Developing the web » productivity

10 tips to work from home successfully

Noémie Lemaitre — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:56:37 +0000

During my career I’ve been working as an employee, going to work every day, and also as a free-lancer, working from home. It’s time to share a few insights on the topic.

1. Give it a try
First of all, you’ll never know if working from home could be an option for you if you don’t try it out. Talk to your boss. What about beginning with one day per week during a “test month”?

2. Prepare the space
Depending on the nature of your work, you’ll like to set up a defined space, and consider the following.

Dedicated place with appropriate infrastructure (this is probably not your bathroom)
Noise management: Do you like it silent? Avoid the street side of the appartment.
Organisation of supplies: Have you got all the materials you need at hand?

3. Eliminate diversions
Find out what’s happening at your house when you’re not there. Is the phone constantly ringing? Could you spend the whole day reordering a messy household? Are your cat’s friends visiting around the clock?
You’ll have to find solutions to prevent the distractions from invading your work day. Some may be easy to get rid of (like muting the phone), some may require you to elaborate more (like convincing the cat to poker only on weekends).

4. Stay focused
Once you’ve taken care of the surroundings, you’ll be confronted with your worst enemy: yourself.
Your own pet peeves can get in the way, from procrastination to hyper-activity. This is the rule: Your private mails may have to wait in your inbox until the end of your work day, and you won’t be able to repair the television until Saturday.

5. Follow work habits
The difference between “work” and “work from home” should basically remain the location. If you usually begin your work day with reading (work) eMails at your workplace, then simply do the same at home. Keep your work habits if they’re empowering you; drop them if they’re not.

6. Structure your work/time
Plan ahead, organize your schedule, manage your tasks. Nothing new. At home, it’s more likely that nobody will remind you to get specific things done; make sure you’ll still do them.

7. Keep track
Know what you’ve achieved at the end of the work-at-home day. A short list of completed tasks and topics worked on should be a good investment. You can use this information to verify how you’re doing and compare it to your feelings if unsure, and to show your boss how much more efficient you are.

8. Don’t think about it too much
Don’t obsess over the topic. Theoretically, you won’t experience anything else than you always do on a normal work day. Only the weighting differs.

9. Don’t give up
Working from home may not turn out the way you expected at first. Persevere! Practice and generation of habits will help you consolidating the building.

10. Be productive
Keep the productivity techniques you’re already using when at your company; they probably fit also at home, since you’re doing the same work.
Important: Working from home should have more advantages than going to work elsewhere. Thus it’s supposed to enable you to be more efficient. (Otherwise you may be better off at your workplace.)

Suggestions?

Would you like to work from home?
Are you already? Have you got tips to share?

5 tips to get your work done

Noémie Lemaitre — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:30:53 +0000

There are lots of ways to increase your productivity at work. Although, before you can become even more productive, you will have to get your own stuff done first. I’d like to consider a few elementary tips to begin with.

Learn to say “no”
It may sound egoistic, but you probably won’t hurt anybody by simply refusing to do other people’s work from time to time. “No” doesn’t necessarily mean work denial tentative or pure procrastination. You are the only one who knows if you’ll be able to type this report due on Monday when your boss asks you to begin at 17 o’clock on Friday. Don’t let the pressure force you to agree on every request. You may find other diplomatic ways to better schedule or modify what has to be done, still satisfiying all the involved parties. Practice saying “no” regularly to get better at it.
Delegate
Feeling irreplaceable? Try delegating some of your tasks to someone else. You may find out that:
- you’re winning time to get other stuff done,
- you’re gaining influence in relevant topics because of your ability to focus on the important things,
- you’re not really missing the task you’ve gotten rid of,
- your colleague is doing pretty well at it, and maybe even enjoying it,
- all of the above.
Schedule
To get work done, you’ll have to know how to manage your time. Plan your deadlines, keep buffers, batch tasks, etc. You can use any system that works for you.
Secure the zone
Allow yourself to work in surroundings that help you being productive. Get a separate room if your colleagues are too noisy at the moment, get headphones if music makes you work faster. Know what is good for you and try to apply it as often as possible.
Take a break
Don’t fool yourself! You may work great under pressure… but how long? You are more likely to get your stuff done when you’re well rested. Enough sleep, some breaks during the work day, and weekends without torturing your brain with work-related topics are ingredients you’ll need.

Now, what are your tips to get your own work done?

10 Firefox add-ons to get in control

Noémie Lemaitre — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:48:13 +0000

I optimized my workflow by using a few handy Firefox add-ons and I wanted to share the bliss with you.

