Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity

They’re fun, they’re cool, they’re all the rage. Online applications that help us communicate in so many new ways, that help us socialize and network and make a million and one friends. And some have argued, and many believe, that these applications make us more productive.

But in reality, they don’t, and I’ll tell you why. While communication tools can be used effectively to make us more productive, and communicate more efficiently, many of these apps are addictive, and the noise-to-signal ratio is very high. For all the chatter going on, there is very little useful information. To get use out of these apps, we must sift through a lot of wasted time and energy and activity.

The solution? Turn them off. Only use them at predetermined times, for a fixed purpose. Or banish them altogether — the usual communication tools of email and phone work just fine for most purposes.

Without further ado, here are the Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity:

Twitter. Everyone seems to be talking about Twitter. They’re in love with it, or they hate it. I feel neither attitude toward it, but instead analyze the possible uses for it. Unfortunately, for all the time that people spend on Twitter, I don’t believe the possible uses for it are worth the effort. Some suggestions, like looking for the latest deals from certain companies or getting updates on software or other things like that, sound fairly useful but for all the stuff you have to sift through to get that info, it’s definitely not worth it. A deal that saves you a few bucks isn’t worth hours of your time monitoring Twitter to get the deal. That’s not the most productive use of your time. Especially if you’re getting a deal on something you didn’t really need in the first place. End result? You’ve wasted lots of time in order to watch somebody’s advertisements.
IM. This isn’t as new or hip as Twitter, and in effect is similar in terms of communication modes. It’s also a great waste of time in most cases. Chatting with 5-10 people at a time is not efficient communication. Now, if you’re using IM with one person for a specific, productive purpose, it can be very effective. Doing an interview or discussing a business proposal over IM, for example, is better than email. But most of the time, people just use IM to socialize, and that’s not the best use of your time. Being instantly available to people is a distraction, and puts you at the mercy of their whims, instead of allowing you to allocate your time to best use.
Email notification. I’m not knocking email — it’s my favorite way of communicating except with close friends — but having instant notification of every email is unproductive. It interrupts your work so that you can answer someone else’s request. Sure, there are times when you’re waiting for an important email and you just have to know when it comes right away. But most of the time you don’t need to know this instant. You can check your email twice a day, say, or 3-4 times, or at the top of every hour if you must. You don’t need it on all the time. If it’s always on, again, you are at the mercy of the demands of others, instead of controlling your work day yourself.
Blog reader. I’m also a fan of blog feeds — I read well over 100 posts a day. But I realized a little while ago that I was checking my Google Reader too many times throughout the day. It was a waste of my time. If you do this as well, you need to kick this addiction. First, set a certain time when you read your feeds each day, and only check it during that time. Second, weed out your subscriptions so that you only have those feeds that give you value each day.
Social bookmarking sites like Digg. Again, I love these sites — Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Delicious. They’re great stuff, and can be very useful in finding news and blogs you didn’t know about. But if you’re spending a lot of time on these sites, reading all the stories that come in (and there are thousands a day!), voting for your favorites, adding and talking with friends on the site, and becoming an active member of the community — well, most likely you’re waisting a lot of productive time. Being a part of one of these communities can be a lot of fun, and that in itself can have value. But in the end, you are helping make someone else’s site better, and not working on your own goals. That’s the bottom line. That’s why you should also limit your time spent on these sites — use them in ways that help you, but don’t overuse them.

See also:

Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity

Without further ado, here are the Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity:

Twitter. Everyone seems to be talking about Twitter. They’re in love with it, or they hate it. I feel neither attitude toward it, but instead analyze the possible uses for it. Unfortunately, for all the time that people spend on Twitter, I don’t believe the possible uses for it are worth the effort. Some suggestions, like looking for the latest deals from certain companies or getting updates on software or other things like that, sound fairly useful but for all the stuff you have to sift through to get that info, it’s definitely not worth it. A deal that saves you a few bucks isn’t worth hours of your time monitoring Twitter to get the deal. That’s not the most productive use of your time. Especially if you’re getting a deal on something you didn’t really need in the first place. End result? You’ve wasted lots of time in order to watch somebody’s advertisements.
IM. This isn’t as new or hip as Twitter, and in effect is similar in terms of communication modes. It’s also a great waste of time in most cases. Chatting with 5-10 people at a time is not efficient communication. Now, if you’re using IM with one person for a specific, productive purpose, it can be very effective. Doing an interview or discussing a business proposal over IM, for example, is better than email. But most of the time, people just use IM to socialize, and that’s not the best use of your time. Being instantly available to people is a distraction, and puts you at the mercy of their whims, instead of allowing you to allocate your time to best use.
Email notification. I’m not knocking email — it’s my favorite way of communicating except with close friends — but having instant notification of every email is unproductive. It interrupts your work so that you can answer someone else’s request. Sure, there are times when you’re waiting for an important email and you just have to know when it comes right away. But most of the time you don’t need to know this instant. You can check your email twice a day, say, or 3-4 times, or at the top of every hour if you must. You don’t need it on all the time. If it’s always on, again, you are at the mercy of the demands of others, instead of controlling your work day yourself.
Blog reader. I’m also a fan of blog feeds — I read well over 100 posts a day. But I realized a little while ago that I was checking my Google Reader too many times throughout the day. It was a waste of my time. If you do this as well, you need to kick this addiction. First, set a certain time when you read your feeds each day, and only check it during that time. Second, weed out your subscriptions so that you only have those feeds that give you value each day.
Social bookmarking sites like Digg. Again, I love these sites — Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Delicious. They’re great stuff, and can be very useful in finding news and blogs you didn’t know about. But if you’re spending a lot of time on these sites, reading all the stories that come in (and there are thousands a day!), voting for your favorites, adding and talking with friends on the site, and becoming an active member of the community — well, most likely you’re waisting a lot of productive time. Being a part of one of these communities can be a lot of fun, and that in itself can have value. But in the end, you are helping make someone else’s site better, and not working on your own goals. That’s the bottom line. That’s why you should also limit your time spent on these sites — use them in ways that help you, but don’t overuse them.

