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I hardly deliver jobs on time, and my clients are annoyed because of that.
What can I do to solve this horrible issue? Any tips pls?
It's counterintuitive but try reducing the amount of work you take on until you start seeing a reduction in the amount of time you spend procrastinating.
But I need to solve this issue permanently.. as I started to lose a percentage of my income because of failed projects.
2) Try using a program like VitaminR, http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/ which acts as a timer to keep you focused. You might find that working becomes a sort of game, and you will be less tempted to abort your work because you can see that you only have 5 min to go.
1) Pomodoro Technique. Aim for something like 14-18 pomodori per day. (Assuming 25 minutes per pomodoro.) If you do the math you may think "oh that's not much" but you'll be exhausted by the end of it.
2) Install Rescuetime and religiously use it to track how your time is spent during the weekday. Use their "Stay focused" function when you are sprinting on a pomodoro.
3) Get a second device, like a tablet, which you use for surfing, reading, and leisure. Your laptop is no longer for that. It's exclusively for producing and for serious work.
That being said, many (most?) people benefit (or even need) a relatively distraction-free environment. This means no TV near your computer (particularly relevant if you work from home), stopping distractions from other people and can go so far as cutting yourself off from HN and other prime sources of distraction (there are various programs, plugins and extensions for this kind of thing).
As for distractions from other people, this can take many forms. If you work from home, it means saying that certain time blocks are for work and you're not to be disturbed. It's easy for other people to fall into a pattern where they'll ask you for stuff or to do stuff simply because you're there.
In my case I can't stand people walking around me, particularly behind me. I position my monitors such that I don't really see people walking by and, where possible, position my desk such that no one walks behind me. If that's not possible, I at least ensure I don't have a thoroughfare behind me.
Other people can distract you by asking things they could easily find out themselves. Joel Spolsky talked about this [1] as a reason for giving engineers private offices. It's too easy to ask a colleague "where is X?" when you could find it in 30 seconds thus crashing them out of "the zone".
Headphones help a lot here. Some people are distracted by music. Many will argue they're not. Testing indicates otherwise [2]. Still I find the right music with its distractions, at least for me, tends to trump the distractions of other people so it's still a win. People tend to bother you less when you're wearing headphones (it's a psychological barrier).
There's also a certain "fake it til you make it" aspect here too, which is another way of saying that your inability to focus is the sum of many behaviours. You probably have many bad habits and you need to change them one at a time. Blocking distractions like HN, reddit, etc is one way of doing this.
Another is, well, just grinning and bearing it. This can take you far but could lead to burnout. Part of this is attitude though. If you're stuck doing something uninteresting (or simply an uninteresting phase of something otherwise interesting) finding little challenges and measurable milestones in that can go a long way.
[1]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html
[2]: http://www.quora.com/Does-listening-to-music-while-programmi...
Consider the following three steps: 1) Pomodoro Technique. Aim for something like 14-18 pomodori per day. (Assuming 25 minutes per pomodoro.) If you do the math you may think "oh that's not much" but you'll be exhausted by the end of it. 2) Install Rescuetime and religiously use it to track how your time is spent during the weekday. Use their "Stay focused" function when you are sprinting on a pomodoro. 3) Get a seco…