I work from home, and it’s absolutely great. But with the freedom and flexibility comes distraction. Here are my top ten distraction that can loosely be considered work.

10: Google- Yes, I spend a lot of time searching random words to see what comes up. It’s ok because I’m doing keyword and niche research!

9: StumbleUpon- Hitting stumble is so addicting and I love coming across awesome new sites.

8: Google Reader - Constantly refreshing or actually reading (instead of skimming) all of my feeds could be considered a waste of time, but I like to call it “staying informed”.

7: Google Mail - Yes, checking my email every few minutes is a waste of time. But I don’t like making people wait for my responses.

6: FriendFeed - I check my friend’s feeds consistently throughout the day to see what’s happening and to connect with people. Networking is work!

5: Sphinn - I can spend hours going through new submissions and reading new articles. Learning new SEO and SEM techniques, obviously this is work.

4: Digg - The latest news, tons of friends, and hundreds of new submissions hourly, this is a huge time sink. But it’s ok since social media is still work!

3: Instant Messenger - Keeping in touch with people is so easy on AIM or Gtalk, but sometimes it can become a waste of time. Generally, though, being accessible is extremely important.

2: Site Analytics - This blog uses both Mint and Google Analytics. Checking site stats can quickly become addicting, especially if they’re being updated in real time. No worries, checking up on your site has to be considered work.

1: Plurk - I spend so much time on Plurk, it’s absolutely addicting. Plurk is definitely my favorite site right now. It also is really useful for building my reputation and networking.

Bottom Line:

Sure I may waste a lot of time, but it’s all useful and related to Internet Marketing. The interesting thing is that 2/5th of the sites are owned by Google, 1/2 of them have something to do with social media, and only 1 is not a website.