Resources: Productivity
For a procrastinator, productivity seems like a distant and hardly attainable dream. Plus, with how expansive the internet is, it is far too easy to dip your toe into the surface level of websites like Facebook or Youtube and, four hours later, find yourself deep into a friend's very interesting photo gallery or halfway through a lengthy playlist for movies that you've never watched, much less heard of. Have hope! While the internet is a undoubtedly cesspool of time-consuming distractions, it's also a wellspring of resources that can help keep you focused and increase your productivity, so here's a couple I like using.
W O R K
A nifty little program that times you as you work and judges you when you don't. After downloading and extracting the program, open it up, run whatever you're using for work - whether it's a Word document or a Photoshop file - and it will keep track of how long you're on that program. Click out of your work program and the timer will turn a harsh red and stop. I've just recently started using it to track how long I take working on my digital art and doodles. It's free and can be found here.Cold Turkey
Sometimes, when you're working on something, you get this sort of itch to pop in on your usual social media outlet and see what's new. For distracting tendencies like that, Cold Turkey comes in handy. Cold Turkey is a site blocker that lets you temporarily block websites and set how long to block these sites for. Visiting blocked sites during the times you've set will only result in the app giving you an inspirational quote, such as below.
In fact, the only ways to access blocked websites before the set time is to either change the time on your computer or uninstall the program, which seem rather counter-productive and extreme in all honesty. When I've got big projects with looming deadlines, I've found that running this app has been extremely beneficial in keeping me focused on my work. I've also found it helping in curbing a binge-watching YouTube habit that was proving harmful to my academics last semester, so it definitely has my recommendation. The program is free, with some additional features added in the pro version, and can be found here.
