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

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

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

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.

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.