Distraction is something evident with almost everybody. Especially people working over the internet, bloggers, writers, journalist can get distracted easily with latest and great of the social media, feeds, emails, IM and almost all flashy desktop softwares.

Recently i did a topic on how to efficiently save time, and improve productivity. But you won’t be productive until you pull the plug or apply some drastic measures to reduce distraction.

Here are 5 ways to help block distractions while going through your work.

1. Limit Time-Wasting Web Sites with LeechBlock (Firefox)

With Leechblock you can block all your addictive websites.You can specify the time periods and its GUI interface is pretty good. If you are an ace blogger but get easily distracted with the social stuffs, leechblock is your buddy! After from that LeechBlock is free, works wherever Firefox does.

2. Configure Your IM to “Invisible”

The best way to avoid distractions while working is to make your IM status “invisible”, with little settings changes you can easily focus on the task at hand. It’s always best to shut of IM like gtalk, yahoo, while working.

3. Avoiding, Spam, useless messages with Mailwasher

MailWasher Free blocks spam with any email client, well most of them do the same, but Mailwasher is a tad different. Rather than blocking spam after you download it, it checks mail on your server before downloading them to your email client. After that you can see what you’ve got waiting and tell the program to kill what you consider spam, and let the rest through. The program also lets you create blacklists and filters, so that it will automatically detect and kill spam. A must have detraction buster.

4. Minimize Your Word Processor

Microsoft Word’s toolbar is bloated with unnecessary applications and things that your wouldn’t use atleast in this life. Try removing unnecessary items or try a stripped-down, word processor alternative like Writeroom for Mac or Darkroom for Windows.

5. Minimize Unused Windows with Swept Away(Windows)

With Swept Away let your computer automatically do the work of minimizing applications that you aren’t using. You can set amount of time, after which Swept Away will quietly minimizes background windows so you can focus on the one you are working on. For Mac Geeks you can try SpiritedAway.

Do you think I missed something. Apparently I’m not the best googler around. If you have any better application feel free to comment.

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Twitteroo desktop client seems to work in most cases letting you twit while working without switching tabs. But i really would love to have something for Vista, something that’s built on WPF more like the Yahoo Messenger for Vista. In that case Witty might just the thing for you.

Witty is created by Vertigo, they already have made many apps based on Vista exclusive features. But you won’t find any mention of Witty on the company website. Rather you have to move over to the official Google Code page. Hum…..so it seems to be a beta.

Still judging the beta code and the features that are listed, Witty seems to be a sleek program worth trying.

Download Witty here.