How do you minimize or stop procrastination/distractions ?

[kobracai]

How do people who work on online businesses get on with things and stop procrastinating? unfortunately I am getting little done at the moment because of various distractions (that's the nature of the Internet and social media in a way), I try to limit "leisure surfing" time to 5 or 10 minutes an hour but it always overspills. Add your mobile on top of that and it's a lot of stuff that doesn't get done

I reckon some evenings I do in 3 hours what I could do in half hour :'( :'(

I know it's a simple as "just stop being lazy and get on with it already" but I'm wondering if any of you have had this problem and had any tricks on overcoming this and be more productive.

One disadvantage for me is that I do Internet Marketing and at the beginning you see very little or nothing in terms of money: if you earned money straight away
you could easily power through the procrastination because you can actually see the reward...

Thank you for your input

 

[Chammy]

How do people who work on online businesses get on with things and stop procrastinating? unfortunately I am getting little done at the moment because of various distractions (that's the nature of the Internet and social media in a way), I try to limit "leisure surfing" time to 5 or 10 minutes an hour but it always overspills. Add your mobile on top of that and it's a lot of stuff that doesn't get done

I reckon some evenings I do in 3 hours what I could do in half hour :'( :'(

I know it's a simple as "just stop being lazy and get on with it already" but I'm wondering if any of you have had this problem and had any tricks on overcoming this and be more productive.

One disadvantage for me is that I do Internet Marketing and at the beginning you see very little or nothing in terms of money: if you earned money straight away
you could easily power through the procrastination because you can actually see the reward...

Thank you for your input

If you find a magic cure then please pass it on! I am terrible when it comes to procrastinating. I can tell myself PC off at 10 then crack on with house work, 4 hours later I'm rushing around to get the bits done I should of done at 10 because I was gobbled up by Facebook, Twitter, Netmums *whispers* TMS. I've been good today and played World of Warcraft while being logged in to 63336 so switched screens as soon as I got a message. Normally I am terrible!

 

[FreeSwagSites]

How do people who work on online businesses get on with things and stop procrastinating? unfortunately I am getting little done at the moment because of various distractions (that's the nature of the Internet and social media in a way), I try to limit "leisure surfing" time to 5 or 10 minutes an hour but it always overspills. Add your mobile on top of that and it's a lot of stuff that doesn't get done

I reckon some evenings I do in 3 hours what I could do in half hour :'( :'(

I know it's a simple as "just stop being lazy and get on with it already" but I'm wondering if any of you have had this problem and had any tricks on overcoming this and be more productive.

One disadvantage for me is that I do Internet Marketing and at the beginning you see very little or nothing in terms of money: if you earned money straight away
you could easily power through the procrastination because you can actually see the reward...

Thank you for your input

I have set up a "reward system" for myself.
So, no dinner / Cup of Tea / Slice of Cake unless and until I complete a task like finish a blog post etc.
My sinful addiction to Clash of Clans doesn't really interfere because it takes a while for my troops to be born again. :

 

[Flitterbug]

Ugh I am terrible as well, I've spent more time chatting about my busines/ideas than executing them... I also spend pretty much all evening in the Wealthy Affiliate chat instead of looking at training or writing for my website... I do try to do the reward system but that's no good when I've already eaten a bar of chocolate and several biscuits and packets of crisps that day haha!

YouTube is my biggest downfall

 

[Chammy]

YouTube is my biggest downfall

Oh I'm glad to hear someone else is bad for this too. Simple Cooking Channel and Todd's Kitchen have my time at the moment (besides the guys at Polaris).

 

[alditoharrods]

Firstly, accept that you do need to procrastinate - or as I call it, research. Whilst you're looking around, you're soaking up information and finding earners that work - and earners that don't.

Secondly, work smarter, not harder. Have everything you need to check bookmarked - I can then open everything at once like all my stats pages, all my earners, etc. I also have a separate email program to deal with money making emails - so I can just load that instead of checking each webmail account.

thirdly, lists and timers do wonders for me, as does having a "reward" afterwards. For instance, I love looking at my Adsense earnings, so I leave that until last as motivation to get something done.

Fourthly, don't be too hard on yourself.

