For all the perks, conversations, and general brand engagement that it offers, I have a startling confession to make: social media can suck up your time– but only if you allow it to. I’d argue that small to medium sized businesses benefit the greatest from social media, as it allows them to utilize the very same tools that much larger brands have access to, while leveling the playing field. However, it’s exactly these types of organizations that often have little to no marketing team; quite often it’s one person, and that person might also be responsible for a myriad of other additional tasks.

Therefore, how, what, and where social media marketers allocate their time is a precious commodity around the office (as well as post-office hours). But if your job is engagement, how do you take control of your time and maximize the return on your efforts?

Have a Plan

In the 1990′s film The Hunt for Red October, Fred Dalton as Admiral Painter waxes poetically with, “Russians don’t take a dump, son, without a plan.” Crude as it may be, the same maxim can be applied to your social media approach. If your job is to build awareness of your product or brand, you’re certainly not going about it with an end goal in sight (right?).

Take the long approach. Sure, daily, this-and-this happened updates are interesting to a certain segment of your social media audience, but therein remains the problem; your tight-knit audience is listening and appreciating, but how do you reach the larger audience? Take the long approach. Think bigger than you are. Just like sales forecasting or financial planning, your social media program should have some long-term goals and appropriate rewards attached. No, I don’t mean 5k fans=a steak dinner. Rather, midway through your “Gizmo’s are great for summertime fun!” campaign, sales is reporting an increase in RFP’s, the landing page traffic has increased, or similar benchmarks. Review this long term plan on a daily basis and ask yourself, “What am I going to do today that will move this project more towards the end goal?”

Laser Guided Social Media

Or…shiny object syndrome. Sure, we all do it. A new announcement from Apple is burning up the Internet, or the phone is ringing off the hook, or that ever so friendly “ping” is pulling you back to the inbox. These all-to-common distractions are exactly what’s eating up your laser guided social media time.

Perhaps a better way to phrase this is, “If you only had 3 hours a day to work on social media strategy and projects, what would you do?” And now if you only had 1 hour? Looking at your social media time in terms of less-than-optimal time frames will push you to further refine what you’re working on and focus your attention like a laser beam.

Bonus: Review your distractions over a 2 week period and formulate a plan as to what you can do to reduce or eliminate these distractions, at least during your dedicated social media time. It might be as simple as activating the DND button on your phone, and turning the sound off on your machine to avoid the email ping.

Time It

“Life is about timing” – Carl Lewis. While Mr. Lewis was speaking more about his sprinting career, this adage holds true for social media. Dan Zarrella, Hubspot, and KISSmetrics created an infographic last summer that highlights the Science of Social Timing. While the data might be a few months old, there are still a number of truths to be gleamed. Likewise, TNW presented a rundown on nailing down that sweet spot that will get the biggest reaction from your fans and followers.

Keep these crucial times in mind when focusing on your social media activities. If you’ve been working on a video with a production team, obviously, you’re going to want to make the biggest splash possible. While it’s easy to think that every content release across your social media channels is big news, the truth is, it isn’t. There will be pieces that are bigger hits than others. The new featured function provided via Facebook’s Timeline launch can help, but there’s no substitute for great timing.

You have been digging into Facebook’s insights feature, so you’ve already got a good idea of what engages your audience, what triggers virality, etc., so use this data and a bit of experimental posting times and items to maximize the return on your efforts.

25 Minute Tomatoes

This is a little trick I learned a few years ago, and whenever I absolutely, positively need to buckle down and get ‘er done, there’s simply no substitute for the Pomodoro Technique.

At its most basic, the Pomodoro technique is nothing more than a timer and break system. The theory works around a 25/5 and 5+ system. That’s 25 minutes of dead solid focus – no Internet, no phone, no music, no nothing, with a 5-minute break scheduled to round out the half hour. The 5+ comes into play after every 4 rotations of the system, i.e. every two hours. At this point, reward yourself with a bit longer break, or…have lunch, a novel concept, I know, but after 100 minutes of concentrated thoughts, go ahead and treat yourself.

To effectively use this technique, don’t just use a watch/clock and tell yourself that you’ll stop after 25 minutes; you won’t. If a tomato shaped timer with 25 minute intervals isn’t readily handy, feel free to use that timer feature on your phone, but lock the phone, disable the vibrate feature, and put it face down on your desk.

By forcing yourself to do nothing other than the task at hand, you’re free from all external interference and can truly focus. If you’re working directly on a browser, minimize all other windows and have only the page up that you need to accomplish the task at hand. If it’s Facebook, “Go Offline” in the chat settings to avoid any accidental intrusions.

Once the 25 minutes is up, reward yourself with anything you want. I generally take these 5 minutes to do everything else that I normally would have alt/tabbed to over the previous 25 minutes. Not only will the Pomodoro technique keep you on track when it comes to limited time budgets, but over time, you’ll also notice how amazingly effective you can make those 5 minutes of personal social media time.

Use it or Lose it

Focus and time management are two business obstacles that we all come across on a daily basis. Whether it’s the Cubs playing in the World Series (Ok, in this case, clearly the world is coming to an end, so drop everything and tune into that game), or Jack from Sales breathing down your neck, distractions are everywhere. With the above points in mind, ask yourself:

• What are the top 5 pressing social media goals, and how can I/we accomplish them?
• How much time can I/we dedicate to achieving these goals/day?
• How can I/we cut out as many distractions as possible and hone in on delivering likeable, shareable material?

By fully answering and planning these three questions, you’ll be well on your way to eliminating the social media time suck.

