Not Wasting Time on the Internet

Two weekends ago, I set up my own little mini-retreat away from social networking websites and media in general, including internet, phone and TV. And it was great! But although I have started better habits while using the web (closing tabs I am done with, giving myself a limit to how long I spend on facebook, deleting games from my facebook profile), I have inevitably reverted back to several of my old, bad browsing habits.

But this post is not about beating myself up about that- I have to give myself more time if I really want to change! I was going to make a list of things to do to help avoid wasting time surfing the web, and yes, checking twitter. But upon doing a quick search of how to articles on the topic, I found this great list that someone on 43Things came up with. It is much better than anything I could come up with, and by finding it, hey, I saved some time writing this post!!

Here are the tips- Enjoy!:
1. No Internet games. None. There are better things to do with your time!!

2. Plan your online time. I often go online for legitimate reasons and end up using that as an excuse to waste time. If you really do need to use the Internet for work, research or communication reasons, write a short list of the things you need to do (e.g. reply to an email, look up a word, check the news) and stick to it.

3. Set a limit. If you tend to spend a lot of time on Facebook or MySpace, it helps to set yourself a time limit for those sites. A good amount is ten minutes. Write a Post-It note that says something like “Facebook 10-minute limit” and stick it to the side of your monitor so you can see it whenever you go
on the computer. (Facebook makes me really neurotic and inefficient, so I deleted mine.)

4. Disconnect the Internet. If you really have a hard time staying offline, sever your connection when you’re done working, whether you have a cable or Wi-Fi. The next time you try to use the Internet, taking the time to reconnect will make you think twice about whether you actually need to.