The most important thing you can do is shift your time and attention to the things you can control. Sure, that includes the things on your to-do-list, but it also includes your attitude and your communication with the other people you’re counting on to make sure things get done.

If you make a list of the things that are stressing you out, and cross off the ones over which you have no control, I bet you’ll end up with a much less fearsome list.

Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether you actually have the ability to influence a situation. That means you have to pay attention to the way your bosses, employees, teammates or clients work. Be aware of whether sending an email is going to be enough to get the results you want, or whether you’re dealing with someone who needs a bit more hand-holding.

More importantly, make sure you’re on the same page about the division of responsibility. What’s actually your job, and what has everyone else agreed to do? If the answers are ambiguous, talk it out until you’re sure everyone is on board. Communication saves a lot more time than it takes, and that’s time you can spend on your own work.

Also, even when you can’t control something (like funding, deadlines, or someone else’s part of a project), you can still control your attitude toward the situation. Remember that it takes more time to freak out about things you can’t control than to finish the tasks you can.

The upshot of all of this is that sometimes we have a false sense that we’ve taken on too much responsibility, when we’re actually just worrying about things we can’t (or shouldn’t) control.

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 – secretlondon

Walk with me through a brief history of the way social media took over our lives, and how you can take some of that time and attention back:

Facebook

When Facebook started to get big in 2005, it was still just a way to keep in touch with friends. It didn’t have a News Feed, it didn’t have apps, and hell, it didn’t even have photos! Cut to today, when people are using Facebook as a platform for gaming, for business, and for marketing. There’s only so much time you can spend deleting Farmville invites and looking at pictures of your friends’ babies.

My suggestion? Make Facebook real-life-friends only, and don’t feel bad about hiding particularly spammy friends from your news feed. If you feel you have to use it for business, get a fan page. Search userscripts.org for some of the many ways to hide Facebook ads, sidebars, apps and invitation.

Twitter

Twitter took off amongst the early-adopter set back at SXSW ’07, and officially became an almost-Facebook-sized part of the national consciousness when Oprah talked about it on her show last year. It was initially a way to meet up with friends and talk about what you ate for lunch, but now normal users are following hundreds of people they don’t know and trying to market their web-based crap to strangers.

If Twitter’s become totally unmanageable, you should either make some tough calls about who to delete — nothing personal, but a good friend doesn’t always make a good twitterer. Split work and personal accounts using one of the many Twitter clients that support multiple accounts and groups (Tweetdeck is one of the most popular). Just because you have 1000 followers doesn’t mean you need to make Twitter useless to you by following all of them back.

Google Buzz

Oh, Buzz … it’s so new that nobody really knows what box to put it in. Thankfully, Google turned off the auto-follow feature, so users now have more control over who they’re reading on Buzz, but you could find yourself oversubscribed … especially because people are feeding their other sites into Buzz.

Don’t do that. Let me decide whether I care enough to follow you on Twitter, Flickr, Reader AND Buzz … don’t make Buzz into a spam-tastic catch-all. You may want to have a talk with any friend who’s clogging up your Gmail account by connecting every social site he can think of to his Buzz. You may also want to decide what place Buzz has in your life: is it just another Twitter? Is it Tumblr? Is it Foursquare?

Of course, this is difficult when Google doesn’t seem to know what Buzz’s purpose is, other than getting Google a piece of your precious attention. And, make no mistake, your attention is precious. If someone is trying to take too much of it on a social site, unsubscribe from them. If keeping up with something like Buzz is causing you more stress than enjoyment, turn it off. It doesn’t have to be personal.

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 – wolfraven

So, let’s meet five types of people who can be hell on your productivity:

The Nitpicker

In the right situation, the nitpicker can help you out. This is the person you want proofreading your copy before it goes to press, or putting the beta version of your app through its paces. In the early stages of any project, though, nitpickers can kill an idea with alarming speed. A great concept can become completely bogged down in a discussion of hypothetical details and future problems, well before it makes sense to start talking about them. Ouch.

