I love reading the the stories that make it to the top of Hacker News and (for better or worse) it's part of my daily routine. I also bounce around a few news sites too (Tech Crunch, The Verge, BBC News).
On the flip side, I find that my productivity gets zapped by checking on all these sites and whenever I have a few spare minutes - I often find myself 'checking' these sites in case there is anything I have missed.
I do use a rss reader, but I always find myself drawn back to the browser!
Just wondering what works for others in managing their media diet.
So my question is two parts:
What sites do you visit daily?
What do you do to ensure it doesn't impact your productivity?
Cheers :)
It does not impact my productivity, as I do the readings in my "spare" time or before going to bed.
What did impact my productivity was these moments when you receive a new email, a call, or notifications (WhatsApp, followed Websites.. etc..) and smoking a cigarette
Each short break has a effect of breaking your concentration and you need to re-think and work yourself in again. In a creativity process, this is good. But not in a thinking/coding/designing process.
So my solution to this was to unsubscribe all notifications and RSS feeds = Minimizing distractions while work time. But, as smoking is a human right this is still a distraction I won't minimize :)
If you don't need the (information) RSS feeds for your work, I would start here.
Having that, you need to monitor your movings. Take notes on time needed for ex-work and work doings.. you'll see quite fast what does distract/brake your productivity.
For me, I approx. know how much time is needed for something. Taking notes shows f.e. much more needed time. So, by that, it's possible to find out which doings distract you so much.