Hands on sacred books
of your choice right now
because I need you to be completely honest
with both me and yourself.
Is the act of you watching
this very video on how to stop wasting time
on the internet part of a distraction loop
you've gotten yourself caught into?
Are you procrastinating by watching a video
on how to stop procrastinating?
It had to be said cause I know
after this video a bunch of people
are gonna go down to the comments
and point out the delicious irony
in it all and hey I just wanted
to be the first one.
But seriously though if you want to stop
wasting so much time on the internet
and get back to work
and cut down your procrastination
that is what we're gonna get into today
cause I have learned a lot over the years
on how to be more productive
and resist the temptations
of all my distractions
and I have a lot of different tools
and apps that I can point you to
which will help you in that crusade.
So to start this out
let's just talk about the tools
that are probably gonna be
the most immediately helpful to you
which are website blocking apps and extensions.
Basically tools that simply don't let you
go to those distracting websites
that your brain likes to meander over to
when it doesn't want to write its paper.
And the one that I use is called Cold Turkey.
You may be familiar with this
because in the last video I made
I talked about an app called Cold Turkey Writer.
Now Cold Turkey Writer is a really
draconian app that basically turns your computer
into a typewriter.
It lets you do absolutely nothing
except write until you've hit a word count goal
and I think that's really really useful
for when you're hammering out a first draft
for essay or a research paper
but sometimes you need greater access to your computer.
Maybe you need the internet for research
and in those cases the original Cold Turkey
is really really useful.
The things that I really like
about Cold Turkey are number one,
it is cross platform.
It's got Mac and PC versions
and as a Mac and PC guy
it means that I can use it across both of my systems.
Number two, while there is a paid version
that costs about $25 and has some advanced features,
there is also a free version
that is more than adequate for most people's needs.
The process of using Cold Turkey
is really really simple.
First you define a list of websites
that you want to block
and then you create a time window
in which you want to block them.
Once you hit go on that timer,
between now and the end time you selected
you absolutely cannot visit
any of the websites you selected.
This is the reason I really like Cold Turkey
because it is really really difficult to circumvent.
I mean, yeah if you know pseudo nano etc hosts
or something you could probably figure it out
but for the most part you're not gonna
be able to turn off the blocker
and distract yourself during the work time
and this is where it shines
over extensions like StayFocused or DistractOff.
These things are kind of hard to disable
but for the most part you could
pretty much figure it out
if you really really wanted to.
Now Cold Turkey is definitely not
the only option out there
for website blocking software.
There's also things like Hey Focus,
FocalFilter, Freedom, SelfControl
and many others and you can compare their features
to figure out which one works best for you
but I will say if you're having problems
with getting distracted
and wasting a lot of time online
I think this is the first thing you should do.
It's just like somebody who is trying
to go on a diet and stop eating junk food.
The first thing that person should do
is get the junk food out of their house.
Remove access to the temptation
so that way you just literally can't go for it.
And speaking of temptations I know that some of you
and you know exactly who you are,
don't stop at just websites when it comes
to finding ways to distract yourself.
Maybe you have a Steam account
with hundreds and hundreds of games
you could jump into.
Maybe you're addicted to the
Pokemon Online trading card game.
Whatever it is sometimes you need a way
to lock down more parts of your computer
than just the browser.
If you count yourself among that group
then you have several different options
for fixing that problem.
The first one is to upgrade
to the premium version of Cold Turkey
because it can actually block full applications
in addition to websites
and that's a really useful feature.
But you don't have to get Cold Turkey's
premium version to do this
because there are other options
and I'm gonna list three here
in varying degrees of extremity.
First is simply create a work account
on your computer which you use when you're working.
And this will be an account
where you don't have access to your games,
you don't have access to any fun programs,
you only have access to your work software.
If that's not enough of a barrier
and you find yourself logging back in
to your personal account to distract yourself
well number one, you could let a trusted friend
to set a random password
to your personal account
and only type it in when you're allowed
to take a break or you could simply use
a different computer for your work.
If you're on a college campus or you have access
to a computer lab or a library computer lab
you could do your work there
on a different computer
that literally doesn't have any
of your favorite software on it.
If even that isn't enough then it's time
to come to my finally solution
which is to simply ask yourself
do you even need to use a computer?
If you're writing a paper or doing some research
maybe go hit the books in the library
or go back to pen and paper
and just sketch some stuff out,
do some hand writing and then come
to the computer only when you need it.
So now you know about some tools
that could prevent you
from getting distracted in the first place.
But what do you do when you're currently distracted
and you realize that you're procrastinating.
Well here's exactly what I do
and it really boils down to
a simple step by step mental process
that goes on in my brain.
First I basically acknowledge
that yes I'm distracted, I'm procrastinating,
I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing.
Then I ask myself okay what is the
exact next step I need to take on
whatever it is I'm supposed to be working on.
Once I have that in my brain,
I commit to getting rid of everything
in my environment, browser tabs,
computer programs, stuff on my desk,
everything that isn't related
to that one task and once I've done that
it's time for a Pomodoro session.
I set a timer for 25 minutes,
I tell myself I'm going to work
on only that next step for 25 minutes
and if I finish it I'll move on
to the next one after that and then I hit go
and get back to work.
I've found that the Pomodoro technique
is really really useful for disengaging
from distracted web browsing sessions
because sometimes I'm just unmotivated
and that's the reason that I'm wasting time online.
So if I can motivate myself
by defining a very concrete specific task
and then defining an exact amount of time
I'm gonna work on then that's really helpful for me.
Now there is one more really important thing
that I want to say before I close this video out.
Yes the internet is an incredibly powerful
distracting force and there are
thousands of companies that are pouring
zillions of dollars and man hours
into designing platforms and systems
designed to exploit your short term sensibilities
and distract you.
I mean you're watching this video
on one of them and by consequence
it could be pretty helpful to basically
arm your brain with weapons against these systems.
The roadblocks, the website blocking apps,
these are all tools that could be
really helpful for increasing your brain's ability
to push out these distractions
and temptations and to focus.
But remember this isn't just about
blocking distractions out.
This is about building a stronger brain
because your ability to focus
and pay attention to block out these distractions
that ability is like a muscle
and it has to be trained
and when you throw it into
just this complete distracting environment
where all the websites that distract you
are just a click away it doesn't have
the ability to get trained.
So these tools should be thought of as training wheels.
They're tailoring an environment
in which your brain actually has the ability
to grow stronger.
But someday your brain can actually
cast off these tools and operate
within the greater environment
while still pushing out distractions
and getting great work done.
And that should be your overall goal.
So now that you have your mission in mind
and the tools with which to achieve it,
the next step is simple.
Get to work.
Don't click any of the related videos
to the side or down below
or wherever they are
just simply get into your next task.
Now if you do happen to be on a break right now
and you have a little bit of extra time
you can click subscribe right there
if you want to get some new videos every single week
on being a more effective student.
And you can also click right there
to get a copy of my free book
on how to earn better grades.
I am going to put a video right there
but it's gonna be a very specific video.
It's only 30 seconds long
and well you can see what it says.