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

The efficiency of RSS is also its downfall, though. If you subscribe to too many feeds, it’s easy to get sucked into reading for hours every day, when you should be working. Fortunately, there are ways to quickly and efficiently take your daily sip from the information firehose without drowning yourself.

Here’s my best advice for making the most of this glorious thing called RSS:

Get Google Reader

RSS veterans may disagree with me here, so they can feel free to ignore this tip and move on. If you’re just diving into the feed reading game, though, Google Reader is one of the easiest, most straightforward ways to get started, and it packs plenty of features to help you keep your subscriptions organized. Advanced users: you should consider Shaun Inman’s gorgeous Fever feed reader, provided you have some server space to install it.

Use Folders

Most RSS readers allow you to sort your subscriptions into folders, and you should take full advantage of this feature. I keep fashion and design sites in one folder,  friends’ blogs in another, and the all-important feeds I read for work in yet another folder. That way, when it’s time to get down to business, I can close up the folders I’m not reading to avoid distraction.

Prune Your Feeds Regularly

It’s no big deal if you want to subscribe to any old feed that looks interesting to you, just to give it a trial run. Periodically, though — perhaps when you do your weekly review? — you should go through your feeds and see which ones still have tons of unread items. Decide whether they’re really adding value to your life, and whether you feel it’s important to make time to read them. If the answer is no, unsubscribe swiftly.

Don’t Be Afraid to Mark All As Read

New items can come in fast and furious, especially when you’re subscribed to sites that post dozens of times a day. If you find yourself so hopelessly buried that you’re never going to catch up, just hit that “mark all as read” button and feel your stress melt away. If you find you’re doing this frequently, you may be oversubscribed, and you should consider making some tough calls about which sites you really need in your life.

These tips should get you off to a good start toward saving time with your RSS feeds instead of wasting it. I know many of our readers are probably RSS gurus,  so I’d also like to cover some more advanced tips in the future.

In the meantime, though, don’t forget to subscribe to the Task Blog RSS feed, and leave a comment and tell us a little bit about your own RSS habits!

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 find him on Twitter and at his blog.

Photo — RSS Pillow from Throwboy

Here are some of the best ways I’ve found to stay on task and still enjoy all the benefits of not having to go into the office:

Keep Your Bed and Your Desk In Separate Rooms

This one’s not always possible in a smaller apartment, but separating your bedroom and your workspace is a good way to acknowledge the immensely powerful distraction of a comfy bed. I’ve had to train myself to avoid “just lying in bed for a few minutes” and waking up 4 or 5 hours later with no work done. Keeping the bed out of sight and out of mind helps a lot.

Close The Door

If at all possible, work in a room with a door you can close. The psychological impact of closing the door to indicate you’re working can’t be overestimated. If you live with kids, pets, roommates or a significant other, it also lets them know you’re working and and eliminates distractions. I’m borrowing this one from Stephen King’s excellent book On Writing, which contains plenty of good general advice that applies outside of being a writer.

Have a Regular Routine

One of the best parts of working from home is that you don’t have to keep a schedule. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, though, it just means you should keep one that works for you. It doesn’t have to be eight hours, but you should be consistent about what’s work time and what’s not. If you don’t make any rules, you’ll be much more likely to blow off work whenever you don’t feel like doing it.

Eat Something

Make sure meals are part of your routine. If you don’t know when you’re eating, you’ll be likely to knock off work at any time to get takeout or fix yourself a snack. I’m as guilty of this as the next guy, but I find that eating breakfast in the morning helps set the pace for the day. If you can start the day with a few hours of feeling full, you’ll reduce the temptation to quit early and have lunch. You should definitely eat when you’re hungry, but eating breakfast will keep you from being hungry when you’re trying to build up some momentum in the morning.

Because I work from home and struggle with a lot of this stuff myself, I’m sure I’ll write more on this subject in the future. I’d be interested to hear what good advice you have for being productive away from the office, so please leave me a note 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 find him on Twitter and at his blog.

