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Putting the Kabosh on Online Distractions

October 17, 2009 by Kelly McCausey  
Filed under MM News

When I worked full time outside the home it was easy to tell real work from distractions.  If I ever had difficulty telling them apart, my boss was always willing to help me out ;)

As a full time entrepreneur, I face a much fuzzier situation.

As a blogger and podcaster, it’s my job to keep in touch with current events and situations in my community.  So social media networks can be work.

On the other hand, when people are tweeting links to funny YouTube videos and asking each other what they plan to have for dinner – social media can be a distraction.

When I’m responding to interview requests or answering a question from a coaching client, email is work.

When I’m looking at pictures of my cute great-grand nieces and nephews, email is a distraction.

What makes a fuzzy situation even stickier is that I don’t really have set work hours.  I work when I want to.  I loaf when I want to.  That’s the sort of life I like – but it can lead to self-delusion.  Sometimes I may think I’m working, but I’m truly loafing.  Then, when I think I’m loafing I may discover I’ve actually been working.

Such Troubles, right?

I love a good distraction as much as the next person, but I have been known to go a little overboard before…

  • I lost countless hours trying to beat my son at Bubble Spinner. (And finally did it!)
  • I once spend 90 minutes straight paging through the pictures at icanhazcheezburger.com.
  • I mis-spent an entire evening looking at gross YouTube videos. (will spare you the link)

Most recently, I gave into the intense gravitational pull that is Facebook games.  Specifically Farmville and Cafe World.

When I planted my first crops in Farmville, it was almost a shameful moment for me.  I’d poked fun at and looked down my nose at all the silly ‘facebook gamers’ for well over a year – and here I was – one of them. (It’s all Angel’s fault.)

Before I knew it, I was celebrating the harvest and anxiously waiting for my pink cow to be ‘ready’.

I tried to tell myself that I would only play it ‘a little’ – but these games are designed to suck you in deeper and deeper. They’re viral powerhouses!  Just when you’ve promised yourself you won’t go back to your farm again today, you’ll get a gift from your friend or see an update about someone’s blue ribbon – and you just HAVE TO click on it and claim your share of the bonus.

It’s virtual Crack.

Again and again I found myself back down on the farm when I really needed to be paying attention to something in the real world.  It got so bad I realized I had to let go and walk away.

Yes, I quit Farmville.  It was hard – but a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do.

I am one of the Hungry Women of Internet Marketing – I can’t afford to lose endless hours into a silly online game!  I have businesses to grow and affiliate commissions to earn!

Thank goodness my sweet little virtual Cafe World isn’t a problem ;)


cafe-world

Seriously now.

What online distractions are cutting into your schedule and keeping you from what matters most?

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Comments

  • LOL... I was reading along and had to click on "Bubble Spinner". Just to see what it was...

    an hour later I was up to getting 72 points a game. What? Why was I doing this? I had just got
    off a call where I committed to writing 7 new blog posts.

    It's all your fault Kelly... I didn't get the first post written until today. LOL
  • One word: Bejeweled! The Facebook version has me pitted against my friends and family and it's brutal! :)
  • Kelly Mccausey
    You just made me remember that I also play Scramble on Facebook - but it's a once in a while thing, not an obsession like Farmville ;)
  • Well I used the hide option on Facebook for all those cute lures of attractions of ALL those apps. I am currently only sucked in to Bejeweled, now if I can quit that I will have nada. I never tried farmville or cafe world or any of the MANY others & for me that is/was work to do because the curiosity has almost got the best of me many times! Oh I did try Farkle but hated it. I do get distracted on days doing countless & pointless quizzes...humph! Now I am really seeing how often I am distracting myself LOL...sheeesh
  • Kelly Mccausey
    Yep, I'm using the 'hide' option a lot right now LOL!
  • So funny you posted this because I found out today some of my plants on Island Paradise died because I couldn't go harvest LOL I don't care but it can get addicting so I do it when I have time and if my stuff dies so be it. I do play Farkle but not often. I find that blogs are my biggest online distraction. I have been cleaning out my reader slowly but surely. And offline, reality TV shows are a big time suck. I'm glad we can DVR because I would never get anything done.
  • Kelly Mccausey
    Oh boy... If I had to add up the time I spend watching reality TV I'd probably be embarrassed. That said - I'm usually working while I watch.
  • gippsygirl
    I can see me in here big time, Kelly. I enjoy the short little Facebook quizzes. They might be short, but if you do lots of 'em...! Only checked 'icanhazcheezburger' once before and loved it. It's worth getting lost in, I think, even though I haven't yet. There's always time. lol

    I'm only just finding out about all the distractions online, let alone the ones that were already in place before.
  • Kelly Mccausey
    I never answer quizzes... they just don't appeal to me I guess.
  • ROFL - Thanks for sharing Kelly. So far, I haven't been tempted by Farmville or any similar FB games...except one. My weakness is Tetris. If I even start on that, I can waste SO much time. Typically though, I tend to waste time trying to learn more and more about blogging and internet marketing rather than putting into practice what I have already learned. I am changing that now though thanks to you and the Blogging Internship.
  • Kelly Mccausey
    Oooh Tetris brings back memories!
  • LOL! Your post would cause a mainline news sensation, titled as "I Quit Farmville!" - My entire extended family is seriously hooked on that game, as well as all my college friends. And we're talking mostly non-internet-oriented people here.

