There are a lot of reasons to keep your phone out of the bathroom, but protecting your phone from germs or potential falls into the toilet are secondary - though, yes, stop putting your phone in your back pocket, that's dangerous. But the real reason to leave your phone out of the bathroom is mindfulness.

The most frustrating thing about a phone addiction is that unlike actual substance abuse, the solution is not to stop using it completely. Instead, we have to find ways to use this technology responsibly, fighting apps overtly designed to steal our time.

You might call them "distractions". Maybe you call them your "to-do list". Whatever words you use, they're the things that keep pulling you away from what you should be doing right now. These habits require your reaction, and they get in the way of real productivity.

Taking on a big task is like playing an arcade game: it requires all of your focus. As soon as you pause the game and walk away, your chances of earning a high score all but disappear.

When you're staring at your computer screen, wondering why you can't just make yourself do the work you need to do, it's easy to blame your focus. If you're unorganised and don't really have a plan, maybe you have a bigger problem.

Staying productive is all about limiting your distractions. But you can't keep within your limits until you define them for yourself. That's where an attention charter comes in.

According to local news reports, an area man stopped checking Twitter for a few minutes yesterday and promptly died because he wasn't up to date on the haps. Except that didn't happen. It never happens. So don't worry like it does.

If you're emailing someone that doesn't already know you, getting your emails read can be an uphill battle. To make your message stand out, don't be afraid to try getting a little weird with the subject line.

If you're an avid daydreamer whose mind regularly wanders off at the most inopportune moments—like in the middle of a conversation—don't be too hard on yourself. The WSJ reports that your wandering mind isn't idle after all.

Tech writer Mike Elgan brilliantly argues that while our parents taught us hard work and long hours will lead to success, in the internet age the ability to control what you pay attention to is the key.

A person who works six hours a day but with total focus has an enormous advantage over a 12-hour-per-day workaholic who's "multi-tasking" all day, answering every phone call, constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, and indulging every interruption. It's time we upgraded our work ethic for the age we're living in, not our grandparents' age. Hard work is still a virtue, but now takes a distant second place to the new determinant of success or failure in the age of Internet distractions: Control of attention. Hard work is dead. Are you paying attention?

His points about the merging of work and play onto our computers—which we are on all day, which can make play look like work—are well-outlined and spot-on. Read this whole article; it's a great kick in the pants for getting focused in the New Year. the new work ethic: just paying attention at intellectual properties

When that normally low key person you follow on Twitter starts flooding your timeline with tweets every ten minutes, you can temporarily unsubscribe to them using the TwitterSnooze web application. Hit the snooze button on someone for a certain number of days by entering your Twitter username, password, and the person you want to snooze into the TwitterSnooze web site. Behind the scenes, TwitterSnooze actually unsubscribes you and then resubscribes you to that person (all the while storing your password in their database!) so your snoozee may get email notifications about your temporary leave. So be warned about those key details before you hit the snooze button—still, a great way to miss a conference or "live tweet" event you're not interested in hearing about.

Even though that report is due by the end of the day, you just spend the last two hours watching Family Guy YouTube clips because you just can't help yourself. If you regularly find yourself clicking around Facebook, keyboard covered in drool, when you're supposed to be getting stuff done&mdashh;or better, going outside—it's time to break out the big guns. Restrained web surfing feels like an impossible feat for rabid infovores, but a Firefox extension called LeechBlock can help. Here's how you can save yourself from quicksand web destinations at certain times of the day with LeechBlock.

Geeks joke about having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) all the time, and ADD expert Dr. Edward Hallowell says that's not too far off. In his book, CrazyBusy, Hallowell argues that Crackberry culture leads to ADD-like symptoms in people that don't officially have the disorder—a problem he calls Attention Deficit Trait (ADT). While Hallowell's fondness for making up words like "gigaguilt" and "screensucking" can be annoying, the overall message of CrazyBusy is that we all need to slow down and think in order to innovate instead of being constantly on the go in a frenzied (dumb) state of mind.

Our pal Merlin Mann over at 43 Folders did a presentation at Macworld several weeks ago called "Living with Data: Attention Sinks and Time Burglars," and now everyone can hear it. It's a lengthy talk, but if you take his advice to heart, it'll save you time and sanity in the long run. Video: Merlin's New Time & Attention Talk

Ever at dinner with someone who can't look away from the Crackberry? Technologist Linda Stone says this isn't just multi-tasking, it's a case of "continuous partial attention": Continuous partial attention and multi-tasking are two different attention strategies, motivated by different impulses. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient... In the case of continuous partial attention, we're motivated by a desire not to miss anything. There's a kind of vigilance that is not characteristic of multi-tasking. With cpa, we feel most alive when we're connected, plugged in and in the know. We constantly SCAN for opportunities—activities or people—in any given moment. With every opportunity we ask, "What can I gain here?" Whenever someone's checking their cell phone for new email while we're in the midst of a face-to-face conversation, I always want to ask if the little screen is a better deal. Then again, I can't say I haven't been guilty of CPA myself from time to time. Got any unbearable CPA'ers in your life? How do you deal? Let us know in the comments. Fine Dining with Mobile Devices