If you’re struggling to overcome your own perfectionist impulses, you might be interested in The Cult of Done Manifesto. Don’t worry, it’s not some 700-page manuscript. It’s a list of simple principles put together by noted gadget-maker and electronics hacker Bre Pettis (along with Kio Stark).

The coolest part? They wrote it in just 20 minutes.

Here’s what’s in the Cult of Done Manifesto:

There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

There is no editing stage.

Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

Once you’re done you can throw it away.

Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

Destruction is a variant of done.

If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

Done is the engine of more.

For my money, the crucial part of the Manifesto is “Laugh at perfection.” Getting through something and making mistakes is often the best, and most interesting, way to get something done. The result might not be perfect, but at least you have something you can start editing, instead of a blank page. Just don’t start editing it until a version of it is … well, done.

“Okay, but this won’t work for me,” you say, “Because my job demands perfection. I’m not allowed to make mistakes.” That’s a fair point, but I’d bet that turning things in on time is also expected at your job. If all perfection gets you is a blank page and a headache about deadlines, it might be time to try a different approach.

What are your thoughts on the Cult of Done Manifesto?

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

You can get through it and make it less painful, though. And once you do, you’ll be able to move on to the stuff you enjoy doing, and ultimately be more productive.

Here are a few ways to attack tasks you hate:

Get Rid of It

The first, fastest, and most direct way to deal with an unpleasant task is to drop it entirely. Ask yourself whether you can delegate it to someone who would find it easier or less painful. Ask whether there’s a way to get the result you want without doing the task at all. If the answer to either of these is “yes,” you win before you even start!

Make It More Fun

Set a timer and try to finish in a quick burst. Relocate to a coffee shop, a restaurant with wifi, or even a pub (I won’t say I haven’t had a beer or two during a work crisis). Try putting on some great music that’ll get you pumped up to work. Basically, distract yourself from how much you hate the work at hand. Remember that you’ll get to move on to something better once you’re finished.

Just Do It

Sometimes, there’s no way to sugarcoat a bitter pill of a work assignment. When you can’t get out of doing it or make it easier in some way, you’re only left with one option: do the best you can on this lame task. It’ll probably take you more time to grouse and complain about the task than it will to do a great job and knock it out of the park. You may as well go for the option you can be proud of.

Notice I didn’t say anywhere in this post that you should put up with unacceptable or inappropriate work assignments. There’s a difference between a legitimate task that you happen not to like and a task that asks unreasonable things of you. Know where you draw your personal line.

Did you beat any tough assignments this week? How did you do it?

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo credit – piez

Here are some strategies for building a buffer without an enormous amount of effort, so you can avoid being like me:

Capture Everything

I know I’ve extolled the many virtues of ubiquitous capture in a previous Task Blog post, but the ideas you write down now could turn into brilliant posts later. When you have a little extra time to get ahead in your work, you won’t have to look any further than your capture device of choice, be it paper, smartphone or other.

Rely on a Friend

Soliciting guest contributions, or making sure you know a handful of talented people who might be able to step in for you in a pinch, is a great contingency plan. It’s the work equivalent of giving a spare set of housekeys to a trusted neighbor. When you find yourself locked out, you can go to plan B and ask for help. Helping goes both ways: letting someone fill in for you might give him or her additional exposure or some new work for a portfolio.

Collect Previous Work (in a useful way, of course!)

Everyone hates to see old work passed off as new, but you can score a real coup if you collect your old work in a new and valuable way. Gather up everything you’ve written on a specific topic, and put it in one useful place. Revisit something you’ve previously covered, and provide an update. A little work goes a long way

Resort to Honest Filler

I understand that we all take a certain amount of pride in our work, and it’s a shame to fall back on filler. If you’re honest about it, though, your bosses, readers, or clients should understand. Explain the situation candidly, and show that you care about the deadline by filling in with drafts, outlines, sketches, links to relevant resources … just make an effort and make it interesting, even if it’s no substitute for your best work.

If had employed some of these strategies, this post wouldn’t be late, even though I couldn’t have predicted the circumstances that caused the delay. Although it’s a couple of days late, I the experience has made me much wiser on the subject of buffers.

Do you have a buffer? How did you go about building it? If you don’t have one, why not?

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

photo credit — splityarn

I’m not going to repost every one of their suggestions here, because you should really go check out the whole ISO50 article, lovely design and all. Instead, I want to mention a few of the strategies I’ve tried, and some of the interesting ideas I’m excited to try in the future.

Ji Lee of Google Creative Lab attacks problems by not thinking about them directly. Instead, you could take a shower, clean your work area, or go for a bike ride. A lot of the other contributors to the ISO50 piece also endorsed distracting yourself as a way of approaching a problem with new eyes. This is a classic strategy, but it’s worked for me many, many times. Some of the best ideas really do show while you’re in the shower.

