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Contrary to what common sense would suggest, having less connectivity will actually increase your productivity. If your internet access is intermittent and you’re genuinely offline, you’ll get more crap accomplished.

I’ve written 40 000+ words, shot 30 000+ photos, bought and sold several websites+domains+photographs, and run a successful photography school. All of this was with very limited connectivity while traveling through 20+ countries this past year. I’ve gotten more done in less time and I’m happier for it.

When you do have “online” time you have be highly focused on what you need to get done. As a result, you get it all done. Think reverse Parkinson’s Law which states:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Online time should be a treat, like ice cream. If you have 24/7 high speed internet getting distracted into useless minutiae is easy. The web is a hyperactive distraction machine. There is something incredibly awesome and simultaneously useless that comes out every single day. If you want to be more effective give yourself more offline time.

Spend your time having fun and building sand castles, not Facebooking your friends to death. Speaking of ways to be more effective, read this article about email.

task batching

Here’s a little ‘pro tip’ for you:

Batching
If you’re not already, start task batching stuff you need to get done as much as possible. Do you empty your garbage each time you put a piece of trash in it? Do you do your laundry every time you toss a dirty item into it? Obviously not. It’s clearly a waste of time in these cases because of the time it takes to switch back and forth from task to task.

Saving Time
Think about this in terms of basic productivity. Are you reading and responding to emails and calls as they come in? Does it take away from the work you are doing at the time? You might want to start batching that stuff and then attack each batch with the agility of a ninja. Think about batching your errands, emails, calls, meetings, bills, etc etc.. It will save you time and will help you focus properly on what you actually want to be doing instead of being constantly disrupted by inbound stuff. If you’re not task batching you might as well be taking out the trash every time you get a new email.

This dovetails nicely with inbox zero, and GTD.

[Photo by laszlo-photo]