, it definitely cuts down on needless surfing. The widget makes it very hard to cheat, and I also uninstalled all other browsers, like Firefox, to keep myself from doing so. So, except for a couple hours a day, I’m completely Internet-free.

It’s been a little odd being Internet-free- it feels weird, like I’m going through some kind of withdrawal. But, the upside is that I’m slowly recalling that wondrous, glorious time-- the 90’s-- back when I did most of my art traditionally, and certainly without the help of the Internet.

As for staying focused on my current task, the other widget I’m using is a timer called Focus Booster, which is based on “the Pomodoro Technique”, which alleges that the best allotted time for focusing on a task is 25 minutes, then a 5 minute break. Then repeat. So far, I have to admit that even if it IS the placebo effect working, I do find myself significantly more focused when I use it.

So, that’s it in a nutshell. Basically, 1. do away with beers (and subsequent hangovers), 2. pay a painful amount of money if I slack off, 3. kill the internet, and 4. use a timer. The lush that lives in me definitely misses my beloved evening beers, but the procrastinator/lazy couch potato in me doesn’t particularly miss the slacking and the internet (probably because, as expected, I still find plenty of time for both most evenings).

If I'm totally honest, it's slightly embarrasing that I even need all these steps. I'd love to say that I have willpower of steel, but I'm just not that awesome. So, it's my intention to get my ass in gear, and those are the tools that I've put in place to make sure I do.

More next week about the incredibly productive weeks I’ve had, tackling the process of storywriting for the project...