10 Productivity Tips10 Productivity Tips

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#computer">原文地址</a>

Here are my top 10 tips for getting more done.

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#switch-off-email">Switch off your email</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#ruthless-prioritisation">Ruthless prioritisation</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#JFDI">JFDI</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#rest">Make time to rest</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#keep-people-informed">Keep people informed</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#contingency">Make contingency time</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#secure-yourself">Secure yourself</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#environment">Your environment</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#computer">Your computer</a>

<a href="http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ten-productivity-tips.cfm#manage-your-body">Manage your body</a>

Email

is a great tool, but it can easily dominate your working day.

Most

people will get more done by switching off email and actually working.

If you find yourself jumping straight into action every time your mail

client goes "ping!", stopping whatever it is you're doing, and going

to see what the message is, you need to ask who's boss in the relationship!

The truth is - most emails aren't urgent. You usually don't have to respond

straightaway. You usually don't need to know about them straightaway. So, turn

the damn thing off so that you can get some real work done!

I give myself up to one hour in the morning to sort my new mail. Then it

gets turned off until lunchtime, when I check it again. I'll deal with

lower-priority messages late in the day, when I'm perhaps more tired.

If you can't bear to shut down your mail client, would you consider...

Turning off the message preview option?

Turning off the audible alert?

Setting your email only to collect once every hour?

What

percentage of your day do you spend writing lists entitled "Things to do -

Urgent!"?

Most people have more stuff to do than time to do it in. That's a simple

fact. I call it "the

syndrome" .

Festival in 1992, and it was great, except that,

at any one point in time, there were at least 20 different things happening

that I wanted to do!

There were usually 3 bands I wanted to see, a comedian in the comedy tent,

some circus stuff, tai chi, stalls in the green fields full of alternative

energy stuff, didgeridoo workshops, and hippies to hang out with at the stone

circle...

It was so hard to work out what I wanted to do next, I spent most of my time

worrying about what I wasn't doing, instead of getting the most out of what I

was doing!

This is the way it is for most of us in our jobs. We just need to accept it

and move on to getting stuff done. If we worry about all the possible things

you could do, you'll end up not doing anything.

in Outlook, calendar-fiddling etc., I've settled on a simple system of ruthless

prioritisation.

In the morning (after checking my emails), I look at my Inbox to

remind myself what's on.

I step back from myself in that place and time, and judge instantly

what's most important for the company.

I write down the things I'm going to do that day, and put them in

order, often putting the least appealing or most challenging stuff first (as I

know I'll feel better having done them).

I shut down Outlook and move on to step 3 below...

Just

F**king Do It™

I've worked with a lot of clever processes in business and software

If you've been ruthless about what needs to be done, there's no more

thinking to do. Any further energy or time spent on prioritisation is energy

and time wasted. Prioritisation should take a few deep breaths, a dash of

courage and a pencil.

As soon as you've done your list of things to do today, ignore Items 2

onwards. Focus on Item 1, and JFDI.

Don't worry about what's next, be your own super-manager.. You know the team

leaders who take all the pressure of you by saying, "This is all I want

you to concentrate on right now.. Leave the rest to me."? Be that guy for

yourself! Tell yourself, "All you need to think about is Item 1. Forget

about the rest."

And JFDI.

You'll get more done that day, and you'll be happier

This is a unique book, which essentially gives you the core concepts of

project management in easy-to-understand from.

What comes out is a stark understanding of how to make things happen and do

it right, with less confusion, greater confidence, and less margin for error.

It's an illusion that you can work all the time God sends, and get more

done.

If you work too many hours, and don't get enough sleep, enough rest,

down-time, chilling time, whatever, you will slow down. It's common sense. Like

a car engine, your brain and body cannot perform at maximum revs for very long.

Without knowing it, you'll start to compensate by slowing down, and if you

don't stop voluntarily, you'll risk breaking down.

Learn to spot when you're tired, and maybe give youself an easy task to do.

Or, even better, just take a break. A 10-minute "life-saver" sleep

can work wonders.

Another great skill to learn is to trust yourself enough to know that you'll

get stuff done so much better when you're more awake, and to tell yourself to

get some rest. (It's being your own best manager again.)

If you have multiple projects running simultaneously, with lots of people

depending on you, you may find yourself stressing about the pressure.

Another simple technique to prevent stress when things feel like they're

getting too much is to go through the people who are waiting for something from

you and simply say,

"I haven't forgotten about you. I'm very busy right now, your job is

important to me, I don't want to rush it, and it's booked in for [...]."

The worst thing you can do is hide your head in the sand and wait for people

to get upset and hassle you.

It's always better to tell the truth and to be pro-active. Think, how can

you take your challenges and spin them into opportunities?

Let your clients know you're working, you're busy, but that they matter to

you, by dropping them a 10-second email telling the simple truth. They'll feel

happier, they'll trust you more, and they'll be less likely to get on your case,

distracting you from what you're working on right now (which is Item 1).

Stuff can take longer than you think. When booking in work, book in more

time than you think stuff will take (contingency). Depending on the type of

work you're doing, you may need to add 15-75% contingency. Design probably

needs more time than template production or coding.

If you fill your calendar from dawn till dusk with a series of jobs planned

to the hour, you have a line of dominoes. As soon as one job slips, your

computer crashes, you need to leave the office for an urgent errand, or some

weird relative phones for a long chat, your dominoes will topple. One job runs

over into the next job, into the next job, and suddenly everyone's work is

late, and you're stressing again.

However, if you leave contingency time in your day/week, you have a buffer

to soak up any over-run. And if you don't need it for one job, you can always

start the next job early, or take time to clear some email or update your blog

etc. etc.

You depend on your computer for your livelihood. Think how much you would

lose if you lost all your work. How would you feel? Bad, huh? Take steps to

protect yourself if the worst happens.

