If you’re lucky enough to be able to work at home, don’t make it just a little mini office away from the office. Life’s too short to replicate the creativity and soul-sucking office environment in your own home. Work in your PJ’s, work odd hours, play music at high-volume, have a movie on while you work—do anything just to remind yourself that by being at home your life is a little less like Dilbert everyday.

Otherwise what’s the point?

Great post Mike.

I have definitely felt off my game, unproductive, and am staring down the barrel of managerial irrelevance. If I’m not able to continue sharpening my design and development skills, and spend all of my time on project management and people management, then very soon I will no longer be a Web designer.

Having read Merlin Mann’s recent series “Make Time to Make”, I don’t think my problem lies in the phone calls and project-related e-mail. It’s all the e-mail requests for help and ideas, Twitter, and incessant IMs that keep me off my game.

Now I just need to figure out how to manage that.

Constant, short, queries from my team via e-mail and IM are a constant part of my day, and an important (?) part of my job. Many of these require a near immediate response. Maybe I need to accept my fate as a manager. Thoughts?

There were some very good articles backlogged in my feed reader from that time. (most via Lifehacker, Unclutterer, Diethack, and Zen Habits)

• How To Cope With A Stressful Life – very helpful read to me :)
• 8 Little-known techniques to help you burn more fat and calories – going to try and start incorporating these into my diet
• From 10000 to 0 e-mails in an inbox in 24 hours – It is possible. Do it.
• Bringing your bookshelves back to order – constant point of difference between the wife and I :)

I’ve been pretty quite on the Internets recently. Been “heads-down” on a huge project ever since SXSW. I’ll get to talk about it towards the end of the week :) I can vouch for the absolute productivity boost of remaining off twitter, out of Facebook/other soc.net sites, and staying invisible or offline of your IM. I wonder how people used to work in the days before these things…

I’m still continuing to study and practice “getting things done” methodology. Focusing mostly on staying de-cluttered. This has had the effect of vastly freeing up a part of my brain I didn’t know was occupied. Here are some recent good links along that line.

Can Someone Be A Collector and Be Uncluttered?

I am a bit of a collector. Right now, most everything (with a few exceptions) are in boxes. This was inspirational. I’m going to continue to reduce the amount of “stuff” I have, but this gives some great ideas for displaying stuff I can’t let go.

Hacking a Diaper Wallet

Large, cluttered, diaper bags (backpacks) are the bane of my existence right now. This looks great.

Will-power Capacity Can be Increased with Practice

The brain has a limited capacity for self-regulation, so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others. The good news, however, is that practice increases willpower capacity, so that in the long run, buying less now may improve our ability to achieve future goals

How To Save Money Running a Startup

Great article, Jason! Many of these can also be applied to a home office, or, as he mentions, a co-working space.

Offices and The Creativity Zone

Getting into the creativity zone while working in an office (and how hard that is to do.)

New Simplebits office.

Simply, beautiful.

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk

Living like a Zen Monk is not a big deal for me, however, some of these rules would definitely seem to make for a nicer, more productive life, I think.

Insomnia and Productivity

Turn your insomnia into ultra-productive time. It is easier to get into a state of “flow” (or: hack mode) when no one and nothing is bothering you late at night. I did this for quite awhile about a year ago, out of necessity, not insomnia. Use carefully, however, as it lead to burnout for me.

Interview with Gina Trapani

Some good Q&A with the founder of lifehacker.com.

10 ways to control your cravings

Tips for overcoming your hunger cravings (and thusly, losing weight, or sticking to diets).

Discardia

A holiday season for getting rid of stuff. Awesome. I think I will start celebrating it. Some of the more philosophical aspects of it however: guilt, etc, can only be gotten rid of by what we are celebrating in this current season: Easter, and Jesus’ resurrection and victory over death.

Happy Easter, everyone :)

I’m feeling great. My mind is already freer, I’m feeling less stress, and more ability to focus. I heartily recommend a GTD system and minimalist life style. I have a ways to go yet, but we’re making progress.

Some great links from the last couple days on various GTD-related sites I’m starting to visit after the jump.

The Minimalists Guide to Fighting (and Beating) Clutter Entropy

An important article, at least in concept. Some great tips on how to keep clutter from coming back (as it inevitably does).

Hoarding Kindling

I want to write more about this as there is a strong spiritual connection here as well (“It’s all gonna burn, baby…” and “You can’t take it with you…”), but in a more immediate sense, junk around the house is simply a fire hazard!

12 Tips for an organized desk, and creating a minimalist workspace

This is where I started. I spend most of my time at a desk, so I figured at least it ought to be clutter-free.

Lifehacks at Alltop

Great little new site by Guy Kawasaki. Met with mixed reviews, but I found this incredibly helpful to find new, good sites on the topics it covers.

The One Day Sabbatical

Christians (and Jews) call this “The Sabbath” and it indeed is vital for mental/emotional/spiritual health. In fact, the word Sabbatical Latin, Greek, and Hebrew for “cease” or “rest”.

6 Tips for Arriving On Time

I’m pretty bad about being late for meetings. Good tips.

The Key to Productivity: Schedule Calibration

The reason I’m so frantic most of the time is because I set an unrealistic schedule.

Tips to maintain focus while you organize

I’m distracted easily. These are some interesting tips for staying on task. Probably more generally applicable than just for organizing.

Managing computer file clutter

For all you digi-packrats out there.

Self Control Running Low?

Self control can be exercised like a muscle. The more you practice self control, the easier it gets.

The Magical Power of Focus

Not sure magic is the right word, but focus is definitely powerful.

More later!

I got to meet Gina Trapani at SXSW, very cool. Oddly, motivating to get GTD working for me. I’m going to pick up her book, here are some links to some free excerpts.

speaking of…

The Best of Lifehacker in Upgrade Your Life

From the post:

I’ve pulled together links to all the past posts that informed each book chapter to give you a one-stop preview of what’s inside that cover. Consider this post the unedited web version of the book.

Patterns for e-mail as work conversation

One of the downfalls of the “inbox zero” method is if you work in a company that relies on E-mail for consistent communication, conversation, and avoiding meetings (such as the company I work for). Here are some tips for implementing Inbox Zero in this type of environment.

How To Make Time For Your Personal Goals

I came back from SXSW with a few new personal goals to add to my pile of current personal goals. This list of 11 tips is going to be extremely useful to me.

How My Net Worth Went from $-40,000 to $285,000 in Five Years

Not a GTD tip specifically, but I think I will be posting financial tips here as well. Great article on 6 things this person implemented to grow their net worth dramatically without a get-rich-quick scheme or hitting it rich on the stock market or lottery. Very Dave Ramsey-ish

Bigger Monitors = More Productivity

What a found:

People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen.

Today in a conversation with Victor, the concept of GTD came up. Something I’ve toyed with in the past, but never really took seriously. Now, I’m convinced that a GTD system is the key to my continued sanity. I don’t think my problem is that I have too much to do, my problem is that I don’t know how to do it efficiently.

I have a collection of tools and systems that seem interesting to me. Using them correctly and efficiently, and with discipline is another matter. I don’t have that part figured out yet. Some things I’m starting to use and do:

• Action Pads by Behance – for recording notes during meetings (trick here is processing the notes)
• Things by Cultured Code – for brain dumping to-dos (trick here is consistently entering… things)
• Basecamp by 37signals – for assigning and tracking tasks to my team
• Inbox Zero – for managing email and generally remaining sane
• 43 Folders and Lifehacker for continued education on GTD.

Any other recommendations? What do you do? Any other good resources you check regularly.