1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,750 If you want to get stuff done, if you want to work less hours and earn more money, 2 00:00:04,750 --> 00:00:09,540 you need to deal with the distractions that surround you everyday. 3 00:00:09,540 --> 00:00:12,890 The starting point for that is being aware of what they are, 4 00:00:12,890 --> 00:00:17,410 and boy are there a lot of them in the world of a web designer. 5 00:00:17,410 --> 00:00:23,040 There is instant messaging, there's Twitter, Facebook, RSS, web browsing, 6 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:29,160 email, phone calls. The whole environment can be distracting if it's not designed right. 7 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:33,960 You need to take some active steps to remove those distractions. 8 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,420 Otherwise you're going to find yourself working at midnight every night. 9 00:00:37,420 --> 00:00:40,170 Now if you're a night owl that might be perfectly fine, 10 00:00:40,170 --> 00:00:43,100 but you don't want to be working from 6 in the morning too. 11 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,850 First thing you need to do is get rid of Twitter and Facebook. 12 00:00:47,850 --> 00:00:50,220 Don't have them constantly open. 13 00:00:50,220 --> 00:00:52,550 I know this is a stupid little thing, 14 00:00:52,550 --> 00:00:56,180 but it makes a huge difference to the amount of time you work. 15 00:00:56,180 --> 00:01:00,840 I'll let you in on a secret. Most days I only work about 6-½ hours. 16 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,470 Reason? Closing Facebook and Twitter. 17 00:01:04,470 --> 00:01:07,350 Well at least some of the time anyway. 18 00:01:07,350 --> 00:01:09,540 Keep your faffing activities to a minimum. 19 00:01:09,540 --> 00:01:13,400 I don't even know if faffing is an American word you can understand, 20 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:18,830 but I'm talking about things like RSS, web browsing, all of those things that you do 21 00:01:18,830 --> 00:01:23,010 as a distraction from what you should actually be doing. 22 00:01:23,010 --> 00:01:26,460 One of the ways of doing that is to isolate those activities 23 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:29,300 away from your work environment. 24 00:01:29,300 --> 00:01:32,560 So in other words, do your web browsing and your RSS feeds 25 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:34,560 and your social networks and that kind of stuff— 26 00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:37,700 do it on your iPhone or your iPad, not on your work machine. 27 00:01:37,700 --> 00:01:41,610 Get them out of sight while you're trying to get stuff done. 28 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,240 Another piece of advice when it comes to getting work done 29 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:51,850 is never try and multitask. It just doesn't work. 30 00:01:51,850 --> 00:01:56,250 We don't, as human beings, have the capability to multitask. 31 00:01:56,250 --> 00:01:59,510 Yes we can switch very fast from one task to another, 32 00:01:59,510 --> 00:02:01,510 but that's not the same. 33 00:02:01,510 --> 00:02:05,670 Moving from task to task will ultimately slow you down. 34 00:02:05,670 --> 00:02:09,700 If you're somebody that struggles to concentrate for a long length of time 35 00:02:09,700 --> 00:02:15,100 like myself—I consider me to have the attention span of a small child— 36 00:02:15,100 --> 00:02:19,590 but the way I get round this problem is by working in sprints. 37 00:02:19,590 --> 00:02:23,380 There's something called the Pomodoro Technique which is really simple. 38 00:02:23,380 --> 00:02:26,910 You work for 25 minutes, you have a 5-minute rest, 39 00:02:26,910 --> 00:02:29,420 and then you work for another 25 minutes. 40 00:02:29,420 --> 00:02:34,440 So you have 25 minutes solid on one task before moving to another. 41 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:39,060 So it means that you can get significant work done. 42 00:02:39,060 --> 00:02:43,980 Talking of distractions, turn off those automatic notifications. 43 00:02:43,980 --> 00:02:48,640 I calculated, for example, that with the average email client like Outlook, 44 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:55,980 on its default settings you will get interrupted 31,680 times per year 45 00:02:55,980 --> 00:03:01,670 by that little ping notification of a new email coming in. 46 00:03:01,670 --> 00:03:04,550 Now that is a huge amount of interruptions, 47 00:03:04,550 --> 00:03:08,020 and let's be honest, every time it pings we have to go and look 48 00:03:08,020 --> 00:03:13,020 even though 90% of the time it's just spam and doesn't matter anyway. 49 00:03:13,020 --> 00:03:15,350 So turn off those notifications. 50 00:03:15,350 --> 00:03:18,820 You don't need to spend your whole life in your email client. 51 00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:26,130 Only answer the phone or check email or even IM at set times within the day. 52 00:03:26,130 --> 00:03:29,570 That's why the sprints work quite well because you can have 53 00:03:29,570 --> 00:03:34,210 certain sprints at certain times of the day for making phone calls or answering email 54 00:03:34,210 --> 00:03:36,760 or using IM. 55 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,880 Now you might be getting a bit twitchy at this point. 56 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:47,030 The thing is is closing email, not answering the phone, and not having IM on 57 00:03:47,030 --> 00:03:51,100 is very alien to us as web designers. 58 00:03:51,100 --> 00:03:53,150 We're used to being connected all the time, 59 00:03:53,150 --> 00:03:58,060 and most of us can't comprehend a world where we're not constantly checking email. 60 00:03:58,060 --> 00:04:01,850 What if a client has an urgent inquiry? 61 00:04:01,850 --> 00:04:04,640 What if they need me to do something right now? 62 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:08,900 I can understand that and that fear of being out of touch, 63 00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:13,560 but the reality is is 90% of the communications that come in 64 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:15,560 are not time-sensitive. 65 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:21,730 So all of those interruptions disrupt you from the work you should be doing, 66 00:04:21,730 --> 00:04:26,190 but for those 10% of communications that are urgent, 67 00:04:26,190 --> 00:04:30,340 I'd encourage you to look at various tools out there that help you manage it. 68 00:04:30,340 --> 00:04:34,940 For example, there is a tool called awayfind.com 69 00:04:34,940 --> 00:04:39,460 which basically allows you to identify certain emails that you know are urgent 70 00:04:39,460 --> 00:04:42,790 from a certain person or mentioning a certain keyword, 71 00:04:42,790 --> 00:04:46,650 and they will then forward those on as a notification to your phone. 72 00:04:46,650 --> 00:04:50,560 That way you don't need to have your email client open the whole time, 73 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:55,170 and you will only be interrupted with the most vital of emails. 74 00:04:55,170 --> 00:05:00,260 There are also virtual services that will answer the telephone for you. 75 00:05:00,260 --> 00:05:03,870 For example, in the U.K. there is a service called moneypenny, 76 00:05:03,870 --> 00:05:06,550 but there are equal other services in various other countries 77 00:05:06,550 --> 00:05:08,920 that provide the same service. 78 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:11,160 What you do is you forward your phone number onto this, 79 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,230 and a real person will answer the phone, take a message, 80 00:05:14,230 --> 00:05:17,050 and will contact you if it's urgent. 81 00:05:17,050 --> 00:05:21,350 So there are ways where you can close down those distractions, 82 00:05:21,350 --> 00:05:24,190 where you can close down email and the things that interrupt you 83 00:05:24,190 --> 00:05:28,960 allowing you to get big chunks of work done without alienating clients 84 00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:31,750 and without getting all twitchy.