On any given day, however, the master to-do list is too much. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and/or distracted. That’s why I use a distinctly low-tech approach to stay focused on my top priorities each day. That’s it in the photo. Yep – it’s a yellow sticky note on my computer (horrors!). The thing is, this is not like all those random sticky notes I see in so many offices. This one has a bit of architecture to help me be productive all day long.

At the top it says ‘Today.’ Right under that I’ve listed, numbered in priority order, my 3 targets for the day. I’ve chosen these because of their deadlines and the amount of time I have today to work on them. I will do everything within my power to work on these from top to bottom, one at a time. Even for me, this is not easy – but without this plan, I would be all over the place and finish up the day feeling like I had spun my wheels but gotten nowhere.

Under the Target 3 is a list of a couple of other things I’d like to get done as/when I get through the priorities.

Will I do more than 3 things today? Of course. Is it possible that I won’t get everything on my little sticky note done? Sure. But I know it will feel great to cross off even one or two of those high priority tasks, and this is motivating.

To help myself along, I treat myself along the way to a quick coffee break, a 5-minute Facebook indulgence, a stretch, or a phone call that needs to be made – only when I have finished one high priority task. Writing this post right now is actually a little reward for finishing the first (and yuckiest) thing on my list. That task actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – which is often the case once you just make up your mind to get started!

Would something like this work for you? Give it a try today!

I’ll date myself by saying I first learned about white noise as a kid when the one English-language television channel in Germany would go off the air at midnight. Between the final notes of the U.S. national anthem and the news at 6 a.m., there would be nothing on the tube but jumpy black and white dots and a steady “shhhhhh” sound all night long. My parents explained that some people liked to fall asleep with the TV static on because it drowned out other sounds in the neighborhood. They told me this masking effect of a constant sound was called white noise.

Since then people have figured out that white noise, also called ambient noise, is a great concentration aid during your waking hours. For people who work in an open-plan office, coffee shops, airport lounges or around kids, it’s a lifesaver. Kids and adults with ADHD find white noise to be soothing and a focus booster. Here are some links to good sources of white noise recordings:

Ambiance

First up is Ambiance, the application I use regularly on my iPhone. Get it at the App Store > Productivity > Ambiance. I pop in my headphones wherever I happen to be when I need to push through some work without distraction. The range of available recorded and looped sounds is impressive. My current favourites for working are ‘Large Wind Chimes’ and ‘Waterfall and River.’  To help us catch some shut-eye despite night road construction outside the window, it’s hard to beat ‘Rain on a Tin Roof.’  My hubby and I like the timer and slow fade-out features that ensure we drift slowly off to sleep without a sudden stop to the lulling sounds.

Simply Noise

A simple site that delivers steady static, just like my old TV. You can adjust the volume and oscillation of the ’soundscape’ to suit the circumstances and ‘enjoy auditory zen.’ You can also download the files of white noise, pink noise and brown noise. For more on this, put on your scientist hat and head over to Wikipedia’s explanation of the colors of noise. To listen to the different colours, check out this site.

White Noise 24/7

This site has a small selection of natural sounds and mechanical sounds available in streaming audio format. The second category includes a ventilator, washing machine and dishwasher…reminds me of that Thanksgiving weekend when my huge family was packed into my grandparents’ house, and I dragged my air mattress into the kitchen to sleep next to the dishwasher. It was the only thing that would drown out the sound of my uncles and grandpa snoring!

White Noise Machines

To create white noise for an entire room or office, consider some of these white noise machines or sound conditioners. For a good overview of how these machines work and why they boost productivity, read this article.

Do You Use White Noise?

Please vote on our Productivity Poll to let us know how/whether you use white noise. Thanks!

Do You Know of Other Good White Noise Resources?

Please let us know by commenting below – thanks!

There are 4 extra bodies in the house this week, and they all want to be wherever I am, drawing me into whatever they’re doing. I am genuinely interested, but I keep wondering, “Does anybody else see the computer in front of me, or the phone I’m holding up to my ear?”

Our clients are all working this week – kicking off 2nd Quarter with much more optimism than Q1 – so nothing is slowing down on the work front. I could go into the office, but I sort of like staying in my jammies all day with everyone else.

Here’s how I’m staying focused in the midst of piano practice, Play-doh, PBJ sandwiches and paint being applied to the walls of the study where I (try to) work:

