Say No to Drama
Posted On: 2011-02-17
Well I have to say that so far this has been one heck of a productive morning. I've managed to get so much done but I can't say the same about my partner Steve.
While I've been at my desk with my head down working away he seems to have been running around all over the countryside. Even though he only had to see one client this morning there have been lots of other distractions for him and his productivity levels have been way down.
Even he will admit that he's spent way too much time doing things that won't make us any money. So instead of focusing on work he's been adding to a non-work related conversation on a message board, gazing wistfully out the window and even surfing some hobby-related websites.
That's fine with me because Steve is a guy who knows that there are a lot of time wasting things you can get up to on the Net and in the real world and he only lets them distract him once in a while. But that's not always been the case for either Steve or me and there were times when we wasted a lot of time on things that might have been related to what we were doing but did absolutely nothing to grow our bottom line.
Back then we always seemed to be rushing to get things done and to meet our own self-imposed deadlines. We always used to hang out on the various webmaster boards and always had at least one board open in a new window so we could jump right into any conversation that might have interested us.
And that's a trap that just about any one of us can fall into. We can fool ourselves into thinking that time spent on all those webmaster boards that are out there is really good for our business. We can all get great enjoyment out of being involved in all the drama that goes on in those communities too but when you step back and take a look at the amount of time you might spend on those boards doing nothing but fighting the waste in dollar terms can be frightening.
Sure lots of people do it and you often see the same people in those drama threads all the time but are those people really webmasters? Are they really hustling for a buck like you and I are doing or is the fun of being involved in those drama threads the sole reason for their existence?
Who knows what the person is like who is on the other end of those messages? Who knows how they put food on the table? Maybe they're hard-working webmasters just like you and me ... or perhaps they're on welfare and their main aim in life is to distract other people from what they should be doing.
There are plenty of keyboard warriors out there who get a great kick out of making others angry and damaging their business. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that or their twisted mentality but trolls infest every message board and forum on the Web.
To avoid those people and the distractions they like to throw our way we have to be really self-disciplined. Sure we came into this industry because it allows us to be our own boss but this industry does not reward people who don't want to work ... or people who let themselves get so distracted that they don't have much time to do any work.
We have to be prepared to say "no" to message board dramas and we have to go even further than that. We have to shut ourselves off from the distractions that message boards constantly offer us and the best way to do that is to not have those message boards on the Internet equivalent of speed dial.
Obviously I'm not saying that we should cut ourselves off from those boards entirely. Message boards can be great places to learn new things and discover what's about to come over the horizon and have some impact on the industry.
Message boards are also a great place to make contact with people who can help you with new projects and friendships ... maybe you could even describe them as alliances ... that Steve and I made years ago on adult webmaster boards are sill proving valuable years later. We might all be doing different things and not even chat as often as we once did but we're there to offer help and assistance.
So if you're finding it hard to get all the work done that you set yourself each day or you know that you're letting yourself get distracted by all the action on your favorite webmaster board then maybe it's time to restrict the amount of time you spend on that board. Instead of having it on speed dial and visiting it multiple times every day maybe now is the time to restrict your access.
Maybe you'll find that when you do that you're suddenly much more productive ... that's certainly what Steve and I found.