When San Francisco-based blogger Maneesh Sethi realized he was wasting too much time on Facebook, YouTube and Reddit, he resolved to change his work habits.
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His solution: Pay someone $8 an hour to slap him when it appears he's wasting time on a social network.
The full Craigslist ad reads:
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/>Hey!
I’m looking for someone who can work next to me at a defined location (my house or a mission cafe) and will make sure to watch what is happening on my screen. When I am wasting time, you’ll have to yell at me or if need be, slap me.
You can do your own work at the same time. Looking for help asap, in mission, near 16th mission BART.
Compensation: $8 / hour, and you can do your own work from your computer at the same time.
The ad, unsurprisingly, received about 20 responses within the first 60 minutes. The writer chose a woman named Kara, who can be seen in the video above dedicating herself to keep Sethi productive during her three-hour shift.
The self-help blogger wrote about his experience on Hack the System. Using an app called RescueTime, he calculated his productivity levels. During the experiment, his average productivity level shot through the roof from 38%, on average, to 98%.
He takes away one lesson from his experience. He wrote: "If you add a social element to the work that you do, you will become more productive. Honestly, the fear of the slap wasn’t the productivity driver. That just made it fun. The real reason why Kara made me more productive is because she added a social element to writing. When I was drafting the outline, I asked for her feedback. When I couldn’t think of the right way to phrase a sentence, she was there to help."
How do you stay productive online? Share your personal tips with us in the comments.
GIF courtesy of Ubergizmo
This story originally published on Mashable here.