3 time wasting monsters

Personal conversation

This is the most dangerous monster that covertly follows you everywhere, which you always fail to notice until it’s already late. You can find this monster lurking around in your office and even in your home. It makes you feel that you are doing some important discussion, but the fact is you are not. You are just wasting time talking about your personal stuff when you should be working on the project at hand.

There is a time and place for personal discussion. Confine it there only. Do not let it disturb your work schedule.

Frequently checking e-mails

E-mails are important, and some are very important. But none of them is as important as the work you have at your hand, so it will be more fruitful to spend time on doing the work than checking mails, regularly.

Make a mail checking routine. I would suggest checking your mails once or twice a day, but if you expect important mails throughout the day or if you cannot live without browsing through your inbox then check your mail 4 times a day, at max. Do not let this monster kill your time.

Breaks

Taking breaks during a day is important, as it help you energize yourself. A break helps you remove your thought from the project, and hence get a fresh perspective on the subject matter, when you get back to it after the break. But frequent or too many breaks do not allow you to come back to the subject matter, ruining the purpose of the break itself.

Too many breaks create distraction, so avoid indulging in that. In fact, I will suggest you to make a “break taking” plan around your work schedule. This will keep you on track, and the plan will keep this “time wasting” monster contained.

These 3 monsters should be avoided at any cost, if your goal is to do anything with your life.

Benefits of a checklist

A checklist offers many benefits, and unlike its how-to part, it does not require us to invest lots of time reading it. A checklist offers the following benefits:

• It helps us know what we require to accomplish in order to get the work done before we embark upon.
• It works as a guiding post, when we get stuck in the middle of the project and ask now what.
• A checklist helps us verify if we have missed something in the project.
• A checklist is easily scanable, and it should be kept handy when doing some work, as it will help us remember what needs to be done.
• A checklist can help us properly prepare the budget keeping each item in mind.
• It can prove to be a valuable asset when it comes to making a business decision.

Conclusion

One must keep a checklist handy whenever one embarks upon a new job. As said above, it will prove to be a very valuable tool right from the beginning.

Step 1: Research the subject matter

Before beginning to write, gather some key information related to the topics you are going to write about in the article. Do not waste your time in finding every aspect related to the subject at hand. Find only what is necessary to explain what you want to write. Once they are handy, stop researching.

Step 2: Remove all distraction

Switch off your cell phone or put it in silent, remove your landline cord (if you cannot put it in silent), log out from your mail as well as social book marking accounts, log out from all instant messaging services, and also remove the internet connection for the time being.

Step 3: Write down the bullet points

Be quick and write down the bullet points that you are going to cover in the article. It should not take much time, if your pre-writing research is in place.

Step 4: Do not write and edit

Avoid using backspace and delete key when you are writing. Leave the editing work for later. Right now focus your energy on crafting the piece.

Step 5: Edit

Do not waste a life time editing an article. This is nothing but a sheer waste of time, unless you are sending your article for some research or academic journal. Remove the issues you had while writing the article.

Conclusion

Follow these steps and your writing will be quick. Do you wish to know how much time did it take me to write this short piece? Well it took me 9 minutes to write all this. It could have been 6 or 7, if I had not fall prey to editing while writing. Hope, you will not make the same mistake that I did while writing this, and get the work done real quick.

That was it, but then came the lab feature which changed the game of e- mailing. Gmail became a system, and it started providing one-stop solution for many a thing. The latest addition to the list of Gmail lab feature is Google Docs preview.

Google has made it possible for us to preview content of Google Docs document, spreadsheet, and presentation files inside the mail. This feature is new addition and to enable this feature you need to go to setting and then to lab.

Once in the lab, you should enable previews for other content type as well. Google allows you to preview YouTube videos, Picasa and Flickr images within the mail itself. You can even preview Yelp listing inside your Gmail.

You can also listen to the voice mails that you received from inside your mail. There are many more features in the Gmail labs that are worth enabling. I have been using it for quite some time now.

It is only when you used Gmail lab features that you come to know that Gmail is much more than unlimited space. Unlike every other mail, Gmail is not just a mail, but it’s a system that has many cool features.

Go now and enable features in lab and witness the change in the mailing experience. You will be as thrilled as I am about the cool features of Gmail.

Tip 1: Take a Break

Once you are done with writing the article or memo, close the document and divert your attention from it for 10-15 minutes. Do some other work and do not think about the document. This will free up your mind, and next time when you will proofread the document, you will not be primed with the content, which will help you see the errors.

Tip 2: Read it out loud

Yes, this helps. By reading your document out loud, you are not only employing your eyes, but you are employing your ears and voice as well in proofreading, which matters a lot. Sometime things that look good, doesn’t sound good.

Tip 3: Read it Backward

This is another valuable insight that will help you in proofreading. If you cannot find errors while reading your document from start to finish, try reversing the process.  Reading the document backward will give you a virtual fresh pair of eyes.

Tip 4: Look for the obvious

There are certain words, certain phrases or certain grammar or punctuation mistake you tend make more often than other mistakes. Make a note of those mistakes and focus on finding such mistakes.

