How to Stop the Internet Sucking Up Time

Are you an addict? Can you not go ten minutes without checking email or your favourite forum? Read this tips and get that net addiction under control!

“Hi, my name is Jane, and I'm an Internet addict...”  Who amongst us hasn't felt at one time or another as if we needed a twelve-step group to conquer our Internet addiction?  It's a worldwide phenomenon that has revolutionised our lives, and sometimes it's hard to remember just what life was like without it.  On the other hand, sometimes it's hard to imagine how we can possibly get anything done with it.  It's a relentless, seductive time-sink, with the lure of email, a million different sites and dozens of ways to pass an idle, unproductive ten minutes, hour, or lifetime.

So how do you resist the siren song of the internet, when you really need to get a project finished, clean the house, finish your regular work-related duties, or just, you know, get stuff done?

Fear not - just read my five tips for stopping the internet from sucking up all your time, and learn to relegate it to its proper place in your life - good servant rather than bad master.

1 Set up two operating systems to dual boot on your computer

Or you could get someone else to do it, if you're not a technologically minded type.  What does this do for you?  Well, say you have both Windows XP and Red Hat Linux set up to boot from your hard drive, according to which you select when the boot menu is displayed at start-up.  You may have Internet Explorer or Firefox or Google Chrome set up on both of them, but your email client on one only.

This means that, for example, at the beginning of the day you boot up Windows, check your email... and then re-boot your computer, boot up Red Hat, and thereby remove the temptation to check your email again until you decide you really need to.

Of course, there's nothing to stop you - technically - from re-booting your computer every ten minutes, and checking your email just as frequently as before.  But really, are you going to actually do that?  The point of this exercise is that it raises the bar of difficulty, and makes checking your email just enough of a pain in the butt to be an effective deterrent against doing so.  Ask yourself - do you really need to know if you've received any hair loss, weight loss or Viagra spam in the last ten minutes?

There is, though, the question of web-based email accounts.  At the least, don't save icons for any you've signed up for onto your  tool-bar or put them in your favourites, and direct all important correspondents to your 'regular' email.  You can only do what you can do. Of course, you could always close your web-based email accounts unless you really need them.

An even more drastic step is not to install a web browser on one of your operating systems.  Provided you don't need internet access on a continual basis for research, access to files or group working purposes, this is a still more drastic way to cut down your internet dependence, and fixes the web mail problem neatly too.

2 Don't engage in internet flame wars.

Now I know  this is something that's easier said than done.  Most of us do it at some point.  We get caught up in a contentious thread on a forum - often not even one related to our area of business, but strictly personal - and for perhaps a day or even longer, it becomes all consuming.  It's a time-sink that we can't leave alone, just in order to be the one to get the last word in.

If you get sucked into one of these, don't just rely on your own will-power to get yourself out of it.  Tell everyone - real life family and friends, on-line pals, other members of the forum involved - that you are not going to participate any further in this craziness.  And ask them to hold you to it, and to verbally kick your butt if they catch you chiming in again on that (soon to be locked, anyhow) thread.

3 That doesn't just apply to flame wars

In fact you can apply that tactic more generally than to just flame war aggravation.  If you know you really need to go cold turkey from your usual internet haunts for a while in order to get stuff done, then tell your on-line companions.  You'll soon get tired of them asking “What the heck are you doing here?”  and chasing you out of town, whenever you dare to make a comment.  You might actually get some stuff done!

4 Don't sign up for replies to your blog comments.

I know, I know.  Sometimes it's practically impossible not to leave a comment on your favourite blog.  Some troll is just asking to be put down, or the most pertinent point in the whole debate has yet to be made by anyone.

So go ahead, make your comment.   Just so long as you don't tick the box that ensures you're notified every time someone replies to the thread.  Now that's just asking for trouble, and to have no free time whatsoever.

Don't do it!

5 Take pen and paper to the café, not your laptop!

As with (2), this is the counsel of perfection.  Sure, sometimes you have necessary research to do, or you're expecting an urgently awaited email, and it just can't be done.

But not always.  If you're going to the café to write - just write - or crunch spreadsheet numbers - and only that - or any task that really doesn't require internet access - then don't take an internet enabled device.  Take a netbook without access, take an antique word processor, take pen and paper!  Why not?  Maybe you need practice using your hands to write, not type.  They say if you don't use it, you lose it.  And you could get a heck of a lot more done using these old-style, vintage methods.

So, there you have my five tips on how to stop the Internet sucking up all your time.  Set up dual boot operating systems, utilize the power of group pressure, steer clear of flame wars, hit 'n' run with your blog comments and make the fullest use of old-school working methods.  Give these tips a try - find out how much more you could be achieving.

Copyright Ollie Hicks, 2009.