Save Your Time from Social Media

Raise your hand if your typical workday sounds anything like this.

You get to work, settle down at your desk and decide to log into Facebook and Twitter for a couple minutes just to see what’s going on. No problem, right?

Pretty soon, a couple minutes turns into an hour, then an hour turns into two hours. Before you realize it, the entire morning has passed you by and you’ve gotten nothing done.

Is your hand raised?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Surveys have revealed that social media is eating away more and more time from our day. A recent report from comScore shows that social networking now accounts for 19% of the time spent online. In other words, one out of every five minutes is spent checking out a social media websites

Translation: We’re a bunch of social media junkies.

If your company blocks sites like Facebook, it may not be much of an issue. But social media is becoming a key part of the workplace as companies embrace its impact on customer service, recruiting, marketing, sales and other operations.

This is bad news for the productivity of social media peons here in the Caribbean

But before you go check yourself into rehab, we’ve found software and techniques that can kill your social media addiction, at least during work hours.

  Give Social Media a Time Out

If you really need to focus, you can install software that blocks access to specific sites for a period of time.

 StayFocusd, a Google Chrome extension allows you to restrict access to specific paths, subdomains or webpages. What’s great about GetFocused is that it can block content that’s hosted on a page like videos or games.

When the time you’ve set for yourself on these sites is up, StayFocused blocks them for the rest of the day.  You can also set up the app  to block certain hours of the day or days of the week in advance. So you can “stay focused” during the week and lurk on Facebook to your heart’s content over the weekend

Leechblock: Leechblock is a similar to StayFocused but it’s for the Firefox web browser. For the more committed procrastinator, Leechblock  because it makes it very difficult for you to disable the app after it’s been downloaded .  Once you check off "prevent access to options for this block set at times when these sites are blocked," in  LeechBlock's options dialog,  you can’t disable during the site’s block time.

Similar Programs: Antisocial for Mac, Freedom for Mac and Windows.

 Related: 6 Apps to Help You Stick to Your Goals

Social Media Management Software

 Why not collect all your updates in one place. Social Media Management software like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to do just that.

Hootsuite is probably the more popular option. It’s interface allows you to integrate updates from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other sites.

If doing Facebook and Twitter posting is a part of your job you can use this software to schedule posts to appear at a time in the future that you determine.  Both Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to manage multiple accounts which is good for keeping your personal social networking activities away from your work.  

Similar programs: Seesmic & Ping.fm 

Time Trackers:

What better way to help you to stay away from Facebook than to actually see how much time that you spend on it. RescueTime is an app that runs while your browsing and tracks the amount of time that you’re spending on sites.

Another program called SlimTimer is an online time sheet where you click on a clock when you start a task and when you finish it. The app generates a report where you can analyse how you’re spending your time.

Have you ever tried any of these apps? How have they worked for you? How do you manage your social media behavior? Let us know in the comments below.

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