Tip 5: Use Search feature

Using the search feature of your word processor can also be a good way to find out common spelling errors. Replace it with correct ones, and for this you may use replace feature.

Below, I am giving a handful of writing tips that will help people like me read more on the Internet, by the way, most of the people on the Internet are like me only.

1. Use Headlines, headings and subheading that make sense. Keep clever lines safe for print.
2. Use simple words. No one like using a dictionary when scanning through the Internet.
3. Use short sentences to convey the idea.
4. Use short paragraphs. Paragraphs that run into 10s of sentences are strict no-no for the web.
5. Write a proper paragraph; one idea per paragraph.
6. Break the articles into small chunks by using headings and subheads.
7. Make your text more scannable by making important keywords bold, italic or by underlining it.
8. Use lists like this one, wherever it is possible. It is easy to go through a list than a 10-sentence paragraph.
9. Use objective language. Do not make your article sound like a promotion material.
10. Link old articles or blog-posts on your domain to retain visitors for long.

When I say, a dependable computer, I mean a computer that functions properly without freezing for hours. If your computer or laptop – I am not in favor of using laptop as a primary device, but you can use it as secondary device for the time when you are out – works fine with your word processing program or office suite, internet browsers, chat clients, and FTP client then you can stick with it.

2^nd Commandment: Thou Shalt Get a Mechanical Keyboard

You should have a good keyboard that allows swift typing. If you are using a keyboard that has membrane-based keys then I will suggest buying a spring-based (mechanical) keyboard like TVS Gold, next time when you are out shopping for a keyboard.

A keyboard with spring-based (mechanical) keys not only sounds sweet but it lasts for long. I am using mine for more than 3 years and it is still as swift and soft as any new keyboard could be. I use TVS Gold. No membrane keyboard will last even half as long, no matter how expensive it is. Go for the sweet metallic, typewriter-like sound of a mechanical keyboard. Mechanical keyboards are expensive but it is worth the investment. Do not worry much about price when buying a keyboard. After all, this is the device that will earn you your living.

3^rd Commandment: Thou Shalt Ask For Work

Do not assume that the client has just so much work to give you. He may be employing other freelancers to do his work. Why don’t you show him, how eager you are to take more responsibility? Also convey that you have sufficient time to do justice with the new work.

Have you contacted your ex-clients lately? If you have not done so, do it now! Drop a mail and ask if there is anything you can help him with, and also emphasize how satisfied or delighted he was while working with you in the past.

4^th Commandment: Thou Shalt Follow the Laggards

In freelance writing career, each one of us ends up working with a client or two, who delays the payments as much as he could. Do not forget to follow them up, and make a polite request to pay your dues every time you communicate.

5^th Commandment: Thou Shalt Communicate Well

Do you talk to your client regularly? If not, why? And also do not restrict yourself to using only IMs (instant messaging). Call him, mail him and if he is in the neighborhood, drop in.

6^th Commandment: Thou shalt set Your Income Goal

You should have a clear income goal in mind, which should be revised every month or every quarter. Set your income target and go for it. Do not forget to be realistic in setting income goal for the month or for the quarter!

7^th Commandment: Thou Shalt constantly be on the Lookout

Do not rest on your laurels, and do not count only on what you have. Keep on chasing new work. Who knows when one or more of the existing clients abruptly decided to stop taking your services! And who knows the new client you will get is better paying than the one you have now! Keep looking.

No priority list: This is the first thing in the list because I wanted to tell you emphatically the importance of having a prioritized to-do list. In the absence of such list you will not know what is more important and what can wait till evening. Hence, what you end up doing first in the morning is the thing that was not at all important.

A pile of task: This is almost always unmanageable. A huge list of work to complete will just immobilize you and you cannot accomplish anything, so bite only what you can chew, and leave rest on the plate for others.

Wrong Timing: This is important. Do the critical work in the morning when you are fresh, and push the less important works for the rest of the day. Checking mail in the morning takes away the time in which you could have accomplished many important things.

Untidy Mailbox: This kills your time more than anything else. Too many mails in your mailbox will not boost your productivity; rather it will stamp it down. You need to organize your mailbox by filing important mails in folders and deleting the unnecessary ones.

No Do Not Disturb Sign: This is very important. In the office, being accessible to your subordinates, colleagues and bosses is considered professionalism. It indeed will win you many friends and support, but at times this will result in delayed reports and missed deadlines. Hence, you need to put “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door when you have important work with a tight deadline to finish.

Working Long Hours: If someone told you that working for hours in a stretch will fetch you great result then he was wrong. You need to take breaks at equal intervals to recharge your battery. The more relax you will be the better result will come out. Working continuously does nothing but worn you out.

Stand Up and Say No: Saying no is a good thing. It says you care and that you know the importance of the additional work that is going to get assigned to you. If you say no when you are caught up, this way you will not only save yourself from missing deadlines due to overload, but this will also help your organization get the work done through someone else who is free at that time.