It is said that an average American spends at least 4 hours everyday on the internet and probably more time during the weekend. But believe me, this is not really an American thing, it is a global phenomenon. Even as a Nigerian, I have been guilty of wasting productive time on the internet doing just nothing.
If you sum it all for the whole seven says in a week, you find out that you spend at least 28 hours a week online which is equivalent to a day and few hours. This is not surprising as there are many points of attractions that can keep you engaged for hours without getting bored on the internet; from numerous social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp), to gossip blogs, and video sharing sites. Without strict discipline, you may end up spending all your time on the internet while your work keeps piling up.
The purpose of this article is to give you tips that will help you develop the discipline to stop spending time for working on the internet. In this article, you will learn the dangers of spending your working time on the internet and also how to spend less time around the internet and more time working.
3 Dangers of Spending Working Time on Social Media
Time is a very priceless commodity and if you waste it online cruising through social networks and gossip blog, you stand to face the following dangers;
- Addiction-: It is not just hard drugs and alcohol that you can get addicted to. If you keep spending lots of time in the internet, you can get addicted to it, and all your life will be revolving around the internet. Trust me; it is harder to break an internet addiction than it is to break other minor addictions.
- Procrastination-: The more time you spend on the internet, the more your keep putting away things you are meant to do, and if you fall into a habit of procrastinating a lot; it will be hard to break the circle. Let’s say you have a paper to presentation to prepare for the next day, and you keeping procrastinating and rescheduling your alert me tone every 1 hour, so that you can read the next gossip page; you will end up not getting the paper presentation ready. This can lead to stress as you keep on piling you work for the last minute, where you will be under pressure to get them done in the last minute.
- Makes Failure Inevitable-: All the time spent on the net was meant to be time to get things done and take actions towards achieving your goals. If you keep substituting your work time for your internet time, then failure will be an inevitable end of any goal you are working on.
How to Spend Less Time on the Net and More Time Working
1. Schedule Your Online Time-: In order to start spending less time on the internet, you have to determine the amount of time you wish to spend each day and have the discipline to follow it through. You can schedule to spend five minutes on each social network you are fully engaged with just check for important updates and leave to the next one. Having the discipline to follow it through and leave when you have exhausted the amount of time you scheduled to stay online.
2. Use a Software To Schedule Your Posts-: If you find out that you are not self disciplined enough to leave the internet once you log in, then you can use software to schedule the posts you wish to make during the week and the time and date you wish the updates to be made. This way, you can reduce the time you spend on the internet to be just the time you spend scheduling your posts.
A site like www.hootsuite.com can help you schedule and make your post for a small fee. After you schedule your posts for the week, find a way to avoid any thing that will get you attracted to the internet until the next time you will get to schedule a post. You can use your email to access your phone for important work related mails and that should be it.
3. Visualization-: Visualizing the end reward or satisfaction you will get from completing your work can also serve as a motivating factor to leave the internet and focus on getting the job done. For example, if you know that the more hours you put into get your work done, the more money you make, and the extra money will get you some luxuries or pay for your next vacation. Then the idea of a good vacation can motivate you to leave the internet and get the work done.
4. Leverage Your Internet Time to Add Value to Yourself-: Instead of whiling away your time on the net, you can leverage the time you spend online to add more value to you. Instead of wasting it all on irrelevant stuffs, you can start a side gig online that can fetch you money; start a blog or pick on some freelancing job or you can register for some online courses to add value to yourself and career. There are thousands of online courses, podcasts, audio and video courses that are related to your area of expertise, which you can register for and run while you are on the internet.
So far, I have mentioned four tips that can help you spend more time on the net to get more works done. Don’t get me wrong with the issue am trying to point out here. Now i am not against you spending sometime in the internet few minutes a day to check up your friends and to update your online presence.
The harm in it is when you now make it a habit to spend a huge part of your time on the internet when you are supposed to be working. If you find out that you are having the issue on concentrating on your work because of the distractions you get from the internet, the points or tips listed above can help you get to back to track.