The Internet is increasingly becoming a major time killer for

many of us. Involuntarily, we started to spend more time online

than we really can afford. Here is how it goes:

you were sitting

at work, you needed to find some crucial information to finish

that project at hand, you went on the Internet to look for the

information, you run a web search or started browsing through

web directory, and suddenly you noticed something that seems

very interesting, it could be a banner ad, a link, just a piece

of information, or some related ideas that came up that instant

and required immediate attention. You clicked on the link to

check it out thinking this won? take too long. This link took

you to another seemingly more interesting page. Before you knew

it, you started to ramble through the Internet aimlessly wasting

your precious work time. Then, of course, there is this sports news that you must read,

stock portfolio that you must check constantly, vacation place

you need to choose for your next holidays, the list goes on and

on, and what about those emails? Sounds familiar! You are not

alone! Most of the Internet users are in the same boat. If you feel trapped and frustrated with your handling of the

time spent online, you need to stand back, take a break, and

look into the problem from a different perspective. Actually,

what you need is more than a break; you need a balanced approach

to your Internet activities. In order to understand where you

online time goes, the first thing you should do is log everything

that you do on the Internet for several days. Log your online activitiesIf you scrupulously write down everything you do on the Internet

for a day, you will, truly, be amazed to see how much time you

waste on unnecessary things like reading spam, browsing through

inconsequential websites, etc. By thoroughly analyzing your online activities with the help of

the logs you make, you will be able to pinpoint and resolve the

problems? online activities that are unproductive and time

wasters. The idea is to stay focused and do the things that you

ought to do and stay out of impulsive moves. To do listsLike your daily life, you should make a? o Do?list of the

things you need to do on the Internet. First, make a list of all

the tasks that you have to do online including routine activities

like checking emails, etc. A generic activity such as working

with your emails should be broken down into small

tasks? answering to a specific email, making an online order

for office supplies, etc. Add every single job related to the

Internet to this list. Once you created the list, sort it

according to the priority. This becomes your master list of

online tasks. Select the tasks you are planning to do in a day.

Transfer those tasks to a separate list. Make sure this list is precise and not too long, so that you can

finish most of the tasks from the list - at least the ones with

high priority? within the chosen day. Armed with this list you

will be able to tackle the problem of productive use of your

online time with confidence. ResourcesMany major portals have free personal information management

programs that you can be used to create daily schedules and to

do lists. Yahoo PIM: http://calendar. yahoo. comMSN PIM: http://www. hotmail. comIf you rather use a desktop PIM, here is one that you can

download from the Internet for free: http://www. essentialpim. comOrganizing your computer filesAs recently as last year, in order to keep your computer files

accessible you needed to properly categorize the folders, save

the files in the right folders, and up-to-date them regularly.

Even with all these troubles, you still used to have problems

in finding files when you most needed them, wasting precious

work time. Thanks to the desktop search programs, finding a file

on your computer, certainly, became painlessly easy. Although, you still should try to maintain computer files

organized; you no longer have to waste valuable time on finding

them. All you have to do is download one of the available

desktop search utilities and let it index your computer. A search tool can help you find any file on your computer,

whether is an email or a DOC file, just like an Internet search.

You only need to know one word, which you may encounter in that

file in order to use the tool. ResourcesGoogle Desktop Search Tool:Find information on your computer as fast as you do with the

help of Google search: http://desktop. google. com/MSN Desktop Search Tool:MSN desktop search utility comes along with a toolbar that you

can download from: http://toolbar. msn. com/Yahoo Desktop Search Tool:Still at beta stage, it? a very comprehensive desktop search

program: http://desktop. yahoo. com/Copernic Desktop Search Program:This one came out long before the search engine heavyweights

figured out the need for getting your computer files at your

fingertips and still one of the best - Free download: http://www. copernic. comOrganizing links of important websitesWhile browsing through the Internet often, you come across

sites that you would like to visit again. All browsers have

the options to add the page you are viewing to a list of

favorite links, commonly known as? ookmark? If you want to

bring substantial efficiency to your browsing skill, you should

create folders according to your interest and add links you

intend to visit again to those folders. On the Internet Explorer

you create a bookmark using the icon? avorites? and on Firefox

?ookmarks? You should keep those folders organized for easier

access to required links. Another good option is to use Amazon? Meta SearchEngine A9. com. Once you install the A9. com tool bar, all your

web browsing history gets saved. A9. com uses this information

to recommend you new sites, alert you to new search results,

and notifies you when the last time you visited a page. When you

make a query, A9. com searches through you own history, diary,

and bookmarks. A9. com has a neat feature called diary. It allows you to keep

notes on any web page you visit. You will see the notes,

whenever you revisit that page. It? a very handy tool for avid

Internet users. Another great thing about A9. com is your bookmarks reside on

A9 servers. This allows you to access them from any computer

you use. ResourcesA9. com search results are essentially supplied by Google.

You can download and install A9. com from the page:

http://toolbar. a9. com/Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present

CEO of Rusbiz. com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he

has wide experience in Business Consulting, International

Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace

with solutions to start and run online business.

You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz. com

http://ezine. rusbiz. com

Author:
Nowshade Kabir