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Is there anyone out there who doesn’t want to be more productive? We all know that we’ve got greatness in us, but for some reason, something is keeping us from ever sitting down to write that amazing novel…

Or finishing the addition we’ve been “building” for the last several years. Or freeing ourselves from being a wage slave by starting our own business. Or pushing through our work faster so that we have more time to do the things we want, like hanging out with our kids and traveling.

So why don’t we just, you know, do it? If we truly want to see what’s holding us back, the best method is to take a step back and look at ourselves in a big picture kind of way.

Without fail, you will see that though life is full of many completely valid distractions, the problem is you. We allow ourselves to get side-tracked. To get overwhelmed. To get lazy or bored.

The only way past this is to try to develop those parts of our personality that can help us to be more productive, and minimize the elements that threaten to sabotage us. Used correctly, the following methods will have you on the way to achieving your goals in no time!

Know What You Want

It all starts here. There has to be a reason to convince yourself that you need to be more productive. Maybe you want to work more to save up money for a vacation. Or so you can quit. Or get that elusive promotion.

Whatever the reason, the goal should be clear, and you should create mini-goals along the way. Do this and you’ll feel like you’re accomplishing just enough to continue to make yourself fight on.

Just Do It

Most of us, by nature, are reactive. Instead of working to make our lives better, we coast along and bemoan the fact that things aren’t changing. It’s the reason why so many people do the bare minimum in a job until someone says there’s a problem – only then do they freak out and start trying.

It’s also the reason so many relationships fail. Even if we know that we are at least part of the problem, we’d rather focus on changing our partners than fix ourselves.

More than a Nike catchphrase, “just do it” is about taking initiative in your life. It means that you need to stop making excuses – what good do they do, anyway? – and start taking advantage of opportunities.

Develop Tunnel Vision

Do you find yourself setting a goal, then getting easily distracted by work, romance, friends? If the goal is truly that important, tell yourself no and learn to focus.

People who are the most successful and productive at what they do are often single-minded about the goal at hand. You might take some grief from people in your life, but most people will respect your dedication – especially when they start to see it paying off!

Take Care Of Yourself

Are you always up late watching TV? Or hanging out with your friends? Do most of your meals come from a box? Or a drive-thru window? If you don’t take care of your body with good nutrition, sleep, and exercise, you’ll end up spending most of your waking hours feeling rundown.

This means that you’ll be less productive and won’t be able to accomplish your goals. Do yourself a favor and try to develop healthier habits.

If you don’t know where to begin, start with your doctor. You should go in for a checkup once a year anyway, so you can talk about how you’re feeling and ask for advice. You’ll be shocked at how much energy you have once you start treating your body right.

Let Go Of Grudges

This may seem like a strange suggestion to help you become more productive, but if you find yourself constantly arguing or complaining, you’re wasting energy that could be spent better in other ways. Not to mention the stress that such attitudes cause you, which can also hold you back.

Instead, decide to accept that it doesn’t matter that some jerk cut you off on your drive to work or that the new kid got promoted ahead of you. The only things that you can control are your own actions, and if you’re focused on positive momentum, you’ll have a better chance at success.

Plan…To Be Flexible

Do you want to know why so many diets and New Year’s resolutions fail? Two reasons that are polar opposites, but lead to the same results – lack of planning, and lack of flexibility.

If you don’t plan, you’re missing the first piece of advice on this list – taking initiative. Just saying you’re going to do something and wanting to do it are useless. You need to know how and have measurable goals, or you’re just going to be sitting back and hoping something changes.

That solves nothing.

Unfortunately, being too beholden to a plan is just as bad. We’re human. We mess up. But just because you had an unproductive day – or, going back to the weight loss analogy, cheated and had that really bad dessert – that doesn’t mean that all is lost and you should admit defeat.

Life will find ways to bar your progress from time to time (with and without your help), and you have to be able to roll with it.

Andrianes Pinantoan is part of the team behind Open Colleges, a TAFE Courses provider based in Australia. When not working, he can be found on Twitter or Google+.