Photo Credit — bs

In one of the most insightful essays I’ve read all year, Paul Graham explains the difference between the Manager’s Schedule and the Maker’s Schedule, and why meetings have a cascading effect of wasted time for people who make things. That “Maker” group includes writers, coders, designers and other project-oriented folks.

When a Maker has to attend a scheduled meeting, it has the effect of breaking a useful stretch of time into chunks that are often too small to accommodate any difficult work. Even a half-hour meeting can be distracting, because anticipating it and remembering to go to it pulls focus away from the task at hand, and refocusing afterward takes time, too.

Graham says that Managers don’t understand the Maker’s schedule, because their own schedules are blocked out into hour-long chunks by default.  They have time to take speculative, “just-getting-to-know-you” meetings. A Maker, on the other hand, might need an entire day to work on one problem.

So, what can you do if meetings keep breaking up your valuable work time? Obviously, turn down the ones you can skip without causing offense. If you can, try to set up office hours, so you can do any face-to-face interaction on a schedule you can plan for and control.

Beyond that, communicate with the Managers in your life, so they won’t ask you to schedule an appointment without understanding the damage it does to your productivity. In fact, send them Graham’s essay — writing it and spreading awareness was his way of addressing the issue.

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 – clagnut

Psychological research suggests that people actually work harder to achieve their goals when they keep their intentions private. In one study, researchers split law students up into two groups and had them both answer a questionnaire about strategies for becoming better lawyers. One group went over their responses with the researchers afterward, and the other didn’t. When the students were asked to work on an optional legal research task, the group that kept their answers quiet worked much harder.

When you discuss your goals with others, you’re achieving much of the psychological satisfaction of actually accomplishing those goals, and psychologists say that makes you less likely to actually do your work. It’s easier and more tempting than ever to discuss future plans, with the widespread adoption of Twitter, Facebook and blogs. These are all great tools for promoting work you’ve already done, but don’t let them sabotage the work you have yet to do.

Changing the way you talk about what you plan to do might help you change the way you think about it. If you really can’t stand not to share your brilliant idea, don’t brag about it as if it’s already done. Instead, ask the person you’re sharing with to make sure you stay on track toward actually accomplishing what you’re blabbing about.

Software developer Eoghan McCabe puts it quite succinctly on his blog:

Hamlet worries about what dreams may come after his suicide, but oftentimes shared dreams are suicide themselves. So I suggest you try the opposite: shut up and get busy. There’s nothing sweeter than sharing a secret worth sharing.

Do you announce your goals, or do you tend to keep them to yourself? Let us know what works for you by leaving a comment.

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 – gustty

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

It’s easier to say no when you put requests in context. Small favors and quick new projects aren’t much on their own, but saying yes to every single one can leave you burnt out and stressed. To understand how all your small commitments add up, you have to know what you’ve already agreed to do. That’s where the ubiquitous capture part of Getting Things Done comes in. Make sure you keep track of everything you’ve signed on for, so you can make realistic decisions about new work.

Do your best to say no early in the process. It’s easier to turn a job down right away than it is to tell someone you can’t finish it after you’ve already committed. It can be hard to say no to someone who’s bent on “Getting to Yes,” but you’re saving their valuable time and doing them a favor by being crystal-clear about what you can and can’t handle.

If you enjoy what you do and strive to make people happy, it’s natural to want to say “yes” to everything. It can be hard to switch from that mindset to a policy of saying no by default, but there are ways to make it easier. For example, if you have a new work page on your website, be honest about the likelihood that you can actually take on more projects.

Someone who really gets this right is Chris Pearson, the designer behind the wildly popular Thesis WordPress theme. His bio page prominently features the following polite-yet-firm message regarding new work:

Unfortunately, I must inform you that I am not for hire.

