Cold Turkey
Maintaining Balance and focus
Academic research rebuts the idea that we are good 'multi-taskers'. All we really do is 'task-switch' which reduces our productivity. Both Prof. Cliff Nass (Stanford University) and Prof. Larry Rosen (California State University) recommend the idea of 'tech breaks'.
How to use ‘tech breaks’: close all distracting tabs and apps, set a timer for a period of 20 minutes. Focus on a given task until the alarm rings, at which point take up to 5 minutes to check apps, emails, messages etc. Cold Turkey is also a useful app that will block access to distracting sites for a set period of time to allow work to be completed.
Cold Turkey is a free productivity program that you can use to temporarily block yourself off of popular social media sites, addicting websites and games so you can concentrate on your work interrupted by social media updates and similar distracting announcements.