Online Apps That Hurt Your Productivity

Apps are fun and cool, which is why they’re so popular. And while many apps are useful and time time-savers, many others do a lot to lower your productivity.

If you feel like you don’t have enough time in the day already, it doesn’t make sense to spend time on things that have minimal value.

Turn the silly things off. Focus on your work and when you take a short, timed break, you can play for a few minutes.

Here are a few such online apps that probably hurt more than they help:

  1. Twitter. You don’t need to know what your favorite celebrity is up to. Surely, it’s more important to focus on your own life! Is it critical that you be informed (while you’re working) that your friend from high school just left the movies to go shopping for a new pair of shoes? Come on, now. Really?
  2. Any kind of messaging app. Messenger apps just make it easy for people to interrupt what you’re doing. You jump at the chance to take a little break and, before you know it, 30+ minutes have passed. Don’t log into these things unless you’re done working for the day. Even at night, it would be better to just get on the phone and talk like a real person.
  3. Email notifications. Email can be a great tool but it can also be a huge waste of time. Check your email in the morning and at night. The last thing 99% of the population needs is an email notification every 5 minutes because then you just know that you have to check it. It will drive you nuts until you finally cave and see what’s going on.
    • Many highly efficient and successful people make it a point to check their email no more than twice a day. Most only check it once a day. Some only check it a couple of times a week. They have better things to do, and you could, too, with such a system.
  1. Blogs. Good blogs are highly interesting and informative. Give yourself a time limit or limit yourself to a set number of blogs. Life is all about prioritizing, so set some priorities.
  2. Facebook. It can be a great way to keep in touch, but it’s much like Twitter: 99% of the stuff you’re exposed to is fluff. Viewing pictures of someone’s trip to Africa is interesting. Reading that your friend is sitting on the deck drinking margaritas is of questionable value. You have a life to live, do you really have time for this stuff?
    • Again, set some limits and strive to stay within them. Also, consider limiting the number of ‘friends’ that you have.
  1. Social bookmarking sites. Websites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and other bookmarking sites are great tools for finding blogs, articles, and sites related to your interests. Just be careful how much time you’re spending on them. It’s easy to be fed 1,000 interesting sites every day. It’s also easy to burn a lot of time on them. Be careful.

Online apps can be wonderful if they’re used wisely. Don’t spend a lot of time on what are essentially frivolous things. Life is short! Focus on what you want to get done each day and avoid letting such apps steal away your time that you could be using to increase your productivity and make your dreams come true.

Want more? Here are more strategies to increase your productivity.

Fear-Based Decisions Are Bad for Business (and Life)

At one point, every business owner will find themselves in a troubling situation. Revenue is down. New clients are scarce. Profits are falling, and a peek at the financials is enough to bring on intense fear and even a full-fledged anxiety attack.

Unless you have a million-dollar nest egg or trust fund waiting in the wings, chances are you’ve experienced that sinking feeling of a business that’s trending downward, too. But how you handle it can mean the difference between continued success and business-killing burnout.

Here’s where a lot of business owners get it wrong. They start to worry about money, and that worry leads to poor decisions that ultimately have a negative impact not just on finances, but—maybe more importantly—on morale, too. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Here are two things you should avoid in this situation and what to do instead.

You Take On The Wrong Client

When business is down, it can be tough to keep your ideal client avatar in mind. Instead, you jump at the chance to work with anyone who comes along. The trouble with this scenario is you can find yourself with a roster full of clients who:

  • Aren’t willing or able to do the work required
  • Spend all their time telling you why your ideas and advice won’t work
  • Drain your energy and make you dread your office

Instead, keep doing what you know how to do – marketing, advertising, networking. Whatever you do to bring in new clients, keep doing that. Don’t stretch yourself so thin by taking on too many clients to try to make up for the loss you’re currently feeling. The abundance will return, you just need to keep going! If you have trouble believing that, check out The Abundance Journal for Wildly Creative Entrepreneurs. It can help get your mind back on track and bring in the prosperity that’s waiting for you!

You Stop Creating

And who can blame you? With profits down, you have to pull back. You can’t afford to spend time and money creating new programs, so you recycle the ones you’ve already produced. Your fearful self is saying, “Just re-release this same product again. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have to have new sales copy written or record new videos.” While this might help bring in a bit of cash short-term, it won’t do anything for your reputation or your self-esteem.

Instead, repurpose with positive intent. For example, you can turn your ebook into a group coaching course. Just be sure you do it the right way with new sales copy and whatever new items you need to make it into a successful coaching course.

 

A fear-based mindset can cause you to make rash decisions and rush into things. Do your best to take your time and think about your situation calmly and rationally so you can pull yourself out of your current position and get back on track to building a successful business!

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And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men; Colossians 3:23 AKJV