5 Ways to Spend Less Time at Work

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from workplace expert Alexandra Levit, a Wall Street Journal writer and published author. Follow her on Twitter.

Technology is supposed to increase our productivity and reduce our work hours, yet many of us find the opposite to be true. We feel busier than ever, we stay at the office later than ever, and sometimes we leave without finishing a single task of substance! Do these five things right now and go to your family on time tonight.

1. Clear off your desk. When your office is cluttered, you’ll have the tendency to flutter around it aimlessly, without a clear sense of where you should channel your energy. I suggest thinking of every new item arriving on your desk as an insect that is infiltrating your territory. Your job is to dispose of it as quickly as possible, either by chucking it in the nearest recycling bin or putting it in its proper place. The only material on your desk should pertain to the task you’re working on at that very minute.

2. Get Your Google on. Manage your virtual world more time-efficiently by signing up for Google’s suite of offerings. The products, which include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Sites, streamline tasks and facilitate collaboration among people working together on projects. Many are free, and the data are safely backed up and available everywhere you have an Internet connection.

Why Your Email Inbox Is NOT a Good To-do List

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

New York Times techonology writer David Pogue, a writer I admire, recently listed some of his best productivity tips — and it’s a good list. One thing I noted with interest is that he uses his email inbox as a to-do list, which is a fairly common practice.

And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, and I’ve done it myself, I wanted to make a quick counterargument.

An email inbox isn’t the best to-do list, and here’s why:

1. You can’t change the subject lines. This means your to-do list is made up of subject lines that often have nothing to do with the action you need to take. An email that says “today’s meeting” might really be an action to call someone or send a file to someone. You’ll need to open each email to find the actions, which is very inefficient. Or, you’ll need to remember what actions are associated with each email, and that defeats the point of a to-do list … the list is supposed to remember for you, and take the stress away from your brain.

2. There might be multiple actions in each email. What if an email contains 10 to-do items? You can’t delete or archive the email when you’ve done one or two of the actions. It’ll remain in your inbox until all 10 are done, as if nothing has been done. Also, you might forget that there are multiple actions in an email and file or delete it when you’ve done one of the actions — either that or you’ll be forced to remember that there are multiple actions in the email, again defeating the purpose of a to-do list.

3. You can’t re-order the emails (usually). Many email programs (such as the wonderful Gmail) just show the emails in the order they come in. Which means if you want to put the most important items at the top, you can’t. If you want to group all the items for errands, you’ll have to create a label for that and look there. It’s not as flexible as even the most simple to-do program.

6 Amazing Techniques to Staying Happy During a Stressful Project

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Karl Staib of Work Happy Now!

Most of our work happiness comes from our relationship with ourselves. For example, I’m working on a program to help people work happier. As I’m putting all the research together, writing each section and making it all coherent, I hit walls that stall my progress.

A few months ago I actually flopped on the floor, let out a loud groan and died from exhaustion. Luckily, my wife was home, sprinkled some magic kisses upon me and I came back to life. :) My creativity was stalled by my own thoughts of inadequacy, fear, and anger. The person from whom I needed the most encouragement was myself, and I was being my own worst enemy.

I analyzed the internal problems I was having and their effect on my work. Each one represents a weakness of mine. I will show you how I deal with each one and how I’ve learned to use my weaknesses to my advantage.

1. Stay Focused on One Project at a Time
Most of the time, I have several things that I am trying to do at once. I could be writing an email and at the same time I am thinking about an upcoming meeting. This split distraction puts strain on my focus and affects the quality of my work.

I’ve noticed that my attention darts from thought to thought because there is no looming deadline. I’m not forced to produce. So when I need to focus, I set a timer to create a little stress. Stress can be good when it brings focus to a person’s life.

Depending on the task, I may set the timer for 30 minutes and try to knock the work out in that time frame. If I need more time, I let the timer beep at me and then I reset it for the appropriate amount of time. This allows me to focus on this one task without letting my ADD distract me.

8 Liberating Strategies for Clearing the Queues in Your Life

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Are the queues in your life stressing you out?

Our lives are filled with queues, from email inboxes to your to-do lists to voice and text messages to a variety of different inboxes in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to work applications to RSS readers and bookmarked “to-read” articles and more.

For many people, managing all these queues is stressful, never-ending, and complex.

Let’s look at how to simplify things, how to clear your queues, and how to let go of the stress of managing them all.

Queues That Rule Our Lives
One of my favorite bloggers, Alex Payne, wrote a post a little while back called Life As A Series of Queues, and in the post he listed some of his queues. I’m reposting them here because they’re fairly typical for a lot of people. Of course, your particular list will definitely vary, but this is an example:

3 Ways to Get More Done With the Power of Less

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jerry Kolber, an award-winning writer, producer, and executive producer of film and television.

