5 Ways to get out of faffing mode

April 2 by | 28 comments | Productivity | Tags: , ,
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Faffing – The art of doing something without achieving anything”

Faffing affects all of us, in all areas of life and it means doing something without achieving an outcome. It affects business, personal life, writing, internet surfing, and domestic life.

To give you an example: As I am writing an article I am aware that I have to do a bit of stumbling in order to keep up my traffic from Stumbleupon, so I click on the Firefox button and stumble for a few minutes before coming back to the article. Then an e-mail might come in and I think, “I better check that in case it’s important” so off I wander over to Outlook and check my e-mails, I then get caught in an e-mail which has a link to something interesting. I then get off Firefox and back to the article. My sons come downstairs and ask me a question, I give them an answer, and then back to the article. Something on TV catches my eye so I start watching TV. The cycle can be never ending and you could start something and make a 1-hour job last all day. This article should only take an hour to write and edit and put on the blog, I’ll tell you how long it took at the end.

5 ways to getting out of faffing mode

  1. Know your outcome – Always keeping the goal in mind is not as easy as it sounds. I find it helpful to verbally remind myself what my outcome is: “Got to finish washing the dishes”, that kind of thing.
  2. Turn off all things that may distract you – This includes; TV, radio, e-mails, instant messengers, Firefox, internet, the kids (if only!), and anything else that usually distracts you from getting the job done.
  3. Allow yourself time to finish the job at hand – Don’t try and cram two hours of work into one hour. If you do this you will end up frustrated and possibly do some sloppy work.
  4. Let others know your timescale – I have told my wife and children that I will be writing for about 90 minutes so if it’s possible, not to disturb me for this length of time. This way the responsibility is mine to get the article done and I can’t blame anybody else for it not being completed in time.
  5. Allow time for a quick reward – I always reward myself for getting any job done, whether it be the dishes, washing the car, writing, or anything that I need to have completed. This is usually in the form of a quick cup of tea and a read of a book.

Okay how long did it take me to write, edit and upload this article? It took 92 minutes, that’s not bad. I’m off to have a quick cuppa.

Steven Aitchison has been writing for a personal development blog, Change Your Thoughts for 3 years. he has a BSc in Psychology and currently works as an addiction worker within the alcohol and drug field. His interests are in thought processes, belief formation and the dreaming mind.

  • MCF

    What a sweet reward!

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  • sdf

    here’s an idea – use real words in the article title, so people know what the hell you’re talking about

  • http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog steven aitchison

    sdf

    Here’s a great idea, there’s a great book called a dictionary and it has lot’s of words and meanings in it. Under the letter ‘F’ you will find the word ‘faffing’, it really is a great read I recommend it to anyone.

  • http://www.onedadslife.com Gregg

    I’ve never heard the term “faffing” before, but I’m certainly mired in it. In fact, just reading this article, and typing a comment is one result of my faffing.

    I like the mini-rewards and reminding yourself of the end. Those work for me, too, when I focus on the task at hand…which is difficult in the face of the interruptions!

  • http://stanleybronstein.com MrPositioning.com (Stanley Bronstein)

    As for distractions, here’s a quote I remember constantly:

    Distractions are unreal. They only exist, IF you let them.

    Focus, focus, focus. That is truly the key.

    Mr. Positioning
    Stanley F. Bronstein
    Attorney, CPA, Author & Professional Speaker

  • http://none Parker Thomas

    Steven –

    if you get a chance, take a look at http://www.rescuetime.com. I have no connection to the company other than being a happy user. It’s helped me get control of my tendency to wander off like you describe.

    thanks for the article – keep ‘em coming.

    parker thomas

  • http://1-2-solved.blogspot.com Martin Wildam

    I read posts dealing about distractions with interest but so far THE solution is not found. Regarding to your particular post:

    “Turn off all things that may distract you”:
    I work in an office where I don’t have my own room. Every person passing by or sitting in the near can throw me something and sometimes either from downstairs they shout up (because even floors are not completely separated).
    At home my working place is in the entrance room because no particular room dedicated for work available (even sleeping room too small to work there). So closing doors is not possible and either if I ask not to disturb me people do not remember often.

    “Let others know your timescale”:
    This sometimes lead to discussions about my time planning and anyway people disturbing me because it is not possible to inform everybody that might interrupt (because in the worst case my information is simply “tagged” as spam/junk.

    Trying to absent me from everything is sometimes possible but in general a lot of people are claiming for my presence – from my boss to my wife – and actually they are right – I need to be present for them (either to get paid or simply because I am a required family member).

  • sdf

    just because it’s spoken, doesn’t mean it’s in any valid dictionary not written by a buck-toothed, cross-eyed, hillbilly

  • http://www.gadgetbadger.com Gadget Badger

    what’s with you sdf? Faffing is a much used term here in Britain – I sure ain’t no hillbilly. It is in the Oxford Dictionary, a globally recognized definitive reference of words, and entry into which has stringent criteria.
    Seems you spend most of your time faffing to me :P

    To the topic in question: I use
    Workrave ( http://www.workrave.org/ )
    to keep me focused for periods of time. It’s actually a tool for repetitive strain injury, to stop you from working at your PC for too long. It works great as a stop clock though, with interval reminders so you can timebox your work.

    http://www.gadgetbadger.com/

  • http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog steven aitchison

    I love the way people like yourself never give their true names or website addresses. If you are able to you can click on this link to look at the Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘faff’

    http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=27572&dict=CALD

  • http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog steven aitchison

    Hi Parker

    I checked out rescue time and signed up to find out more. Thanks for the heads up on this, I appreciate it and I’m sure the readers will benefit from it.

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  • http://www.hatchhead.com Will

    Companies on the internet are figthing for your attention and are constantly improving at getting our attention.

    Everytime I go to search my mail, I always get dragged into some news story that picks up my interest then I’m on a 30 minute journey reading all the top news and forget I was even checking my mail!

    Another distraction comes from wikipedia.org, you could be a professional faffer by just browsing that site forever!

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  • http://slimtom-blog.blogspot.com Slim

    This fenomenon is kind’a familiar – faffing. :)))

    On my experience – faffing happens wheneve I do a work I HAVE to do – but never with the work I LIKE to do. I often wonder why I have to do the things I don’t like or better – why I don’t like them? Anything can be interesting since it depends on MY atittude.

    But haven’t found an answer either.

  • http://torley.com Torley

    I misread the title as “fapping mode” at first, which can be a similar, but has a decidedly NSFW difference!

    Seriously tho, good stuff.

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  • http://jvermaak.pipelinez.com Jo

    Love the word, use it often. I agree with you, it is very easy to faff around and get distracted instead of getting on with the job. You need to be disciplined in order to stay focused on your task.

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  • http://www.diligentdesign.net/2008/07/28/click-comment-ii-7-day-challenge/ Corey Freeman

    I usually reward myself by taking a nap, haha. I like the ‘keeping the end goal in mind’ thing, though. I often get bored and forget about the end purpose.

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  • http://www.orologic.com Vincent

    I love point #4. By letting other peoples know your allowed time.. it forces you to focus and manage to get it done by this time. I personally do it and it helps me a lot.