Trying to get work done with a million little distractions popping up can be a futile pursuit. Personally, I’m a very easy person to distract. To get any work done I need to go to get rid of any and all distractions or it’s only a matter of time until I’m interrupting myself. So I put my headphones on with some white noise playing, turn everything off that can be turned off, and open a full screen text editor so that all those tempting icons down there in the taskbar wont get to me. And then hope that I can stay on task.
Extreme I know, but I’m easily distracted.
Here are a few things that I’ve found to be helpful in the war against distractions when using a computer:
- Get rid of the task bar – You would not believe how distracting that pesky little bar down there can be. It’s packed full of all kinds of distractions. If you can work in fullscreen, try it, but if you cant, try this instead. Go to either the far left or right of the bar (this is for Windows users) and right click on the task bar, which will you will get you a menu. Click Properties and in the new window you will see a check-box to auto hide the task bar. With this box checked the task bar will disappear unless you mouse over it.
- Go Offline – Twitter, email, messenger, the alerts and notifications that we are bombarded with from the internet are endless. Some laptops have a handy little slider bar that turns the network adapter card off. Others may have to get in to the network options to disconnect. And if you’re still working with a cord, yank that thing out. Unless you really need to be online, try turning off the notifications and alerts at the source.
- Play Music – For some people this is an obvious one, but others swear that music is an intolerable distraction. I’m firmly in the pro-music camp, and I would suggest that those who cant tolerate music while they’re working simply haven’t found the right music yet. If normal music doesn’t do it for you, try something without lyrics, like jazz or classical. Still too distracting? Try nature sounds. Still too much? Try pure white noise. Noise is without a doubt the most difficult sense to completely block out, because unless you’ve got a sound-proof room at your disposal, it’s almost impossible to escape it. Often the best you can do it to override it with your own noise.
Image via _ES
Stu is a freelance writer, but he has a special place in his heart for blogging. He also enjoys reading, cooking, and a little music now and then. You can follow him on Twitter here
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going offline is hard when so much work is done online. obviously this depends on what you are working on. if you can’t train yourself to only check email, twitter, facebook, etc. at fixed times (and i can’t) then i like the idea of the FF plugin, leechblock, you repped on another post. i will be installing that today!!
not sure if the task bar boths me, except maybe that i do have too many programs running. i definitely have too many tabs. and on top of that killing FF’s memory usage, it kills my own productivity. there are plugins for MORE tabs, i would love a tab restricting plugin.
as for music, this also depends on what i am working on. for instance, when painting or doing something that requires an active right brain, i’ve had good luck with foreign music as I recognize they are speaking/singing but the left brain can’t pick up the words.
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