Scott does a great job of outlining what it takes to finish work by noon and knock off for the rest of the day, and I think his ideas are well worth discussing here on TaskBlog.

So, how is this magical half-day achieved?

Change Your Perspective

When you have a 9-to-5 mentality, you’ll spread your work out until 5pm, every time. Work expands to fit the time you have to do it. If you tell yourself you only have until noon to do the few hours of real work in your day, you’ll probably be able to make it happen. As a corollary to this, don’t think of your pay in terms of hours. Instead, think in terms of days. If you do a day’s work before noon, pay yourself for a day’s work. It’s only fair!

Don’t Add More Work

This is my favorite of Scott’s points: it’s tempting to feel like you need to find more work to do, just because you have time. Don’t go down that road. You’ll eventually get better at figuring out how much you can do in 4 hours. Scott likens it to a 400m sprint. You run as hard as you can for that 400 meters, but when it’s over, it’s over. If you don’t get everything done, roll it over to the next day.

Figure Out How Much You’re Doing Now

To know how much you can do in 4 hours, figure out how much actual work you’re doing in a day. As a writer, I’ve got it easy here: I can just keep track of my daily word count. If you measure what you’re doing, you’ll have some evidence that working fewer hours doesn’t mean you’re being lazy.

The real reason I love Scott’s idea so much is that it kills procrastination. Working for 8 hours without falling prey to distractions is practically impossible for me, but working really hard until noon doesn’t sound intimidating at all. I’m glad someone came along to tell me that 4 good hours are better than 8 lazy ones.

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 – thirstian

Sometimes, there’s no better source of motivation than a new toy. Sure, some people buy new iPods and workout clothes and never go running, or buy a new guitar and never play it, but the toy I’m talking about is a little bit different: it’s an iPhone app called Sleep Cycle.

Sleep Cycle uses the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to detect movement while you’re sleeping, so it can wake you up during the lightest part of your sleep cycle (within half an hour of when you set your alarm, anyway). This is supposed to be as refreshing as waking up without an alarm.

Here’s how Sleep Cycle works: Just turn on the app, set the alarm, and put your phone upside down on the corner of your mattress. Fortunately, the alarm sounds are all more pleasant than anything that comes standard on the iPhone (my favorite is an adaptation of Erik Satie’s famous piano compositions, the Gymnopédies), and they’re not too startling, even at full volume.

Although Sleep Cycle can be tricky to set up, there’s a test mode, where the app makes a sound every time your phone moves. It only took me about two minutes to set up. I definitely recommend plugging your phone in while Sleep Cycle is running, because it drains a lot of battery overnight, and you don’t want to wake up to a dead phone.

Does Sleep Cycle actually work? I have no idea! At the very least, though, it’s a powerful placebo effect. I’ve slept on a regular schedule for the past week, largely because I was excited about using Sleep Cycle. It’s hard to say whether I feel better because I’ve been sleeping regularly, or because Sleep Cycle really does wake me up at the perfect time. Regardless, the positive effects are there, and sleeping at consistent hours has given structure to my entire week.

Plus, it’s fun to wake up in the morning and look at a graph of your nighttime tossing and turning.

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 – luchilu

Make sure you check out this guide from Karol Gadja, who really does live anywhere.

And how to live a lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.  A few years ago, an expat would have a limited choice of work options.  Most would work for big corporations, some would teach and only very few actually worked for themselves.  But thanks to the intertubes anybody who is prepared to develop the right skills and live pretty much anywhere and do whatever they want!

Recently, I’ve been chatting with a number of expats and lifestyle design enthusiasts on what they have found to be the most successful career (if you can call it that).

The Jobs

With just an internet connection and a little bit of determination you could be sitting in Bangkok bar, sipping a cool cocktail and writing about “How to Live Anywhere and Work Anytime”.  (btw, im unfortunately not sitting in a Bangkok bar).

Travel Blogger

Although there are millions of travel blogs, there are only a select few that earn a full time living.    After taking a look at the top blogs written by individuals who live off them, I discovered a few things.

