I had this very problem and what I did was use the Emergent Task Timer. Now, I know this sounds like lifehacker fluff, but it really worked for me. I used this:
Save it to your desktop and what you do is this, write 4-5 tasks you want to complete, and make sure you can hear the beep every 15 mins.
What I do is work on something, if I hear the beep and I'm still working, I keep going. If I hear the beep and I'm not working on said task, I go in to ETT and write what I did over the past 15-30-45-60 minutes. Make sure to put an entry for "IM", "Email", "Telephone","Bathroom" and "Food".
What happened is that when I started using it, I realized I only did about 2-3 hours of productive work a day. It took me a few months to push that up to about 7-8 in an 8-10 hour work day, but you get there by keeping track of how much actual work you do in a day.
Slimtimer.com also works well to this effect. Basically, just take the time to count where every minute goes. You'll soon identify where your focus is going instead of your project and be able to fix it.
http://davidseah.com/tools/ett/alpha/
Save it to your desktop and what you do is this, write 4-5 tasks you want to complete, and make sure you can hear the beep every 15 mins.
What I do is work on something, if I hear the beep and I'm still working, I keep going. If I hear the beep and I'm not working on said task, I go in to ETT and write what I did over the past 15-30-45-60 minutes. Make sure to put an entry for "IM", "Email", "Telephone","Bathroom" and "Food".
What happened is that when I started using it, I realized I only did about 2-3 hours of productive work a day. It took me a few months to push that up to about 7-8 in an 8-10 hour work day, but you get there by keeping track of how much actual work you do in a day.
Slimtimer.com also works well to this effect. Basically, just take the time to count where every minute goes. You'll soon identify where your focus is going instead of your project and be able to fix it.
Closing IM was key for me. :)