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Blocking Websites That Prevent You From Reaching Your Goals

If there's one thing vital thing you should learn from personal development, it's that you have plenty of time. I cringe every time I'm speaking with someone and they say, "I just don't have enough time to do anything."

I want to make one thing clear. All of us have an abundance of time, whether we realize it or not. The problem lies in how we use the time that we have.

If you are like me, someone who spends a good portion of their work day on the computer, you very likely have established a few bad habits that prevent you from performing at your best. I know for me personally, at of the time of this writing, I recently have noticed the following...

I check my email first thing in the morning before doing anything else (this is bad)
I've been checking my affiliate earnings at least five times a day
I frequently check out Yahoo news headlines
I often view NBA sports scores and see how my Cleveland Cavaliers are doing in the standings

These things don't take up a lot of my day. In fact, all of the above items may only take about 5-10 minutes to complete. The problem is that these things often start an endless string of useless web surfing.

For example, I may start off just checking the Yahoo news headlines. But from there, I may see a video that catches my eye. Then from that video, I think of something else that I want to check out. And before I know it, I've wasted a ton of time on completely unimportant web surfing.

So how does one overcome this?...

Elimination Is The Key To Online Productivity

I've read suggestions from books and online productivity websites that unplugging your computer from the Internet can help you avoid wasting time with web surfing. The thought is that if you are doing a task such as writing, to gather all of the information you need from the Internet, then unplug your computer and begin working.

I have no problems with this strategy. It makes perfect sense and it may very well work for you. However, the act of unplugging and plugging in the Internet frequently during the day seems more trouble than it's worth. Combine that with the fact that if you have WiFi, you can simply connect to your neighbors Internet.

Hence the solution...

What I've experimented with lately is blocking websites that I visit often. Websites that don't do me any good and are nothing more than a waste of time.

While there are many different methods of doing this, I chose to use a Firefox Add-On called LeechBlock.

Whatever tool you decide to use is irrelevant. What's important is that you forcibly prevent yourself form being able to view your favorite time wasting websites. Here are a few screen shots from just a few minutes of playing around with this program...

Using this program, I've prevented myself from being able to check email except between 10-11 AM and any time after 4 PM. It's also prevented me from going to an endless list of time wasting sites during business hours.

This little program has contributed to a significant increase in productivity for me! I promise that if you decide to follow a similar strategy, you will be amazed at how blocking websites such as your email and other time wasting websites can have on the amount of work you get done.

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