Cannot concentrate in work-constantly on the internet

LegacyUser

I've been struggling with this problem for about as long as I've had unlimited access to the internet which is about 12 years. When I explain it, it sounds so simple, but I've been having this problem for a long time, so there must be more to it.

Basically, I am a bad employee, and I don't know how to fix it. I have a really hard time just sitting down and doing the work I need to do. I'm just as capable of doing the work as my co-workers are. But I get far less done than them. To some degree, I guess it's procrastination, but it seems like it goes beyond that. I tell myself - I am going to go to the office, sit down and immediately start working. It is very simple. But years of history tell me that won't happen.

I'll get to the office. Get a cup of coffee. Check the news websites. Check my email. Tell myself to get to work. Keep surfing the web. Do five minutes of work. Check my email again. Go to lunch. And so on. This is SO FRUSTRATING. Consciously, it seems incredibly obvious that I need to just stop browsing the web and do my work. There's no reason I can't do it. But for some reason, it almost never happens. Two years ago I went back to college and to get my dissertation written I had to remove the network card from my laptop and work in the library for 6 weeks.

Now I work as a software developer for a web applications company which means that I constantly need to use the internet. However I can't just go online to check out how to do something. I'll also open up another few tabs and check my email, the news and of course this site too.

One possibly related issue I've noticed is that as soon as I run against ANY difficulty in a task, I instinctively want to stop working on it. Even something as simple as needing to look up a term or go ask someone a question is enough to make me stop working on the task. I don't think this is at the root of all of my problems, but it does exacerbate them because once I do finally force myself to work, it can be short-lived.

I really need to fix this or it's going to destroy my career. I have an excellent academic track record which has enable me to get lots of decent jobs over the years but once in them my productivity is pathetic.

I know how stupid this all sounds, believe me. If someone asked me this question, I would want to slap them on the face and say "JUST DO YOUR WORK." But for some reason, I just DON'T.

Has anyone else struggled with something like this? Can anyone tell me what's wrong with me? How do I break this habit?????

How Strange

What is your workload like? I notice when I'm not run off my feet I tend to procrastinate and be very inefficient. I'd also spend far too much time looking up non work related websites. When I'm up to my eyes busy I rarely waste time on the Internet.

Essentially I work best and am very dynamic when I'm extremely busy otherwise I'm a terrible procrastinator.

Perhaps you need to take on more work.

looksee

Log off every time you leave a website. Get really obscure login passwords that you have to look up from a book kept in the back of a drawer in your desk. Switch off 'automatic login'

Cuddlesworth

How Strange wrote: »

What is your workload like? I notice when I'm not run off my feet I tend to procrastinate and be very inefficient. I'd also spend far too much time looking up non work related websites. When I'm up to my eyes busy I rarely waste time on the Internet.

Essentially I work best and am very dynamic when I'm extremely busy otherwise I'm a terrible procrastinator.

Perhaps you need to take on more work.

Pretty much the exact same. I need to have more work then I would normally think I could do, in order to stop procrastinating. Works out great for all involved.

Benincasa

I suspect this is a common problem. I definitely suffer from it myself from time to time! The first step is recognising that it is a problem (and also a form of stealing from your employer in fact!), and you have done that, so well done!

When reading your post I was saying to myself - why doesn't he(?) just do his bloody work and turn off the net! And I had to catch myself, because what I do is exactly the same as what you do. As you say, the solution sounds easy in theory but can be hard in practice.

There are all sorts of things you could get into in terms of fixing this. For example, your big weakness in life is probably sloth, and you probably have a phlegamtic temperament. Other people have different temperaments and different primary weaknesses, which is why they cannot understand the nature of this problem for you. You can look that stuff up if you want, if you think it will be helpful.

One practical solution that might help; I know that it has helped me.

I started using the pomodoro time management technique. Again, look it up. You can download apps for your phone (if you have a suitable phone) or you can use an ordinary alarm clock. The principle is that you break your time into half hour segments, broken into smaller periods of 25 minutes and 5 minutes. You work intensely for 25 minutes, and then allow yourself a 5 minute break. When the 5 minutes are up, its back to work for another 25.

The fact that you know that you will have some time for surfing at the end of the 25 minutes can really help in delaying the surfing - you are only 25 mins max away from the time when you can surf. You're not telling yourself that you won't surf at all today - its just a few minutes away, and you know that you have that surfing time scheduled and it's very near. That can really help you to get into work. I have often found that after the 25 minutes i have become engrossed in work and the temptation to surf fades away as a result - I end up happily working through the break period.

