Staying on task is difficult for many people. Being self-employed with a home office makes staying on task especially hard. Oh, what to do? What to do?

Productivity Killer

Image from anuj-ehta.blogspot.in 082009

Well, don’t check my emails! That’s my #1 Productivity Killer. Every morning is a similar challenge for me. I have my prioritized list of front burner must complete deadlines & projects. Before logging on to anything, I mentally prepare and get materials ready, desktop folders accessible and so forth. Then I sit down to begin.

And it’s like “BAM!” I get whacked upside the head and before I realize what day it is, I’m scrolling through my emails. Inevitably there is spam and trash, so I deal with that, just to thin the pile, so to speak. Y’know, make it all manageable. Then I look for mail from clients or prospects. Yep, there’s always something.

Then I check news. Being a lover of stories, both factual and fictional, which pretty much covers the news these days, I become entranced.

An hour later I surface for air.

Rather than feeling bad about this seemingly impossible tendency of mine. Perhaps, I should simply schedule it into my day.

Here’s an infograph from Entrepreneur, The 4 Biggest Productivity Killers in Your Office’.  Any of these look like you? How do you manage your productivity killers?