evernote
How to escape the internet
We all love the internet, at least you don’t hate it because you’re using it now. But there are definately times when this multi-billion page cyber highway can get in the way. But no matter how hard we try, there always seems a reason to go back to it, is it possible to escape?
Yes, of course: as long as you can stop yourself becoming too reliant on it. This might sound like a big change to make, as though you’re going to undergo a big mentality shift but all it takes is 3 simple steps which, if continued, will help you increase your productivity and maybe help you even more.
- Collect your information: a huge mistake many people make is to do their research and their work simultaneously. This is such an easy mistake to make nowadays thanks to Google and Wikipedia and it seems like you’re saving a lot of time but be careful; this approach can lead you to misread your information and mis-copy it. Furthermore your writing can also suffer as a result of losing concentration between research and writing. Get all your research out of the way before you start. If you’re not sure exactly what you need to find out knock up a draft of your piece and then fill in the gaps as you look up the answers. Remember to re-write afterwards though.
- Organise it: you now have all your information but most of the time it’ll be in a number of locations including web pages, textbooks and in your head. It’s important to organise all this knowledge before you forget/lose it. There are so many ways to do this and the only way to find out which works best for you is to test a few techniques out. If you’re more comfortable working with a computer I would recommend Microsoft’s OneNote, this is a fantastic program which I use to gather information (particularly from the internet) every day. A similar program for Mac OS X is EverNote which is part of a broader service including a web app and iPhone app, there is also a Windows version which is a good (but not quite equal) competitor to OneNote. If however you prefer to work with paper a Moleskine is a great notebook to use [see my post on them], or just a plain piece of A4 for the ultimate in customizability.
- Turn off the internet: the most important and theoretically simplest thing to do is very often the hardest. Undoubtedly you’ll be tempted to trust yourself and leave it on but in most instances this fails and ends up wasting you even more time as you mess around on myspace. Turn off your router and computer (unless using OneNote/Evernote or typing) and try your hardest not to think about it.
Sound easy? It’s probably more difficult than you think. Just try this once and you’ll notice that your writing improves and that you remember a lot more of what you’ve just worked on.