Good luck!

strandroad

A simple solution is to install some sort of website blocking plugin in your browser and add your worst offender websites there. Every time you try typing in the address you'll get a reminder that "you're not supposed to be here". Better to get this reminder from yourself than your boss! I had to do it too, it wasn't as bad but life is not worth spending on the net. I learnt to stop bringing up some sites very quickly.

tony81

Hi Op. I really hated a job I had once and was on the internet constantly.

My next job had internet access blocked. When I transferred to a new role, my manager told me I should have internet access but I secretly didn't request it from IT so I never had it. If I needed to use the internet I'd ask a colleague! Sounds a bit daft but it kept me focused.

My next job, I had the internet and just chose not to use it. I just knew my job wasn't to check the internet and I was more productive when I didn't.. so I learned to exercise self-restraint.

At home on the other hand.. it really is close to an addiction. I usually buy a mobile broadband topup and when it expires purposefully wait a few weeks to renew it (unless I urgently need to do something).

You could always ask someone in IT to block your internet access.. may be a bit drastic and make you look silly, plus you may actually need the internet for your job.. but if it affects your ability to do your work you should consider it.

An alternative might be some form of counselling to help you overcome the addiction.

Turtwig

This is just a temporary solution. Restart your computer every time you visit the websites you're not supposed to. Even if after rebooting the computer you visit the wrong site : restart again! Eventually that desire for mere 30 seconds loss of attention/breaks will begin to wane away. However it won't tackle why you've been falling into the trap in the first place. That's something you need to look into yourself.


You might need to look into counselling if it's something that you must forcibly curb.


Also, have you considered that you just might not like the job field that you're in? A lot of people deceive themselves into thinking they like the job they're in, because it's something they're good at. Or is the only thing they feel they know to an adequate level. In your spare time try something else and see how it makes you feel.

Stavro Mueller

Have you gone looking online (oh the irony!) for information about internet addiction? It's definitely something that has caused problems for people and in its own way is quite disruptive

http://www.netaddiction.com/

mikemac1

Can you motivate yourself?

I can be very lazy but in work me and the teammates all have a workload and I get very competitive

Not competitive in a bitchy way, in fact I just do it in my head and don't tell others what I'm doing

But I race to be the first to clear the work and during the day setting little goals for myself.
I watch their queues and I'll clear mine first dammit and I'd be angry with myself if I don't.

I don't know much about software, maybe you are working away on your own but is there anything here you can try?

blue note

If it's procrastination as a way of life don't underestimate it. I've procrastinated in almost every part of my life for as long as I can remember and It's gotten to a point where it's absolutely breaking me. I'm in a job that I've been fed up in for 7 years but I'm doing nothing to get out of it. I was doing accounting exams but never studied so that's at a dead end too. I still sat in front of the books for 4 years though - 4 wasted years. I'm not doing my job properly any more and am just waiting for that to come to a head. In a 7 year relationship that I'm not at all sure about. If you don't sort it out, you'll end up full of regret and its miserable.

strokeslover

Addicted2theNet wrote: »

I've been struggling with this problem for about as long as I've had unlimited access to the internet which is about 12 years. When I explain it, it sounds so simple, but I've been having this problem for a long time, so there must be more to it.

Basically, I am a bad employee, and I don't know how to fix it. I have a really hard time just sitting down and doing the work I need to do. I'm just as capable of doing the work as my co-workers are. But I get far less done than them. To some degree, I guess it's procrastination, but it seems like it goes beyond that. I tell myself - I am going to go to the office, sit down and immediately start working. It is very simple. But years of history tell me that won't happen.

I'll get to the office. Get a cup of coffee. Check the news websites. Check my email. Tell myself to get to work. Keep surfing the web. Do five minutes of work. Check my email again. Go to lunch. And so on. This is SO FRUSTRATING. Consciously, it seems incredibly obvious that I need to just stop browsing the web and do my work. There's no reason I can't do it. But for some reason, it almost never happens. Two years ago I went back to college and to get my dissertation written I had to remove the network card from my laptop and work in the library for 6 weeks.

Now I work as a software developer for a web applications company which means that I constantly need to use the internet. However I can't just go online to check out how to do something. I'll also open up another few tabs and check my email, the news and of course this site too.

One possibly related issue I've noticed is that as soon as I run against ANY difficulty in a task, I instinctively want to stop working on it. Even something as simple as needing to look up a term or go ask someone a question is enough to make me stop working on the task. I don't think this is at the root of all of my problems, but it does exacerbate them because once I do finally force myself to work, it can be short-lived.

I really need to fix this or it's going to destroy my career. I have an excellent academic track record which has enable me to get lots of decent jobs over the years but once in them my productivity is pathetic.

I know how stupid this all sounds, believe me. If someone asked me this question, I would want to slap them on the face and say "JUST DO YOUR WORK." But for some reason, I just DON'T.

