Minimize time online. maximize productivity

I have neglected this blog.

I know.

I am bad.

But I have good reasons.

I went to SXSW:Interactive this year which was an amazing experience. I learned a lot, met a lot of my web idols, and met up with old friends. I got to hear both Paul Boag and Jason Santa Maria speak, both of which I was really looking forward to and thoroughly enjoyed. Did the required amount of partying (including teaching Aral about the Milwaukee one-drink-per-hand minimum), geek bowling (we even took second place), and shmoozing (with the help of my fellow Wisconsin coworking buddy, Marcus). The thing I appreciate most about the experience was one lesson learned: I spend far too much time in front of my computer.

I stopped carrying my bag to South-by on the second day. Mostly because it was just too heavy with the amount of gear I felt I needed to tote, but also because I found that I just didn't need it. All the people that I was keeping track of online were there. In real life. Pinging me on twitter. Why did I need to sit behind my lappy's screen?

Those that know me know that I am a compulsive email checker, you can almost always catch me on IM, and I am known to leave twitter up to F5 that baby every few minutes when I am bored. Yes, I do have a 9-5er. I sit in front of a computer the entire time. Then when I get home, I do freelancing work, Web414 stuff, and general socializing with my fellow tech geeks over IM.

Since I have been back from South-by, I have rarely taken out my lappy at home and have cut down coworking time to twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays. This is a pretty dramatic change for me, but it has made a huge difference in my day to day life.

1. Get to the point. I have cut out as many time wasters as possible. I make gmail work for me, filtering everything (expect a post on that soon) and checking it as little as possible. I don't get every twitter to my phone and they are shut off between 8pm and 8am; only things said directly to me or mentioning the *two* words that I track actually go to my phone outside of those hours. Any social network updates that I am interested in (Flickr mostly), I pull the rss feed into reader for, so I don't have to actually go to the site to check manually (it's dangerous when I do: I get easily distracted and end up looking up crazy things like Lego Storm Troopers pushing discs into MacBookPros on Flickr. Yes, it exists. Look it up.).
2. Get a hobby and schedule time to relax doing it. I gor burnt out sitting in front of my computer all the time - and plain bored! Having something else to do has given me a reason to pull myself back a bit. I just learned to knit a few months ago (thanks, Lyndzi :D!) and have gotten pretty well wrapped up in that. I have a ton of projects going at once. It's creative and fun - plus I can do it while listening to podcasts or waiting in line somewhere (I even do it when I go on walks, shh!).
3. Stop neglecting your family and friends IRL. My husband and I get poked at by other people a lot for talking so much to each other online. We sit in our respective offices and chat while working. Boone and I have started a "no laptop/cell phone" rule on specific nights so we can spend time with each other playing board games (Carcasonne, anyone?) and watching movies (we are finishing up the Indiana Jones series currently). We feel like we are getting more quality time with one another while spending the same amount of time.

   When I cowork with friends I notice we sometimes IM more than we talk out loud while we are there. It's nice because you can respond in your own time, so it is less distracting, but is breaking down the way we should be communicating when we are together. We are friends because of the fun we have together, the things we learn from one another, and the uniqueness of our personalities - all of which don't shine through nearly enough over google talk.

4. Stop stressing! Spending so much time online made me more and more unproductive. I chatted more. Watched more useless videos. Scanned more sites. I stopped keeping up on industry news and completing projects as quickly as I should. I felt my anxiety level rise when I was offline at the same time that my apathy level seemed to rise when I was online. By understanding that I am only allotted so much time online to play *and* work, I see more value in that time. The sooner I get what I need to done, the more time I have to play. And just watch those anxiety levels fall!

What do you do to minimize your time spent in front of your computer while maximizing your productivity online?