The Naysayer

Whether he’s telling you that your latest project is a waste of time, or eagerly explaining why your entire profession is useless, the naysayer will never help you out. Nothing you’re doing is important to him, and there’s no point in asking him for help with the details, because he thinks your whole enterprise is ridiculous. The Naysayer isn’t necessarily a horrible person or a bad friend, he’s just a horrible person and a bad friend to talk to about work. One conversation with him can put you off your game for an entire day.

The Freeloader

If you’re good enough at something to get paid for doing it, you’ll inevitably meet someone who wants you to do it for them … for free. Whatever your profession, Freeloaders are basically inescapable. It could be a buddy who wants you to mock up a website on spec, an ex who wants free software, or the sister who wants you to fix her computer. This stuff takes time away from your paying work (or your exciting side project), and puts you in the awkward position of either giving away tons of useful time or looking like a jerk. The only way to deal with Freeloaders is by learning how to say no.

The Email Trainwreck

The popularity of Inbox Zero is a testament to the way we’ve increasingly come to view our inboxes as black holes of time and effort. Sometimes you’re the victim of your own organizational problems, and sometimes … well, some people are just bad at email. The Email Trainwreck is the guy who accidentally hits “reply all,” and then follows up with a message apologizing for hitting “reply all.” She’s one-word-email-girl. He’s the dude who abuses your inbox when text or IM would be faster. Heck, the Email Trainwreck could be your grandmother, forwarding you some conservative political humor. These people are the reason I turned off badges and alerts for new email.

The Über-competitor

Sometimes, a little bit of competition is healthy, even between people working on the same thing. Being around people who constantly strive to put out good work can be excellent motivation to do your own best work. The Über-competitor isn’t about healthy competition. This person doesn’t want to do her best work, she just wants to do better than you. This is obviously less than ideal when you’re supposed to be working together. Über-competitors have been known to hold back key information you need to do your work, or talk to clients or bosses behind your back, all in the name of beating everyone at everything.

Ideally, you would just avoid all five of these people, and deal with them only in situations that engage their positive traits — even annoying people can have an upside! — but I know that’s not always possible. At least you can be secure in knowing that you’re not the only one dealing with people who seem hell-bent on making work difficult.

I’d love to hear your stories (or your nominations for other productivity-killing personality types) 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 – shearforce

Here are some of things I’m doing today to clean out my computer today:

Running Maintenance Scripts

I’m on a Mac, so a system tuneup app like Onyx is ideal for this job. Your Mac runs scripts overnight that keep your system in working order, but it’s nice to run them manually if you don’t leave your machine on all the time. Some of these scripts only run once a month, so you should make sure to include those in a full cleanup. (Also, make sure you download the version of Onyx that matches your version of Mac OS.) If you’re on a PC, you should definitely run Disk Cleanup and defrag your hard drive!

Cleaning Up My HD

This one probably takes the most time and manual effort. That untamable documents folder is just sitting there waiting to be properly organized, and today is the day to man up (or woman) up and just do it. This has become a much easier task on my Mac since the introduction of Quick Look. No more opening up all those poorly-labeled Word docs to see what they are. … which brings me to another point: I should be labeling my files better to begin with, so I’ll be able to remember what they are when next year’s Clean Out Your Computer Day rolls around.

The other problem areas that need serious attention —for me, anyway — include my horrifying iTunes library and collection of seldom-used fonts. This stuff is taking up valuable hard drive space, and the fonts are only increasing the load time on my apps.

This would also be a good time to back up your hard drive if it’s been a while.

Cleaning Up My Browser

Time to see which of those bookmarks you still actually use, and which ones you can safely chuck out. Clearing cookies and caches isn’t a bad idea, either. How about those scripts, add-ons and themes? Still using all of them, or are they just slowing you down?

Literally Cleaning Up My Computer

Macworld has a great guide to cleaning up the physical stuff about your laptop, especially displays and keyboards. These tips aren’t Mac-specific, though, so feel free to apply them to whatever machine you’re cleaning.

Ahhh, doesn’t that feel better? Now, go get some work done on your freshly-cleaned machine!

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 – twid

Tom Davenport, co-author of The Attention Economy, argues that this is nothing to be concerned about. In The Harvard Business Review, he writes that there’s no point in dwelling on information overload because none of us is actually going to do anything about it. When was the last time you reorganized your RSS feeds or changed the way you sort email?

