One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you gotta focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible — not always an easy task with the Internet, coworkers and busy phones calling to you from every direction.

Here’s how to block out the Siren’s call of distractions, in 10 steps.

First, let me say that there should be room in your life for distractions. Work should be fun, and without a few distractions, things can get boring. That being said, when it’s time to do a task, there’s no reason to do it while handling a million other things. You’ll never get things done that way. When you’re ready to work on a task, block out all else, and really focus on it. Do your best on that task, and get it done as quickly as possible. Then reward yourself with distractions.

That’s all easier said than done, I know. So here are 10 of the best ways I’ve found to eliminate distractions and really focus on a task.

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School is coming to an end for another year, and many students will be participating in internships for the summer. An internship can be a real win-win situation—the hirer (you) gets low cost or even free help while the intern gains valuable work experience.

I did a number of internships in my college days. I’ve also managed interns in my professional days. When I worked for a small, post production company in Boston, we had an intern in our office every day of the week. They helped us with tasks such as blacking out tapes, burning DVDs and videotapes for our clients, assisted in shooting projects, and brought a great, young energy into the office.

What did they get out of it? They got to use state-of-the-art professional shooting and editing equipment for free. Many of these students couldn’t even get their hands on stuff this awesome at their colleges. Plus, they were encouraged to create their own projects when the equipment was free, which happened often since we were such a small shop.

In graduate school I was an intern at both PRWeek and Inc.com—two business publications where I learned a tremendous amount. The best part of going to grad school was that it allowed me to take advantage of some stellar internship opportunities.

I know I have been lucky, especially when I read about interns who are worked to the bone and aren’t learning much. This recent article in The New York Times shares some horror stories.

Many students who are graduating are having a tough time finding work, and thus are turning to unpaid internships in the hopes it will help their resumes. Many are finding that the internships aren’t all they’re cracked up to be—that they’re working 12 hour days doing menial tasks like grabbing lunch and cleaning, which, if the internship is unpaid, is actually against the law. Continue Reading

I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now. I’m on deadline for our biggest magazine issue of the year, grades are due for the college class I teach, I’m in two weddings this summer, my husband is interviewing for a new job, we may have to move for husband’s new job, and we’re expecting our first child at the end of July. Oh, and my house is a mess, my lawn needs to be mowed, and I don’t have a free weekend off until the baby arrives.

Does your life sound anything like mine? I bet, for many of you, it does.

Summertime is supposed to be fun, leisurely, carefree. But every time I flip the calendar page on May, my life turns to chaos. There is so much going on during the warm summer months that it’s hard to do it all. And even when you do say no, it’s easy to get stressed out. And boy, am I stressed out right now!

Stress in vast quantities and for long periods of time is not good for our bodies or our minds. That’s why, even though I have so much stuff to do, I’m taking a week off in June for vacation. I have to. If I don’t, I know myself—I’ll get sick.

But what do you do when you can’t take a vacation right away and a day at the spa is just too expensive? Here are some tips on how to relax to keep yourself on track and on task: Continue Reading

The author's dog, Miles the Chihuahua.

The International Journal of Workplace Health Management recently published a study investigating the presence of dogs in the workplace on employee stress and organizational perceptions. As a dog owner, I was interested to see what the results were.

The study focused on studying three groups of workers—those who bring their dogs to work (DOG group), those who have a dog but don’t bring them to work (NODOG group), and those who don’t have pets at all (NOPET group).

They gathered data on physiological and perceived stress, perceptions of job satisfaction, organizational affective commitment, and perceived organizational support.

What they found was over the course of the work day, stress declined for employees who brought their dog to work with them. Stress levels increased for the non-dog groups.

“A significant difference was found in the stress patterns for the DOG group on days their dogs were present and absent. On dog absent days, owners’ stress increased throughout the day, mirroring the pattern of the NODOG group.” —International Journal of Workplace Health Management

It has been widely accepted that pets have been associated with a number of positive health outcomes, including increased survival one-year after a heart attack, fewer doctor visits, less loneliness, and greater social report, the study says. Pets actually buffer the impact of stress for their owners. And a freelancer’s life is often stressful. Continue Reading

Rachel Bell's three children.

Working from home and caring for your children is a power struggle. Many stay at home freelancers want to be there for their children but also want to be their for their clients. It’s a delicate balancing act that can go on for years.