Photo by Tim Green aka atoach

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

I am perpetually dehydrated. I can tell this because my skin is dry, my cuticles are dry, I am often fatigued, and often thirsty.

Yet I cannot seem to remember to drink more water. I’ve been looking for a new way to do this, and I think it applies to forming any new habit, so I thought I would share.

Use a timer. while I have used timers for many different things throughout the years, it has never been as a reminder to do something. In this case, I have a timer set up to chirp every hour, on the quarter hour, so that I remember to drink a glass of water.

Here are some things I did to make sure I would heed the timer:

• I used a timer that would reset itself. I never have to remember to set the timer for the next interval; the software does that automatically.
• I use a device that is always with me. I am rarely without my iPod Touch. So I use that device to handle the timers.
• I use a sound I use nowhere else. I know the sound belongs to the water reminder, so I never get confused with other sounds.

Is this perfect? No. I still find myself slipping into a habit of ignoring the timer. But it’s the simplest method I have tried so far. Any suggestions on how you build a new habit that requires multiple times per day? Share below.

Photo by Svadilfari

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Tuesdays are open loop days at SimpleProductivity blog.

• Absolutely! This doesn’t mean you will never have to clean, but it makes it much easier. From Wisebread’s “11 Ways to Have a Clean Place Without Cleaning”
• Are you afraid of missing out? Here is how to tell,and how to get past it. From Stepcase Lifehack’s “What is FOMO? (and How to Beat It)”
• Seems like a lot of work for the same result as squeezing a water bottle… from Lifehacker’s “This Hands Free Water Station Is Perfect for Camping, Backyard Playgrounds”
• My daughter still expects the Tooth Fairy to visit. She comes when expected, but this tip would make sure that I don’t forget to send the email to the Tooth Fairy to alert her. From ParentHack’s “Mobile phone alerts help the Tooth Fairy do her job”
• This is a great tip for making Gmail work better…get rid of formatting that hitches a ride in when you paste. From Lifehacker’s “Fixing My Most Common Gmail Annoyance”
• Simple Dollar talks about how to get rid of some common and stubborn stains using stuff you already have at home at “Use Household Items You Already Have to Remove Stains (97/365)”
• What would you do if you knew how much time you were spending in meetings? Gijit might be the answer. From their CEO: “Gijit is focused on calendar analytics – providing information and reports about about the data that’s in your calendar. For example, if you want to see how much time was spent traveling, or in coffee meetings, or on a certain project, Gijit will help you find events that match those types, and then provide useful information and reports about them – how much time was spent in the meetings, how many internal meetings vs. external meetings etc…” They’re offering a free infographic on your last six months. It might be worth a look. From “Gijit. The Go-to app for your next 48 hours.”

Photo by Syntopia

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

One of the underlying fundamentals of productivity is to only expend as much energy as necessary, but no more. Yet most of us break this principle many times every day. It’s because we touch things more than once.

An Inefficient Strategy

Let’s say you have an email that arrives. You read the email, then decide you need to answer it. But then you notice there are other emails in your inbox, so you go on to read those. When you get back to the original email, you need to read it again to refresh your memory.

You’ve just doubled the amount of effort to complete the same task. And that’s a simple case.

Let’s look at something more complex. You fetch the mail from your mailbox, walking last your recycle bin on the way into your house. You put recycling from the mail into a pile on the kitchen table, and bills in another. You open the bills to look at them, then put them aside to take upstairs to your desk. You move the recycling pile to the counter so your family can eat dinner. After dinner you take the recycling out. Then you head upstairs with the bills in hand, where you go through the bills again, putting them into a folder to be paid next week. Next week you pull them out and write the checks, but you don’t have stamps, so you put them on the kitchen table so you remember to take them to the post office. At the post office you buy stamps, stamp them and mail them.

How many times did you touch the bills? How about the recycling?

