Technology is great (when it works) for increasing your productivity. But it can also quickly and easily eat up your entire life if you’re not careful.

For example, you can now have your [...]]]> Studies show that it takes 20-45 minutes for people to get back into the ‘flow’ of what they were doing after they’ve been interrupted.

Technology is great (when it works) for increasing your productivity. But it can also quickly and easily eat up your entire life if you’re not careful.

For example, you can now have your smart phone alert you when email comes in, when people post a Tweet on Twitter.com or post something on Facebook.com, traffic and weather updates, travel advisories, and much, much more. I don’t know about you, but I only want to be interrupted if it’s an absolute emergency, which is nearly never.

If you have a smart phone, do you have it set to alert you when email comes in? Does it alert you when people post a Tweet on Twitter.com or post something on Facebook.com? If so, why? How is being interrupted every five minutes (or so) helping you be more productive?

Choosing to allow these interruptions occur throughout your day is synonymous to having a sign on your forehead that reads, “I live to be interrupted! Please interrupt me as often as possible!”

If you want to use social networking for a specific purpose, fine. But you don’t want to fall victim to a time leach black hole: excessive smart phone alerts.

I want to check Twitter, Facebook, weather, travel, etc. when I want to. I don’t want to be ‘poked’ (interrupted) throughout my day and neither should you — if you want to be more ‘black belt’ at productivity.

Don’t fall into the trap of electing to receive multiple interruptions throughout your day because it’s new or ‘cool.’ Turn all of the auto-alert stuff off. Take control of your time and your life. Be your own master. Determine when you’re going check all of your communication channels and when you’re going to ignore them and get extremely focused on being highly productive.

I’m not saying that you should abandon social media, especially if it makes sense for you and your business or for personal pleasure. I’m simply suggesting that you schedule time for checking your voice mail, email, and social media activities so you’re in control if it instead of being control by it.