 

[Jon]

first - Set achieveable goals. don't have this ' I want to have be a millionaire' mindset right now, set your targets only if they are achievable. I watched a video the other day on the Empower Network (http://www.empowernetwork.com/). The video is very glossy, everything is shiny and it gives off that 'it could be you' attitude but then you delve a little deeper and see that (http://www.empowernetwork.com/income) 91% of its affiliates earn less than $100 dollars a month for all their hard work.. 4% earn $100 - $249 a month. God knows how much work they have to put in to get those sort of figures

second - following on from the previous one choose your plan wisely. If you want to blog and earn money, spent time studying those that already do it at a beginner level. You will then gauge how much you can earn for those first few months and will have a benchmark by which to judge yourself.

third - Whatever you are doing, have a MASSIVE interest in it. It helps to keep your content organic and keep you engaged in your earning hobby.

forth - is a river in Scotland

fifth- do have a reward, a regular one. Maybe at the end of the month if you hit £700 or whatever then go and watch your favourite sports team or have a great day out somewhere. There has to be a constant reminder to yourself to keep going.

 

[kobracai]

Anyone know a free program or firewall that you can set up to prevent you accessing certain sites? That could be useful

 

[Jon]

Ah, you are talking about discipline then

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

it's for kids...but it's free and will do what you want, but you would still be able to override it easily enough as it would be you who sets the rules

Not sure doing stuff like this would really tackle the issue of having a mindset that is trying to achieve things in the first place. That's what you need to bring to the front every time you sit down to work

 

[kobracai]

Thanks Jon... Well, it might help, I'll give it a whirl.

Also its a totally new subject for me, its very hard to quantify the work: at Uni I used to study something for an hour,. look at what I'd been through, then break down the amount of work into hours. Worked well and kept me on track. I can't do that by working on a totally new subject and at home... Would be great to learn how people can be so focused

 

[Jon]

Why don't you tell us about the internet marketing you are doing so we can understand it better

 

[kobracai]

it's an Internet Marketing venture selling a business information product. I'll probably start a proper thread about it to ask for advice

 

[Jon]

yeah go for it, would love to know more!

 

[mbmetro100]

it's an Internet Marketing venture selling a business information product. I'll probably start a proper thread about it to ask for advice

Keep us in the loop about the IM venture, as I'm keen on what you're going to promote?

 

[House-Saver]

Its a bit sad I know, but I wrote a blog post a couple of months back about 'Sid' my cat preventing me from working from home.
Although I suppose my cat is a more quirky distraction than the usual procrastination culprits of doing the laundry or raiding the fridge.
http://house-saver.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/My%20workshy%20cat

 

[RedAlix]

I struggle as well actually. Usually get distracted with earning peanuts on swagbucks and gifthulk. Would love to not get distracted but still do. My mind even wanders when I'm not working on a computer. Actually the only job I have done where I have focused 100% on what I am doing 100% of the time if when I was doing building work. Would like to get back into that really as it keeps me fit too!

 

[nicki]

I'm constantly distracted by Facebook and Twitter. Lord help me when I get my blog social media accounts going (going to get some posts up first) :-[ Worst is that my daughter asked for my help with a game she plays on Facebook as she had no friends and needed at least one friend to help her move to the next level...she's on level 14 and I'm on level 43 lol Last time this happened I just deleted the game and blocked it, now I need her to get her friends playing the game before I can delete it and be probably 50% more productive lol

I also get distracted by housework. Not sure I can get around that one. If I don't do it, then it either doesn't get done properly so I have to do it again, or it doesn't get done at all! I am trying to implement a timetable structure to my day, but its a slow process and goes out the window with every school holiday!

 

[kobracai]

I am in a coffee shop right now trying to work on my business, I get that by being around strangers I get to focus more than at home. Still wasted some time though...

setting achievable goals is a bit hard cos I never done Internet Marketing before so the goals are slowed down/skewed by the fact that I have to stop to absorb the concepts. I like the building work analogy, at least there you can quantify stuff easily because it's right there in front of you...a

anyone has any "hack" that has worked for them?

 

[kobracai]

just bumped into this, I'm sharing it here for everyone

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236693

 

[mbmetro100]

just bumped into this, I'm sharing it here for everyone

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236693

Thanks. I've just bookmarked that article, as it's well written and makes perfect sense. If you don't have discipline then, you WON'T make money working from home!