Touch It Once

Most of the time we fall into this trap because we are not consciously thinking about how often we are touching something. Yet added up over the course of a day, it can take up a large amount of time.

By consciously choosing to touch everything only once, we can eliminate wasted and unnecessary effort in many places.

The flow goes like this:

1. Ask yourself if you are able right now to touch something once. you might not have the time to give should you need to do something more than glance at at item. Or perhaps you do not have the supplies handy. If so, wait.
2. Open the item. Read it through, paying attention to what is in front of you.
3. Can you deal with this quickly?David Allen says two minutes. I say up to five, to give yourself a little more time to be thoughtful. At this point, you need to decide how to handle it:
   • If it needs to be filed, do so.
   • If it needs a response, craft one.
4. Does it need to go to someone else? Send it on immediately, with a quick note of what needs to be done and by when; also include if it needs to come back to you.
5. Does it need more in-depth work? if so, enter it into your task tracking system immediately.

Working Through Our Examples Using Touch Once

Let’s take a bit more of a hands-on approach and look at our examples above.

For email processing, handle each one fully before moving onto the next. File, forward, flag or respond before moving onto the next email. If you are afraid of answering as someone else might have done so further down the reply chain, set your email to thread the conversation and treat the whole conversation as one item.

For the bill paying example: on your way into the house, as you pass the recycling bin, toss in anything that needs to go there. Don’t even bring it into the house. Have a folder near where you come in for the bills to go in, unopened. If you feel they cannot wait until the next time you sit at your desk, be prepared to pay them right then…and that means keeping a checkbook and sufficient stamps right there in the bill paying folder to deal with them.

It Takes Practice…

I’m not saying this is natural or easy to do in the beginning, and I am as guilty of it as the next person. But I am trying to reclaim the minutes lost to inefficiencies in my life so that I have more time for other stuff.

What about you? Do you touch things once? Or do you think it’s a bunch of hooey? Let me know by sharing below.

Photo by uncleboatshoes

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.

If you have multiple people in your household all wanting to access the same music but from different devices, it can be a hassle. Here is how I do this process, and some solutions to problems I have encountered.

My Complex Music

In our house we have lots of music. We also have three computers. My daughter uses iTunes to sync to her iPod Touch. my husband uses Windows media play to sync to his Windows phone. I use iTunes to sync to my iPod Touch, and Creative Zen Extras to sync our family Zen players.

My husband is the one who generally rips or downloads music, leaving it on his hard drive. I too may sometimes rip a cd, as well.

Find The Files

The first step is to locate where the programs you are using expect the files. Luckily, all of the programs I have seen for managing music allow you to change that directory.

If you are all using one computer, store the files outside the “user” directories, and point your programs to that directory. If you are using multiple computers, have one location on each computer, and point each program on that computer to that directory.

Sync The Files

This only applies to multiple computer situations. Use a program to equalize the directories between computers. I use Synchback, which is free, and does a good job of moving things around, allowing me to set filters and specify subdirectories if I choose. I run this automatically once a week to bring over new music.

Import Into Libraries

This is one place where Windows media player has an advantage…just point it at the directory, and you’re done. ITunes requires an import, and I use the iTLU program to bring the library up to date. Creative Zen has a built-in function, to it is easy there as well.

Problems I Have Seen

This process goes seamlessly, for the most part. Every now and then there are issues.

• Funky file or directory names. Again, Windows wins out on this one. iTunes is far more picky. I find that directories or files with non-alpha characters in them get renamed upon importation to iTunes. I get around this problem by renaming the files or directories on both computers.
• Duplicates. Sometimes with the bizarre file renamings, the sync process will create duplicates. I take care of the by running Easy Duplicate Finder on my directory, and then forcing the changes to my husband’s computer. It seems to work best this way since Windows doesn’t care about a library.
• Download directories. Amazon downloads go into a special directory. While Media Player doesn’t care, iTunes moves the files on importing, and this can result in duplicates. I solve this by importing to iTunes, then deleting the files out of my husband’s Amazon directory. On the next sync it gets reapplied to his library.

