Anyone who know me enough will sure noticed that, my only weakness one of my weaknesses is, IM FREAKING LAZY!
And the more i try to understand myself, the more i realized that, the only thing that will push me to do a thing, is the deadline.
Sometimes, i hate myself for behaving like that, and many times, i try to control myself, but being me, and being a lazy me which had been lazying for the past 21 years, it isnt working. Own project that dont have a definitive timeline usually ended up left incomplete or take forever to complete. And now you know why its so hard for me to publish a blog post while I have like thirty posts in my draft right now…
Speaking of blogging, most of the blog post you see now, are those which I write in one shot, which including this one. Separating parts of blog posts to be written in another day isnt a good idea and they all ended up sitting in my draft now. Any distraction during that period of time (usually take 1 – 3 hours to get a blog post done) will most likely destroy my mood and give me a reason to do something else than what i should do, or currently doing.

Thats why i found myself is unproductive when Im at home. Because when Im at home, sometimes my mum will call me to do something, sometimes my brother will “kacau me” (giving me trouble), and sometimes some the bed will distract me too. I know I shouldnt blame my mum, my brother, nor the bed, I should blame myself, but so sorry I’m still looking for a solution to my big problem.

I had found some of ways that might help me be more productive, but I havent test them out extensively, and not all are feasible. Well, what the heck, I will share them here.

1. Stay out of places where are distracting.
Places where are distracting for me are:
– No. 1: BROWSER.
Yes, browser. I must stay away from browser. Too many distraction there. With only one click, i can check my email, go to lowyat forum, go reddit for funneh pictures or go to my Google Reader for links to read.
– No. 2: Console, Steam (on PC), and Minecraft.
Gaming is a big part of my life, and is still the cause of me being unproductive. I can easily spend hours mining in Minecraft, fragging or being fragged on TF2, playing one of the fifty games i have on my PS3 that i will never complete/beat, or the huge library of games that i had purchased on Steam during the summer sales.
Sometimes i feel like uninstall all the games on my pc to keep me from wasting time on these things, but i know it wont work, since my No 1 reason is still browser, which i cant uninstall. I wont be productive at all without the Internet.
– No. 3: Food, Snacks and Sweets.
This one is no big problem, as long as all the food or snacks can be reached with my hand without the need for me to leave my chair, Im all good.
– No. 4: Bed
Although this one is quite rare, but still is one of the problem. Guess my reason for myself is, if i stay up during im “tired”, i wont be productive too. But I found myself a little bit hard to distinguish between really tired, or lazy.

2. Stay out of places where I have access to fast Internet, but must have access to the Internet.
If a place where the internet is fast, most likely I will ended up watching Youtube videos, or downloading stuff. But i found this problem doesnt bug me that much when my YouTube account get banned, where i lost all my subscribtions and therefore Im more likely to watch less video by that way. Guess I have to thank Google for doing this to me…

3. Use Darkroom
While doing writing like writting a blog post, this tool comes handy since what it did is providing a distraction free writing space and using black background green font for the ease of your eye.
Its on Windows, and for Mac equivilant, go get WhiteRoom which does the same thing.
Tips: If you are using latest version of WordPress, try the full screen mode while you’re writing. Put your browser in full screen mode too when you are doing that, that is one useful distraction free writing space!

4. Use Single Purpose Device
Netbook is quite a good solution since whenever I try to run too many tabs in the browser, or too many softwares at a same time, the netbook will start to SCREAM and refuse to behave smoothly. And needless to say, I cant play Minecraft, and TF2 on that guy, so… this might work. But I really hope the netbook’s screen is bigger, and so is the keyboard. Maybe I will need an external keyboard and a second monitor.

5. Use Softwares to Help.
While i have extremely bad self control, there are software that might be able to help me out.
Freedom (macfreedom.com) is a piece of software where you can prevent you from using the Internet for up to eight hour at a time. But since most of the time, Internet is my resources while Im working, so this software is less likely to help me get productive.
Anti-Social (anti-social.cc) might be the software that able to help me, since it can be set to only block the social part of the internet while keeping me productive and resourceful, and at the same time, I can add sites to the blacklist too. The only problem with this piece of awesome software is… Its not on Windows….
Well, maybe I have one more reason to buy Mac. (while my only problem causing me not to buy Mac now is…. NO $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

6. Listen to music while working.
I need to point out that, this trick doesnt work on me. No matter its classical music, jazz or techno, my brain will choose to focus on the music more than anything else. I tried ambient sounds, binaural beats, or rainy mood before, erm, doesnt seems to help much. Or maybe i will give it a try at another time.

If you have more tips, please leave them in the comment section below. I will try them out, and hopefully will help me to be more productive.

Does any of you have the same problem? How does that affect you?

joshuatly2011