Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working

I’m going to try setting a timer to curb my Internet use in the evenings. I’ve got too much other stuff to do to be able to justify spending an hour or two every night cruising through the same ten websites over and over, checking the same seven or eight weblogs twice within an hour as though I expect them to update on demand, checking my e-mail six or seven times as though I expect to receive more than mass mailings or spam. Actually, no, I don’t expect any of those things—checking things that many times is just a strange compulsion of mine. It’s a comforting way to avoid doing anything productive.

So, yeah, I’m going to give myself, say, 30 minutes this evening. No more, no less. And after that timer goes off, I’ve got to work on something else.

When I was in Florida a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t pick up wireless Internet on my laptop in my in-laws’ house the way I used to be able to (there were two particular corners of the house in which I could sit and pick up a neighbor’s wi-fi). Wouldn’t you know, I had some work to do on vacation, but when I needed a break from that work, what did I do? In the time that I would have usually spent cruising the Internet, I worked on two short stories.

It’s hard to keep myself completely away from the Internet, though. I can turn off the wireless card on my computer, but it’s way too easy to just turn it back on. On my work computer, I took the Explorer icon off my desktop, but it’s still pretty simple to go to the Programs menu and click on the icon there. No, I can’t fool myself into thinking that I don’t have Net access. I really need to go somewhere that I actually don’t! I’m thinking I need to log a few hours every week at a coffee shop that makes you pay if you want Internet—i.e. Borders Cafe or Caribou Coffee. It’s the only way I’ll get anything done.

You know what I did? I quit visiting 43Things all the time. This means I am far behind on writing entries and responding to comments and giving cheers, but I’ve succeeded in spending a lot less time on the Net when I’m at work.

The worst thing about this is that I’m not even doing anything productive on the Web when I use it at work. I might be able to forgive myself a tiny bit if I was writing e-mails to friends or family, or even writing in my Livejournal or here at 43Things. Sadly, I do none of those. I mostly read the blogs at AJC.com (website of the Atlanta daily paper), which are infested with poor grammar and racist comments. Occasionally I contribute a response, but they’re lost amongst all the shouting… and even if they weren’t, arguing with most of the people who post there wouldn’t be much of a mentally stimulating exercise.

I also read my Livejournal friends page over and over, yet rarely comment on anyone’s entries. I check my e-mail a whole lot, but promise that I’ll reply “when I get home.” (This never happens.) I read Gawker.com a lot. I click onto alternet.org and read some of the articles there. I think that’s the most mental stimulation I allow myself when I’m surfing the Net at work.

Really, though, ALL of it needs to stop. I think the occasional news check or e-mail check is perfectly fine, but what I do is ridiculous. I cram so much websurfing into my downtime that I sometimes end up having to stay late to do things that I didn’t do earlier. And if I do have a valid bit of downtime, I should use it for something better than staring at the computer screen. I could take a lunch break, for once. I could go to the other side of the office and chat with some friends. I could take a walk downstairs, get some fresh air, and come back. I’m going to try to think of all of those things tomorrow, so that when I’m tempted to click on the browser icon, I might be able to sway myself to make better use of my time.

I tried making a log of what I did all day at work. Of course, that was a day that things got really busy and I didn’t even have time to add to my log after lunchtime. I kept noticing, though, that even when things were busy, I would still click onto my personal e-mail or a news website every so often. I’ve got to quit that!

Today, we had a quiet morning, and I could have used it to get caught up on the textbook I’m writing. No luck. I wrote a few sentences of the textbook, but mostly spent my morning doing the oh-so-necessary activity of catching up on news blogs. Ugh. Those aren’t even the least bit pleasant to read! When I had a large number of very tangible editing and graphic design tasks to do, though, I dove in and got them done on time and without error. When I have a very concrete deadline like that - 5 PM - I get my stuff done. It’s when I have the “whenever you finish” deadline that I test the outer boundaries of procrastination.

I’m sucking pretty royally at this goal right now. Ever since I got an office with walls, I’ve discovered that I can play around on the Internet during the workday with no one seeing me. I’m also a wretchedly stubborn person who’ll continue to do something - even if it’s self-destructive - until there’s a really good reason not to do it. And, no, for the most part, the idea that something is self-destructive doesn’t keep me from doing it.

Right now, the consequences of using the Net at work just aren’t glaring enough to get me to quit. I have until March 1 to finish the project I’m working on, and so far, I’m on schedule. I have a terrible habit of spending the first hour of my day checking news websites and reading my Livejournal friends page. Then maybe I do a little work. Then I’m back to checking personal e-mail and reading political commmentary. And it continues in fits and spurts for most of the day: I get stuck on a sentence of my textbook-writing project, I find myself diving for the browser icon on my desktop. What really wastes away the hours is looking for people I know on Myspace and Friendster. I haven’t done that in a week or two, at least. That’s progress.

Otherwise, the consequences might be: getting fired (not likely, since they don’t have anyone else who’s working on my projects, nor does anyone know about my Internet usage. Plus, any of the bosses’ potential firing energy is focused on our salesguy who lost a bunch of company money in Vegas), falling behind on my project and having to work on it at home in the evenings and on the weekends (I had to do this for my last project and it was a pain in the ass. I was sleeping about 3 hours a night. BUT—that was when I was doing other things during the workday and had no choice but to do my textbook project at home. I finished it a little late, but my supervisor was out of town when I polished it up, and so had no idea that it was late), not doing a good job on the project, worrying my husband if I’m up against a deadline crush like I was last time, and compromising my integrity for the sake of something silly like the Internet.

Sadly, I haven’t faced any consequences so far. I had to smoosh the last textbook project into a very short amount of time, and there were parts I wrote at 3 and 4 in the morning. And yet… I got nothing but praise on it. And so, no matter how much I slack on this one, there’s still the little but dangerous voice in the back of my head saying, “You know you’ll get it done and you know it’ll be a good product!” Shut up, little voice.

The big thing, then, is my guilt. Obviously, I must feel somewhat insistent that I need to quit using the Net at work or I wouldn’t have added this to my 43 Things. I do feel bad when it’s 2 PM and I know everyone else is working and there I am reading my Livejournal friends page for the eighth time that day. I also like how I feel when I’m working. The time passes quicker, and I enjoy the process of thinking about how my textbook is coming together. I very sincerely enjoy my job. I look forward to going to work. So why am I spending so much of my time there not working?