We all loose hours and hours watching clips on Youtube, following people on Twitter, posting on someone’s Facebook Wall and so on. All this time would have been better used to do constructive things, earn more money and free up more time for our offline life, you know, the one we had before the Internet was all over the place.

Now we are all spending at least 8 hours at work in front of the computer and then a few hours more in front of it at home. Besides the health factors involved here there is the problem of alienation, which I’ve talked about here. Thing are not getting any better, as the Internet becomes more and more addictive, especially to young people.

So, in this post I’ll try and present a short list of things I do when I want to get a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time. It doesn’t always work, but when it does it makes me realize how much time I’m loosing on a usual day at the office, time that I’ll never get back.

How to be more efficient while working on Internet

No, without too much ramblings, the list of things I do to be more efficient while I work on Internet (a dream job, by the way).

1. Take a paper notebook and make a list of the things you need to do each day, putting the most important tasks on top. Put an estimated amount of time needed to finish each task. Check the ones you’ve completed and put the remaining ones on the list for next day
2. Make a habit to check your email at most two times a day’ preferably at lunch time and afternoon. Both sessions should include reading and answering to emails
3. Do the tasks that involve writing and thinking at the beginning of the day, when your mind is still fresh. This way you get things done faster and better
4. If you must check social networks, post pictures, status updates and so on do that in your lunch time, or at night, when you get home
5. Same goes for Instant Messaging, a total waste of time if you get bothered a few times an hour while you concentrate on a really important task
6. Get a QWERTY phone, as you might use any precious minute to write a post/article for your blog while you’re waiting for your next train/metro or whatever

Well, that’s my list of things I do when I want to get some work done and don’t really want to be distracted by all that ‘junk’ on the Internet. It doesn’t always work for me but when it does I can really see the difference. So how about you, what are your tricks?

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Working from home

Pros of working from home

1. You gain the time commuting time, which you can spend with your family or working a few hours more. For me that’s at leas 2 hours per day.
2. You can ‘mold’ the environment to suit your working style, make it more comfortable to get ideas and increase workflow
3. You spend less money on food if you eat at home versus going each day at the restaurant, plus you can cook what you wish at home.
4. You can make a more flexible working program, work at night, work early in the morning and in the evening with a big gap in between, depending on what’s best for you

Cons of working from home

1. Without a boss to tell you what you need to do today is hard to motivate yourself to get things done. That’s a big problem for me
2. At home there are a lot of distractions and things your family expects you to do, as you work from home and now you have time (that’s not true, but it’s what others think)
3. Having no physical contact with people can affect your character, as we all have social needs
4. If you’re not disciplined and organized you won’t make it on your own
5. Sometimes you need to exchange ideas with other people and that’s not easy using software tools. Don’t underestimate the power of a well planned meeting

I think these are the main advantages and drawbacks of working from home. You must think carefully what kind of person you are and what suits you best. Depending on the answer you can choose one of those options, but I highly recommend trying working from home for a few days before making  the big step into becoming your own employee.

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Special dual monitor stand

First, why I think that two monitors is an inefficient setup is the fact the problem lies in our minds, which are not made for multitasking, thus you don’t need to see 10 windows openend simultaneous as you won’t focus on more than one at a time. Add to this the fact that if you have two monitors you’ll have to move your head/neck many times to cover both of them visually, and that causes a lot of neck pains after prolonged use.

So why isn’t enough a small monitor? Mainly because of the screen resolution that doesn’t allow you to keep more windows opened side by side and here you loose the most time, by having to switch from one application to another. By increasing resolution and screen size (you want something big enough to keep multiple windows on screen but small enough so you’ll only have to move your eyes, not your body to cover every corner of the screen).

My past experience with monitor setups

I’ve had first an 17 inch LCD monitor, enough for most uses or at least it was 3 years ago. I then got the second 17 inch (I haven’t paid for either of them), a moment when I had the dilemma: sell them and buy a bigger one or use them to see what’s the think like. I choose the latter option and tried it for a year, so here’s the pros and cons of this option:

Pros

• huge desktop space which can accommodate many opened applications in visual range
• cheap solution as two smaller monitors are less expensive than a good big screen
• you need less powerful hardware to run games on only one screen with lower resolution

Cons

• actual operating system and drivers/games don’t work very well with multiple monitors setups, so there’s more trouble
• if you don’t get two identical monitors you’ll see differences in colors, brightness, contrast, input lag and so on
• it’s harder to find good quality dual monitor wallpapers – but I’ve got a post with such websites that offer free wallpapers

A few weeks ago I’ve got rid of the two 17 inch LCD monitors and got a bigger 22 inch Full HD LCD. I’ve tested it in working and gaming/movie conditions and I can make a list of pros and cons of using a bigger monitor versus a two monitor setup:

Pros

• less occupied desktop space and less power consumption
• no problems with software
• I don’t have to move my head as my eyes can cover the screen area with little movement
• movies are bigger, games too

Cons

• you need more hardware horsepower to run games at higher resolution
• you struggle more with aligning windows to you can see a web page side by side of a word windows where you write your articles
• a really big screen is more expensive (if I would had bought a 24 inch panel it would’ve been more expensive even if I would have the same number of pixels)

So that breaks it down the dilemma of two monitors versus only one: get a bigger, higher quality screen and you’ll be better off.

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Also in the era of RSS, constant good writing makes people subscribe to your feed. All sounds pretty easy to follow, but what do you do when inspiration is lost, as you can’t have good days every day? There’s a solution for this too: make a draft every time you have an idea, writing down a few words to remember you what the original idea was. This way you have  a buffer of future articles that you can write and program to appear on your website on regular intervals.

Once you have your buffer of articles already written you have the freedom to take a few days of pause, especially useful when you plan a vacation, a short trip of just don’t feel like writing. That’s not a technique invented by me, everybody successful with their blog does that, and sooner or latey you’ll get it too, if you didn’t already.

This is a low cost (or no cost) solution to ensure a constant flow or articles. Of course there are more elaborate solutions, like paying someone to do some writing while you can’t, but if you have money to hire someone you wouldn’t be reading this post in the first place, wouldn’t you?

PS. Expect regular articles on JohnPopes from now on, as I’m trying to do what I’m preaching

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