• Most pro Travel Bloggers have multiple blogs/gigs – They setup a main blog and then have niche sites for say “Sydney Backpacking” that has a bunch of ads.
• They Sell Ebooks – This is becoming a huge trend.  These top travel bloggers have written ebooks or guides that they sell on their blogs.  Topics include lifestyle design, personal finance, budget travel and personal development.  There is currently a huge hunger for this type of content and these guys are cashing in big time.
• They Have Been Doing This For A Long Time – Before they packed their bags and set off, most of these bloggers had been writing and promoting their blog for at least a year.  So don’t expect overnight success

So in conclusion, if you want to be a travel blogger, pick a niche (or two), create and sell downloadable products and be prepared to work without any profits for a year.

Graphic Designer

I was tempted to just put “web designer”, but I have found,  that it makes sense to try and broaden your skill set and also design logos, banners and other graphics.

Graphic Designers need only a computer, internet access and coffee to work.   This means they can do their job pretty much anywhere in the world.  After talking with a number of expat designers, here are some trends I picked up on:

• They sell “downloadables” on marketplaces such as ThemeForest and GraphicRiver.  They seem to enjoy having a reliable backup source of income.
• Most also have a blog.  Which includes a portfolio, free downloadable items and good design resources.  This is used as a primary source of marketing.
• They use sites such as eLance, Guru and GetAFreelancer to find work.  Instead of waiting to jobs to come to them, they actively seek out work.

Of course being a graphic designer takes a lot of skill.  You will need to constantly refine your skills and keep up with the latest trends.  And perfect communication skills are also essential.

Podcaster

Ok, so I don’t know of many pocasters who can live and work anywhere and still earn a full time income.  But, im sure that it can be done – so here’s a challenge.

So just imagine sitting on an exotic beach filming your own travel guide.  Surprisingly there isn’t a huge amount of this type of video content in high quality, so there is a real opportunity here.

Podcasting requires only a Camera, laptop and an internet connection.  Here are some things you should consider:

• Go HD – There is a real thirst for high quality HD content at the moment.
• Live off donations and ad revenue.  Leo Laporte and famous podcaster makes over $1 Million per annum.  I don’t expect you to make anything like that but all you need is a small slice of that pie to live off.

Just like blogging, podcasting will take just as much of not even more work.  And don’t expect to be paid any time soon.  One disadvantage podcasting has over blogging is a lack of ways to monetise such content.

Freelance Writer

Much like a travel blogger, except instead of solely maintaining your own sites/blogs, you will be writing for other people.

Good quality writers are in huge demand write now.  If you’re a native english speaker and have basic article writing skills you should be able to land a gig or two without much trouble.

After speaking with two talented freelance writers, here are their tips:

• Find jobs on ProBlogger, eLance, Guru.com, GetAFreelancer
• Expect to start out by writing “crappy” articles on Life Insurance and Fad Diets
• Write, Write, Write.  In order to earn a full time income, you will need to be writing and researching all day.
• Maintain your own Blog, with ads and links to your work.  This will be a major part of your marketing and will provide income.

Freelance writing is hard, hard work.

The Cost of Living

Thailand,  Peru, Tunisia, Malaysia are just some of the amazing destinations around the world that you could be working in.    These countries and many others can be lived in for just $20,000 a year.  Most of the worlds population lives of $2 a day.  Of course, you are aiming for a higher standard of living.  And that can be achieved with substantially less income in certain countries and the motivation to cut back on certain luxuries we all can easily live without.

What would you rather – a Netflix subscription or a stroll on the beach in Phuket?

Cheap Cities/Countries to Live in:

The number next to each country is a Cost of Living index.  This takes into consideration the 2009 Mercers Cost of Living database and rental accommodation costs (as you probably won’t be buying).  The lower the number the cheaper it is to live.

• Tunis (Tunisia) - 58.4
• Chennai (India) – 57.7
• Quito (Ecuador) – 56.3
• Mexico City (Mexico) – 55.5
• Auckland (New Zealand) – 54.0

Do it Now

I’m a hypocrite, I know, as I’m not doing it now.  But if you keep putting it off and off because of another silly excuse it will never happen.

