It's a cold but sunny day here in Boston, so that in itself is a distraction from all of the work I should be doing right now. The janky grit-covered snow is almost completely melted from the sidewalks and curbs, it doesn't get dark until 5:30 pm now, and you can ALMOST not see the puff of breath in front of your face! Who wouldn't want to just run out into the Boston Commons and spin around singing "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC!" like Julie Andrews in that musical about the Brady Bunch and the Nazis?
As tempting as that is, however, I'm restraining myself from that particular adventure until the snow in the Commons in completely melted. Right now I've still got my hands full juggling my work and my other distractions, haha.
Distraction #5: Pandora Radio
Have you ever used this website? It's a radio where you just type in a song or an artist that you like, and the site creates a radio station just for you, based on that one song or artist! You can add variety to it so that you've got two or three or eight different genres of music playing alternately on your radio, and you can skip the songs you've heard just too much or the ones you just plain HATE. (Don't try that last part too often, though, 'cause the site can't skip more than 10 songs per station thanks to licensing issues). Anyway, trying to work as songs keep changing without any sort of order can be very distracting, especially if you don't know the song and want to get its stats -no need to google it, though, because Pandora has the scoop on all of the songs it plays for you!
Distraction #4: MacBook Changing Backgrounds
I'm not a tech freak, so I got a little over-excited when I found out that my laptop has a feature that allows me to change my background screen...every FIVE MINUTES!! Well, I wait fifteen minutes, but it can change every minute, if you wanted it to. When my friend told me this, I made a HUGE folder of pretty pictures for my computer to use to change my backgrounds to, and every since I did, I have provided myself a small distraction every fifteen minutes or so, because when I realize that the screen has changed, I can't control my impulse to see what the new picture is! So every quarter of an hour, I stop whatever I'm doing and I minimize whatever I have open, be it homework, work, or Facebook. Nothing is safe from the changing backgrounds!
Distraction #3: Facebook
If you don't have one, DON'T get one! It's such a waste of time, and it's so distracting, but I can't help it. I know it's bad, but I will probably never get rid of it, either. Check your friends' status', change your own, play games, "stalk" the hot guy on your from down the hall, whatever! The possibilities are pretty much endless, and I hear there's more coming. God, I don't know how anyone gets any work done with Facebook around.
Distraction #2: Online Games
I LOVE playing online games like Plants vs Zombies or Text Twist. They are just so all-encompassing, and they require a medium amount of your attention, so you could still hold a conversation while battling a horde of brain-eating zombies trying to get to your front door. But don't think that you can do anything that requires REAL concentration! That's where the distraction level kicks in with these, because if you leave that page, or open up another window for a SECOND, then BAM! The zombies are in your house and have eaten your brains. You can't do anything while you've got your games up, and they're so engrossing, that you don't really want to, anyway.
Distraction #1: StumbleUpon.com
This is bad. But amazing. I just went on Stumble, intending to be on there for a second, and the next thing I know, it's twenty minutes and 18 sites later. When you create a Stumble account, you mark a bunch of categories and interests that you like, and the Mother-Cite finds outside websites that are associated with the things that you marked as you being interested in. For example, I marked that I liked animals. You wouldn't BELIEVE all of the videos of cats and dogs doing the cutest things that StumbleUpon has put on my computer. It even gave me a website called catsinsinks.com. All it has is hundreds of pictures of cats in kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, tubs, whatever. That's it! It's amazing, and if I go on Stumble at any point in the night, I know I'm not getting any work done any time soon.
So thanks for reading!
Amy Liz
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