The Internet is increasingly becoming a major time killer for many of us. Involuntarily, we started to spend more time online than we really can afford. Here is how it goes: you were sitting at work, you needed to find some crucial information to finish that project at hand, you went on
Internet to look for information, you run a web search or started browsing through web directory, and suddenly you noticed something that seems very interesting, it could be a banner ad, a link, just a piece of information, or some related ideas that came up that instant and required immediate attention. You clicked on link to check it out thinking this won’t take too long. This link took you to another seemingly more interesting page. Before you knew it, you started to ramble through Internet aimlessly wasting your precious work time. Then, of course, there is this sports news that you must read, stock portfolio that you must check constantly, vacation place you need to choose for your next holidays, list goes on and on, and what about those emails? Sounds familiar! You are not alone! Most of Internet users are in same boat.
If you feel trapped and frustrated with your handling of time spent online, you need to stand back, take a break, and look into problem from a different perspective. Actually, what you need is more than a break; you need a balanced approach to your Internet activities. In order to understand where you online time goes, first thing you should do is log everything that you do on Internet for several days.
Log your online activities
If you scrupulously write down everything you do on Internet for a day, you will, truly, be amazed to see how much time you waste on unnecessary things like reading spam, browsing through inconsequential websites, etc.
By thoroughly analyzing your online activities with help of logs you make, you will be able to pinpoint and resolve problems – online activities that are unproductive and time wasters. The idea is to stay focused and do things that you ought to do and stay out of impulsive moves.
To do lists
Like your daily life, you should make a “To Do” list of things you need to do on Internet. First, make a list of all tasks that you have to do online including routine activities like checking emails, etc. A generic activity such as working with your emails should be broken down into small tasks – answering to a specific email, making an online order for office supplies, etc. Add every single job related to Internet to this list. Once you created list, sort it according to priority. This becomes your master list of online tasks. Select tasks you are planning to do in a day. Transfer those tasks to a separate list.
Make sure this list is precise and not too long, so that you can finish most of tasks from list - at least ones with high priority – within chosen day. Armed with this list you will be able to tackle problem of productive use of your online time with confidence.
Resources Many major portals have free personal information management programs that you can be used to create daily schedules and to do lists.
Yahoo PIM: http://calendar.yahoo.com