What I’ve done is set myself a date, worked out the income I need and keep a handy list of bookmarks to beautiful destinations, as motivation sitting on my desktop.

Further Reading

Travel Full-time for $14,00 per year
Becoming a Digital Nomad

Photo by – soopahgrover

Ok, so obviously i’m going to be biased when I spend the next few hundred words shredding post-it/sticky notes, as I built a digital alternative.  However, hear me out as I may just be able to change your mind and get you to rethink the humble post-it.

So what is the problem with a post-it note.  I could name many, but in my view, post-its have one major, major flaw – they can’t follow you.

What?

See, if you’re not looking at the post-it, how is it supposed to remind you of something?  When you write something down on a post-it, your still relying on your memory to remind you to look at the note.   You may think your freeing your mind from whatever task you wrote down, but you haven’t.

Of course you could place the note in some obvious place like your monitor.  But have you noticed the strange phenomenom that occurs a few days after you place the note in the redicuously obvious place, only to find it blending in and becoming invisible.

And thats just the first flaw – what about organisation problems and clutter they cause.  I’m constantly hearing self proclaimed “GTD gurus” telling us to “simplify” and use paper lists – but how can I be a fan of something thats now got a much better alternative.  Screw the nostalgia!

So there you have it, a very obvious and simple flaw of post-its.    That being said, I still use scraps of paper, post-its and other paper based lists.  Mainly as a go between my memory and another tool (task.fm, evernote etc.).   But what I don’ t do is rely on these notes to remind me of something – they just havn’t manage to evolve little legs and follow me round!

What do you use post-its for?

Photo by Liz Marion

Anthony Feint is the Founder of Task.fm.   You should follow me on Twitter.  P.S – Interested in doing a blog post for Task Blog? get in touch: anthony@feint.me

The Concept

Be Easy

Don’t make people jump through hoops to contact you….be easy.  The key to good communication is being easily contactable.  Don’t hide your email address.  Instead setup special inboxes with efficient strategies to manage them (read on to find out more).

A good example of “being easy” – My phone number is pretty easy to find (I put it on my blog and make sure Pro Task.fm members can contact me on it any time).   This has lead to sales for Task.fm and greatly benefited my business.   I know lots of other entrepreneurs who use the same strategy with great success.

Show Genuine Interest

Talking about your product is easy and will only take your comminucations effort part of the way.  Be a true rockstar by showing genuine interest in your niche.  For example:

Gary Vaynerchuk is passionate about wine, therefore…
Gary promotes wine and…
Gary promotes people who talk about wine

This simple action of promoting the people who promote your niche will lead to people talking about you…confused?  The principle is simple -  Give and and you will receive.

Don’t make rules on how people should contact you.

Take the Time

This is the most important tip – take the time!  Set aside a block of time that you will solely dedicate to communicating.   Don’t be fooled into thinking you have no communication left, if your inbox is empty.  Go out and comment, promote your niche, respond to general questions in your niche. With Twitter, Facebook and Blogs – there is not shortage on work you could be doing.

The Tools

Use Skype, Google Voice

I’ve setup different numbers for different things.  Personal, Work, Support etc.  This way, I can be selective in what times I pick up certain calls and other times to let it ring through to voicemail.  Taking phone calls all day isn’t productive so develop blocks of time to dedicate to being available to pick up the phone.

Virtual numbers are cheap to purchase on Skype.  For a solution geared more towards businesses try RingCentral

Use a service to transcribe voicemails and then email, when possible, the contact.

Use Seesmic, Tweetdeck etc.

Use Seesmic/Tweetdeck (or any of the many similar options) to track mentions of your name, business, products etc. on Twitter.  Repsond right away (this lets your community know you actively listen).

Make Use of otherwise “wasted” Time

What do you do while flying?  Read the in flight mag?  Why not sync your email account for offline access (Think Google Gears), and then respond to all those emails you would normally just leave.

Outsource It

Take a lead from Tim Ferriss and outsource some of the mundane email sorting.  Hiring a Virtual Personal Assistant is now really cheap and very cost effective.   Get your email assistant to sift through your inbox to remove or summarise newsletters, ezines, etc.  Get them to forward any important emails and setup templates for common inquires.

