Last week my wife and kids went on a short trip to visit family. Unfortunately, my work schedule prevented me from joining them on the trip.

With a handful of days with the house to myself, I had visions of being uber-productive.

Can you guess what happened?

That’s right – with so much time to myself, I kept procrastinating on my list of things to do.

After all, with days of uninterrupted free time, I had more than enough time to get everything done with time to spare. Then I got busy on twitter. Then I spent time catching up on all of my RSS reading. Then I spent time watching the White Sox games out on the west coast.

There I sat on Saturday night, less than 24 hours until I left for Las Vegas and with a long list of tasks still waiting to be completed.

Now to be fair, I did spend a good portion of the day on Saturday doing laundry and cleaning the house. Trying to pay attention to my husband balance, I knew my wife would appreciate coming home from her trip to a clean house.

As I raced around on Saturday night, I realized that having a regular dose of family time actually increases my productivity.

The normal schedule of going to work and then coming home to spend time with my family mandates that I make the most of my free time. Without a surplus of time to myself, I am more focused on getting my work done.

It seems counterintuitive that reducing your free time would make you more productive; but this past week I have found it to be true for me.

Maybe I am just a weak man that is too easily distracted by nonsense when I am home alone. Or maybe it was my mind and body telling myself to decompress – yeah, that’s it.

If you find yourself twittering frittering time away, set aside more time with your family and you might just increase your productivity.