Loved this? Read: Meet the 18 people behind your favorite social media accounts.

Lead Image via David Blackwell

I’ll be honest, productivity isn’t the most glamorous category of application to develop for the web. Not only is it not glamorous, but it’s extremely difficult to find a workflow that suits and scales for many users. One company that has done this really well is 37Signals, with an ever-growing suite of project management products. The Orchestra app went a bit further with social for to-do lists.

Another company that may have nailed it is 6Wunderkinder, creators of the popular cross-platform to-do list app “Wunderlist”. When we spoke to the company in August it shared two interesting facts; 1) Wunderlist had over 1 million active users 2) It was working on what it hoped would be a “industry-standard productivity platform”.

That second fact might not be far off, as we’ve had a chance to take a look at the beta version of the company’s latest product, Wunderkit. The best way I can describe Wunderkit is as a productivity management platform that is extremely social and is capable of handling both your personal and business life. That sounds like a tall order, but let’s take a look at Wunderkit thus far.

The total package

Productivity software isn’t usually social, in that you create a project or task and invite some of your co-workers and colleagues to participate. Either that, or it’s completely personal for yourself. It’s usually an extremely closed environment and can be kind of messy if you personalize it for your personal workflow. It’s like scribbling random notes down on a piece of paper and handing them off to someone as if they can do something with it.

What Wunderkit does really well is leverage what the company has done with Wunderlist, and built similarly strong products to support task management and overall project communication.

Open communication

When you start a new “workspace” on the platform, you can choose to make it private or public. Even if you make it public, you can still keep your notes and tasks private. The public workspace profile is a perfect way for say, an iOS developer to get feedback on their app and to communicate new releases and features with its audience. In this way, Wunderkit gives you a Twitter-style page that people can follow for updates as well as leave comments.

This is a really handy feature that makes managing projects social. Of course, you can invite your colleagues and friends into the private areas of your workspace, and the app lets you connect to Twitter and Facebook to do so easily.

Tasks and Notes

The task management portion of Wunderkit really shines through due to 6Wunderkinder’s success with Wunderlist. The product is polished and sets the tone for the rest of the app. You can create a series of lists with tasks under them, along with attaching tags, dates, and invitations to others. With a series of social features like commenting and favoriting, each item within Wunderkit becomes fully interactive.

Similarly, the Notes feature of the app lets you take an infinite number of notes for commenting on amongst those in the workspace. The fact that this portion of the app fits in nicely to the rest of Wunderkit’s flow is a testament to its brilliant design. Hopping between a few notes and tasks is simple and pretty fast for an early beta.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is easily the slickest part of the Wunderkit app. For each of your workspaces, you can see a feed of activity going on within it. That means all of the notes, tasks, and comments happening with you and your colleagues will pop up on this easy to follow dashboard. We’re trained to follow streams of information thanks to Facebook and Twitter, so Wunderkit is perfectly designed to suit that trend.

If you’re managing multiple projects, these dashboards will save your sanity.

Still in beta

For a product that is invite only and in beta, I have to say that I’m really impressed with how well it works so far. A few members of The Next Web have taken to it quite nicely and I could see it becoming a tool that we all adopt. The simple fact that one of your friends can follow you on the platform and see what you’re up to without asking you directly is pretty impressive.

Along with the social features within your workspaces, Wunderkit is featuring a few when you visit the homepage, which furthers the notion that productivity can absolutely be social. For example, you might follow someone who starts working on a project that is similar to yours. On the spot, you could invite them into your own workspace without having to email them to ask for help.

I think Wunderkit has a bright future ahead of itself, and with pricing unknown at this point, I’m still sold on its future regardless.

Check out a demo video of Wunderkit below:

➤ Wunderkit

WriteRoom

WriteRoom was the original distraction-free writing app, the one that kicked off the craze that has since seen the development of a myriad of competing apps. Made by Hog Bay Software, the company behind other popular Mac apps such as TaskPaper and PlainText, WriteRoom costs $24.99.

WriteRoom’s aesthetic is most appealing to those who love the retro 80s hacker aesthetic — green, monospaced text on a black background. WriteRoom has Dropbox integration to keep your documents synced between computers and iOS devices.

OmmWriter

OmmWriter is a popular choice because it goes beyond simply excluding the presence of distractions and tries to provide a more focus-conducive environment. Whether womb sounds really do enhance your focus or purple-pink animated backgrounds make you more creative is someone else’s call, but people seem to like it.

One of the app’s biggest draws is that there’s a completely free version available, minus a few of the backgrounds and sounds. It’s surprising to many that in today’s app market these distraction-free apps tend to have such high prices for fewer features, and if you’re one of these people this may be the app for you.

iA Writer for Mac

iA’s Writer for Mac is an evolution of their original iPad version which garnered a lot of attention when it came out — iA did a top-notch job creating an interface better suited to the iPad and its limitations than any competitor.

Writer costs $17.99 and comes with several innovative features, including Focus Mode which takes distraction-free to a whole new level by forcing you to look at only the sentence you’re working on. There’s also auto Markdown formatting and a reading time counter.

iA Writer is a favorite of TNW editor-in-chief Zee, who said “once I accepted the app for what it is – a place to do nothing but write – words did seem to roll off the tongue so to speak. Typing felt fun.”

Clean Writer

Clean Writer is on the cheap end at only $2.99. Clean Writer has Lion full-screen support on a window-by-window basis as well as autosave and versioning support. It has an interface somewhere between OmmWriter’s and WriteRoom’s — less to click on than OmmWriter but a bit more elegant than WriteRoom’s default retro look.