You can still keep things personal by getting your assistant to only sort not reply to emails, if your worried about losing the personal touch.

Find an assistant on GetAFreelancer, eLance or Guru

Use Reminders for Important Communication

How many times have you forgotten to make that call!  A big plug for my own tool Task.fm – use it to setup call reminders.  “Call so and so” are the most common type of reminder in my Task.fm account.   Use Task.fm from your email account (send to reminder@task.fm) for easily managing follow up emails.

Photo by – GeekyGirly

• Clean up your stuff. “A place for everything, and everything in its place” is the motto of Unclutterer, a great blog on uncluttered living. As you already know, I’m a decluttering devotee, so this site is a daily must-read for me. I save time by keeping my things neat; that way, I don’t have to waste time looking for them.
• Automate your bill payments and savings transfers. If your bank offers online account management, you can set up recurring payment and transfer schedules so your bills are paid automatically—no more sitting down with the checkbook and roll of stamps!
• Outsource personal chores. Most people regard Tim Ferriss with distaste or at least skepticism, but his advice on outsourcing might be something to consider. If you have the disposable income, consider hiring someone to clean your house, care for your lawn, or groom your dog. Having a professional bathe my dog saves me a lot of time every month, and whenever I’m staying in New York, I make a regular habit of dropping off my laundry instead of spending hours at the laundromat doing it myself.
• Make a landing strip for your frequently-used stuff. File this under “clean up your stuff.” A landing strip is where you drop off all your belongings the moment you walk into the house, so that you can find them easily when you have to leave next. My landing strip is atop a bookcase in my house’s mud room, and it’s the regular resting place for my tote bag, cell phone, coat and scarf, keys, and my dog’s leash and walking supplies. For maximum efficiency, many people also use this as a one-stop charging station, with power cords for computers, mp3 players, and cell phones.
• Multitask during your commute. On the days when I’m commuting via the bus or the train, I’m constantly at work—writing, knitting, reviewing my calendar [and usually surrounded by people working similarly!].When I used to drive every day, I spent my time doing Japanese lessons and listening to the music I had to learn for upcoming shows. [Though, seriously, people? Use some common sense if you're car-bound—don't use your productivity as an excuse to chat on your cell phone or catch up on reading the paper.]
• Limit your social networking time. My colleague Jay knows all about this, and has written about it extensively. Sure, getting rid of your social networking addiction isn’t a cure-all; but if you make it more difficult to use Flickr or Twitter as a crutch when you should be working, you’ll get everything done a lot faster.
• Automate your recurring purchases. In the past I’ve used Petco, Alice, and Amazon to make sure that my house is never without toilet paper, pet food, toothpaste, coffee, or Cheese-Its. The Petco account was particularly helpful; it allowed me to buy in bulk for a lot less money, and saved me from the hassle of lugging an enormous bag of dog food onto the subway in New York City.Even better, I never had to think about it —every ten weeks, it charged my account and then shipped out a forty-pound bag of dry food and two cases of canned stew.
• Filter your email. I’m in complete agreement with Merlin Mann that we should stop jumping every time we hear the “Ding!” of an incoming e-mail message. Filtering is the best way I’ve found to reduce my inbox influx. Unsubscribe to all the useless mailing lists you’re receiving, and set your email to automatically archive the things you may need for reference, but don’t need to read immediately. [My biggest culprit? Facebook messages, with the constant barrage of "Join my aquarium!" and "You've been turned into a zombie!" Ugh. I don't miss those emails a bit.]

What tricks and tips do you use to save bits of time here and there? Let us know in the comments!

Amanda Lee Anderson is a writer and editor living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City. She writes about fashion, music, productivity, and happiness. Read her blog or find her on Twitter.

Last week I wrote about the ways that clutter can cost you. We talked about the time, the money, productivity, and peace of mind that can go completely out the window whenever your stuff overtakes your life. And yesterday, my co-blogger Jay wrote about how to unclutter your workspace quickly so that you can get back to work.
If you know how to stop the flow of clutter into your space, though, you’ve nipped the problem in the bud. If clutter doesn’t come in, you don’t have to spend time getting it out…so you don’t have to take any time away from the important stuff. Read on!

