How do you stay focused when a difficult task deadline is looming?

Question

I've recently become active on SO, mainly because it's a lot more inspiring than the deadline for the big wodge of documentation that no one's ever going to read that is looming ever larger in my headlights.

I'm wondering why I'm risking discipline/unemployment more as each hour slips by, especially when the Global Financial Crisis is starting to bite round here.

If anyone has any advice that's practiable, please let me know.

(Yes, this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's also true, and becoming increasingly important in my shortening career ...)

Answer 1

Keep track of your work accomplishments in writing. Where I work, I have to submit a list of what I've done every week to my boss, but even if I didn't I'd keep writing them. Nothing is more motivating than having only one bullet-point done on Thursday morning.

Answer 2

Grow up and shut down your browser. If you must put a fake entry in your hosts file. You lose your job you won't have much reason to come here so stop reading right now and get your work done.

Answer 3

Look into productivity tools which can help you better organize your time. One of my co-workers struggled with something similar, and found his ability to work tended to increase when he regularly scheduled small (<2min) breaks every hour or so. Though I hesitate to give you yet another website, lifehacker has some great utilities listed which can aid in productivity.

Above all, block yourself (as mentioned above) from any websites which drain your ability to work. There really isn't ever a good time to lose your job because of slacking off.

Edit: don't look up these tools at work :)

Answer 4

http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html

Maybe in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them. But in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution that definitely works: to set up a separate computer for using the Internet.

I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. (Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum.)

My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as I do it on that computer. And this turns out to be enough. When I have to sit on the other side of the room to check email or browse the web, I become much more aware of it. Sufficiently aware, in my case at least, that it's hard to spend more than about an hour a day online.