I’m not saying that Chris doesn’t still get unwanted email from people trying to hire him, but I’m sure he gets a lot less of it because of that single sentence. The takeaway from all of this: be honest with yourself and others about how much you can handle, and you’ll save a lot of time and hassle.

Do you have your own effective way of saying no? Let us know 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 – biscuitsmlp

Always Take It With You

One of the easiest ways to defeat your notetaking system is to leave home without it. Do everything you can to make a habit of bringing your capture mechanism of choice with you when you go out, even if that means making a place for it by the door where you can’t miss it.

Take Notes Immediately

Even if an idea seems farfetched, write it down right away, just as it is. You have plenty of time to revise later, but if you let that initial flash of inspiration disappear without recording it, you might never get it back.

Record Enough Context

Jotting down a couple of words might seem okay, but you have to make sure you give enough context to remember what you’re talking about later. I  just found a notation in my Moleskine from a few months back that read “… what that says about zeal!” Sounds interesting, and it might have become an interesting article, but now I have no clue what it means. Including tmes, dates and locations will help you remember why you recorded what you did.

Act On What You Write Down

This might seem pretty obvious, but some people never get it: taking notes on everything doesn’t help you much if you never go back and turn them into action items. I commend you for making a note about buying dog food, but your dog’s not going to be too impressed until it’s actually in his bowl. This goes for brilliant, complex plans, too: they aren’t going to go anywhere if you never sit down and figure out the next step in making them happen.

Got any other useful tips on capturing stuff for your GTD workflow? Go ahead and record them immediately by leaving a comment.

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 – adulau

Set A Deadline

If you have a task that doesn’t have a deadline yet, give it one. You’ll be more likely to start something once you rid yourself of the idea that you can do it any time. Personally, I’m a lot more likely to respect external deadlines than the ones I set for myself. If you’re the same way, getting a friend or coworker to set one for you might help.

Give Yourself An Incentive

If your problem with getting started is that you don’t care enough about what you have to do, try adding something that will make you care. Take yourself out to dinner and movie when you finish, or reward yourself with a nap. It’s easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you put it there yourself.

Break Tasks Down Into Smaller Pieces

Instead of putting entire projects on your to-do list as single items, break them down into smaller parts that are easier to start on. Maybe you’re stressed because you have to build a whole website, but you can start with something a lot smaller, like buying the domain name or doing a WordPress install. All those baby steps will eventually get you to the end of your to-do list.

Get Rid of Anything That’s Not Essential

It’s tough to start doing anything when you’re thinking about 10 other things you should be working on. Get rid of as many of them as you can, to make sure only the most important tasks are competing for your limited attention.

Just Do It for 10 Minutes

Even if you know you don’t want to do a certain task, tell yourself you’re just going to work on it for 10 minutes. You’ll probably end up doing a lot more than that, once you get started, but 10 minutes is such a small commitment that it can make even the most fearsome work seem manageable. The idea is just to get started, continuing from there is the easy part.

If you want to finish your work, you’ve got to start somewhere. Hopefully these five techniques will help you do just that. Do you have another good technique for beating procrastination and starting in on your important tasks? Post 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 – rowens27

Get Everything Out

gtd evolves around getting all your tasks out of your head and onto paper, software etc.  Everytime new tasks arrive, instead of trying to remember it – outsource the process by writing it down.  Apart from..

Small “2 Minute” Tasks

Tasks that take less than 2 minutes don’t need to be written down (or put into your preferred app).  Instead, do this task immediately.

Processing

This is the process of going through all your tasks deciding what needs to be done with them.  Some you may delete.  Some will be put off for later down the track.  And the rest need to be dealt with now – these are called “actionable” tasks.  Make a list of “actionable” tasks.  Go down the list and complete them one by one.

Project

Any task that will require more than one step, becomes a project.   Make a plan of these tasks outlining the individual steps.  These steps can be put back into your list.

So here you have it.  The ultra-condensed and absolute beginners guide to productivity and more specifically GTD.