Web Worker Daily

A whole generation of web workers has been raised on the idea that the more activities you can do at one time, the more of a productivity superstar you are. But is the ability to juggle Facebooking a friend; scanning an email; texting on your cell phone and tweeting about your latest technology tip — all at the same time — really such a good idea? Read the rest of this entry »

I like my orange juice freshly squeezed, but there are some good things that come from Concentrate. From the new app, that is, not the distilled juice essence. Concentrate is a new program that seems perfectly designed for aspiring singletaskers. It aims to reduce distraction and boost productivity by doing the work of various other separate applications, united under one well-designed roof. While the smart-looking launch page might have you thinking this is a web app, it’s actually a downloadable native OS X app program; Windows users will have to look elsewhere for help silencing the static.

What Concentrate provides is different than most apps, though, in that it takes as its core philosophy reduction, rather than addition or enhancement. It’s basically like a task scheduler that works similarly to Automator actions in order to provide you with efficiency-boosting shortcuts to setup programs, block web sites, and run and kill apps, all of which lets you focus on the task at hand.  Read the rest of this entry »

For the past four days, as far as my social network, email and IM contacts were concerned, I disappeared completely. No, I didn’t unplug all my devices or sit in the dark with my power cut off, or even have to exert any willpower. I simply took a trip, up beyond the range of my cell phone carrier’s data network, to northern Ontario’s cottage country. The cottage my family visits there is not only beyond cell phone range, it also has no cable, no satellite and no local dial-up service available.

It’s an anachronism, but a welcome one for a web worker looking for a true vacation. Not that I didn’t work. Because I love (some) work, so it doesn’t feel like an imposition when I bring it with me on vacation from time to time. And what better setting for getting some web work done than at a remote location surrounded by nature and devoid of any Internet access? Read the rest of this entry »

I have a singletasking tip for you, and it’s an important one: Work like you’re on vacation. Before you type up the smart-aleck response, “You mean don’t work at all?” let me explain. I mean work like you’re taking a working vacation. If you’re a full-time remote worker, you probably know the kind of focused working vacation I mean. Sometimes, you can pull one off without your employer even being aware that you’ve taken a vacation at all, if you’re experienced in the art.

The key to a successful working holiday? Good time management and prioritization skills. Having fun and distracting things, settings and activities all around you has a way of throwing what needs doing and what can be put off into sharp relief. The result, for me at least, is a kind of highly motivated tunnel vision that has me blowing through high-priority tasks in half the time I would normally take.

Since you’re not actually always on vacation, how do you replicate the effect in order to trigger task triage? The solution is to bring back the motivation, if not the exotic locales. Read the rest of this entry »

We like stuff, it’s fair to say, and I only just said so earlier today, in fact. But like having multiple applications running at the same time, having lots of gadgets close at hand will unavoidably split your focus — which is a bad thing if you’re trying to do more singletasking like me, and less driving yourself insane doing 50 things at once.

So as part of my new program of simplification, I’m re-evaluating what kind of kit I roll with on a regular basis. My weapon of choice used to be a large, multi-pocket bag (or two) with ample room for my computer, camera, and countless other attendant knickknacks including portable hard drives, USB keys, and most recently, a small secondary screen for auxiliary tasks like monitoring Twitter or my IM client. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I posted about singletasking, a new trend that many are turning to after having burned out on multitasking. One key component of singletasking is setting aside blocks of time during which you check and deal with email, instead of having it interrupt your work flow continually throughout the day. Ignoring email is probably the most challenging aspect of singletasking for me, and I suspect the same is true for many web workers. Read the rest of this entry »

We freelance web workers multitask like it was going out of style. Question is, is it actually going out of style? Some people think so, and they look to singletasking as the next trend in how we work.

Singletasking is just what it sounds like: approaching and tackling one task at a time, sequentially, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of things at once, as has become de rigeur in our modern multitasking age. If you’re like me, the thought is probably at least a little refreshing, and maybe more than a little appealing right off the bat.

The principle is sound. Take on one task at a time, and don’t begin another until the one you’ve already started is complete. It sounds simple, but you know as well as I do that actually implementing that kind of thing in real life will take a lot more effort than you might first think. For one, it means ignoring any urge to procrastinate, and making sure that you prioritize very carefully in advance, lest you realize too late that what you thought was most urgent actually could’ve taken a back seat to something else. Read the rest of this entry »