There’s not a lot to say about Clean Writer in comparison with apps like WriteRoom — they are after all pretty much the same by design — except for the significant saving. Unless you’ve got a specific feature you’re after in another app, like OmmWriter’s ‘atmospheric’ options, Clean Writer represents your best value for money.

Byword

Byword is a lesser known app, but is actually pretty excellent if you want a little more control over formatting while keeping most other distractions at bay. A small formatting tool palette follows the selection, sort of like the Artsy Editor plugin for WordPress.

Byword also has Markdown support and saves to a variety of formats, including PDF, HTML, Word, RTF and LaTeX.

Byword costs $9.99, and despite bigger deals such as Clean Writer’s $2.99 price point, that’s still a pretty reasonable price in this category.

Which app should you use?

Each of these apps have their strong points, and in a category where lack of features is actually a feature, the bottom line is more a matter of personal taste. Price is the biggest differentiator among these apps, and for that reason I became an Ommwriter user (though I ended up paying more than I would have on Clean Writer to support the developers).

If paying less isn’t your motivator then iA Writer is a crowd favorite. It’s hard to beat the app’s Focus Mode if distraction-free writing is truly what you’re after. At the end of the day, take a look at the app’s screenshots. What you see is what you’ll get (and all that you’ll get), and the most important thing is that you’re comfortable looking at that interface for the duration of your writing sessions.

Inbox Zero is a productivity system that was developed by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. In a nutshell, Inbox Zero is exactly what it says on the label. It’s a system which is used to keep your email inbox as empty as possible, as a means of staying productive. Implementing Inbox Zero should help you stay on top of your emails, and deal with them efficiently.

It consists of five labels you should keep in mind when processing your messages: delete, delegate, respond, defer and do. Assign yourself certain times of the day to process your emails, and approach each incoming message with that list in mind.

It’s important to remember Inbox Zero is a process not a one-time event. It’s not about getting your Inbox down to zero because obviously it’s not going to stay there.

Inbox Zero Tools

Aside from the games we’ve looked at before at The Next Web like 0Boxer and The Email Game, which attempt to make getting to Inbox Zero a little bit more fun, there are other tools that you can use to keep your inbox under control.

Gmail’s filters are a huge help for managing your incoming messages before you go anywhere near them. It takes some of the effort needed in processing out of the way. You can create filters to label specific message, based on who they’re from or based on certain keywords in the subject or the email body.

A productivity system that ties straight into your inbox is a great way to manage your email overload. For Gmail users, Taskforce is a great little extension which plugs into your inbox. If you need a more elaborate system, Mac users can benefit from a direct link between the desktop app Things and Mac Mail. Mailplane users can download a plugin to connect their email to Omnifocus. Whatever your system is, the chances are there’s an easy way to plug a task list into your email account, so you can get messages out of your inbox and onto your to-do list.

You can also put together a system that works well with your pace and work load, like Tim Mile’s 7 step list to reaching Inbox Zero.

The Argument for Inbox Zero

Inbox Zero is a great way to stay stress-free. It’s exactly the same as keeping up with your task list. If you’re keeping up with the flood of messages that are making their way into your inbox, you won’t be haunted by messages waiting to be processed, answered and archived. Just like having a task list that just keeps growing, an inbox that keeps getting bigger isn’t going to do your stress levels any favors.

Inbox Zero can make you more productive because you are painfully aware of just how much you might have on your plate. An inbox full of unread messages is daunting. If you go through that inbox, find that many of your unread messages are useless newsletters, that’s bound to make you feel better. And as you reach the important emails and delegate, defer or reply, you’ll have a much better grasp of how much work you need to do.

After using the method for a while, it can also make you more aware of how much time you need to complete a certain task. And there’s no denying the importance of time management when attempting to stay organized. So in other words, Inbox Zero can help you with your time management.

By setting certain times for checking your email, it can potentially be a more distraction-free way of getting through your work day. If you’re working on something, and a notification comes in for a new email, that can be the biggest distraction that stops you from completing the task in hand. Constantly letting yourself be distracted by new incoming messages can be incredibly detrimental to your productivity. With Inbox Zero’s scheduled email checks, you can easily stay focused on each task and finish it, before moving on to the next item on your list.

Inbox Zero is not set in stone. It’s a system which you can tweak to suit your personal needs. Merlin Mann gives you the foundation and you can build on it as you see fit. Since you don’t have to use a specific application to set the system in motion, you can easily drop and add bits and pieces of the system as you see fit, making it more suitable to your working style.

If you do it right, you’ll feel relieved. Or as Merlin Mann so eloquently puts it, it’ll feel great to suck less.

The Argument Against Inbox Zero

You could end up wasting far more time putting a system in place than actually using it. This is, of course, entirely subjective. Some people can spend time working on a system, and will eventually put it to good use. With many others, the entire productivity world is far more interesting and enamoring when coming up with a system rather than actually using it.

Inbox Zero can potentially make you spend more time focusing on your email at the expense of other parts of your working day. Email isn’t the only tool we use for communication at work and you simply can’t be preoccupied with keeping your inbox under control all the time. Depending on your email load, you could end up spending more time processing than you should.

Inbox Zero can lull you into a false sense of security. Processing your inbox is only half the task. Even after you’ve emptied your inbox, you’ve still got quite a few messages that have been delegated and deferred. The delegated messages can often require followup on your part to ensure the task is completed.

