Photo by Josh Bancroft
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I never listen to music on my iPod. Seriously. I keep a playlist of 25 songs on it just in case I get the urge to listen to music, but I never do. And yet, I listen to my iPod for a minimum of 30 minutes every day and often for several hours.
Instead of music, I fill my iPod with audio podcasts. I don’t watch the news on TV or listen to the radio, so I rely on podcasts as my primary way to consume some types of news (blogs and feeds are also a big part of how I consume information). I use iTunes subscriptions, which allow my podcasts to automagically appear on my computer every day, and I sync my iPod first thing in the morning so that it is ready at all times.
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With this post Dawn Foster joins the WebWorkerDaily team. Dawn is a consultant, community manager, event organizer, blogger, podcaster, and technology enthusiast. By day, she is a mild-mannered consultant who helps companies build online communities and social media strategies, but by night, she is part of Legion of Tech to make the world (or at least Portland, OR) a better place for technology workers. - ED
I plan to spend a week visiting family in Ohio over the holidays. I will have hours on the plane and in airports, and I’ll have even more time in the evenings after the rest of the family is in bed and my body is still on Pacific time. I could spend it curled up and relaxing with some fiction printed on dead trees, but how productive would that be?
With any luck, you might also have a few slow days during the holidays: clients are on vacation, the family is driving you nuts, and you’re caught up on “real work.” What now?
I even have a wish list that I hope will help me turn this into a productive holiday. Read the rest of this entry »
Darrell Etherington recently came up with a list of holiday gifts, and I wanted to add some ideas to the mix. I’m more of a gadget gal, myself. I like tangible items that I can unwrap and hold in my hands, marvel at the construction and hope, of course, that they are intuitive to use since I hate to read instructions.
Here’s a list of gift suggestions I’ve come up with ranging from $10 to $500 to accommodate any gift-giving budget.
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If you’re like me, the beginning of December means one thing: regretting not having started your Christmas shopping earlier. The malls are packed, Black Friday has ravaged store stock, and you don’t have a clue what to get anyone anyway. I hope I can help with at least one of those problems, with this list of great gifts for that web worker on your list.
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When clients call you and hear a baby cooing or a kitten meowing in the background, they can’t help but remember that you’re human. You’re not just an invisible web working slave that does their bidding. You have a life, a family, and pets. Your clients know this because they can hear voices and home background noise when they call you.
But it’s not always advantageous that your clients hear background noise during calls or voice chat sessions. Especially if you have a rooster.
Schedule your client calls.
I mentioned my pet rooster again because he produces the loudest noise here at home. I used to have an absolute look of terror when I’m on Skype with a client and he would start crowing. I wrote in a previous post here at WWD that I worked around this problem by scheduling my work tasks around the time when my pets are asleep. This allows me to call up clients without worrying about any noises the neighbors or pets might make.
Scheduling is also beneficial if your clients are the ones initiating calls. This tends to make both parties more productive. Clients can batch requests or comments rather than calling you every time they think of something new. You can also spend more time on the work itself, rather than answering the phone all day.
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Whether it’s vacuuming your keyboard, taking a long walk, or making a pot of coffee, you probably have a routine that you do before you get started with work. This routine seems so mundane and simple, yet, without it, you can’t get started.
Many artists and writers have their own rituals before working. Carson McCullers reportedly made sure to wear her lucky sweater before writing, while W. Somerset Maugham would read Voltaire’s Candide. Henry James has a longer ritual that starts at breakfast and ends after lunch, with occasional interruptions in the afternoon. Despite half his day devoted to these rituals, James penned 23 novels during his career, plus several other shorter works.
Whether you clean your office or have a more elaborate routine, pre-work rituals are an essential part of your workday. Here are some ways in which they help:
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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.
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