1. Hard stuff first - Whatever requires the most intense concentration is the first task of the day, before kids and clients start looking for me.
2. Clear priorities - I start my day with a gorgeously organised RTM task list – and I don’t go to bed until it’s ready for tomorrow.
3. One thing at a time - I write on a piece of paper next to me the ONE thing I am working on right now. I cross it off when I’m done. Under these circumstances it seems to take a superhuman effort to stay focused on one thing at a time, but by day’s end, the list of completed items is nice and long.
4. Batching tasks – Processing email, making calls, writing proposals, replying to email…these are all distinctly separate chunks of the day, interspersed with family stuff like cleaning the guinea pig cage, getting dinner together and watching a movie. There’s a rhythm to it; my brain likes the variety.
5. Change of scenery - I move my laptop around the house whenever I switch activities. Depending on what I’m working on and how deeply I need to concentrate, I might sit at my desk, on the sofa, or on the balcony.
6. White noise – If I sit at the kitchen island, the rain on the window drowns out the noise of the playdates and renovations. When the rain stops, sometimes I put in headphones and listen to recorded ambient noise: the sounds of a waterfall, ocean waves, or a thunderstorm. (By the way, this is a great trick for when you have to work in a coffee shop or airport lounge).
7. Support - My husband is on holiday too, and he’s great about throwing the kids in the car and making errands feel like a special outing. This is when I can call people without letting on I’m at home. I guess now my secret’s out.

Is it a picture of perfect familial and entrepreneurial bliss? Nah – I’ve shouted at everyone plenty of times…but this is what I wanted, right? Freedom, fulfillment and family. It works – as long as I stay focused!

How do you stay focused in the midst of distractions when you’re working from home?  How about in an open-plan office?

We all know we’re expected to manage loads more information and communication that our parents and grandparents had to in their careers, but what we don’t seem to be grasping fully is the fact that we simply cannot do it all – even if we’re great with technology.

We keep trying to do ‘Everything ASAP’…and it’s just not working. The consequences of treating all incoming information and communication as equally important and urgent are dire; we’re more stressed and working longer hours than any generation before us.

The root causes are threefold:

1. We are so busy trying to keep up/keep moving that we lose sight of our big-picture goals.
2. We don’t establish parameters around what is truly deserving of our limited time and attention.
3. Many of us naturally tend toward a random and reactive workstyle, so we are woefully inefficient – even if we are indeed very busy!

Is this true for you? Let’s look at a few behavioural indicators of people who suffer from the ‘Everything ASAP’ problem.

Working at the Pace of Panic

Do you spend a good deal of time rushing to complete a meeting agenda, project or product just before the deadline? Do you feel a sense of pressure to follow-up immediately on most phone calls and emails?

Ask yourself:

• Do I allow for enough hours each week to work on longer-range projects slowly and steadily? …or is most of my time spent on day-to-day tasks?
• Have I managed the expectations of my clients, colleagues and bosses, or have I created a rod for my own back by being hyper-responsive?

“Worked all day, got nothing done…”

Do you feel that your days can become a black hole of endless activity, but very little productivity?

Ask yourself:

• Do I work systematically, allocating some time for attending to incoming communication and other time for high-value tasks and projects?
• Do I start each day with a few clearly-defined, reasonable goals?

“Hey – Have you got a sec?”

Are you an open-door type person who can’t get any of your own work done until everyone else has gone home for the day?

Ask yourself:

• Could I make myself fully available at certain times during the day and request private time to focus at others? When would those times be, ideally?
• How could I communicate about this sensitively and effectively with my team?
• What signal could I use to let others know that I am needing time to concentrate without interruption?
• Could we try my idea for a week or two and see what works and what will need to be tweaked a bit?

Overwhelmed and Paralysed

Do you ever look at your email Inbox or paper In-tray and just freeze up?

Ask yourself:

• Could I spend a few minutes on sorting rather than working, to get some peace of mind and a clear picture of what’s in there?
• Could I close my email program and/or work someplace else today in order to complete my important work without becoming distracted or depressed by the sight of all that email or those piles?

Perpetual Projects

Are you frustrated by projects that are never finished?

Ask yourself:

• Can I work on one project at a time rather than try to chip away at several simultaneously?
• Do I have a clear (and simple) project plan written down someplace?
• Is my plan broken down into small steps?
• Have I established a (realistic) target timeframe for completing each step?
• Can I dedicate a weekly block of time to this project?

Did you spot any trends in the problems and solutions here? That’s right – to solve the ‘Everything ASAP’ Problem you’ve got to change your workstyle to one that is more proactive and focused. You’ll also need to give people around you a heads-up that things will be changing for the better, even if they don’t understand it at first.

Pick your poison and try some of the suggestions above. Stick with it – bearing in mind that your reward is less stress and more free time!

If you’re like many of our readers, you probably struggle with finding ways to make yourself available to colleagues and clients yet also get your work done so you have some time left for your life and loved ones.

Let me share a little truism with you: The less time you have, the more wisely you will use it. This is our variation of Parkinson’s Law, which states that ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ We have all experienced the validity of this law when we pulled off a great term paper the night before it was due. There’s nothing like a looming deadline to help us tune out distractions.

Enough Chit-Chat

The law applies to our social tendencies as well, i.e. ‘Conversations expand so as to fill the time available for their completion.’ If your door is always open, your phone is always on, and your chat status is a free-for-all, there will be no end to the interruptions and distractions you are battling. Whenever somebody else is bored or stuck, they will seek out the easiest path to their own procrastination: always-available-you.

