The Key to Productivity for Internet Addicts

I have no willpower when it comes to the Internet. I can't tell you how many days I have spent surfing my favorite websites, updating my status on Facebook and pretending to research new articles by trolling the back alleys of social-networking websites. Out of a typical week, I'd say that I waste at least three days not doing the work that I'm supposed to, instead I spend most of my time checking e-mail and generally wasting time. In the few hours a day when I'm able to focus I can get a lot done, but at heart, I'm an Internet addict. Often, when I know that I have to get work done, I leave my house and set up shop at cafes in the city that don't have WIFI so I'm not endlessly wasting my time.

But there's hope for people like me.

I found a program that will give me control over my own addiction by cutting it off at the source. Freedom, a new shareware program for Mac users lets you schedule strategic internet outages so that you can focus on the important things. It cuts off all access to the internet through Ethernet and WIFI ports for a set number of minutes (up to six hours) and the only way to quit the program before then is to restart the computer. Without internet access I won't have any excuse but to be productive. I'm might actually be able to write this book I've been thinking about.

Goodbye idle browsing. Hello productivity.

Sadly, freedom is only available for OSX, windows users will have find some other way to grow their backbones and hunker down to work.

[link to the program]