A few months back this column addressed the question of companies blocking employees’ internet access in order to stem slumps in productivity, but equally interesting is the feud that rages between our web-surfing habits and our own valuable time. “It’s not even a question of avoiding work,” says Jess Moore, “it’s easy to pointlessly click around websites like Wikipedia for a couple of hours, and then be consumed with self-loathing.” With blogs and messageboards updated constantly, you only need a slight tendency towards compulsive behaviour for any good intentions to be led into a vicious cycle of non-achievement. So, how to combat it?

I’ll discount the people who suggested “use will power” – not because they’re wrong, but because many of us are simply too weak and pathetic. One recent revelation of my own is to turn off any visual or audible signals that an email has arrived, which normally induce a Pavlovian response; now I just have a look every hour or so, and my correspondents don’t seem too perturbed that I haven’t replied in seconds. As far as idle web browsing is concerned, putting a barrier between the mouse-click and the reward seems to help, as Richard Ferrett notes: “There’s a tool for PCs called Temptation Blocker, which stops certain programs on your computer launching within certain timeframes – unless you type an extremely annoying 32-character password. This usually keeps me focused on what I should be doing.” An extension for the Firefox web browser called Invisibility Cloak prevents you accessing particularly addictive sites during specified hours; keeping it active until mid-afternoon can work wonders, says Paul Houston. “If you start the morning without reading blogs or getting caught up on YouTube, you feel as if you’ve achieved a lot more by the end of the day.”

Many websites actively try and combat timewasting. One, lifehacker.com, makes the sarcastic admission: “Computers make us more productive – yeah, right” – and go on to recommend many time-saving tricks. Another, joesgoals.com, offers customized ticklists to help prioritize your goals and gives you a productivity score at the end of each day. But many people find these list-making tactics of the kind David Allen recommends in the productivity bible “Get Things Done” to be somewhat impotent when faced with the distraction of the internet. “I’ve set up my Mac to emit a loud clang every 20 minutes to remind me that I’m wasting my life,” writes Andy McDonald, while writer Iain Aitch abandoned his home altogether in favour of working at the British Library. “I was horrified when they installed wi-fi internet access,” he says, “but fortunately, at £3 for 30 minutes, it’s sufficiently expensive to stop me being led astray.”