Sound familiar? Let me share some tricks to help you change this by establishing what we call ‘Com-Free Zones.’

These are chunks of time each day when you block all communications and focus on – well, whatever YOU want to. This could be a critical task or project…but it could also be going to the gym without being tethered to your boss via the Blackberry at 8 p.m.

Defined Working / Available Hours

When do you work? When are you off work? Did you know there was such a concept?! Just decide, and stick to it – at least publicly, anyway. If your hours aren’t fixed by someone else, set them for yourself – especially if you work from home. If you are a corporate professional, decide when you start and when you finish, and don’t respond to email and text messages outside of those hours.

People will catch on. Even your boss will catch on. You say you’ll lose your job if you do this? Hmmm….so how long are you going to live under that sort of pressure? 5 more years? 10 more years? And what will the payoff be for that? Just asking…

OK, here’s a cheat for you. If you occasionally chose to work ‘under the radar,’ e.g. after the kids are in bed, in the early morning or evening, don’t let everybody know about it! Queue your email messages to be sent out when your official working day begins. If you are careful and consistent about this, your workmates will start to adjust to your rhythm, and you will find your life again.

Control Outgoing Communications

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” So said Walt Kelly, and so say I about how we distract ourselves as much as the other guy.

I will put my hand up here and say I am as guilty of this as the next person. I will be working along and suddenly decide to make a call or send an email, check in with someone via chat, etc. Sometimes my communication is directly relevant to the work at hand, i.e. I need some information before I can move forward. But most of the time it’s nothing fancier than boredom or procrastination.

So when the only enemy to my productivity is actually me, my trick is to completely shut down all communications channels. That means I close (not minimise) Outlook and Skype, and I set all phone notifications to still and silent. Then I put my phone away so I don’t see it flashing. I am always amazed at how many times I try to click over to my email or reach for my phone. When neither is handy, I remember that I’m supposed to be working on something! So I make a note of what I need to do online or on the phone, then get back to work.

Even though I’m a productivity consultant, I have to play these tricks on myself. Maybe they will help you as well.

What’s Your Threshold?

I understand that you really need to be in touch with your colleagues and clients. I hope you understand that you really need time to focus and also to be not-working.

So let’s agree to a little experiment. Think realistically about how long your team, your boss, or your clients can reasonably wait for a response from you during the work day. Is it 20 minutes? 40 minutes? 2 hours?

Now try it. Test yourself and your work environment to see what happens if you are not available by phone, chat or email for that length of time. Find your threshold, commit to it, and use those golden minutes to actually get something meaningful done.

For tips on how to help people cope during your ‘extended’ absences, read Create a ‘Front Office.’

Then something cool happened. I blasted through all three projects, one after the other. I was totally in the groove:  everything came together easily, I was enjoying myself, I finished it all up and sent it off to others for review, then found myself shutting down the computer at 11:24 – much earlier than expected. I had even forgotten that my hands were hurting.

Now today I’m asking myself, “Did it really ‘just happen,’ or was something else going on? How could I make it ‘happen’ again? Is there a way to bottle and reproduce the sense of Flow I experienced?” Now that would be really cool…

Maybe we have bottled Flow in a way, now that I think of it. I have seen something similar happen for all of our clients and workshop participants, just after we’ve taught them how to master mind clutter and manage their to-do lists effectively. When we give them a few minutes to implement what we’ve taught, it’s as if time stands still. We could leave the room for an hour, and our clients wouldn’t mind or even notice. We have taken to calling this moment ‘The Zone,’ and we’re ultra-respectful of it, careful not to rush it.

Mihály Csikszentmihalyi is a psychology professor considered to be the world’s leading researcher on positive psychology, as well as the architect of the notion of Flow. He describes Flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

This diagram shows the relationship between a person’s skills and the difficulty of the task at hand. Flow is found where our skills are well applied to a challenging situation. Click on the image to see the full-size version.

So does this mean that I got into the groove with my projects because they were really hard, and I have an amazing skill set? Um…nah. However, it might mean that my proclivities for organisation and collaboration empowered me be ready and able to complete the tasks when I had to pull it all together under pressure. Here’s what I mean:

Factors that contributed to my Flow experience:

• Groundwork – I was pulling together a final product that reflected months of thinking and planning.
• Collaboration – I had planned the projects and will implement them with a team that is a joy to work with.
• Application of Learning – I was applying discrete skills I’ve been acquiring through reading, taking courses, and discussing ideas with mastermind groups.
• Deadline – My bit really did need to happen yesterday if I was to avoid stressing other people out next week.
• Passion – I was working on things that I believe make a difference in the world.

OK, so if this means that good planning, teamwork and skill acquisition combined with our natural talents and passions might be key ingredients of our Bottled Flow Elixer, this is very good news indeed -  for all of us. We’re created with unique passions and talents, we can surround ourselves with people we work well with, and there is no shortage of deadlines and opportunities for acquiring new skills.

Now let me turn this discussion over to you. What do you think were the key elements of a Flow experience you’ve had lately?