See also:

Posted on 24 March 2007 in Productivity & Organization |
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Comments (19)

Frank Shu Says:

March 24th, 2007, 22:11 pm

Very good stuff… I was the kind of person who frequently got lost on internet until the use of RSS. But when I scrolled down to point 4, I can’t help nodding.

zenhabits Says:

March 24th, 2007, 22:18 pm

Thanks Frank … I have to admit that I’ve wasted time on just about all of these … that’s how I know they can be very unproductive! But in most cases, I’ve reformed my ways. I can still use improvement, as can we all, I’m sure.

Mike Says:

March 24th, 2007, 23:17 pm

Leo, Excellent! It’s ironic of course as I read this on Bloglines (my biggest personal time-stealer).

One thing that has made a difference, and I know this isn’t for everyone, was my purchase last year of a 2005 set of Encyclopedia Britannica. No, not the CD/DVD. The real deal - all 32 volumes. I do a lot of research and I found myself before this purchase looking something up on the Internet and then link chasing. Instead of getting the required information, and getting back to writing, I would realize (an hour and a half later) that my quick look for a nation’s capital ended with my visiting site after site ending usually at sites completely unrelated to my original research. My Britannica purchase (no links from their online site or CD’s) has saved me more time than I could possibly add up. It’s also very satisfying reaching for those real bound volumes with that calming scent. Like I said, not for everyone, but it really has made me more productive.

zenhabits Says:

March 24th, 2007, 23:39 pm

What an interesting idea, Mike. It’s not something I would do, being a cheapskate myself, but you’ve pointed out how distracting the internet can be in pointing us to a million interesting things when we were only looking for one. Kind of like how you can go into Walmart or Kmart or the mall, only looking for one thing, and instead getting 12. The ways that marketers influence us are very powerful and it’s worth becoming more aware of their tactics and how we respond to them. Thanks for the comment.

GetSunlight Says:

March 25th, 2007, 0:45 am

You read 100 blog posts a day? How long since you’ve been outdoors?

kamal Says:

March 25th, 2007, 5:31 am

Funny, I was thinking something similar today. I got rid of a TV years ago and don’t miss it, even pride myself on not having one. But, I take that TV time and spend it on the web instead.

And Google Reader is my new addiction. Don’t know if I can cut it down to once a day but like the idea. Hm, maybe 2x a day.

zenhabits Says:

March 25th, 2007, 6:22 am

@GetSunlight: lol. Well, to be honest, I don’t actually read all of them. I probably only read 10-20 posts of the 100+ a day, and of those, I might not read all of them completely. Basically I skim through the 100+, skipping them if the headline indicates it’s a topic I’m not interested in, skimming through others that might be of interest, and slowly reading those that are definitely interesting to me. As for being outdoors, I run, bike or swim on most days, and I was at the soccer field all day yesterday for my kids. One of my boys scored five goals!

@kamal: You’re right … the web has replaced TV as my addiction. But I think it’s a better addiction than TV. I use Google Reader too … for me, it’s by far the most efficient reader. I think reading your blogs 2x a day would be good. I’ve basically cut my Google Reader reading down to 1-2 times a day. - leo

Balfour Says:

March 25th, 2007, 9:52 am

I have been using Google homepage for a while. How does Google Reader compare?

Lars O Gulliksen Says:

March 25th, 2007, 15:02 pm

To the point i will say. I am very aware on not to waste too much time and get distracted from all the online aps around. I find IM excellent to keep in touch with colleagues, family and friends all the time though. I haven’t tried Twitter yet cause I suspect it will be a real waste of time for me. However since I am an professional web developer I have to check out sometime what the buzz is all about. You might find the newly posted article “Three innovative ways to use Twitter” over at Pronet Advertising interesting ?

zenhabits Says:

March 25th, 2007, 17:04 pm

@Balfour: thanks for the question … Homepage and Reader lend themselves to different styles, but for myself, I much, much prefer Reader. Homepage is good for being able to see a lot of feeds at a glance, but you can’t read full posts without clicking (at least, not the last time I tried it). For Reader, it’s more like a river of information … I go swiftly through it, but slow down when I see stuff I want to read more about, and then speed up again through the less interesting posts. You can set up Reader in different configurations, including the view where you just see headlines, but I prefer being able to skim through not just headlines but the posts themselves. Sometimes there are things in the posts that will catch my attention, so it’s good to have all that info when you’re scanning. Give it a try … you might prefer it.