• Don’t allow anything to come into your space if it doesn’t belong there. A lot of clutter originates when people allow things into their spaces that don’t belong there, instead of rejecting it outright. This means putting junk mail into the trash instead of bringing it into the house with the rest of the bills and letters. This means not buying three pencil cups when one will suffice. This means leaving your coffee cup in the kitchen, instead of bringing it into the office where you work. Remember, every time you bring something into your home that doesn’t belong there, you’re just delaying a decision you’ll have to make later to get it out of your life—and depending on how long it takes you to make that decision, your clutter can cost you a lot during that time.
• Likewise, don’t allow anything to stay in your space if it doesn’t belong there anymore. Go through your belongings regularly and purge the things you don’t want, need, or use. Last winter I helped a friend clear his belongings out of his parents’ house, so they could turn his former bedroom into a guest room and reclaim the basement as a rec room instead of a room stacked with boxes of his stuff. He quite literally hadn’t gotten rid of a single thing he’d ever owned since birth, and his parents were tearing their hair out at the sheer amount of stuff that was occupying the space where he didn’t even live anymore. Some people bristle at the suggestion that they give away things that are in good condition, because they feel it’s wasteful. Here’s the thing, though: just because it’s no longer useful to you doesn’t mean that it’s not useful to anyone. So go find someone who will cherish your Ninja Turtles, your Babysitters’ Club novels, your teacups, or your old map collection.
• Consider consuming your media in digital formats. Books, albums, photographs, films, games. They’re all so important to all of us—so important, in fact, that the vast majority of us collect them obsessively. But why not collect them digitally instead? Instead of a paper copy of a document, use an OpenOffice document—archivable and searchable. Set up your bank statements and bills to be emailed to you—no paper necessary. Scan all your family photos and drop them onto a Flickr Pro account, then use a digital camera from now on. Instead of storing those stacks of CDs, DVDs and [this might be painful for the audiophiles out there] LPs, convert them to digital files and keep them on an external hard drive, then buy mp3s via iTunes or watch films on Hulu or Netflix. Jay touched on this when he complained about paper clutter, which used to be a special sore spot for me—so in compensation from my inherent paper-hoarding tendencies, I’ve swung the exact opposite direction, and in the past year whittled my paper usage down by about 95%, including books, photographs, notebooks, and sketchbooks. [True story: I showed up to a client meeting this morning without a portfolio. When they asked to see my work and my design skills, I pointed them to my Web site. See? No paper needed!]

Do you all have a problem with clutter? How do you stop unnecessary objects from coming into your space? Please share in the comments!

Amanda Lee Anderson is a writer and editor living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City. She writes about fashion, music, productivity, and happiness. Read her blog or find her on Twitter.

• Time. It may be unintuitive, but excess stuff and time are directly related. You have to spend time acquiring stuff. You have to deal with caring for it. You have to clean, organize, and care for it. You have to move it. And you have to go through it to find things whenever something is lost. Think about how many times you’ve lost your keys [or your checkbook!] in a pile of stuff in the past year; how many hours does this total? Before I got myself organized, I looked for three or four lost objects every day. Even still, I occasionally relapse and forget to put my gloves, my camera cord, or my favorite circular knitting needle in its place, leading to an impromptu search party to find what I need.
• Money.Clutter, by definition, is anything you don’t need, use, or want. So the cost of clutter includes the cost of unnecessarily procuring it. On top of that, you have to store the clutter, so you end up paying for a bigger space than an uncluttered person might otherwise need, just to have room for all your stuff. And when it’s time to get rid of clutter, you often have to pay someone to haul it away. And when you’re absolutely sure you have something but you have absolutely no idea where it is, you end up popping out to buy a quick replacement. [Full disclosure: I've done this with about twenty different items in the past few years, including my cell phone charger, my black pencil skirt, my aluminum water bottle, my iPod headphones, and my favorite pen. I don't even want to think about how much money I could have saved if I'd gotten myself organized sooner.]
• Productivity. When your stuff is cluttered, you have to declutter it to a certain degree before you start to work. If your kitchen is a mess right before you have to cook a Thanksgiving meal for twenty-seven people, you’re going to have to block out some time to figure out where you put your turkey baster and your casserole dish. If your sewing room is filled with wrinkled, dirty scraps, your fabric stash is disorganized, and you’re completely out of rotary blades and serger needles, you’re not going to be constructing any garments anytime soon. Not only that, but clutter can completely obfuscate some of the tasks you need to complete. If, as we said, your kitchen is a mess, how will you know that you’re out of milk, your knives need to be sharpening, and your egg beater is missing one of its blades? If your closet isn’t neat and organized, you’ll have no idea that none of your pants fit anymore, nor that your best white dress shirt is missing two buttons.
• Peace of mind. If you have a proverbial place for everything and everything in its place, you know exactly where to go to look for things, exactly how long it’s going to take to get things done, and exactly what you’re missing to complete your next action. However, if not, the time and effort you’ll need to put into completing a task—or whether you can even complete it at all—is up in the air.

