Web browsing can be the bane of my productivity. There. I wrote it.
Actually, I did write it once before, in this blog post about RescueTime.
I recently figured out another way to use RescueTime to boost my productivity, and it’s so simple I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of doing this before.
I set RescueTime as the home page on my web browsers – ALL my web browsers.
Imagine whether you would want to check out a news or sports website, or social media site, when the first thing you see upon starting your web browser is this:
(I need to get more productive!)
Here’s how this looks for people who prefer visuals:
(hmm… at least I’m not in the “red” zone”)
(…gotta get out of email and into writing…)
The RescueTime dashboard is exactly what I need to see when I fire up a web browser. For instance, if I’m near 70 per cent productivity for a day, I seem to feel like I need to focus on work to break that 70 per cent barrier.
Every time I start the browser, open a new tab or open a new window, I see my productivity score staring back at me. It makes me feel good if I know I’m raising it and not so good if the score goes down.
RescueTime accounts are free. (There are paid options too.) Try this – get an account, sign in, then set up the RescueTime dashboard as your browser’s home screen. If you have the same weakness for visiting non-work websites when you “should” be working, this might be the incentive you need to stay focused on work. So far, it’s working for me!