Here are some tips for staying productive:
1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.
2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).
3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.
4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.
5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.
6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.
7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.
From Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt.
all worth while ways of keeping on track and getting things done. i must admit i am pretty good a getting things done maybe not as organized as this list. no i don’t text people, why do they text me when i say call? i might be living in the wrong world or time frame. oh well
i do keep on track with to do list the only way that keeps me focused and deadlines have worked pretty good for me. am preparing to go off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks with my honey. the house is a mess clothes thrown in piles almost read to get rolled into suitcase but first i had to make fast the apartment from the ‘Hell’s Kitchen burglar.’
that took most of the day although is seemed a simple task but……. you know how it is. clearing calendar so i can come back clear nothing on my mind except pleasure, woohoo
yesterday i finished up giving a model whom i posted here before some selects, he gets to chose the ones he wants. i’ll never figure out what they are looking for, yes he’s seen my quick picks but they always go for ones i never though of, as is this image he picked. ugh
UGH
this was my stupid photographic choice of the day, this background, oh that’s mary’s hand down in the corner. ‘Why this one,’ i said. ‘i like the way my body is’ he replied.
i couldn’t let this pic leave the house, not looking like this and having my name on it. so through the magic of photoshop i added a few things the camera hadn’t caught. i know everyone says capture it in camera but sometimes i am too dumb.
added levels
warm photo filter
color corrected left shoulder
burned in edges
is it perfect, not really but better than the one he wanted. i turned towards him a said ‘what about this one?’ his reaction was ‘ i can’t believe the difference.’ so there’s no truth in what i do, but as i say on my model mayhem page, ‘ I use a camera as I would a pencil or brush, photography is just a tool.’
i didn’t spend all those hours at ICP daydreaming in Photoshop II class. so here you have some of my secrets, how i am special and make others special to. it may not be productive but i’ve learned early in life to just keep at it. perseverance is one of the keys to life that makes up the song.
Sherman references the techniques and forms of advertising, cinema and classical painting, but moves freely within these creative parameters. Her initial breakthrough came with a series of black and white photographs created between 1977 and 1980: the ‘Untitled Film Stills’ seemingly emulating images from Italian Neo-Realism and American film noir. They were followed by her first photo series in colour that dealt with the issue of sexual objectification, in which prosthetic limbs and mannequins were her preferred props. Later came the ‘History Portraits’ that replicated the composition of celebrated paintings easily recognizable to the viewer, as well as series on topics such as Hollywood and clowns.
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