The deferred messages are the real problem because they require noone but you to deal with them. Inbox Zero may give you the sense that things are under control, but unless you actually deal with those deferred messages, they really aren’t.

How different is your inbox to your task list? Are your emails better off on a to-do list that still needs doing? I often find that keeping the email message in my inbox is an important reminder of what I need to do. While others might find that it’s stressful and unnecessary if you’ve already got it on your task list, I find it a handy reminder, provided that there aren’t too many of these reminders in my inbox.

What happens if you continue to receive emails as you are processing your inbox? Do you leave those messages out of the processing system until your next scheduled email session? What if you receive an urgent email as you’re processing? What if your job requires you to keep an eye on your inbox all day so you don’t miss any urgent messages? All of these questions are problematic for the Inbox Zero system, which requires you to process only at certain times of the day.

While you can keep your inbox under control, you don’t have the ultimate control. You can’t stop emails from pouring in, short of switching off your Internet connection. Trying to have complete control over something which you simply cannot have complete control over may seem futile to some, and in fact, could be the complete opposite of stress-free.

Conclusion

There is no single cure for email overload and Inbox Zero doesn’t claim to perform miracles. At the end of the day it’s a system, and it’s nothing without your own personal input. It might work for you and it might not. It’s important to remember that productivity systems are subjective beasts and that can be their ultimate downfall or the reason for their success.

What works for you won’t necessarily work for me. And for that reason you can’t say wholeheartedly that Inbox Zero works or it doesn’t. That’s just like saying that having cornflakes for breakfast doesn’t work. It’s simply a matter of personal preference or taste. Now if you’ll excuse me, as I have a few unread messages in my inbox that need dealing with…

We live in a busy world. Whether you’re looking around online or off, there’s “stuff” going on all around us. Some of us are trying to keep up and some of us aren’t. Either way, both parties are inevitably going to miss out on some of this “stuff” I’m alluding to. And that’s because we all need to look at not only why we’re missing out, but how we can avoid missing out on as much as we do. This is when levels of personal productivity come into play.

So, how do you “level up” your personal productivity? Well, here are 10 things that you need to do to be supremely productive.

1. Map out the really important stuff.

No one can tell you what is important to you — that’s a choice only you can make. But unless you do make that choice on regular basis, you’ll find that the important stuff gets buried behind a mass of stuff that you have to do rather than want to do. That stuff has become “urgent”, and urgent always manages to outweigh importance unless you keep urgency at bay.

You need to map out the stuff that is really important to you, not just in “work life” but in other aspects of you life, and be clear about that map once it’s been made. Keep it on hand and visible, whether digitally or on a piece of paper taped to your workspace so that you don’t lose sight of it (both literally and figuratively). Before you start using any tools to make sure you get there, you need to figure out where “there” is. And the best way to find it is with a map…a very important map.

2. Pick a system and stick with it for at least 90 days.

If you’ve ever Googled “personal productivity system”, you’ll find that you can spend more time looking for ways to help you be more productive than you can actually being more productive. Spend very little time searching for one, and more time working with one. You’ve likely got an idea of what you’re best suited for (whether you’re a digital or analog person, whether you want to have a software solution that is web-based or a mobile app, etc.), so figure out what is going to work for you and give that system a try.

Look for no more than a week before settling on one, and then stick with it for at least 90 days. You’ll need that length of time to get really familiar with the system you’ve chosen, but also you’ll need that length of time to get into the habit of working inside any system at all. If, after 90 days, you’ve found that you’ve made the system work for you then you’re in great shape. If it doesn’t, then you’ll be able to move on to another and the learning curve won’t be as steep. Remember, the goal is to “be” supremely productive, not to “do” supremely productive.

3. Don’t use a calendar for to do items.

No matter what system you come up with, don’t put to do items on a calendar. Calendars are meant to handle scheduled items and appointments only. If you’re blocking out time for rejects, writing, lunch, then that’s fine. Same with any scheduled appointments or meetings. But anything that does not have a set time shouldn’t even touch the pages of your calendar.

This goes for deadlines as well, because essentially these things are often tasks that need to be done by a certain date. If you’re having to put deadline dates in your calendar, then you’ve got a much bigger problem on your hand than knowing when the deadlines are…and that problem is that you’re leaving things to the point where the deadline actually matters.

4. Empty your head regularly.

Your brain can only hold so much information. Homer Simpson famously said that every time he learned something new that something else he had learned before fell out of his brain. You need to drain your mind regularly, and that means writing stuff down or capturing it in some other fashion. Again, how you do so depends on what method works best for you. But if you don’t empty your head then it will be far too full to handle very much of anything.

5. Don’t be afraid to break familiar patterns.

Bogging yourself down with too many tools or the wrong tools at the wrong time will only slow down your productivity. If you’re working away on your laptop and an idea comes to mind, opening another app to capture that idea might be the best option for you because you’re already working on the device. But it may also get lost in the shuffle. Breaking a familiar pattern by writing the idea down on paper or recording it by voice into your mobile device can create a trigger that keeps that idea far more accessible than plunking it in your laptop. Mixing it up isn’t always a bad idea, and it can actually make the process of discovery part of your workflow. And allowing the mind to explore and wander can actually build on productive habits.

6. Disconnect often.

Human beings can’t be “tapped in” all the time. We need down time. You can schedule the down time or just let it happen, but you need to do it often. If you’re always on the go then you’ll never know how to properly stop and get the rest you need, so take the time to step back and remove yourself from the equation. You’ll prolong your passion for your pursuits, gain further insight and keep perspective by doing so.

