Checking email, chatting with friends, looking at amusing blogs, playing flash games or MMORPGs – there are endless opportunities to procrastinate. That really takes a chunk out of your productivity.

One of the most crucial elements of time management is staying on track. Every day, we waste time and money playing online when we should be focusing on work. When that work is of a creative nature, you are even more prone to coming across something way too interesting not to lose focus – an impulse that has to be fought and fought hard, especially when a deadline is looming.

But that doesn’t mean there is no hope. You can increase your productivity and work without the distractions (or at least as many), using these three tips and a couple of helpful tools.

1. Use Distraction Management Tools

The Internet has more than just interesting things to make you lose focus. It also has tools to help you potentially combat that and get more from your day. Many of them are even free and so can save you money while you use them.

LeechBlock

It would be really great if we were able to use sheer force of will to keep us off of those sites that tempt us. But that just isn’t the way it works, unfortunately. The draw of funny cat pictures and YouTube clips can just be too much for us, and we find ourselves thinking, “Just a few minutes won’t hurt.”

But then an hour passes, and we go into panic mode. It is better to just block those sites that take up the most of our time, and LeechBlock does that. You download it as a Firefox attachment, then put in the blocked domains of your choice and the times that they should be locked out. That includes a time limit to block them out, such as a certain number of minutes per hour.

StayFocused

This extension does essentially the same thing, but for Google Chrome users. It limits the amount of time you spend on time-waster websites that you have listed yourself.

You can configure it more actively by deciding if you want a whole domain blocked or just certain areas, setting time limits for certain activities and more. You just set the amount of time, and once that has been used up you are done – it locks you out for the rest of the day.

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a simple to-do list program that consists of dozens of options (online to-do list, task management, calendars, etc) and syncs up with your smartphone, PDA, tablet and other software. You set tasks on the program, it syncs with everything you register, and then it reminds you when something has to be done.

As you go through your day you tick things off your list. It even has an RSS feed tracker, a Gmail attachment and more. You will be amazed at how easy keeping a list is holding you accountable for yourself during the day.

Schedule Your Work

Setting a deadline is a great way of getting yourself on the right track and staying there. It sets a time when something needs to be started or done, and so you can just go through the motions. For example, say you have to finish a concept design for a website you have been commissioned for.

You might give yourself until the end of the week at 3 p.m. to have that concept design completed and sent out to the client.

Just make sure that your schedule is a realistic one and that everything in your day fits into it. Too many people keep separate schedules for work and home life, and then it gets thrown off when one thing intersects with the other.

Share Your Progress

Finally, hold yourself accountable by sharing your goals and progress with someone else. This could be another designer, a partner or just your client.

Make sure to show the different steps as you go along, so they can watch you making progress and you have someone to answer to. Another set of eyes can really go a long way toward making you work like you are supposed to. That is an opportunity that isn’t often afforded to freelancers or people who work from home.

Conclusion

Don’t allow distractions to keep you down. But also, don’t allow the project to become the distraction itself. Make deadlines, use tools to keep you on track and share your progress. All of this will allow you to spend the correct amount of time on each project and meet your deadlines as you are supposed to.

Just imagine, never having to ask for another extension!

Jennifer Moline writes about freelancing, small business and design for the PsPrint Blog. PsPrint is an online printing solutions company, which you can follow on Twitter.

Image credit: 1.

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3 Awesomely Simple and Effective Productivity Tips (And Tools) originally appeared on: Crenk
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