Yes, it’s true. I’ve found a way to be a freelancer, work from home, and maintain my sanity.

If you are anything like me, your online life consists mostly of switching between Gmail, IM, your feed reader, Facebook, Twitter, a couple of news sites, iTunes, and (occasionally) Photoshop, text editor or some other tools of your trade. I used to be like this for years, but guess what: not anymore.

I came up with this system which is just as simple and easy to follow, as it is effective.

Tools needed: Minutes (a cool Dashboard timer widget), SelfControl.app (a simple URL-blocking app)—or their alternatives if you're not a Mac (like Public Fox for Fx users).

And here it is:

1. First time you jump onto your computer in the morning (I suggest doing a workout and having breakfast beforehand for better mental performance), set the Minutes widget to 45 minutes. This is the time for checking email, reading news, talking to people via IM, tweeting—everything that you normally do online.

After I started using the timer, I discovered I had WAY too much input to be able to process it in 45 minutes. This led to drastically decreasing the number of news sites I go to and RSS feeds I keep in NewsFire.

Email is not much of a problem in my case, but if you receive a lot of emails every day and struggle to keep up with your inbox, you might want to take a look at this. Merlin is a cool guy and his method has helped many people. This also might be helpful for Gmail users (although I haven't tried it yet).

2. After your 45 minutes are over, launch SelfControl immediately and set it to 3-4 hours, depending on how much work you have to get done. Also switch off your IM client(s).

The thing about SelfControl is that it blocks all the URLs you put on the blacklist and there is NO freaking way to turn it off once it starts running. Which makes it a very effective tool.

The key to success here is to be perfectly honest with yourself and actually put ALL the websites that you like to go to onto the blacklist. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Digg, YouTube, your favorite news sites, blogs etc. Basically everything you don't need to get your work done and everything that might be distracting. If you often find yourself reading random articles from Wikipedia like me–block it too.

I strongly recommend blacklisting your email as well, although I realize it might not be suitable for everybody.

Alternatively, you can use a whitelist: to block all websites except tools like Basecamp or Remember The Milk, for example. The choice is yours; just make sure you don't have access to any kind of time wasters.

So, what to do during those 3-4 hours? I recommend one of the following:

* Getting work done
* Making stuff
* Writing
* Doing anything that leads to a) making money, b) bringing personal satisfaction

3. Repeat until your to-do list is empty. 3-4 hours of work for every 45 minutes of email/news/social media.

Two "work periods" a day should be more than enough.

When I first started using SelfControl, it felt like torturing myself. I would type in URLs or click on bookmarks only to realize that the site is blocked. Surprisingly though, after a few weeks my brain began to associate launching SelfControl with entering the work mode and now it doesn't feel like a hassle anymore.

The major advantage of this system is that you don't have to TRY to focus on your work and resist checking out that video on YouTube or taking a peek at the Facebook newsfeed. You only need enough motivation to launch the app. Controlling your environment is so much easier than controlling your behavior.

Bonus tip: use RescueTime for measuring your productivity. Seeing how much time I waste every week on mindless web surfing helped me a lot.