Everyone has things that take away from what they really ought to be doing. By eliminating these productivity drains, you will find that you can get a lot more done within the same amount of time. So, keeping this post relatively short today, here are the three steps to eliminating productivity drains.

1. Identify them. You can`t eliminate something you don`t recognize. Spend a couple of days writing down whatever you notice is distracting you. Here are some common examples:

• Email
• Blog stats
• StumbleUpon
• Facebook
• Computer games

2. Make a plan to wean yourself. Quitting cold turkey usually isn`t an option for most people. If you check your email every ten minutes, for example, you won`t be able to just start leaving it all day. So, you need a plan. Maybe this week you can set a timer and only check your email every 20 min. Next week, every 30, etc.

3. Eliminate your productivity drains one at a time. It`s no good trying to quit everything at once, it very, very rarely works. So choose on thing at a time and get rid of that.

Rinse and repeat for each productivity drain. You might not get rid of them all, but even dropping a couple will give you a huge increase in time to focus on your actual work.