Davenport thinks the real waste of time is worrying about a bogeyman like information overload. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should be doing something productive instead of writing this column about a “problem” that nobody really wants to fix. I think he’s wrong. I update my spam filter dutifully and prune RSS feeds I don’t read. Letting your mind wander and reading junk on the web isn’t necessarily a productivity killer in moderation, but feeling obligated to read every email and every RSS item really can suck up a lot of valuable time.

I believe a few minutes spent cutting down on how much info you’re subscribed to will save you the time it would take to read or delete the junk later. Davenport’s point is generally right. Once we’re signed up to Facebook, Twitter, a few webcomics, a fantasy baseball team (or whatever your particular distraction might be), we’re not going to stop reading it. Does that mean that effective spam filtering and careful trimming of subscriptions can’t benefit our productivity? No way.

What do you think? Is info overload a real problem, or just an overhyped myth?

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.

Nothing against the iPad, but I have to call shenanigans here. A productivity tool is just that — a tool. It’s not a magic cure-all for the underlying issues and distractions that keep you from getting work done. As Merlin Mann quipped on Twitter back in May of 2009, “Seriously. Just consider how many projects you can’t even *START* until you get a tablet computer and a 32 gig cell phone. It’s crippling.”

He’s got a good point. It’s totally fine to lust after the latest gadget, but not to the detriment of the work you can already get done with the equipment you have. And, let’s be honest: none of your urgent projects and none of the things you’ve always dreamed of doing are dependent on a device that you’d never seen until a week ago.

Aside from the trap of projecting your productivity issues onto a new gadget, there’s also the question of whether the latest all-in-one super-tool is going to fit into your work life. I just read an interesting post where writer Warren Ellis outlines his writing tools, and he’s found that the all-in-one approach doesn’t work for him. He’s gone from taking calls, answering emails, and writing (via Bluetooth keyboard) all on the same smartphone to using a netbook, a separate phone, and several paper notebooks. Just because a gadget CAN do everything doesn’t mean it should.

I’m definitely as excited about the iPad as the next guy, and I could definitely see taking it to the café or library and getting some writing done remotely, but there’s nothing holding me back from doing that with my current laptop. So, by all means, buy the latest new gadgets. Just don’t let them become another source of resistance to getting things done.

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.

Because I had no idea there was a National Clean Off Your Desk Day, I also didn’t realize there were so many desk-cleaning tips on the web to help you celebrate this illustrious day. I thought I could learn something here, so I gathered some advice and went through it step-by-step on my own desk.

Grossest stuff first:

Start chucking out old food boxes, wrappers, and empty bottles. If you tend to eat while you work, this could be the bulk of the mess on your desk. I’ll admit to some empty Oreo wrappers this time around. For most people, though, the big problem is probably papers.

The paper problem:

I had a stack of papers that was so enormous, it started to block my view of the monitor. When it went through them, 80% were bills I had already paid, magazines I had already read, and credit card offers I didn’t care about. I put this stuff in a pile for shredding and recycling. This was a good reminder to switch as many of my monthly bills as possible to electronic statements. I pay them online already, and the paper copies just take up space.

The two-minute rule:

Out of the other 20%, at least a few of the papers were attached to action items that fell under the two-minute rule. I took some time out from my attack on the desk to sign a couple of checks, fill out some forms, and put them in envelopes for my next mail run. Total time? 5 minutes, tops. The rest of the paper went into my terrifyingly unkempt filing system — but that’s a horror story for another time.

With the paper out of the way, the rest was easy. Pens and other office supplies were returned to their proper bins, and I dusted my desk and wiped it down. National Clean Off Your Desk Day was complete … and only two weeks too late!

Pick a time this week and do your own desk-cleaning day. We’d love to hear about the grossest trash and biggest sources of clutter on your desk, so leave us a story 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 – williamhook

Wow what a year its been!  Task.fm got off to a flying start and is now used by thousands to send reminders.   Thank you all for your support – stay tuned for exciting new features launching in the New Year.  Thanks guys!