Along with my own deepening mindfulness meditation practice, I’ve found Leo’s writing to be extremely helpful in my ongoing discovery of why I am on this planet.

For the last decade, from my mid 20’s to my mid 30’s, I’ve been working in film and television as a writer, producer, and executive producer on shows like Inked, Confessions of a Matchmaker, NOFX: Backstage Passport, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Some of the television I’ve worked on has been aligned with my desire to help people overcome obstacles to manifesting their full potential as human beings – Queer Eye and Confessions of a Matchmaker in particular – while some of it has merely been great entertainment.  Along the way I’ve spent a lot of my spare time working on social justice media for places like Treehugger.com and working on environmental justice issues.

I’ve been taking active steps in the last year to manifest a life built more predominantly around my interest in social justice, particularly as it relates to food and the environment. I am constantly educating myself on issues around farming, local and organic food, and how our food choices affect the interdependent web that we all live in. As Leo has often said here, a delicious healthy diet is deeply satisfying and energizing, and once you start eating food that makes you feel alive in your core it’s hard to eat anything else.

Eating is basically the only time we voluntarily select which parts of the “outside world” we want to put inside us; the energy of the food has quite an impact on the quality of our energy and our thoughts. Yet the mainstream conversation about how to get and prepare healthy, fresh food focuses mainly on expensive organic luxury items, while conversations about eating on a budget too often focus on processed “cheap food.” Early this year I had an aha moment: I needed to take my avid interest in cooking, combine it with everything I knew about food justice, and write a fun, easily accessible cookbook so that people on a budget could join the “food revolution”.

Put Things Off and Stop Caring to Realize Your Dreams

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

Caring is supposed to be a good thing, yet, it can become unhealthy and have an adverse effect on our lives.

When we care too much, we become obsessive and it often leads to dysfunction.

There are definitely times where passion fuels our desire to act. Working towards change, being involved in a social movement, and contributing in a meaningful way to others are all examples of this. But it’s the not caring about things that don’t matter that allows you to focus your attention on these big, important things. It’s the lack of out-of-control caring that brings more levity into your life.

How to Make Gmail Your Ultimate Productivity Center

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

These days there are a proliferation of digital tools we use for productivity, for time management, for communication, for social networking, for keeping track of our lives, online and off.

It can be a nightmare to keep track of it all, and frankly, it’s a bit unproductive to keep switching between a dozen different tools.

Enter Gmail, my favorite solution for just about anything. OK, maybe not for things like solving marital problems or spending time with my kids, but … give it time. :)

It’s already pretty clear that Gmail is the best tool for email, and integrations with calendar and chat have made it the go-to place for much of our information. But Gmail Gadgets have allowed us to bring the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. Now we can do just about everying in one place - Gmail.

How to Clear Your Life’s Obstacles by Performing a Home Organizing Audit

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Alex Fayle of Someday Syndrome.

Mention the word “audit” and most people run screaming. But an Organizing Audit has nothing to do with taxes, so you can come back now. Don’t worry.

An Organizing Audit gives you an opportunity to look at your home from an objective viewpoint. The old saying “familiarity breeds contempt” can be paraphrased for your home to “familiarity breeds blindness.” When we use the same space every day, we learn to not notice the little tasks that aren’t done, or the things that don’t have their own storage place.

The Simplest Way to Clear Out Your Email Inbox

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

In a sentence: Don’t reply or even read most of your emails.

Your inbox can be cleared in minutes with that method.

Here’s how I suggest you do it:

1. Select all junk mail, newsletters, routine notifications, auto-replies, joke emails, chain mail, ads, anything else not super important. Delete em.
2. Select about half (or more) of the other emails that you know are not important, just from the subject line. Archive em.
3. Quickly read through the rest, archiving almost every one of them. Select a few to reply to or act on (5 at the most). Those will be your most important.
4. Reply to them in three sentences or less, act on them immediately, or put them on your calendar to do later.

Seven Productivity Tips For People That Hate GTD

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

Not everone gets GTD (Getting Things Done). I know I didn’t. It made my head spin.

I have nothing against the system or David Allen. I’m sure it must be awesome for some people (that’s why it has all those followers, right?). But for others, it just doesn’t fit. Mostly with creative-minded people.

When it comes to GTD and other systems, it’s often too easy to get into a habit of over-engineering your system. You “geek out” on your system and lose sight of the point of pursuing productivity in the first place.