This is a ridiculously simple tool, but if you’re anything like me, you’re going to find it invaluable.  I think I have time management issues.  Or procrastination issues.  Or distractibility issues.  Whatever it is, I spent today trying to get two jobs done and only got 3/4 of one of them done.  I did, however, at some point, have about 10 tabs open in Chrome.  Two of them were social media, so I found myself lost in discussions and following tweets.  As a matter of fact, I learned about this cool little web tool from a tweet by Jessica Johnson, Wisconsin’s elementary principal of the year for 2014.  I thanked her on Twitter, but I wanted to give her credit here, too……..

See?  I did it again.  I digressed.

So here’s the cool ‘keep you focused’ tool.  It’s called 1 Click Timer, and it’s a Chrome app.  That means you should open Google Chrome, just search for 1 Click Timer, and this is what you’ll see:

Click on that first option, the Chrome ‘store’, and you’ll see the item and a description.  Notice that it is free, of course.  You’ll want to click on that “free” button to install it.

Now I know this next image will be a little tough to see, partly because I have several Chrome shortcuts, but I wanted to show you that a handy little auto-access button gets installed right at the top of your screen.  It’s the orange one all the way on the right (looks like a timer, of course!)

Anytime you need to keep yourself on track, really stay focused, and get something done on your computer, set the 1 Click Timer for yourself.  I find that I’m much more effective when I have a deadline to meet, and this silly little tool is a visual reminder that time is running out!

If you click on that little orange button, a the timer pops up in the upper right corner of your screen.  You drag the hand to set it for as much time as you need.  I’ll set mine for 50 minutes.  Of course, it’s terribly annoying to have this timer sitting right there on top of the work you’re doing, so you’ll notice that when you click anywhere else, the 1 Click Timer shrinks away but the shortcut icon now displays the time you have left….and it keeps ticking away.

So, as you can see, I have less than 44 minutes now to get back to what I was supposed to be doing when I stopped to write this handy little blog post!   Whew ~ it’s a good thing I have 1 Click Timer!

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