7. Get up early.

Sleeping in is one of the worst things you can do to enhance your productivity. While you son’t have to be rising at a ridiculous hour, by getting up in the early part of the morning you may surprise yourself with how much more you can get done in a day. Staying up late may give you a jump on tomorrow, but if you don’t jump out of the gate in the morning than you’re going to be playing catch up all day. You may be ahead of the pack because you burned the midnight oil, but you certainly won’t feel like it.

8. Be proactive.

Living in the moment is fine when you’re already ahead of the game, but when you’ve got a lot on your plate it is very difficult to live at all, let alone in the moment. By setting realistic expectations and benchmarks for your tasks and goals, you’ll be proactive by default. Being reactive often results in sloppy and panicked results — and it shows. Being proactive allows you to actually craft what you’re doing with superior quality and effort. Time is on your side when you’re proactive, and time can be your worst enemy when you let it control you. So don’t let it.

9. Embrace curation.

Take a good hard look at what you’re spending your time on (and in). Be honest with yourself and examine what is stealing your attention away from what you need to be doing in order to be supremely productive. Then either manage that with a deliberate approach or, if you can’t afford the willpower, eliminate it altogether. Television is a big one here. I cut cable out of my life a couple of months ago and have been able to create a lot more since I did, because I’m not able to flip a switch and watch what someone else has created. I’ve started using Netflix to watch what I want and when I want, but there is some effort involved. It’s not just a press of the button and images magically appear on the screen. Absorbing what I want rather than wading through what is offered on television has greatly enhanced my productivity. I’m curating my television habit, and I’m far better for it.

10. Forget Inbox Zero.

You’re going to get email. Deal with it. Spending all of your time trying to clear it all out every day (or week) is more wasteful for many than watching television. Again, absorb what you want rather than wade through what is offered. Create a folder within your email client and call it “Keepers”. Drag what you feel you must keep into that folder, and then delete the rest periodically. Review the “Keepers” folder daily, and delete what’s been dealt with when you’re ready. Don’t get bogged down in email. It’s not worth it, and it’s one of the biggest factors as to why so many of us aren’t supremely productive.

Pushing through the urgent stuff and getting to the important stuff is a lot easier when you’ve set yourself up to succeed. The details will start to rise to the top the more you are able to pay attention to them. By mapping out the course, discovering what works best for you and clearing and curating the path along the way, you’ll find that being supremely productive isn’t all that difficult. Getting started may seem to be the hardest part, but it’s actually the waiting to get started that is the hardest part.

So what are you waiting for?

Unlike apps like Things and OmniFocus, which are tools for getting your tasks out of your head and into an organized system, Vitamin-R is a tool for motivating you to get tasks done quickly.

It doesn’t replace the aforementioned productivity apps — rather, it’s an extension of them, taking you out of planning mode and into doing mode.

Despite the inclusion of a User Manual, Vitamin-R’s interface is well designed in that it’s self-explanatory — you don’t need a manual. Each step towards setting up your ‘time slice’ is explained well as you go.

You start by describing what it is you need to get done. The next step is eliminating distractions — telling Vitamin-R which apps to close or hide while you get on with the job. Finally, you select a period of time for the task, the time slice itself, based on your level of motivation and resistance, and how long the job requires for you to get it done.

Once the task is completed, you’re given the option to start a timed or open-ended break, or start on a new task.

There’s more to the app — it integrates with Things and OmniFocus, allowing you to drag over tasks and then have them marked as completed automatically when they are done. There’s cloud sync with Dropbox, and memory aid pads for things you’ll need to do shortly but are afraid of forgetting while you complete your current task.

Vitamin-R costs $14.95 and can be purchased directly from the developer or through the Mac App Store. There’s a trial version available, and it’s well worth checking out, particularly if you’re a user of a task manager like Things or OmniFocus. Time slicing isn’t a new idea amongst productivity nerds, but this app really helps you make it happen.

The days of confining jobs to bricks-and-mortar offices are over. Working from home has become common nowadays, in fact, that’s how most of us at The Next Web work. Having the ability to work from the comfort of your own home introduces many advantages. Unfortunately, it also brings about many disadvantages that can cause problems when it comes to productivity.

The benefit of reducing commuting time and expenses to virtually zero and having a flexible working schedule comes with a price. People who work from home often face distractions from family members, errands, and, believe it or not, comforts all around the house.

There are, however, some ways to prevent inefficiencies from working out of your home. As part of our productivity week special, we will share with you 7 effective tips to be more productive when working from home.

1. If you don’t have goals, you won’t get anything done.

As professionals, we can’t always bank on lightbulb moments and sparks of inspiration to get work done. The first and most important thing to do before getting things done is knowing what your end results should be. Make SMART goals — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Believe me, it works.

Then again, what good are goals if you don’t stick to them, right? That’s why making schedules and committing to it is equally important. Treat your days like “regular” work days. Many people have found that a 9-5 or 10-6 schedule really helps keep them on track and productive.

2. Take some time to socialize with your co-workers.

Just like in a real work environment, establishing good relationships with colleagues is just as important when working from home. Why? Because it can be motivating to get feedback from people you work with. Working from home could get a little lonely so it’s good to have healthy distractions as well.

Share interesting stories with your coworkers. Collaborate and help each other out when needed. Whenever someone does a good job, acknowledge it, or better yet, celebrate successes together. Not only will it help you do your job better, it can also make “going to work” every day enjoyable.