Many starry-eyed new parents think that working from home will solve all of their childcare problems. They can be there for their baby whenever they need them while still getting things done for their career. Many find that it’s not that easy.

Last week I posted a blog post where I interviewed new mom and writer Rabia Mughal on how her career changed with the birth of her son. She found that even though she wanted to give 100% to her full-time job and 100% as a parent, she wasn’t feeling fulfilled in either. She decided to switch her role at her company, and become a 32-hour a week contractor and work from home. Luckily, her company allowed her to do this. Other people aren’t so lucky.

Today we’re hearing from photographer Rachel Bell. The wedding and travel photographer works around New England and across the globe. A mother of three, Bell, once a fourth grade teacher, became a stay at home mom for several years to take care of both her children and her dying mother. She knew she didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom forever, and when her children became more independent, she decided to finally start her own photography business. Continue Reading

I love Dropbox. Finding this interview with one of Dropbox’s founders, Drew Houston, was like finding buried treasure.

In case you haven’t heard of Dropbox before, it’s a file-hosting service that lets people access their files from their computers, smart phones, tablets, you name it. More than 50 million people worldwide use the software. Not too shabby for a couple of MIT graduates.

There is a ton of file sharing software out there on the market, so I was interested to hear how Dropbox got started and learn about it’s rise to success amongst its competitors. As freelancers, we have a lot of competitors out there in the marketplace. Houston’s experience helps us learn how to differentiate ourselves from our competition. Here are my take away’s from this article:

Take Good Ideas and Make Them Your Own

Houston got his idea for Dropbox from a similar program used by MIT students called Athena. The program was simple to use, and anytime someone sat down on a computer and logged in, their entire workstation was summoned to the computer in front of them—even the placement of their icons and folders.

Houston knew that someone in the future was going to build something like this for the general public. Houston wrote some code on the Chinatown bus between Boston and New York that he thought would work. He shared his idea with Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox’s other founder, and they got to work. Continue Reading

I try very hard not to procrastinate. I’ve been this way my whole life. In college, I’d work ahead of the syllabus just so I knew I would get everything done. For my job at the magazine, I work months, maybe a good year, ahead of time to plan and execute some feature stories.

I chalk this up to being a busy person. In college and grad schools, I worked a lot. I didn’t have a ton of free time so I had to plan on getting assignments done. In my working life, I have a job, I freelance, and I volunteer my time by sitting on the board of two nonprofits. I like to do it all, but I have been learning how to say no.

I also teach an undergraduate course at a local college. In my syllabus it clearly states that if students miss their deadline, they fail the assignment. In the real world, if they fail to pass in a story to their editor, they risk losing their jobs. This deadline also helps me when I go to grade them. I want to be sure I have enough time to read through each students’ work and not rush through it.

When I saw this article on how procrastination is essential to innovation, I was intrigued. I know people who thrive on procrastination as a means to get anything done. To be honest, these people drive me nuts. I find that when you are working on a team and one person puts all of their duties off until the last minute, the entire project suffers. However, when you aren’t working in a team, maybe there really is something to be said about the stress of adrenaline. Continue Reading

I’m going to tell you a little secret that causes me some embarrassment. I still use Photoshop CS3. I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that I am skeptical of constant software upgrades and the fact that I’m not a graphic designer. Still…I’m so behind the times. Please don’t make fun of me.

When Photoshop CS4 came out, the art director I work with and I went “poo-poo.” There wasn’t enough changes for our company to invest in an upgrade. We were OK with that. Then CS5 came around. We realized that with Photoshop 3 we couldn’t open files from people using Photoshop CS5. That just made us mad.

Call me a curmudgeon, but technology moves at such a rapid speed that I sometimes feel dizzy. It even sometimes paralyzes me. I don’t dare buy a new cell phone or computer, because I know that as soon as I do a new version will come out that is cooler, faster, better. Apple is notorious for doing this to me.

If my husband hadn’t bought me an iPad as a wedding gift, I still wouldn’t have one (even though I love it…). The fact that it doesn’t have a USB port confounds me! It doesn’t make any sense to me—except that in the next version (or the one after that) there will probably be one. Grrrrrr.

So when I heard Photoshop CS6 was coming out I felt two things: Old and cheap.

I am, primarily, a writer. Photoshop CS3 still gets me by—and I will continue to use it until I need something more.