Please do not get into thinking "It won't happen to me". I thought

that, and it did

happen to me, a few weeks ago.

I worked all week and then until 4am one night on my AJAX CMS product (to be

announced shortly). I was due to demo the work to 3 of my team the following

morning, in a local café.

Thinking it would be best to start from a clean sheet, I went in and deleted

a bunch of content, also including the cms directory itself. I was working on

Windows and did a Shift+delete, which by-passes the recycle bin.

According to Lizzie, my face went totally white, as I realised that I'd

deleted the only copy of the previous few days' code, and figured out just what

that meant. The upshot was, I tried to recover as many files as I could, but

had lost most of the previous week's work. It took me 3 days of pain to catch

up.

Get a proper antivirus and firewall, especially if you're working

on Windows!

Back up your stuff, automatically if you can, but manually as well.

I back up onto:

my office server, which itself is backed up onto an external hard

disk which is taken off-site (in case of fire)

my USB key (cheap and easy)

occasionally also onto secure online storage

Keep your work computer clean and orderly. Don't install hundreds

of programs you don't need.

If you do code, use version control software, like CVS, which takes

copies of every file at every key point, and enables you to roll back to

previous versions if you mess up your code.

Save your work every few minutes. Get used to hitting the

&amp;Save&amp; keyboard shortcut continuously, whatever you're working on.

Obviously, if you work in an environment that is conducive to productivity,

you'll do more and better work. If your environment makes it harder to work,

er, it'll be harder to work.

Are there things that distract you, or otherwise make it difficult to get

your work done? When working hard, I normally listen to music on iTunes

(organised into playlists to suit every mood from meditative, chlliing, idling,

get up &amp; go to angry) and using good-quality headphones. This helps me cut

out external noises.

Check that your back is upright (imagine you have long hair and

someone is lifting you up straight by your pony-tail).

The top of your monitor should be at eye level, so that your neck

is straight with chin down and eyes forward.

Your feet should rest easily on the floor or a foot-rest, without

causing tension in your legs or buttocks.

Your spine should be straight, not hunched forwards and not

twisted, which will cause muscular problems in your back and shoulders.

You should be able to use your keyboard and mouse easily, from a

position of neutral balance.

Get into the habit of checking your posture and comfort level while working.

If you can't get yourself comfortable, for goodness' sake get the advice of an

ergonomic consultant. It may cost you (or your employer) money, but there's no

point cutting your career short due to something like RSI or back injury, which

could be prevented.

You probably use your computer most of the time you're working. Does it help

you work continuously?

Your computer should always be the one waiting for you, never the other way

round. If it takes 5 minutes to start up (or reboot), maybe it needs the OS

reinstalling, or maybe you need a new computer.

Do you have enough memory? I wouldn't spec anything less than 1GB of RAM on

Are your keyboard and mouse/pointing-device comfortable?

Again, keep your work box as clean and dedicated as you can. Also, if you're

on Windows, de-fragment your hard disk every few weeks, run your virus scanner,

maybe run a memory optimiser, and turn off unnecessary services.

We're about to fit out some new offices at Scratchmedia. When we do, I'm 90%

sure we're all going Apple.

them, but I think the time has come to admit that Apple and OSX are just better

made, more ergonomic, more pleasant, and more stable than the tools I use

today.

I think I'll get more work done using Apple computers, because the OS is

better-written, crashes less often, needs less re-booting, has far less

viruses, worms and spyware compared to Windows, and is more secure.

The human system (body and mind) is a complex machine, with sophisticated

management processes already built-in. To get the most out of the system, it's

best to work within the limits of the system than to try

Here are my tips... Of course, everyone is different, and what works for me

may not work for you.

Caffeine and other stimulants make me feel like I can do more, and I often can

do more than I would have done without the coffee, but I pay for it later.

What many drugs do, in effect, is let you borrow energy from tomorrow. It

works for a few days, but eventually you've borrowed over your limit, and you

have to pay it back.

at some point. I'll either get so mentally tired that I have to take a break,

or I'll hit the wall and get sick.

A fit body has more energy.

Your circulation and breathing will be more effective, you'll sleep better

and hold yourself better, which means you'll be less prone to muscular or

skeletal problems caused by long hours at a computer.

It's so worth taking the time to exercise, you may find you get more done in

You'll also stimulate endorphins in your body, which improve your mood and

help you think clearly and keep positive. Exercise itself is also a great

opportunity to free your mind and look at business problems from a different

perspective.

Eveyone's body is different, and everybody has different dietary

requirements. I've learnt a bit about the foods that give me a steady level of

energy throughout the day, and which ones can make me sluggish.

Drinking plenty of water should work for everyone. Dehydration is very

common, especially in busy work environments, and it decreases your physical

and mental performance significantly.

A few resources I use, which help me save time and get more done.

<a href="http://www.reohix.com/freshram.htm">FreshRAM for Windows</a>

Helps recover system resources wasted by greedy programs.

<a href="http://www.box.net/">box.net online storage</a>

Cheap and easy to use. Also lets you share files with co-workers

and clients.

<a href="http://downloads.zdnet.com/download.aspx?&amp;kw=drive+discovery&amp;docid=228048">DriveDiscovery (Windows)</a>

Helps you recover lost files (erm)

<a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/">Apple iTunes</a>

My music player of choice. Makes managing music files and

playlists as easy as pie.

<a href="http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&amp;product=qc2_headphones_index">Bose noise-cancelling headphones</a>

Expensive, but worth every penny. Help me concentrate wherever I

am. Comfortable, high-quality headphones that also listen to the background

white noise and play the inverse pattern. Cuts out 80% of tiring background

hiss when travelling, even if you don't play music through them.