3. Avoid things that distract you but take breaks when needed.

It is important for people who work from home to be aware of the things that distract them, and to have the discipline to avoid these things. The television, the fridge, or if you work on your computer, Facebook and Twitter — these things can prevent you from getting work done so the best advice we could give is to stay away from them.

We’re not saying you should torture yourself and glue your eyes on the computer screen all day. Taking short breaks are important as well. There’s time for everything and if you find yourself spending more time doing unnecessary things than getting things done, you may want to consider shifting priorities. And that window of World of Warcraft that you switch to from time to time? Yeah, that has got to go.

4. Being busy doesn’t equate to being effective.

Just because you’re doing something doesn’t mean you’re getting work done. Learn to weigh the important things and prioritize them. Just because you’re busy reading emails or taking calls doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting your work done. If you find yourself spending a bit too much time doing menial things, make a schedule.

Set aside time for doing different tasks, don’t overestimate the things you can get done and learn to say no. Chances are many of your friends and family will picture you bumming at home, eating potato chips and watching TV when they learn that you’re working from home. When people call you simply to chat, be mindful that you’re still “on duty” and politely remind them that you’re still working.

5. Your time is just as valuable. Take advantage of technology.

Unlike working in an office environment where systems are usually set, working from home gives you the flexibility of doing things your way. Along with this comes the responsibility of finding the most efficient tools to get your job done. You just need to be aware that you have a lot of tools at your disposal and that you’re in full control.

One advice I could give you is to check out TNW Apps or TNW Lifehacks to see if there are easier solutions to solve the little things you do. Just because you feel like you have all the time in the world when you’re at home doesn’t make your time any less valuable.

6. Know when to stop and if you deserve it, reward yourself.

When working from home, it can be difficult separating your personal life with your work life. Given the added responsibility of having to manage your own time, whether you are a freelancer or an employee of a company, you also have to set a defined time when to stop. Take overtime if needed but don’t let work take over your life.

Schedule your work time and make sure your friends and family know that you are unavailable during work hours but remember to get back to them once you’re done. At the end of the day, give yourself a pat on the back and reward yourself with a cookie… or whatever that makes you happy.

7. Start the day properly.

Don’t just jump on your work desk unshaved and in pyjamas, start the day properly and treat yourself as a professional. Have breakfast, take a shower, and get dressed. It would definitely help too if you could invest on a good working space and an ergonomic chair. These little things make all the difference to your state of mind.

Final note

It takes a lot of discipline and responsibility to be productive when working from home. One of the hardest things you might encounter is not having someone to police you when you’re slacking off or getting distracted. Hence, the last tip I have for you is to not cheat yourself and stick by the 7 rules. You can create a lot of excuses, and having freedom and flexibility creates a tendency  for us to be lenient on ourselves.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to your output and it will definitely show depending on how you were able to manage your time.

So there you have it. It won’t even cost you money to be more productive. You just have to be aware, disciplined, and responsible to make the most out of your time.

What are your secrets? We’d love to hear them in the comments section.

It’s a week full of posts on how to be productive around here at TNW. When the news came out this past weekend that it’s what we’d be doing, I have to admit that I squirmed a little bit. I loathe productivity apps. I find that, by and large, I spend much more time fooling with them than I manage to get back by using them. So it is with this in mind that I’m going to spend a few words explaining how I manage to stay afloat, complete with whatever few apps that I do use in order to make it happen.

KISS

You know the acronym, right? Keep it simple, stupid. My complete list of apps that keep me productive is this:

• TextEdit
• Dropbox
• iCal
• Gmail
• Boomerang

That’s it. Really. I don’t see a need for task-based apps or ones that I’m constantly having to update in order to make sure that I can keep track of what I’m doing. While people could argue that I’m over-complicating things, my reply would be that I also use these apps for most of the work that I do, so it’s not a matter of learning something new.

What I’ve found is that it’s my system for using these apps that keeps me sane. It might not be perfect for you, but I do have some tips.

Start Clean

I wake up to over 100 email messages every day. One school of thought says that I should handle these now and get them behind me. But I know that a chain reaction tends to happen and I’ll end up buried in my inbox for the next two hours. So, instead, I start off by not reading my email and instead getting The Daily Dose recorded.

Quite like how when you eat breakfast, your metabolism will kick in for the day, it’s better to get that first bit of work accomplished and start off your day by being able to knock out at least one known task.

Filter and Schedule

First off, get rid of all of the crap in your email. Twitter follow notifications, Facebook junk and all the rest is just something that’s taking time out of your day. If you’re really interested in finding out who is following you, set aside some time to dig through Twitter.com and pay it true attention.

Now that you’ve gotten rid of your crapmail, it’s time to set up filters. Gmail’s new Smart Labels do a really good job of telling you what does and does not need your attention. Of course a bit of curation on your part will help, but even the base algorithm is quite good. For the stuff that isn’t being caught, set up filters, folders and rules for Gmail to keep the urgent stuff away from the merely important.

If it’s in your inbox, it’s on your mind. Get rid of it with Boomerang. Boomerang is a plugin for Gmail that will literally allow you to send and receive email when you need it. Travel stuff for a trip that’s 2 weeks from now? Boomerang it to have it return to your inbox the morning that you need it. The same with material that you’ll need later, but has no value now. Get it out of your sight.

Be Disciplined

Nobody has to tell me that I’ve got stuff to get done. I keep a list open in TextEdit of the things that I need to accomplish, and this lets me keep notes on them too. I save that list inside of my Dropbox so that it’s readily available even if I’m not on my own computer.