We have managed to keep our large music library in sync using these methods for about a year. Automated through batch files and Windows Scheduler, I only have to think about checking for weirdness about once a month.

Do you have any ways that you keep music coordinated between devices? Share below.

Photo by NOAA, Ocean Explorer (I know this photo has nothing to do with the article but it was too cool to pass up)

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

“Out of sight, out of mind”. It’s not just true about people and things we are trying to avoid. It’s also true about our goals.

Thoreau once said, “Our life is frittered away by detail.” Without a visual reminder of the things we are working toward, we will not work on them.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Dreamboards

This technique is one I have used for almost 20 years. I sat down and found visual representations of things I wanted in my life. in 1995 I put together a book with pictures representing things I wanted in my life: a house, a family, a trip to Disneyworld, and a few other things. I reviewed it monthly for almost a year, until it got lost in the shuffle of a few moves. I rediscovered it in 2003, only to see that everything in that booklet had been achieved by 2002.

So what power would a visual representation have if it was viewed daily?

For the past two Januaries I have made digital dreamboards. (It is much easier with images from the Internet). I keep these papers where I can see them every day. Sometimes the results are literal: 2010 had an imgae of rudbeckia and roses to symbolize a successful garden. By the end of the year, both rudbeckia and roses were flourishing in my garden, both gifts of friends.

What is a Dreamboard?

A dreamboard is a visual representation of things you want to experience or accomplish. It can be a collage of images on a single piece of paper or individual images on several papers.

The images don’t need to be exact representations of what you want, only remind you of your desire. For me this means pictures of a sunrise over the ocean, representing relaxation; a cup of coffee, representing regular breaks.

Put the pictures together and put it somewhere you will see it daily. You could even turn it into your computer wallpaper!

Have you ever used images to spur you toward a goal? Share below.

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Managing how you spend your time is the key to make sure that you don’t fritter away a precious resource on meaningless activities – at least without meaning to. Yet many people fall for time management lies, much to their detriment. Do you fall for these time management lies?

Every minute must be planned

Some people picture managing time as planning out every last little moment of the day. The truth is, if you are doing this, you are spending more time up keeping the system than actually working…and it’s a monumental waste of your time.

Good time management just means that you are aware of what you are doing, checking in often enough to make sure you haven’t been sidetracked. Good time management also means that if you decide what you are going to do, it is in blocks of time that are dedicated to a particular task. And those blocks are not minute by minute. Even highly paid lawyers and accountants don’t bill by the minute! The overhead would be too much to do all that tracking.

You must work all the time

Time management isn’t an excuse to become all-work-and-no-play. Nothing is served by throwing your life into total unbalance. Recreation is necessary, as is down time.

Good time management means that you look at your schedule and decide how much time you want to work – and then stick to it, leaving ample time to rest and relax.

Time management requires special “stuff”

“I can’t manage my time because I don’t have an (x) planner.” The companies that make those planners love you to believe this lie, because it is what drives sales. Same with electronic planners, smart phones, data plans, or whatever.

Time management planning can be done with pencil and paper. And not special pencil or paper, either. Anything you have at hand is sufficient. The fancy covers and devices are just icing, and make no difference to the actual planning process.

I can’t manage time and be creative

Some people who are creative producers feel that time management impinges on their creative process. While open-ended blocks of time may be perceived as necessary to create, the fact is that “work expands to fill the time available.” (Parkinson’s Law) Limiting the time you are allowed to spend on something actually forces you to narrow the parameters and will spark creative solutions.

Good time management acts as a limit in which to work. Sometimes thinking inside the box forces more creative solutions than leaving everything wide open.

Time management is restrictive

Many people feel throttled by task lists and schedules. they don’t want to have their lives dictated by little bits of paper.

Good time management gives you a way to get the stuff rattling around in your brain a way to exit, so you can focus on the task at hand. By writing things down you clear the decks in your mind to focus on the task at hand. And this also gives you the ability to get the task at hand done faster and better, uninterrupted by distractions.

