I can’t count the hours I’ve spent browsing the dark corners of the web looking for that elusive information, and sometimes it’s even what I started looking for. Usually in a crisis or with a client looking over my shoulder pointing out how I would do better.

As a junior consultant, my senior’s airy instruction – “Let me have a report on how Widget Mk 3 with Oozelum software is going to revolutionize the honey bee market” generally led to sleepless hours searching the web for any reference to Widgets. , Oozelum software and bees. More than one dead end has been torn down and thoroughly explored.

After a short time, the sleepless hours are nowhere near Widgets, Oozelums, or Bees, if you remember the original purpose of your search. For example, look at a Google reference to a much more interesting article in the Isle of Arran Shoemakers Gazette about how an Assyrian widget was found at an archaeological dig in Yucatán. Reading the article leads to a second reference to the academic furore around theories about how an Assyrian artifact may have reached the New World before Columbus, and whether it is an Assyrian artifact anyway. Your next search is for articles on building papyrus ships that could possibly cross the Atlantic.

As a result of one of those searches, I have a complete set of instructions on how to build a scale model of a medieval Halifax guillotine. I’m sure it could be expanded to full size if the need arose, probably next time I visit the bank manager.

That’s where the real hours are spent. and why I have so much less hair nowadays.

As a manager, I have broken my hair with the time my technicians spend searching for drivers and other pieces of software needed to keep the boat going. Or browsing eBay for a part for your ’68 Cutlass. Or downloading music and videos. Some even include people with clothes on.

Try to stop them, great opportunity. They will probably spend more time trying to get around the restrictions than doing the work that they are actually paid for.

As a technician, I have spent far too much time, usually the hours that I should spend with my family searching for the exact piece of driver software to repair some equipment that Noah probably used as part of the GPS system on the Ark. Or more likely chasing after the definitive article on how the Holy Grail was found in an Edinburgh fish and chip shop.

What is your job? Does it matter?

As an individual, does it really matter? Probably not. That the parakeet is now hanging upside down from the perch due to hunger is probably not a major problem in your life, as you finally find the definitive story about Area 51. That you now look and smell like Robinson Crusoe six months after his Isolation and you’re suffering from pressure sores on your butt probably doesn’t matter either. Go ahead, become the greatest authority in the world, or at least the one in your neighborhood, in Babylon 5.

As a family man, it does matter. Do you really want your kids and your wife to bang you around a useful hole with a frying pan to get your attention? They don’t understand your obsession with the Galapagos deep-sea reef turtle and would rather you replace the light bulb in the bathroom or take them to see Transformers IV at the local IMAX.

As an IT professional, you should care deeply. Your staff’s productivity is severely diluted as they shut down their obsessions, their bandwidth burned when they download the director’s cut-free cut that proves Glitter wasn’t the worst movie ever made. Worst of all, your users sit with broken equipment while your staff searches job boards for a company with faster and bigger Internet service. And free donuts.

As a business owner, you find that your staff are saving money by reading at least one daily newspaper online before starting work, that they are probably breaking the law by downloading copyright or even criminal material. You should treat Facebook and other similar sites like a bad word.

What you have to do is FOCUS Y Grab.

As an individual, take a shower, wash your hair, and change your underwear, especially before having visitors. Tidying up moldy coffee cups and empty pizza boxes is probably a good idea, too.

In the family, set aside time to be a parent and a partner, and to do family things. It’s fun.

As a manager, advisor, IT professional, business owner, take control. If necessary, cut the Internet, except for those who need to do their work, and give it to others only after hours. Use monitoring software to see who visits which website and downloads which files. You may need to show that you have tried to prevent someone from downloading material that is illegal or contrary to company policy. The ability to do that kept a friend of mine out of jail. Please update company policy to ensure users are aware of the consequences of misuse.

Structure your IT staff’s salary package to include an important element related to productivity. Your CRM system should allow you to do this, even if it is just a paper system that assigns jobs to technicians and records start and end times. Money and the possible lack of it will focus the mind wonderfully.

If you do that, you should have more time to search for the Holy Grail.

Blog me at http://www.ealabhan.co.za/blog/ if you have comments, disagree, need to ask for advice, or just want to tell me something.