10 Habits For Getting More Done Online

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

The Web is this funny being, constantly teetering on the line between hugely productive and hugely wasteful. As easy as it is these days to know more, do more, and be part of more, there’s an easy slope toward wasting your time doing spectacularly barely-productive things.  Sure, you’re reading Wikipedia, which is all well and good, but there’s usually something more productive to be doing.

But the solution obviously isn’t to unplug, turn off, and disconnect from all these things – that’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Is that the right way to use the saying? I was going to look it up and make sure, but I don’t care – it’s an awesome saying, even when used inappropriately).

The key is to figure out where time gets wasted, and learn how to use that time online better. There’s a ton to do, and a ton that can be done, but only if we give it the time it requires.

Here are ten habits that might help you with that process:

Batch Process

Your brain takes time to switch what it’s thinking about, so make it do so as little as possible. If you’re writing, do a lot of writing at once. If you’re on Twitter, stay on Twitter for a bit, and maybe even venture over to Facebook. The more you can group together similar activities, rather than bouncing back and forth, the more you’ll limit the transitions your brain has to make, and you’ll work faster and better.

Single-Task

I’ve always been a huge fan of multi-tasking, even writing in its defense. But when you’re online, try and only do one thing at a time. Not only does your quality of focus go down when you’re doing two things at once, but I’ve found I’m actually slower when I’m doing both than I would be doing them back-to-back. Pick a task and do it (most are short anyway), and then hit the next thing.

Save Things For Later

It’s easy to accidentally find an interesting-sounding page in the middle of being otherwise productive, and out of fear of forgetting about it, you start reading, or watching, or listening. Don’t do that. Instead, save it to something like Instapaper or Diigo, and then go back when you’ve got a free moment and enjoy a bunch of things at once.

Search

One of the best things about the Web is that there’s really no need for filing – search is so good and so powerful, that why put everything into folders, labels, and files? That’s an old method that doesn’t need to be applied now. If you’re organizing (say, in email), try using a single level of organization using some clever filters (like, say, “Family” or “Work), and then let search do the rest.

Time Everything

Timing things works in two great ways: one, you learn how long it takes you to do certain things – like write a blog post. Two, it lets you race the clock, which will automatically laser your focus. If you don’t want to get to work, set a timer for ten minutes and resolve to work, hard, for ten minutes and then quit if you want to. You’ll learn how fast you work, and how useful it can be to set artificial deadlines and limits on your work.

If you need a timer, check out the Online Stopwatch, which can count up or down for you.

Track Your Time

One of the most eye-opening things for me was to, for almost a month, track the time I spent on my computer. Using tools like Klok and RescueTime, I learned that I spend a lot more time on Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times, and Google Reader than I really should.

Knowing that made me aware of when I was surfing those sites, and helped me cut them down to size, freeing up all kinds of mindless time for useful things – like reading pages I’ve bookmarked, or working.

Mute

This is a tiny tip that’s helped me a ton: turn off your speakers. With no volume, you can’t be distracted by YouTube, or Last.fm, or even the music that auto-plays on TOO MANY FRIGGIN’ WEBSITES. I mean really, people, I’m in class right now – don’t be playing songs when I load your page.

But the point is, many of the biggest time-sinks on the Web require volume. Don’t give it to them, and you’ve cut a huge distraction online.

Cheat

Every once in a while, screw it. Go hang out on Facebook for 3.5 hours, or Stumble through 873 pages. And don’t feel bad about it – it’ll refresh, re-focus, and re-center you to get back to work later.

Start with Paper

When you sit down to work, write down (on paper – remember that?) what you’re going to do while sitting down. Say “I’m not quitting, or getting up, until I finish these 4 things.” You’ll be amazed how fast you start working, and with how little distraction, once you have to go to the bathroom.

Do a Crappy Job

The hardest part of writing is the first draft, creating the basic elements and structure of whatever it is that you’re writing. The same rule applies to most things, though – it’s a multi-step process, with each step requiring less work and creation than the last. Editing is easier than filling a blank page, and brainstorming ideas is harder than creating a presentation about one of them.

So give yourself permission to suck. Do a truly awful job (even try to do a bad job), just finish. You’ll be surprised how quickly you finish, and how good a job you do by accident (I always am.)

The Web is always going to be a Catch-22 for a lot of people: there’s no easier way to get things done, and there’s no easier way to ensure you’ll never get anything done.  But by knowing what you do, and taking charge of it, you’ll begin to tread more heavily on the first side.

How do you stay focused and productive online?