Now that I have no income and very soon I will start feeling the heat, I need to develop a laser-sharp focus super-power.

Coppergate out of focus
Creative Commons License photo credit: Stephen Jefferson

Here are the steps I am taking to reduce distractions and stay focused and productive:

  1. I unsubscribed from 95% of the feeds – my Google reader is lean and mean (I still read Dilbert every day)
  2. I unsubscribed from every newsletter or email I get – specially the ones that tell me to buy stuff. Damn you Amazon.com
  3. I turned off all my instant messaging – AIM, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo and Skype.
  4. I am trying to limit email checking to twice or three times a day (very hard to do)
  5. I am limiting blogging to once or twice a week and schedule posts to be spread out several days.
  6. I am using Basecamp to keep track of my project, milestones, to do items and so on. Albeit its limitation, I love this tool.
  7. I use outlook and remember the milk to manage my tasking and calendaring (I might get rid of rtm)
  8. I listen to a lot of DJ Tiesto on Pandora
  9. I am eliminating video games. The Xbox 360 is broken, and I am not going to fix it. I think Microsoft programmed it to break 1 week after the warranty expires.
  10. I am limiting web browsing to 1 hour a day or less if I can.
  11. I am limiting TV to very specific shows (lost and family guy), plus my media center just croaked. Why have a surge protector if the first storm fries your electronics.
  12. I am not showering or shaving. I am just kidding. Actually, I would love to do that but Laura would leave me.

Do you have other tips on how to stay focused and productive?

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Startup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.