Has anyone else struggled with something like this? Can anyone tell me what's wrong with me? How do I break this habit?????

F*ck me :eek: When I read a post like this that describes exactly ME at work, I know its time to shut Internet Explorer down and actually do some work! Hopefully I can stay away for more than 5 minutes this time!

ongarboy

Out of interest, OP, how is it possible to be at work and spend most of your day being unproductive and management being completely unaware of it? Surely, they have issued you tasks and deadlines that you need to meet? Or are they so incompetent as to way overestimate the time you need to do tasks that you have many more hours than needed to complete those tasks? If they are issuing you tasks frequently and you are missing deadlines due to your internet distraction, surely that would be called up in performance reviews etc? I hear about it instantly if I miss a deadline. Employees in your situation would be micromanaged in my company if they were so lax.

I'm guessing the answers in your case are that you are allowed to get away with it which reflects badly not just on you but your managers and the company in general that they can allow employees to be so unproductive. You admit that you are a bad employee. That's well and good but I'm struggling to understand how your company and manager can sit back and let that go unchallenged.

Either way this is not answering your problem and also above is not a criticism of you as such by the way. It just sounds like you are in a job that you have zero interest in and the company is faciliating your lack of productivity - if you liked or were somewhat interested in your work, I don't think you would have this problem.

Other posters are giving you techniques about how to distract yourself from the net but I think the issue is bigger than this - you need to focus on a career or a job change that allows you to work in something that gives you a little bit more passion and enthusiasm. If you choose to stay in this job, can you keep asking your manager for more work/assignments/projects so that you are forced to spend more time on the work you are paid to do?

I admit, we all have quiet times at work or when the pressure is off and we do dabble on the net (like me now ) but if it is something that forms part of your regular day and you know it is a problem (hence your raising of the issue in this forum) then you need to take action. I'm guessing your admitted procrastination may make this a challenge however.

oppenheimer1

Its quite likely you procrastinate on the same sites and these sites have nothing to do with your work. An easy solution is to add these sites to the restricted sites in IE or whatever browser you have. Protect the list with a password, then dispose of the password.

If you use a mac, there is a program that blocks all internet access for set periods of time called SelfControl (I'm sure there is a windows equivalent)

LegacyUser

Hi OP here.

Thanks for all of the replies. Reading through the responses was interesting especially the difference between the people prescribing preventative measures and the cures.

I have thought about blocking the most commonly visited sites. However, I know from past experiences that I will only gravitate to other sites as a result. In a previous job all non-work related sites were blocked. However I discovered that I could still read snopes.com and the CIA World Factbook. The result of this is that I now know all of the capital cities in the world and can spot an urban legend a mile away.

I think the issue is that I do not really find my work stimulating. I've only started as a grad in the past few months and so I don't really have much of a work load as such. I've managed to more or less keep up with what I have been given although recently I've started to slip. I'd say management are probably a bit suspect alright but are putting it down to me being a slow learner or something.

As for career changes. Well I actually used to work in another industry. I also didn't find that work interesting and was at a computer all day so the same thing resulted. After a few years I quit and went back to college.

College was great and I was so much more efficient. The problem was though that there wasn't really any work in the stuff that I was learning. After 7 months on the dole, I decided to take my current job. I took it in the hope that I would find it interesting but it's not something I'm into at all which is at the root of my problems.

Ideally, I should quit and keep looking but realistically in the current job market I don't think that'd be a wise move. I think I'm just going to stick it out and look for something more interesting in my free time. My two previous jobs lasted 6 months each though so my CV looks really bad now and if I leave this job after a similar length of time I'm afraid that future employers won't touch me with a barge pole.

Brussels Sprout

Have you considered that you may have ADHD?

positron

I can relate to what OP is experiencing. I've tried LeachBlock (for Firefox) and Nanny For Google Chrome - which I configured to block certain sites and if I try visiting them, it will bring me back to work related internal site or to my own notes page. It does help to some degree, and I've managed to get some days of good work by sticking to these rules, but like OP said when I am "bored" or "distracted" or have some automated stuff to run in the background (this is the main culprit), I would somehow end up in Wikipedia and before you know I have been there for hours. Or all in a sudden I will all technology blogs in my area of work extremely interesting and would read them up instead. It's as if the brain is hooked to a constant supply of fresh content - has got to be some sort of addiction alright.

I recently read a book about Internet Addiction - and the author who himself used to suffer from addition seems to have been inspired by his recovery following his consultant's advice (why the consultant didn't write the book, I have no idea) - but his message was to train your mind - like how you train your muscles - by consciously making a decision to not to visit a website. Or if you get there and realise you shouldn't be there, consciously and knowingly fight with yourself to drag your mouse over and close the tab - and the more you do this, he reckons, the stronger your control over the issue gets - and this is the way out. I haven't had much success, but I don't think I have tried hard enough though.