    The only reason I'm not on it? ... I'd *like* to think it was because of my Superior Work Ethic - but the sordid truth is... I'm on dialup. ;-) Facebook takes too long to load and operate, if you're on dialup.

    Online "distractions" for me? Just the time I spend while researching, waiting for pages to load... and load... (that's when you really notice that blogs are much slower than old-fashioned, static, HTML sites. I can always tell a blog-based "static" site by its load time.)

    I love Twitter - it's lightning fast, compared to Social Networks like Facebook. But I cringe every time I see my face in the Twitter icons, so that stops me from writing too many messages. ;-)

    But I will click on and read interesting Twitter links (which I would not do, if it arrived in an email.)

    Seriously, a very timely article. Fighting distractions is something we all have to be diligent about, when we work online.

    Marya "Just Call Me Dialup" Miller
  • Kelly Mccausey
    I'm so sorry about your dial up Marya... I don't know how you do it!
  • heathercsahm
    Oh my goodness I quit farmville and yoville just last week. I deleted the whole thing. I had a bit of remorse this week, thinking about ALL THE TIME I put into growing my farm and buying cute things for my apartment. Then I snapped out of it, lol!
  • Kelly Mccausey
    I don't get Yoville! I've tried but it's dull as dirt :( (Guess I should be glad!)
  • So, so true. I remember making so much fun of the facebook Mafia Wars.... I mean didn't people have *better* things to do with their time?..... until a friend invited me. = o It still doesn't make sense but I can't make fun of "those mafia wars players" anymore. I just earned $1800 by roughing up a pimp. ahem
  • LOL... Kelly I think you hit a few nerves....in a good way :)

    I too admit that i was sucked into Farmville and then Restaurantville. Both took up so much of my time that I found myself ignoring what I really needed to do and often times ended up working late nights or on weekend for clients (which I swore off of in the beginning of the year). I gave up the restaurant a couple of months ago and I have not visited my farm in a while.

    However I love Cafe World and Farmtown because the set up is totally different and it does not run you...you run it :) I can pretty much visit during my downtime.

    I have a lot of folks on FB who do not work online and they are always inviting me to play games with them. I oblige on the weekends when I am in my downtime, but try to avoid it during the week.

    Cafe World and Farm Town are here to stay with me but the ones that take up wayyyyy too much time and effort I just removed.
  • I love talking to people on message boards. I get carried away and just want to answer every post and talk to every one and before I know it the day is gone.
  • I stayed away from all those Facebook games but I Facebook itself was a distraction to me once upon a time. I find that when I was lonely/depressed, I wasted time like that. Now that I no longer feel that way it's not an issue at all.
  • I've cut back on Twitter and reality shows. I could never get into the facebook games, I just have so much on my plate already one more thing would send me over the edge!

    Good for you Kelly, it's amazing how much time you can waste online with those things.
  • Awesome blog Kelly, love the love and what you have to share. I consider myself a giving person and when I see so much love of giving I tend to gravitate towards that group.

    Keep it up
  • PpcJen
    Oh there are too many distractions to count! For me the biggest time waster is instant messaging. I've learned to turn it off when I am working on serious "money making" stuff. I get distracted easily and need to set some clearer goals for myself. Listening to your interview with Nicole Dean has been SO helpful already. So thanks to you and Nicole for those awesome tips!
  • Yoville and Sorority Life are my distractions. I must say thought that I'm getting over Yoville some. I really enjoy decorating my house and apartment there, but it's getting boring and I even let my cakes burn a couple of times....OH MY! Sorority Life isn't as big of a time sucker and you don't have to keep an eye on it. I like the little seek and find puzzle games in there the most, oh and that I own like 8 cars! LOL.
  • sophie123
    This kind of skills are very useful for my business so thank you so much.
    online
  • Hahaha that is just so true! We can’t afford to lose endless hours into a silly online game! Anyway I have been at that position also. addicted to online games.. One of them was certainly Facebook games, and when other's fan of Farmville I'm more fan of Fish a Fish,,,
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