Time management is a waste of time

I have heard over and over from various people that they do not have the time to plan, or organize. And so they approach their days as mountains of stuff, picking pieces up and never quite making progress to the middle of the pile. And so because of that approach they never get to the truly important stuff, rather focusing on the stuff that is in their faces.

Good time management allows you to clear away the urgent in-your-face tasks and find a way to work on the bigger projects that are important to you. Who wouldn’t trade a mountain of laundry in for achieving your favorite daydream?

Photo by Sister72

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Tuesdays are open loop days at SimpleProductivity blog.

• If you really want to get scientific about it, check out Lifehacker’s “Fill Out This One-Minute Form Every Day and Find Out Why Your Life Sucks (or Doesn’t)”
• I personally carry two things on my keychain: my house key and my car key. Lifehacker has an article on how to “Turn Your Keychain into a Pocketable Toolbox”. I don’t know. Is it worth it to carry all that stuff around?
• Too cool. Lifehacker’s “Make a DIY iPhone Tripod Mount with Two Binder Clips”
• I’m always amazed that people think that the Dollar Store always has good deals on everything. Not so. You have to be a savvy shopper. Lifehacker has a great article on “What’s a Steal and What’s Junk at the Dollar Store”
• If you are thinking about moving to making a living with your life passion, Bloom has a great series of articles, with practical advice in “25 Action Steps for Transitioning to Your Life Passion”
• I wish more managers understood this. It’s not about how long you work, it’s about how well you work. From Lifehacker’s “Why “We Need to Work Longer” Is Almost Always a Bad Idea”. (And once they are at this concept, we should be paid by results, not how long our fannies are in the chair)
• I have gone through some of the lessons on this site, and it make a whole lot of sense. Check it out at Jay Uhdinger’s “Success != Happiness”

Photo by Yogesh Mhatre

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

We all want to be on the top of our game. Sometimes we are not because of legitimate reasons; other times our productivity gets stolen from us.

I was thinking about the things that zap my productivity without me being aware of it. Here are some of the ones I came up with, and ways to combat each:

1. Worry

Most of us have experienced real worry, as when you a waiting for the results of a medical test. However, most of us also carry a low level of worry about everyday things. On a recent day, here were some of my worries:

• Are there going to be more layoffs announced?
• Will I make it to school on time for the end of rehearsal?
• Will I be able to get everything done I need to tonight?
• I cant find the checkbook. What if I lost it?
• Will my daughter give me attitude tonight?

All of these have one thing in common when viewed written down: there is nothing I can do about any of them. Each of them might not take much of my time or action. But put together, they make for a major ball of worry, and the worry gets in the way of what I need to be doing.

Solution: as soon as I start to feel my anxiety level rise, I remind myself that there is nothing I can do about the situation. I push it out to the universe to take care of. In really persistent situations, I may write the worry on a piece of paper and flush it, telling myself it it is now symbolically out of my hands, and I cannot get it back.

2. Mental Fatigue

We all know how difficult it is to do something when we are physically tired, yet few of us stop to think when we are pushing ourselves against mental fatigue.

Recently I spent an afternoon untangling the threads of circular data within a reference file. By the end of the task, my mind felt like tapioca. I kept going, working full speed. Yet I grew frustrated later that day because I couldn’t seem to concentrate on some difficult reading I had to do.

Solution: take plenty of breaks to keep yourself from sapping your mental energy. It is important to give yourself adequate mental rest, along with physical rest.

3. Over-stimulation

Many of us, when feeling a little groggy, reach for caffeine. I am no exception to this, and often will have a cup of coffee in the afternoon. Sometimes this can backfire, though.

Last week I purchased a 32 oz iced tea (unsweetened, or Northern style, as they call it where I live) with my lunch. At first it provided a nice jolt, but by the time I was a third of the way into the drink, I was shaking. My mind was going so fast I wasn’t keeping up with it, much less forming coherent thoughts.

