Tools for you to stay on track

You know how it goes: You log on to check your emails and then three hours later find yourself watching clips of performing goats on YouTube.

The problem is the online world is so interesting. It's hard to focus on the task at hand. However, there are plenty of online tools to help you.

A good starting point is to be aware of your time. Check out rescuetime.com; a download that tracks your activity on your computer and produces detailed reports. It also allows you to set up rules for yourself. For example, you may want to limit yourself to 30 minutes a day of Facebook, when you have reached that limit Rescue Time will alert you.

Even if you step away from your PC, you come back to a message saying, "what have you been doing since 09.00h?"

You enter your response in the pop-up window and it appears in your time reports.

Rescue Time is like having a micro-managing boss questioning your every move, but sometimes that's what we need to get things done.

For those who work with a busy, distracting desktop, try a screen masker. These allow you to mask off areas of your screen and concentrate on the task at hand. So if you're working on a document but can't resist hopping to other tabs to check email or see who's tweeting, this is a great solution.

I used Kino last week and it was surprisingly effective. This freeware download blacks out your screen, except for the area you want to focus on.

If online adverts distract you, Firefox users may like to try the Ad Blocker Plus add-on.

It allows you to surf the web without seeing the adverts. It's a simple, free download and it really can improve your online experience.

If you work on a lot of documents, you may want to consider a stripped-down word processor. These are the digital equivalent of shutting yourself in an empty room with only blank paper and a pen - no fonts, colours, headers or footers to distract you.

There are online options such as writemonkey.com, but you can get a similar effect by using notepad instead of Word on your PC.

If all else fails and you really need to get some work done, try something more drastic, such as macfreedom.com, which disables your internet access for the amount of time you choose. If you then want to go online before your time is up, you have to completely reboot your PC.

So by making life difficult, it makes you get down to work. It's a download available for Mac and PC and requires a one- off payment of $15.

- © Fairfax NZ News