The same holds true for interviews or other pieces that I’m working on over a matter of time. I have folders in my Dropbox that are specifically designated as “Interviews” and “In Progress”. If I’m working on a story, it’s in that folder. You can use whatever off-site service that you want, but Dropbox works wonders for me.

I’m also disciplined in how I manage my time. I absolutely will not take a phone call that isn’t scheduled. I check my email at regular intervals and if I need to I’ll even put an out of office reply that tells people the times that I’ll be checking it. Far too often, email turns into a chat session and that’s just as invasive as any phone call. My script? It goes something like this:

Thank you for your email. I check mine four times daily — 10am, 12n, 2pm and 4pm. If you are emailing me about something urgent, please send me a message on Skype at BradMcCarty.

Granted, Skype can be invasive too, but more often than not people send a message that tells what they need, and I can quickly skim it to see if it’s something that I need to address immediately. If it’s not, I let it sit. Remember, you are the one who decides what is urgent for your schedule.

Set a Schedule

I use iCal, tied to my Google Calendar. If I have an embargo for a post, I set it on my iCal and then set a reminder for it. The same is true for meetings, phone calls and the like. Nothing can throw me out of a productivity pattern faster than having to look up referring information for something, so I include everything I can in the comments.

Far too often, productivity apps are limited solely to what tasks are set up inside of them. I need to, at a glance, be able to see what else is happening on any given day. As such, using a traditional calendar app works far better for me than most dedicated apps ever will.

Stunning Silence

I work at home, typically with music on in the background. I do have occasional beeps from Convofy or Skype, but that’s it. However, it’s not the auditory noise that’s so distracting, rather it’s the visual stuff.

Right now, as I’ve worked on this piece slowly through the day, I haven’t gone into silent mode. Across 2 monitors I have Google Talk, Chrome (with 5 tabs open), TweetDeck (with 8 columns), Convofy, Skype and Growl notifications. To say that this is a lot of visual noise is an understatement.

If I really need to dig in and get something done, I take things down to their most simplistic form and you should too. Shut everything off. Get rid of your Twitter, silence your phone, even shut off Growl. They’re all slowing you down, or you’re ignoring them. If I have a big story to do, I’ll break out Byword and go into full screen mode. It completely blocks out all distractions.

Whatever your job is, there’s likely a way that you can do something similar. Just get rid of anything extra over which you have control. Silence is golden, and your eyes will thank you.

So there you have it. I could honestly do almost all of my productivity without any apps at all, choosing instead to write things into a Moleskine or otherwise scribbling. It doesn’t take money or a learning curve to be more productive, it just takes discipline and making the best use of the tools that you already have.

Getting screenshots and images from your iPhone or iPad to your computer, or the reverse for that matter, is an exercise in time wasting frustration. A combination of two already great apps for your Mac and iPhone can take that process from frustration to freedom in no time flat.

There are several built-in choices for getting images from your iDevice to your computer but they generally involve other web services or email and add slow, unnecessary steps. By using the iPhone app Pastebot and it’s accompanying Mac app Pastebot Sync in conjunction with the great image editor Skitch, we can streamline the process, allowing you to transfer, edit and annotate images in seconds.

What You Need

To set up your workflow you’ll need a couple of items. First of all, you’ll need the Pastebot app [$2.99 App Store] for your iPhone. You’ll also want to grab Pastebot Sync, the app for your Mac that will let you sync things to and from your iPhone. Last you’ll need the image editor Skitch, a simple image editor that allows you to resize, adjust and annotate images with blazing speed. You can get Skitch for free here with the option to upgrade to the pro version for more features. Get all of those installed, I’ll wait.

Make Pastebot Work

Now that we have all of the items installed, lets get them set up to work together. Note that in order to share images between your Mac and iPhone they need to be on the same WiFi network.

On your Mac, run Pastebot Sync. You’ll see an icon appear in the upper right corner of your toolbar that looks like a tiny clipboard. This app will communicate with the iPhone version of Pastebot to transfer copied items back and forth. This connection is two-way. That means that anything you copy on your iPhone will transfer to your Mac and anything you copy on your Mac will show up in Pastebot on your iPhone or iPad.

To set up the connection on your iPhone, open Pastebot on your iPhone. Tap on Settings and Sync, then tap on the Add New button at the bottom of the list. Pastebot will display a 4-digit passcode. Now, lets hop back over to the Mac and punch in that passcode.

To do this we’ll need to click on the Pastebot Sync icon in the toolbar and click on Pastebot Preferences. In the Prefs pane for Pastebot type in the 4 digit code that your iPhone is displaying. The Pastebot icon in your toolbar should now turn blue, indicating that it’s linked to a device and your iPhone should automatically see the connection and display the computer as a device in your sync list. Note that you can link your device to multiple computers and multiple devices to your computer. This should enable you to freely move URLs, copied text and images back and forth between all of your devices with blazing speed.

It’s worth noting something about the way that Pastebot works here. Because of the way that Apple has designed multitasking to work on the iPhone, Pastebot can only stay open in the background for 10 minutes. This means that before you start a copy/paste session, you should fire up Pastebot and then put it into the background by hitting your home button. For the next 10 minutes it should capture anything that you copy on your iPhone, whether it be text or images.

Make it All Work Together

Now that you have Pastebot syncing up and running, lets see how it works together with Skitch.