Morning Coffee
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2677
Maybe a Firefox startpage is not enough for you. Do you want to know what’s going on in your company’s wiki on a daily basis? Have a look at your JIRA assigned issues in the morning? Want to login in your ticketing system every second day? Morning Coffee is the answer.
You can configure the add-on to load many websites when you click on a single button in the Firefox toolbar, and even tell it to open a few only on Mondays and Wednesdays. That’s a really good start in the working day!
Sage
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/77
Sage is a light-weight RSS feed reader. Its interface is seamless but it works streamlined. A must to stay tuned about what’s going on in your particular expertise domain.
Read it later
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7661
Did you forgot where you saved this website you were looking at last week in the infinite realm of your bookmarks? Read it later is for you. With this add-on you just click on a button to remember an interesting page you see on the web. It provides synching so you have access to your reading list from everywhere. You’ll never loose any hot link again!
Web Developer
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
A must for IT professionals. Web Developer provides a lot of – you guessed – web development tools like screen resize, table outline and image hiding, to name a few.
MeasureIt
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539
Tidy, placed in the browser’s status bar, this add-on allows you to measure on screen. Ideal for getting a quick idea of an image’s dimensions or a form field’s width.
ColorZilla
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
Also in the status bar, ColorZilla picks colors on the screen and gives you the color’s code in hex and RGB.
Firebug
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
Another typical web developer’s add-on, Firebug has become the practical alternative to “View source”. It is full-blown with lots of features which will convince you.
TwitterBar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4664
Allows you to tweet a site you’re just visiting on click. You can automatically add a prefix to your tweet (like “Currently browsing:”) and set it up to ask you for confirmation every time before posting.
SearchPreview
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/189
Formerly know as GooglePreview. Shows a screen preview for each search result in your favorite search engine.
Personas Plus
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10900
This one is for the wellness of your eyes. Make your browser look like an irish pub during St. Patrick’s day’s party or ornate it with your newest favorite movie’s cover.

Enjoy your enhanced Firefox experience and tell us what your top add-ons are!

Starting GTD at Christmas

Noémie Lemaitre — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:16:17 +0000

A few years ago before Christmas I ran accross David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. Before that I wasn’t familiar with personal management methodologies, but since then I’ve been doing GTD successfully. Let me give you a few tricks on how to begin.

Starting
Let’s say you’d like to start GTD.
What you’ll need:

David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”
the notes you wrote about your projects and ideas while reading
some days of vacation (the more, the better)
undisturbed spare time for yourself during those days (in bunches of hours at best)
distractions and rewards for your work
a store with some office supplies, just in case

Assuming that you’ll have some days off around Christmas and New Year’s Eve and you’re not completely overwhelmed by parties and/or family gatherings, you may find out that there is some time left for yourself and your aim.
If you live in the north hemisphere of the globe, the weather is probably on your side too: It’s cold, rainy, snowy and dark, so you’re not tempted to go outside.
I suggest you start reading the book bitwise before your vacation begins; don’t hesitate to take notes, as ideas will come to your mind.

Make sure you have got rid of eventual errands before beginning, and ensure your home and your homemates are in a peaceful state.

Working
You probably already have some topics you’d like to work on, e.g. “Reorganize my workroom for a better workflow” or “Categorize and sort my papers, which have been thrown on a pile during the whole year”.
Avoid getting lost in the GTD revolution and begin with only one topic at a time. Start with a small or medium one; you’ll get practice without being crushed by the weight of the tasks.
It may take longer than expected to free your home office from the great chaos ruling there and it takes a lot of energy (yours!) to restructure something which has been left growing by itself for a while. Don’t forget to rest! Write down your ideas for the other topics on separate lists to clear your mind, but stick to the one you chose to work on.

Try to schedule your tasks in compact bunches. Your plan for a day could look like that:

Have breakfast
“Sort papers alphabetically A-K”, 2 hours
“Go to store to get [insert list of office supplies here]“, 1 hour
Have lunch
“Sort papers alphabetically L-Z”, 2 hours
Free time, shower, etc.
Christmas dinner at parents

As soon as a task seems to become overwhelming, it’s time to part it in smaller ones. It is better to get the half of the bewildered shelf completely under control than to try to tame the whole shelf and end up with piles of stuff scattered around the place.

Rewarding
OK, now you’ve spent some hours getting things done… You’ve worked hard and your folder with the invoices for the year 2009 is full and ordered by date, but the rest of the room hasn’t changed that much. You may even wish you didn’t start cleaning at all, to avoid facing the irreversible truth: it’s a mess. Are you feeling guilty?
Well, guilt won’t help you fill the folder for 2008, right? A small improvement is better than none, and now you know how you want to handle your files. You can feel more confident about how to do it next time, maybe even tomorrow.
Reward yourself, you’ve done great work! Enjoy whatever you’re doing that evening, you have the right to. (By the way, GTD is a nice topic for small talk.)

Repeating
Plan, work, reward and repeat. Depending on you and other factors coming from the outside, you will be able to create habits in a certain amout of time. Don’t give up! Keep on living those habits after your vacation. Take even smaller chunks of work at once if necessary, but don’t throw your process away. Remember that you’re improving your life quality by doing GTD. Good luck!

Outlook
How did you start GTD? Was it easy? What are your thoughts, tips and tricks on starting GTD?