@Lars: Thanks for the comment. As I mentioned, there are times when IM can be useful and effective communication … but being available to everyone all the time is not productive. Perhaps if you set up certain times when you did IM with friends and colleagues, but didn’t make yourself available in the other times, that would be productive.
As for the Pronet Advertising article on Twitter, I did read it … and while the uses they mention could be useful, I still believe that you have to spend way too much time on Twitter to get these actual uses out of it … and basically you’re wasting hours of your time just to read advertisements from the companies they mentioned.

Ann M. Says:

March 25th, 2007, 23:55 pm

Thanks again for a great post. I agree with all of your thoughts, and had actually decided most of them myself before reading the article, but it was great reinforcement for me.

I found myself being much more productive once I got rid of my email notifier, and also do not turn on IM unless I am looking for somebody, or have most of the things I need to get done taken care of. I’ve looked over the twitter site briefly, but agree with you that as well. I am not too bad with the social bookmarking sites, but one thing I have found which is bad is steepandcheap.com and woot.com. I generally manage to limit these fairly well though.

I love the idea of the hard copy of encyclopedias but doubt that the info that I generally need would be available in them. It’s a great thought though, because I also tend to “link-chase”. One other thing that I’ve found works for me is turning the ringer off on my phone when I am going to be doing a project that I don’t want interruptions on. I found that people would call, and regardless of whether I actually answered the call, it would distract me and get me out of my zone. This way, I am not even tempted to get up and look if the phone rings, but can wait until I am done to check caller ID to see if anyone important has called.

zenhabits Says:

March 26th, 2007, 0:54 am

You’re on fire today, Ann! Another great comment. I like the idea of turning the ringer off on the phone … just another example of how turning off interruptions lets you concentrate on the task at hand and helps you to be more productive. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Now I gotta get back to work! - leo

meandering Says:

March 29th, 2007, 7:11 am

Good topic - very much hitting the nail on the head.

And that’s exactly why this blog is making a difference. It is not a timewaster, as the articles are succinct and now even more efficient with the teaser on the front page. I never regret reading this blog, as it is totally key to what matters in life and includes a wide variety of useful topics.

Unfortunately (?), I discovered other blogs you have linked to, such as:
[url=http://www.scotthyoung.com]Scott H Young’s[/url] and [url=http://davidseah.com]David Seah’s CEO series[/url]
which I found very useful but then again, watch your time, set that alarm clock and stop when it bleeps. Otherwise, you getting on a slippery slope.

Good luck to all of you with time-keeping and do good things!

meandering Says:

March 29th, 2007, 7:17 am

Good topic - very much hitting the nail on the head.

Unfortunately (?), I discovered other blogs you have linked to, such as: Scott H Young’s page and David Seah’s CEO series, which I found both very useful and relevant. But then again, watch your time, set that alarm clock and stop when it beeps. Otherwise, you’re getting on a slippery slope.

Good luck to all of you with time-keeping and do good things!

zenhabits Says:

March 29th, 2007, 7:29 am

Thanks, meandering … I’m glad you’ve found this blog useful. But I know what your mean about finding good blogs to read … as I mentioned, I subscribe to them and crank through them on Google Reader a couple times a day. That way I have my blog reading limited to certain times of the day — otherwise I could do it all day (and have a couple times in the past!). Thanks for the comment! - leo

billboy Says:

March 29th, 2007, 10:00 am

@zenhabits: leo, when I read “Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity”, ‘just had to check it out GREAT STUFF, and really constructive reader comments.

I rarely “blog” (most of those you and readers have named are mostly new names to me), but, like Ann, playing “link-chase” has become an addiction and has replaced TV. Thanks to you and all who commented I have acquired a new direction, new purpose - a new backbone . . .that gives me an idea, I can link-chase “purpose and . . . . . . . . .

zenhabits Says:

March 29th, 2007, 16:03 pm

@billboy: lol! Link chasing can definitely lead to lots of distraction … you might limit your time online to 10-20 minutes at a time, or whatever works for you — I often use a timer to make sure I stay on track. Good luck! - leo

ella Says:

May 1st, 2007, 4:43 am

thanks for the post, you are probably right, but I use ALL of them and I try to justify that… and have managed, somehow, to get productivity…. ( as in my blog )

Wiwat Says:

March 23rd, 2008, 23:54 pm

Man! I have been doing all those five every single day. Not to mention I am also a blogger myself. I partly agree to that. And I am using Haiku Productivity to handle those web apps now.