Getting distracted online

A paper written by Joseph Ugrin and Michael Pearson on cyberloafing found that, of the time spend online at work, American workers spend 60-80 percent on things that are unrelated to work.  I don't think it is a problem in the US alone.  In one office I worked in, some colleagues theorised that to get a particular employee to do some work, you had to place a targeted ad on eBay.

The finding is unsurprising, given the Internet is a place that has a lot of interesting stuff, where you can do many different things, and it isn't that hard to get to.  For these reasons, many people become distracted online.  It is like trying to get schoolkids to concentrate when the fairground sets up next door.  A search for an item online fires up the synapses of your mind, creating interest, stimulating connections and promising chemical rewards that make it hard to resist the click away from...from...whatever it was I was doing.

Personally, I think that the best antidote is to take regular breaks, get up from your desk, move and change your environment. Breaks help you stay fresh and, as a habit, they disrupt what may be involuntary behaviour.

Distractions become attractive when you are mentally fatigued, bored and under-stimulated.  Regular breaks mean you can section your day and review how you went so far. If you went well, great.  If you didn't, you haven't wasted the day.  Unfortunately, in some (many?) offices, breaks are unfashionable.

Other techniques involve setting alarms, some use specially designed software, and yet others filter the available sites.

How do you overcome a tendency to distraction?