First, make sure Skitch is running on your Mac, for best results you’ll want to ensure that the Skitch windows has focus by clicking anywhere on the app. This will ensure that your pasted image goes into Skitch and not somewhere else.

Now, launch Pastebot on your iPhone, then background it by tapping the home button. Pop open your Photos app on the iPhone and hold down your finger on an image until the Copy dialog pops up and tap it. You should hear an audible signal if Pastebot grabbed the image.

Then, switch back to Pastebot and tap+hold the image that you’d like to send to Skitch. It will audible again and your image will pop up right in Skitch on your Mac. This will allow you to use Skitch to resize your image, add arrows, text or other annotations and then export your image simply by dragging it out to your desktop in ready-to-use form.

There are so many ways to use Skitch itself that I can’t get into them all here, but getting your images directly from your iPhone to Skitch should save you a lot of time emailing the images to yourself or uploading them to Dropbox then re-downloading them. Remember that you can also use this method to paste text into text editors and websites right into the URL bar of your browser.

If you try out this workflow tip please let me know how it worked for you in the comments and yes, I did use the method above for the images in this article!

Evernote makes it easy to create and access notes in the form of plain text, Web clippings, images, audio and even video – and then access them wherever you are via the Web or a variety of desktop and mobile apps.

It’s insanely useful, and third-party developers have extended its functionality even further with a range of add-ons.

Here we take a look at ten of the best, including a couple of native Evernote features that you might have missed.

Transcribe your voice with Voice2Note by Dial2Do

Evernote allows you to record voice notes, although they’re not easily searchable and audio isn’t as flexible as text in terms of copying and pasting to other places. Voice2Note by Dial2Do converts audio notes into text to make them more easily searchable.

Simply connect your Evernote account up and the first 30 seconds of any audio note will be transcribed. You can even tag your notes by saying “Tag with:”, followed by the names of your tags. The service has a small monthly or annual fee, or you can try a limited version for free.

Send photos straight from your camera with Eye-fi

Eye-fi is an incredibly useful gadget that fits into the SD card slot on your digital camera, turning it into a Wi-Fi enabled device.

Eye-fi’s Evernote integration means that images can be sent straight from your camera as a picture note. Text recognition built into Evernote means that you can use this as a way to grab text from signs, menus, and other locations and then port them back to Evernote in a searchable, editable form. Sure, you could always use your mobile phone’s camera to do this directly, but it’s always handy to have the option of doing it with images from compact camera or Digital SLR too.

Save other people’s tweets with Twipple

This iOS Twitter client with versions for the iPhone and iPad may not be the best known out there, but if you want to keep notes of tweets it may well be worth having to hand.

As well as acting as a normal Twitter client, its Evernote integration means that tweets can be saved to notebooks and tagged, allowing you to refer back to them long after Twitter’s own search facility may have rendered them unfindable via native means.

Scan documents straight to Evernote

A number of scanner manufacturers now offer Evernote integration. Canon; Lexmark; Fujitsu; Doxie and Ricoh all offer the ability to send documents that you’ve scanned straight to your account in a searchable form. Viva the cloud!

Tweet straight to Evernote

Did you know that you could send notes straight from Twitter? It’s dead simple too. Just Follow @myEN. It will follow you back and DM you a link allowing you to connect your Twitter account to Evernote.

Once you’re set up, you can either send notes in public by including “@myEN” in the tweet, or simply send a DM to that account. Obviously your notes will have to be short, but if it’s just a quick reminder to do something later, this could be an ideal way of ensuring that you don’t forget. You could even use it as a way of remembering other people’s tweets – just retweet them and add @myEN to the end.

Save handwritten notes, drawings and audio with Livescribe smartpens

These gadgets are, quite frankly, a genius idea. Livescribe smartpens keep a digital record of the things that you write and draw with them, and can even store audio too.

Evernote integration means that the things you’ve written and heard while using the pen can be sent and archived within your account. A similar product for the Japanese market, the Airpen, is also available.

Take notes with your finger, with FastFinga

If you don’t have a Livescribe pen, FastFinga could be just what you need. This iOS app allows you to write by hand (well, by finger) onto your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad screen.

Once you’ve hooked up your Evernote account, you can send your notes straight through to your account where the service’s handwriting recognition will transform it into searchable text that you can copy and paste to your heart’s content. If you’re not a fan of typing on virtual keyboards, this could be a solution worth trying.

Add puzzles, city guides and more to your account

Beyond just letting you view and store content that you’ve created or copied yourself, Evernote offers a range of free notebooks offering puzzles, short city guides, recipes and more.

While they aren’t very long, they are free and they do show how flexible Evernote can be as a platform. As they can be accessed wherever you have your account, they provide a nice bit of free reading material when you’re at a loose end. Could Evernote move into selling premium content in the future? It’s certainly one direction the company could take.

Save articles to read later with ReadItLater

While it’s easy to copy text from a website to read later in Evernote, ReadItLater makes it even easier.

The service’s bookmarklet makes it simple to copy a beautifully reproduced version of a web page with the click of a button. ReadItLater’s iOS app features an option to share any page you like to Evernote. This option is useful if you use both services and want to keep an archive of popular pages in Evernote’s filing system of notebooks and ‘stacks’.

Email notes straight to your account

You might not realise it, but one of the easiest ways of all to send content to your Evernote account is via email. You’ll find the email address in your Account Settings.

You can even add notes to a specific notebook by putting @notebook in the subject line (where ‘notebook is replaced by the name of your notebook) or tag your notes by adding #tag in the subject line (where ‘tag’ is replaced by the tag). Easy!