Next week, I’ll be writing about how you can curb clutter to make it easier to be productive. Check back for more! In the meantime, how do you feel about clutter? Do you thrive on a neat environment, or do you draw inspiration from disorganization?

Amanda Lee Anderson is a writer and editor living in Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City. She writes about fashion, music, productivity, and happiness. Read her blog or find her on Twitter.

Only Start One Habit at A Time

Changing a lot of things at once seems like an efficient way to improve your life, but it just makes each new habit harder to monitor and harder to stick with.  If you have too many goals, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with schedules and things to remember. Just work on one goal at a time. When you’ve successfully picked up a new habit, you can move on to the next one.

Have a Specific Plan

When you’re trying to add something new to your routine, it helps to assign yourself very specific actions to take, so you can think about it as little as possible. After all, the goal of starting a new habit is to eventually do it automatically. So, instead of telling yourself “I will exercise 4 times a week,” make a plan of which specific exercises you’re going to do, and when.

Do It For Three Weeks

21 days is considered the standard amount of time to keep up a new habit before it successfully becomes ingrained. Even if you want to keep a habit for years, just tell yourself you only need to do it for three weeks. If you can stick to your plan for that long, the rest should be easy.

If You Slip Up, Start Over

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you miss a day. Instead of giving up or letting your efforts slip even further, just get started again the next day. Even if you’re not perfect — and who is? — any attempt you make to continue on after you mess up will be worth a lot more than doing nothing at all.

Have Someone Else Hold You Accountable

Tell a friend. Post something to Twitter. Start a website. Do something that makes your goal public and gets the people around you to hold you accountable by reminding you to do it or asking how it’s going. When you have someone to answer to if you don’t keep up with your plan, you’ll be a lot more likely to do it. And when you follow through and succeed, you’ll have someone to tell about it.

Are you trying to make a change in your routine, or have you made one lately? What works for you? Tell us about it in the comments.

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

Photo Credit – sunshinecity

The idea behind doing only three things is acknowledging that your overwhelming to-do list might be intimidating you out of getting your most important tasks done. You have a choice between freaking out about a dozen things and only getting three of them done, or getting the same three things done without all that needless stress.

The key to making this work is to make sure you know what’s on your agenda for the day. Taking a half-hour before you go to bed every night to get your priorities straight and write them down means you can jump into work first thing in the morning.  Some of Leo’s other tips aren’t necessary, but they make the three-things plan a lot more effective:

• Don’t check email until you finish the first thing. You want at least one item out of the way before an incoming message potentially rearranges your day.
• Choose your three things for impact. Which of your to-do items are most urgent and most important? What’s going to make you feel like you’ve accomplished a lot?
• Pick a fourth task that you can procrastinate on. Rather than wasting time when you get bored, have a fallback plan that’s also productive.

I know that doing three things a day sounds lazy and irresponsible, but it’s actually just being realistic. Pick your tasks wisely, and don’t let a long list of action items overwhelm you.

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

Photo Credit – gpeters