Everybody has a few daily time-wasters built in to their freelance routines. I use mine mostly to stay sane, especially when I have a particularly frustrating morning. Clients who won’t get back to me on important details, checks that arrive late or not at all, part-time writers who abuse the apostrophe, when all this stuff gangs up to drive me mad, I turn to one of my glorious time-wasters to help me blow off steam.
What are YOUR time wasters? I find that Wired.com, Craigslist, and the new releases section of IMDB.com are all places I get lost in, but nowhere near as much of a time drain as the gadget pictured above and to the left.
The telephone is by far the biggest blow to my available time in any given day. Once I start commiserating with my fellow writers and editors about life, the universe, the preponderance of television ads about Mesothelioma lawyers, home loan foreclosures and other sundry topics, it’s easy to lose 30 minutes to an hour talking about everything and nothing.
What makes YOU lose track of the time? I’d love to see a dialog in this space about time wasters, productivity, and how you manage to get your lost time back. For me, I find Saturday mornings are usually the first casualty to the time wasting habits of the work week…what about you?
The Somethingawful.com forums are, by far, the biggest drain on my time. The Something Awful website itself once had some of the best, and most consistent, online comedy writers. Now the feature articles are only occasionally funny- but the forums are always fun.