Angeles

What a great read, more so because I say it affects a large quantity of office workers worldwide, including myself... I'm in work as i type this.
I don't think the problem is with the person sitting at the computer with the unlimited access to all things far far far more interesting then the spreadsheet that requires updating or the piece of code *in your case* that needs to be written.
I think the problem lies more with the job and environment you are in. Closed/limited office space, limited people interaction, low motivation, low demand.. general lack of care really. Then people blame themselves for this, as its their fault, they are lazy..etc. I say its the jobs fault.

I've worked in catering, construction, marketing and business over the years and oddly enough the job i've ever felt like you do now, is where i'm sitting at a desk in an office on a computer. Only then do i feel that i suddenly am not doing enough and am a bad employeee! co-incidence?

Its interesting because when working in the bar in my case, I was standing and serving people for 13 hours a day *before the 8 hour law came in* and not once did i ever say to myself.. I'm spending too much time reading the paper and not serving customers.. primarily because not serving those customers came with a hell of a lot of consequences.

Different perspective again when working in construction. When we were given a job to do by a client and it needed to be done and fixed by a time frame, it was done and fixed. Granted it might not have taken the hole 8 hours of the day to do, but once it was done it was done.
It was a necessary requirement to complete for both parties, essentially I felt i was doing what "actually" needed to be done in both scenarios.. Mr A NEEDED a drink and it was my job to serve it, Mr B needed his wall fixed and it was my job to fix it.

I may not have particularly enjoyed either of them but i never had this dilemma of.. not doing what i should and would rather skive off because it needed to be done and their was more consequences to not doing it then just losing the job.
I think this is the problem with office work in general. you need to really want to do something.
I work with developers who do nothing but write code all day long, when i ask them about this, they say they enjoy the challenge. They make it their personal project and use that to drive themselves in work and at home.

I don't, I sit in the office 8 hour a day pressing the odd update button to make it seem like I'm still doing something.
Truth be told, I'm bored out of my mind, I don't have a pressure deadline nor will I be letting people down if i don't do something for most of the time anyway. There are other times when something REALLY needs to be done and all of a sudden I'm here working 18 hours straight.. but that happens once in a blue moon and anything else in between that has some small meaning to it, well i can leave that til next week.

You start feeling guilty because you believe its your responsibility to challenge yourself all the time to feel like a worthy employee. The facts are the job isn't motivating you to want to work with a purpose, you are essentially in the wrong job or with the wrong level of work load. You don't feel like you are doing enough because lets be honest, who's going to really care? and no measure of trickery around blocking internet access will fix this. When you are actually challenged to complete a task, a goal with purpose of your role, you will do it and do it well enough to your knowledge. If you genuinely want to seek this desire to challenge yourself, then you need to do so and get out of your current role, otherwise I say be happy where you are and don't feel guilty about it, truth be told, its easier the most.


PS. this is a bit longer then i thought and i have checked it best i can but apologies if what i wrote don't word or sound correct, i am in-fact dyslexic.

part time punk

No advice from me I'm afraid, and I probably am guilty of this too to an extent. You should have a look at this book though
http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393072223
He reckons that the net is changing the way the synapses in our brains work and that we can no longer concentrate on reading long passages of text or on on one topic for example becasue we're getting so used to interactive websites and multi- media, multi-tasking etc.

LegacyUser

Angeles: Thanks for that post. There's definitely a lot of truth there. Apparently a big problem with a lot of jobs nowadays is that there is no obvious end product. For example a mason can go to work and build a section of wall and at the end of the day his goal has been accomplished and his day's work is there for all to to see. In contrast administrators or people in middle management often have tasks which don't come with this kind of obvious goal. To be fair, software development is probably better than most jobs in that the workers are generally creating something functional.

Part time punk: Coincidentally I read that book a few weeks ago. It kinda scared me but I also was heartened by the fact that due to the brain's plasticity all of the changes are reversible.

KK4SAM

Pity you didn't work for me .I would love the pleasure of firing you.

Taltos

KK4SAM - please read our charter if you have not already done so.
If you cannot give constructive advice or post in a civil manner please do not post at all.

Thanks
Taltos

Sea Sharp

I suffered from the same problem.
I think it is to do with the path of least resistance. If you need to do something you're not familiar with; then you're brain will just push for what you're comfortable with. e.g. solitare and freecell.

What I found useful was keeping a pen and paper log book beside you where a day's work could be summarized in 4 to 8 pages.

Every time you get the urge to procrastinate just read from / write to your log-book. It will focus your mind back on what you have done and what you need to do next.