Solution: if you find that you reach for stimulants to combat after-meal slumps, find better ways to eat to even out your blood sugar. Use caffeine in moderation, rather than as a tool to jimmy you out of a low blood sugar torpor.

4. Perfectionism

Doing things to the best of our abilities can be a good thing. However, many people take this beyond a reasonable level and sink their productivity as they spend time trying to make something just a bit better.

A couple of years ago, I decided that I was going to write a novel for National Novel Writing month. (This was the first year I attempted it). I read a couple of books and decided I was going to write this thing without any boring outline. So I wrote the first scene. And rewrote it. And rewrote it. Other scenes followed the same path. So by the end of the month, although I had spent hours each day writing this book, and had accumulated 50,000 words, I had about two dozen really polished scenes. And no way to link them because I had edited out all the plot.

Solution: if you have perfectionist tendencies, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish and decide what the minimum criteria to getting that done is. Then ask yourself if extra effort really matters. Writing your thesis, yes. Taking crumbs out of the toaster, no.

5. Not Having A Good Plan

Many creative types, or even semi-creative types resist making a plan because it feels too confining. I consider myself a creative person, because software programming is a very creative sort of job. When I don’t make a plan I often will try to get of much done in the time allowed, and end up getting nothing done.

Today I was heading out the door to a standing meeting. I told myself that I could drop my daughter off at a friend’s, travel to my workplace to feed the cats, drop tools off at my husband’s job site, and make the 20 minute drive to the meeting. All in 45 minutes, because I told myself I was efficient. This became, predictably, an exercise in frustration as I realized I was governed by the same physical and traffic laws as everyone else. I left one of the tools at home, forgot the cat food, and was only saved from a traffic ticket by a little old lady in the lane next to me who stubbornly refused to let me merge over…the same lane where I would have zipped past the waiting State Patrol. I also remembered when I got to the meeting that I left all the financial paperwork I needed sitting on the kitchen table.

Solution: make a reasonable plan as to what you can do in the time allotted. You will save yourself from hurry, forgetfulness, and frustration, and get your tasks completed.

I am sure there are plenty of other sneaky productivity sappers. What is your worst one? Share below.

Photo by cbowns

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).

Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Following my recent article on effort-saving uses for shaving cream, a friend and I started talking about baking soda. Bicarbonate of soda is most on known for its leavening and odor-absorbing abilities, but it can save a lot of effort. Here are five ways I use it:

• Fire extinguisher. The worst thing you can do for a kitchen fire is to throw water on it, and commercial fire extinguishers leave powder everywhere. (Yes, I know this from experience). If you have a small flare up in the kitchen, throw a box of baking soda on it. It will smother the flames and be easier to clean up than a fire extinguisher. (But also always keep a fire extinguisher handy in the kitchen – you never know when your spouse may boil a pot dry and to the point where the handle bursts into flame)
• Clean stainless steel. Baking soda is a non-scratching substance that can be used to shine up your stainless steel. A little water, some baking soda, and you have a great polish. (Has anyone tried using baking soda and vinegar to polish copper? I am curious)
• Polish silver jewelry. My friend swears by this method to clean silver jewelry. A paste of baking soda and water with an old toothbrush will get the jewelry sparkling quickly.
• Remove Koolaid stains from counters. My house seems to collect Koolaid stains on the counters like breadcrumbs. Abrasive cleansers will scratch the surface. A paste of baking soda and water with a soft cloth will buff those right out.
• Get rid of burnt on messes. This is the one I use the most often. When you have a baked on mess on the bottom of a cooking pot, cover the bottom with baking soda and add a couple inches of water. Then boil it until the mess loosens and you can scrub the pan. This trick alone has saved me hours!

Do you have any time-saving uses for baking soda? Share below.

Photo by [F]oxymoron

More great content can be found on the site at SimpleProductivityBlog.com., or you can find me on Twitter (@SmplProdBlog) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SimpleProductivity).