Web Worker Daily

Not a fan of Getting Things Done (GTD)? It might be hard to imagine for some, but it’s not everyone’s favorite productivity methodology. “The Pomodoro Technique” by Francesco Cirillo is another option might be a better fit for your needs. This technique works well for folks who feel anxiety when thinking about the “ticking clock” and deadlines.

The Solution to Anxiety-ridden “Becoming”

The Pomodoro Technique aims to erase the uneasiness that come with “Becoming.” The “Becoming”concept is a tough one to explain. Yet, when you put it to practice, it instantly makes sense. At first, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but when I tried out the process, it clicked it. (More on that in a moment.) Read the rest of this entry »

No matter how good you’re doing on your quest for supreme efficiency, some days you’ll run into the ugly wall of procrastination. For this “Tips from the Trenches” post, I asked some experts and fellow Twitter users to share their tips for battling procrastination and “not-in-the-mood-itis.”

@pistachio — Laura Fitton

“One of my tips is to try to understand why I’m procrastinating. Sometimes it’s because my gut is telling me the task is the wrong thing to do. In general I’ve always restlessly sought out my ‘right’ work. Stuff I’m so driven and compelled to do that procrastination is a non-issue. That way I can even plow through the boring parts of it. But I do procrastinate when writing. Trying to understand why and reduce my fears helps.”

It’s true that something may be holding you back. Maybe you fear you won’t do well. Maybe you don’t like the assignment. Maybe you’re feeling down and really need something else to help you before you can plunge in. Maybe you didn’t do a good job the first time around, and fear you won’t be able to fix it the next time. Read the rest of this entry »

In your quest for better efficiency, you’ve probably read books like “Getting Things Done” and “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” and tried to implement the strategies contained within them. Yet you know you can do better in managing your day and being more efficient.

For this post, instead of quoting yet more theories from books, I asked some experts and fellow Twitter users to share their real life tips for getting things done.

@bradshorr — Brad Shorr

“Always ask WHY am I doing this task, and HOW could I do it more efficiently.”

Sometimes we turn into zombies and forget to pay attention to what we’re doing and its effect on our work. Make a conscious effort to ensure whatever you’re doing has value. Fun counts, of course. Read the rest of this entry »

Given the vast and growing number of online tools available to web workers, choosing which to use can seem overwhelming. This makes it easy to obsess more about the tools themselves rather than the strategy for using them, as if by choosing the perfect tools you can guarantee the success of your ventures. Of course, that is hardly ever the case. Even great tools, used with very little planning, will seem mediocre at best.

I often give advice to people who are interested in starting online businesses. One of my “pupils” (so to speak) is new to social media, but after the recent media Twitter craze, he decided that he was going to use it to promote his site because, “that’s where everyone is.” A couple of days later, he emailed me and said that he wasn’t satisfied with his results, so he decided to follow the advice he read on a blog and try Facebook instead. Again, after only a minimal increase in his traffic, he wrote to me asking, “Have you ever tried StumbleUpon?” My immediate reaction was, “Social media marketing: you’re doing it wrong.”

This problem of constantly flipping tools doesn’t just happen with social media. I’ve had several clients who’ve spent weeks obsessing about Movable Type vs. Blogger vs. Joomla, for example.

So what should you be doing instead of obsessing about the choice of tools? Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing I look at when looking at a new application is the feature list. Many of those feature lists tend to be really long, and most of the time I find myself using an app without taking advantage of its lesser-known features.

A program’s usefulness isn’t necessarily proportional to the size of its feature list. There are some apps out there which have only one function and a minimalist interface. This doesn’t mean that they’re less useful than their feature-rich brethren.

I’ve compiled a short list of free, single-function Windows apps that web workers can add to their toolbox. They’re worth looking at if you want some added useful functionality without putting too much strain on your computer’s resources.

PushPin

What it does: PushPin gives you the option to have any window “always on top”. This means that you can have inactive windows on top of your active window.

Why it’s useful: It’s a helpful tool when you’re copy-pasting text or code from one window to another: you don’t have to go back to the taskbar to choose another window. This is especially useful if the source of the text can’t be copy-pasted and you have to retype it, such as text embedded in PDFs, image files, etc.

Details: You can learn more about PushPin here. According to the web site, it runs on Windows 95 to NT4, but I’ve used it on both Windows XP and 7 without any problems. Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many available tools and resources on productivity that it’s bound to make one crazy.  I confess that I was one of those productivity addicts who subscribed to all the GTD and lifehacking blogs out there, downloaded all the tools I could find, and signed up for every new Web 2.0 service.  I lived almost a year of my life doing that, and it’s a wonder that I didn’t get a heart attack.

If you haven’t found satisfaction with any of the productivity tricks you’ve tried, it’s possible that you’re mistaking some of the myths for facts.  These myths could come from something you’ve read, or they could be your own preconceived notions.  To get productive, you need to get rid of these myths.

What are they and how do you debunk them?

There is one system to rule them all.

Once you get into David Allen’s Getting Things Done, or other similar productivity systems, it doesn’t mean you have to stick to its rules permanently.  There is no perfect system that’s already pre-made for you.  You need a bit of time, as well as trial and error, to find something that works.

Read the rest of this entry »