Time-Wasters

Day 4 without facebook.. im getting tempted to re-activate the account, but I've realized how much time i spent on facebook and it's gotten rid of about 50% of my distractions. What's funny is that i figured my social life would lack, but it hasnt been affected much at all since I still talk to my closest friends. the one sacrifice i am making is losing touch with those "2nd tier" (regular friends) or "3rd tier" (acquaintances) friends i would check up on once in a while (read: stalk). All in all, it's for the best interests of me studying for the boards. I'll prob come back in June, when I've gotten used to not checking on it as much.

And LeechBlock -- a mozilla firefox add-on -- is a lifesaver. It can block websites of your choosing for a certain amount of time, in order to increase productivity. For example, I have my google reader/espn/cnn/cnnsi/hulu/mininova/etc on the list of blocked sites and anytime i have the urge to go to the sites, it brings up a "Site Blocked" page and i remember i can't visit those sites to procrastinate.

Noise

I never thought 'noise' could be so calming. I recommend checking out SimplyNoise.com and using one of their "noises" for relaxation/background noise/etc. My personal favorite is Brown noise that oscillates. It is a warm and full sounding noise that isn't harsh -- and on oscillate it sounds like a beach.

I've also de-activated facebook in an attempt to get rid of all my distractions in preparation for USMLE Step 1 studying and the hell that will hit the fan as soon as the boards are done (3rd year clerkships).