There's a couple of things I do that I've found beneficial to deal with this problem.

1. I've found it very beneficial to "Lock down" goals and objectives for the entire year.

Spend 2 days thinking of what you want, with a 4 day review period and match them with a list of habits. Then put them somewhere you'll see every day.

For instance, I put them on the right hand side of my main Trello Board. Every day, I see there's seven of them and that perhaps playing with this shiny object won't "move me" towards their realization.

2. The purgatory list

To deal with the shiny object problem, I've come up with a system for reviewing my urges of curiosity. A "purgatory" Trello board for instance, which I review at the end of the week. "Should I do it?" "Will it move me forward?" The answer is typically obvious. During the week I'm focused on the things at hand, and when I'm done with my week I choose what to do next. Separating the thinking from the doing is always beneficial.

3. Systems.

Read "The War of Art"[1], or "Daily Rituals"[2], or listen to any kind of podcast by productive people. They all say the same thing, losers have inspiration, productive people have systems. Taylor Pearson has the "Weekly Entrepreneur Review".[3] I've implemented it. Tweaked it. It's great.

4. Information diet.

It's good to limit your consumption of information to X amount per day or to specific periods of the day. If you're like me, you love to learn and you want to do it all the time. At some point though, you'll know much more than you can show. Remember "Show don't tell", how much do you know that you would not be able to show other people? Probably a lot! Nobody cares that you "learned X or Y". They want you to show that you know those things. Projects, experience, etc.

In that case, stick to your goal and do.

[1]: http://www.amazon.ca/The-War-Art-Through-Creative/dp/1936891... [2]: http://masoncurrey.com [3]: http://taylorpearson.me/weeklyreview/