With the New Year approaching, here’s a simple way to keep track of, and hopefully stick to your New Years Resolutions:

Set yourself monthly reminders of your New Years goals.  In my case I’ve setup a list of things I don’t want to do, aka my “Do Not Do” list.    I’ve spaced these reminders out over the entire month, so I don’t get overwhelmed and also turned on the “briefing” feature, which will send through an overview of coming reminders for the month.

To setup a monthly reminder enter something like (remember Task.fm is Human Like, so it will understand natural language – no entering dates here!):

remind me to find a balance between work and life every month

Im using email reminders for my New Years Resolutions, but if you really wanted to drive the point home, use sms or phone call reminders as they are harder to be ignored.

So how do you plan on sticking to your New Years Resolutions for for coming year?

Photo by – Geekgirly

When it’s almost time for bed and my queue of deadlines is still stacked up like some hairy 8-foot monster, I find myself wishing I had cared just a little bit less about what Lady GaGa wore on the red carpet or what cool new jQuery plugins people are using this week.

Celine Roque over at Web Worker Daily really got to the heart of the problem with her thoroughly bookmark-worthy post about eliminating compulsive online fiddling. After quitting my favorite distracting sites cold-turkey and finding it totally didn’t work for me, I found this advice sane and reasonable by comparison:

Track Your Time

WWD’s first step is to identify just how much time you’re spending on your distractions, and keep a record of it. I love this, because it’s the web equivalent of figuring out how much you spend on cigarettes every year and using that as motivation to quit smoking. A few minutes here and there doesn’t seem like much to worry about it, but it adds up.

Remove The Distractions

I’ve talked about this in other posts, but using software to block your most distracting websites during work hours can be a good emergency measure for the hopeless web fiddler. Removing distracting apps from your dock and bookmarks, so they’re out of sight and out of mind, is a less extreme measure that I still find effective.

Understand Your Motivation

Probably the most useful general piece of advice in the WWD post. You’ll be more likely to take measures to save time if you know why you’re doing it. Do you want more time with family and friends, or extra time to do freelance projects for some extra money? Focusing on your goals gives you a reason to pause and reconsider before you spend three hours reading Gawker.

Don’t Do It All At Once

Designate a few hours of solid work without fiddling, and try that out before you decide to do it for an entire day. There’s no point in asking too much of yourself at once and giving up out of frustration.

I don’t mean to make web fiddling seem like some kind of horrible addiction— although I can tell you that my own distraction problems might almost reach that level — but it’s one area where most of us could get back a few extra hours a day. With that time, we could be making something really cool instead of refreshing email!

How do you avoid distractions on the web? Sound off 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  — ari

Family obligations abound, and people you need to get in touch with are busy or on vacation. What’s a productivity-minded person to do? I’ve gathered some of my favorite holiday productivity tips from around the web, and I’m re-gifting them to you here at Task Blog:

If You’re Going Shopping, Have a Plan

Haphazardly browsing for gifts during the most crowded time of the season will only take up a ton of your valuable time and unnecessarily raise your stress level. Plan out some thoughtful gifts, figure out the best way to get them — maybe you can buy online? Maybe you can make something at home and avoid the crowds? — and then go out, armed with a list.

If You’re Off the Grid, Do Some Planning

Maybe you’re planning a family vacation this holiday season, and it’s going to take you away from your computer or off the grid entirely. Family comes first, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with using some of your quiet time to make a plan for the next couple of months. It might even be a more sane and reasonable plan, since
you’re away from the stresses of work.

Front-load Your Work Schedule

If you can get a little extra work done now, you might be able to relax a bit or even take some time off just before the holidays. I might be a little bit biased toward this approach as a freelancer, because I get to choose my days off to some extent. Even if you’re stuck at work either way, getting something finished ahead of time might make those last few days before vacation more bearable.

Stop Freaking Out About Productivity

You have my official permission (as an uncertified and possibly crackpot productivity blogger) to stop fretting about squeezing every last bit of work out of your day and start spending some more time with the people who really matter to you. That’s why saving time is cool in the first place, right?

Have a productive, warm and enjoyable holiday season, everyone!

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  — greencolander