Chad Hagen looks at what other people are making, which triggers his desire to be good at what he does — in Chad’s case, that’s art and design — and helps him push past creative sticking points. This has worked for me in a different form: I’m not a very competitive person, but seeing the great work my friends do has always made me buckle down and work harder to keep up with them. It’s hard to sit around waiting for the perfect solution when you can see how much better off you’d be if you moved forward with something imperfect, to see where it leads.

Christopher Simmons, of the design studio MINE, makes the very good point that you might not really be stuck. You might just be talking yourself into thinking that you are. The first question he asks himself is “Am I really stuck?” What a simple, brilliant idea. I’m going to borrow that one the next time I run into a case of writer’s block.

Erik Spiekermann, one of my favorite type designers, recommends drawing (even if you have no talent). I definitely have no talent at drawing, but I tend to think visually, and I’m willing to give it a shot. It makes sense that having something down on paper, even if it’s total crap and not even in the right medium, might give you a new angle on a problem. I’m adding this to my list of things to try, as well.

What did you think of the ISO50 post? Do any of these ideas speak to you personally? Let us know how you get over creative blocks in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo credit – artdrauglis

Brittany Ancell at The 99% recently decided to forsake Inbox Zero and start checking email only twice a day. Her reasoning was that “we feel a sense of accomplishment in tending to a constant stream of incoming (but not very important) requests. It’s the Inbox Hero Mentality: ‘I may not be making any headway on my to-do list, but I’ll be damned if there’s one message lying in wait!’”

Instead of operating with a reactionary workflow, based on responding to whatever hit her inbox, she decided to deal with email on her own schedule. The thing is, I don’t think this “balanced email diet” is antithetical to Inbox Zero. Brittany still zeroed her inbox every morning, dealing with anything actionable and deleting the rest. I think Merlin Mann would agree with her that it’s important to build a system that turns your actionable email into … well, action.

It will be interesting to see how productivity nerds respond to Merlin’s upcoming Inbox Zero book. I think the book will go a long way toward clarifying that Inbox Zero doesn’t mean actively processing email all day as if it were your only job. Inbox Zero is supposed to make your email less distracting, not more distracting. If that means you only check email twice a day, so be it.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

The gist of the post is that you can approach a problem by starting anywhere in the design process — making sure you’re asking the right questions, studying the problem, throwing together a draft or prototype — as long as you start somewhere. If you have process, and know which steps you have to complete, it doesn’t matter which one you do first. Start anywhere, as long as you start. This doesn’t just apply to designers. Whether you’re writing a novel, putting together a business plan or opening an art show, you have to start by hiking up your pants and taking that first step.

I’m in love with this whole post, but my favorite part is the image of the writer who wanted to tackle a huge book project, but was forever arranging the bookshelves in his office. A story like that gives us a great way to suck all the power out of distractions. Just think, “All of this fiddling isn’t progress, it’s just bookshelf-arrangement.”

Small tasks are important, but you have to choose the right small tasks. Waiting for the perfect work environment, or fiddling around endlessly to create it, is just a way of wimping out of what you really want to do. It doesn’t add up to anything. Even writing a bad first paragraph or throwing together a jokey outline can be extraordinarily productive if it gets you moving toward the bigger picture. It’s not about having your pens neatly stowed in the right place, it’s about picking one up and starting to write.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to The Morning News, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit – heipei

If you count yourself among the huge number of people who have taken on New Year’s resolutions, chances are that you may have slipped up or given up already. Hey, it’s been almost a month, and keeping up with these things is tough, especially if you have a dozen goals, or one really big one.

Don’t give up, though. January 1st is just another day on the calendar. While the resolutions a new year inspires can be powerful, don’t forget that you have the power to give yourself a fresh start on your goal any day of the year.

So, let’s start over, and talk about keeping your new January 20th resolutions:

Break It Down

This has been my mantra on Task Blog for a while now, but I’m sticking to it: tasks that are too big and too general don’t get done. If you have a resolution like “lose weight” or “earn 10% more this year,” you should break it down so you always know your next action. Make an exercise schedule, give yourself a deadline for a new job application … just make it small and specific, and you’ll get there.

Use Moderation

Drastic changes in behavior can be quite intimidating, but there’s nothing wrong with easing into a resolution. Changing your entire diet might make you miserable, but cutting out one problem food at a time isn’t so bad. My biggest success with this strategy was bumping my daily word count up by a few hundred words. It didn’t seem like much more work, but the habit has stuck and added up.

Use the Buddy System

Maybe you promised you would get up early and do yoga this year, but you haven’t gone once. Heck, I can’t count on myself at 6 a.m., either. That’s why the buddy system is a good thing. If you know a friend is going to get up just as early and torture himself as much as you are, you’ll be more likely to follow through with your plans. Plus, you’ll have someone to celebrate with when you both reach your goals.

Try Some New Tools

Just before the new year, Anthony talked about using Task.fm reminders to keep on track with your resolutions. That’s an awesome idea, especially if you pair it with a tool that will let you visualize your progress. Maybe it’s just a paper calendar that you can fill up with Xs, or maybe it’s something a little more advanced. Lifehacker posted 10 tools for keeping new year’s resolutions, including the very useful Joe’s Goals goal-tracking app. Pick and choose the ones that work for you.