You won’t be able to get CS6 until later on this year, but Photoshop has released five sneak peek videos on the Photoshop YouTube channel over the past few weeks. For all you clever designers out there, here are some things you have to look forward to… Continue Reading

Yesterday I began to discuss ways in which freelancers can tackle projects using a list and short time blocks to reach your goals.

To reiterate, here’s what my example list looks like for a day of work:

Tasks

• Transcribe tape from Interview X
• Start writing feature story on Y
• Edit freelance stories for health section of magazine
• Work on calendar of events for next month
• Find stock photos to go with story Z

I allow myself 30 minutes for each task. Once my 30 minutes are up, I get out of my chair, stretch, use the bathroom, get something to drink, answer some emails, and get ready to sit down and tackle another item on my list for 30 more minutes.

Take Action

Choose to make progress on one (or more) steps on your list. But don’t aim too high. The story that was the inspiration for this post, published on The 99%, suggest that you “just tackle a small amount of work that you know you can actually complete in that time window.” If you know you can edit 15 photos in 30 minutes, aim for 15 photos. If you do more, great! If not, that’s OK too. At least you started and made progress.

While you were working, did you realize you need to add another item to your list? Wait until your time block is over, and do just that. Stay focused on the task at hand—you have a limited number of minutes to use. Continue Reading

One of the perks of being a freelancer is that you keep freelancer hours—you work when you want to. I happen to like to get started early so I get a good number of hours in while it’s still light outside. The art director I work with prefers to get up at 10 am and work late into the night.

My favorite jobs have been the ones where I can pretty much come and go as I please.

My favorite jobs have been the ones where I can pretty much come and go as I please. Of course, not all of my jobs have been so flexible. My first job out of college was a receptionist at a corporate real estate company. There I had the worst boss I have ever had in my entire life. She tracked my every move, every minute of the day. It wasn’t necessarily her fault—if my counterpart was out sick, she had to cover the phones for me when I ate lunch, went to the post office, or went to the bathroom—but that wasn’t often.

What really bothered me about her approach was that she was so mean about it. I was invited to lunch by some other women I worked with, and we were 5 minutes late getting back to the office. She never let me forget it and she never allowed me to have lunch with them again. She was mean, and I ended up quitting because of her.

When I read this article on Inc.com, I wanted to give the author—someone who manages others—a great, big hug. She get’s it.

You could say I’m the opposite of a control freak, in the sense that I have always resisted rules, for myself and for others. Why? Because once you have rules, you have to enforce them—and there’s no more tedious task in life. —Inc.com

My terrible boss liked having that control over me, and it made me miserable. Life is unpredictable! I ended up watching everything I drank during the day, making sure I didn’t drink too much because I was afraid to tell her I had to use the ladies room. Continue Reading

Have you heard about the trend of standing room only meetings? Instead of having a team sit around a conference table, they’re made to stand up for short meetings instead.

The trend is becoming prevalent in tech companies, and is meant to eliminate long, boring meetings where no one pays attention. Some companies have even instituted a penalty for being late to a meeting—either through sheer humiliation or a small fee.

If someone is rambling on for too long, an employee may hold up a rubber rat indicating it is time to move on. Companies make exceptions to their no-sitting rules if a worker is sick, injured or pregnant—but usually not for workers outside the office telecommuting on Skype. —wsj.com

The trend is fueled by an approach to software development called “Agile”, which calls for compressing development projects into short pieces. It also includes daily stand-up meetings where everyone can update everyone else with what they are currently working on and any obstacles that stand in their way.

I think it’s brilliant! I immediately started wondering how I could incorporate this way of thinking into my freelance life. I took a look at the Agile Manifesto and sought to translate it into something freelancers could use. Here’s my attempt: Continue Reading

There are a lot of stories written about home-based businesses—trust me, I just did a Google search. Working from home has changed drastically over the years, thanks to technology.

If you think back not even 20 years about home-based businesses, you might envision a low-tech service business such as a daycare or landscaping company. To run a professional business, you needed to be located in commercial office space. Not only did commercial space provide the technical services you needed, but it also provided a professional atmosphere appropriate for meeting with clients. —seacoastonline.com

Luckily, for us freelancers, that is no longer the case.

I have a computer, high speed internet, printer, and cell phone that allow me to do my work at home. And I have a nice office/laundry room to do it in. I know a bunch of people who work from home and I have some tips on how to run it right. See if you agree. Continue Reading