How to Stop Wasting Time on the Internet - 4 Awesome Tips

[Music] If you're watching this video, there's a pretty good chance that you shouldn't be watching it and should be doing something more productive instead. But if you've already done your work, good for you! Either way, here are four useful strategies you can use right now or in the future when you really need it, that will help you stop browsing memes and get to work.

Number one: Install Cold Turkey Writer on your PC or Mac. If you have a paper to write and you can't stay focused long enough to start it, Cold Turkey Writer is the right app for you. You set the amount of words you want to write, hit enter, and it will literally not let you leave the app until you hit your word count goal. You can't Alt+F4, or you can't Control+Esc, you just have to do the work.

Number two: Install the Forest app on Chrome. I talked about Forest in an earlier video, but I didn't really dive into what it actually does. Basically, you plant a seed, and in the next 30 minutes, this seed will gradually grow into a tree. However, if you can't resist the temptation and start to browse the websites on your blacklist, your tree will wither away and die. It's a pretty simple app, it works pretty well, and you should definitely give it a try.

Number three: Develop a sacred productivity playlist. So I mentioned the sacred space in an earlier video, which is a particular geographical location, a coffee shop or library, that you treat with the utmost respect and reverence for productivity. But I'm also a big fan of music and think that everyone should have a productivity playlist—a playlist full of good study music that you only listen to when you're being productive, and you're only productive when you're listening to it. So when you press start on that productivity playlist, you have no choice but to close down all the memes, close down YouTube, Facebook, and all that, and start writing the best damn paper you've ever written.

And finally, number four, and this is going to sound pretty archaic, but disable your internet. Sometimes the pull to waste time on the Internet is so strong, you literally have to tear away yourself from the distraction. If your paper or whatever you're working on can at least be started offline, then do it offline. Honestly, with the internet disabled, you'll probably get so bored that you'll actually want to start hacking away at the paper or whatever else you have to be doing.

So that's it! Maybe some of these tips seem a little bit extreme to you, but sometimes that's the way it's got to be. Often the best way to regain focus is to completely eliminate the distraction from the equation. So if you've got work to do, like the video, subscribe to the channel, get off YouTube, and get to work!