Don’t give up just because you haven’t been on track so far. Give yourself permission to start over, and I’ll be right here, telling you everything I’ve learned from my own productivity failures (hey, we all have them!).

Let us know what your resolutions are, and how they’re going, in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.

Photo Credit  — lioliz

According to researchers, even a five-second interruption increased the time it took the study participants to complete the rest of their assigned tasks. That means all those Growl notifications, new email popups, instant message windows and bouncing dock icons are subtly undermining your productivity, whether you notice or not.

That’s because it takes time for the brain to task-switch and remember what you were working on before you checked email or answered an IM. Maybe not a LOT of time, granted, but it definitely adds up. “We might find ourselves needing a few moments to re-gather our thoughts, and remember what it was that we were about to do before we switched our attention to the interrupting on-screen notification,” said Helen Hodgetts, who authored the study.

The study did suggest an alternative to visual alerts, though: sounds. When we hear alert sounds, we don’t …

[At this point, I received a Growl notification from Twitter, and was distracted from writing this article.]

… as I was saying, we don’t feel the need to respond immediately to sounds, the way we do with visual stimuli. A simple auditory ping that tells you something’s happening doesn’t demand the same level of involvement as seeing the subject line of a new email pop up on your screen.

Alert sounds can certainly be annoying, though, so I recommend browsing the sound sets on Adium Xtras and picking out something subtle that you can live with. (These are designed for the excellent Mac chat client Adium, but they can be downloaded and plugged into other apps as needed.)

How do you have your alerts set up? Let us know how you cope with distractions, in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.

Photo Credit  — mukluk

Here’s why:

Keeping it REALLY simple

All Anxiety does is allow you to add, view and check off to-do items. No reminders — that’s what Task.fm is for! — no email, no integration with web apps. Just a clean list.

Living in your menubar

Anxiety doesn’t have to be in the dock to function. It just sits in your menubar, waiting for you to pop open the attractive, compact HUD display. Keeping it out of the dock means it’s not distracting, but putting in the menubar means it’s there when you need it.

Playing nicely with others

Anxiety doesn’t replace your iCal or Google Calendar, but you can choose to have your Anxiety items listed as to-dos in either iCal or Apple Mail. That way, if you need to assign dates and times to them, place them on your calendar, add reminders, etc., you can do it fairly quickly.

Going easy on your system resources

Anxiety only uses 7 or 8MB of memory on my system, compared to 24MB for iCal and 55MB for Mail. It’s as if you don’t even have it open.

For me, Anxiety is basically a list of article ideas and pitches to send out when I have time. You could really use it for any kind of list, though. Certainly, it’s not going to be enough for some people, but it’s worth considering if your organizational style  is fairly loose and lightweight.

What’s your favorite to-do list app? Let us know in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also follow him on Twitter and at his blog.

Waking Up One Hour Earlier

I’ve actually reduced the total time I sleep and changed my sleep habits entirely.   I was originally sleeping for 8-10 hours, which was causing me to be tired throughout the day.

I now go to sleep later at night (which suits my business activities better) and aim to wake up an hour earlier.  I now usually wake up easier and feeling refreshed.   I also fit in a powernap around 5-6pm.    This seems to be the perfect combination for me.

Waking up an hour earlier also has a strange effect when it comes to time-management.  I seem to be able to get a lot more done with just that extra hour.  I often find myself looking at the time and being surprised at how early in the day it still is.  That’s a big change for me.

A Clean Workspace

I try and make a conscious effort everyday to have a clean and clear workspace, free from clutter and mess.    And its not hard to keep a workspace clean once you remove as many items as possible.  I only keep the bare essentials items I use on a daily basis on the desk.

I now have no trouble finding a pen, jotting down a quick note or sketching out designs with ease.  These little things were just that tiny bit harder when I had a messy desk.    I wonder how much time I’ve saved by keeping  a clean and clear space.

Using a Notepad

I can’t imagine how I managed before I started having constant access to a notepad and pencil.  I’m now constantly jotting down ideas, sketching graphs and designs, making calculations and more.

Using a notepad is part of my new focus on trying to “outsource my memory”.  Obviously I use Task.fm for events and tasks I need to remember by a certain date.   And for concepts and brainstorming I use the notepad(s).  Basically I want to get as manyof my thoughts out of my memory and onto something I can look back on later.

For those interested, I use:

• Browser Sketchpad - for UI and web designers.  A notepad with browser chrome on top.
• Action Pad – A simple way to get a project down on paper and work out the steps involved
• Dot Grid Book – Use a dot matrix instead of the standard grid layout.  Much more freedom!
• Rhodia Pencil – These glide across paper, are made from sustainable materials and look amazing.

What’s Your Number One Tip?

So there you have my three tips that have made a huge difference to my work.  What’s your number one?  Let us know in the comments.  Or are you still sitting on the fence?

Photo By – \!/_PeacePlusOne