5 Tips for Staying Focused

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Some things that work for me.

I’ve been having trouble staying focused on my work these days. It seems that the number of distractions at my desk exceed the number of reasons I should work on my current work-in-progress, Excel 2007: Visual QuickStart Guide.

I’ve come up with a few tips that help me stay focused on a specific project or task. You may have heard some of these elsewhere; I’ve been reading a lot of about productivity tricks lately and have been linking to other articles. But this is my take on these techniques — whatever that’s worth.

  1. Organize your workspace so it has everything you need to work on the project — and just that. If you’re as likely to succumb to distraction as I am, anything handy that’s unrelated to the task at hand will pull you away from it. Ditto if you have to get up and get something that you need that’s not handy, especially if getting up takes you past the fridge, the phone, or any other distraction.
  2. List the steps you need to complete to get the job done. Think the job through before you begin so you know what has to be done. Amend the list as you work. Before starting any task that’s not on the list, ask yourself if it’s really part of the project. If so, add it to the list and do it. If not, don’t be tempted.
  3. If you don’t need an Internet connection to work on your project, turn it off. That’s as easy as turning off your AirPort card (on a Mac), unplugging your Ethernet cable, or turning off/unplugging your router. One tip I read online recently suggested using a light timer to turn off the router for a certain amount of dedicated work time each day. Personally, I like to be more flexible.
  4. Don’t check your e-mail. If you have to keep your Internet connection turned on for your work, don’t run your e-mail application. If you do and it checks e-mail periodically (as most do), you’re very likely to be distracted by an incoming e-mail message. I know I always am. Best to not to run your e-mail application at all.
  5. Don’t run applications you don’t need to get the job done. That includes (especially) Web browsers and other distracting applications. If you’re often tempted with games and are fortunate enough to have more than one computer, delete every single game you have from your work machine so you can’t be tempted to play when you should be working.

Remember, I work alone in an office, so I’m not usually distracted by other people. If you have distractions from others, be sure to check out “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” by Dave Cheung. His article includes some tips for keeping co-workers from ruining your productivity.

Duck and Cover

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Perhaps this is why we are the way we are today.

From “Vintage ToonCast: Duck and Cover“:

An entire generation of American school children were shown this post-WWII Civil Defense film based on limited information from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Download this ToonCast.

Watching this video today reminded me why America is different now than it was in the 1950s and early 1960s. We don’t have to live in fear.

Polishing the Apple iPhone

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Is the iPhone the answer to every problem?

From “NPR: Polishing the Apple iPhone” on The Unger Report:

Steve Jobs of Apple is known for his ability to imagine a product that has all the bells and whistles the market loves. Humorist Brian Unger imagines some features for the new Apple iPhone that Jobs overlooked.

A podcast episode that’ll make you smile.

Fuel Purchase Rebates for Pilots

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AOPA changes its program, I go to BP.

For years, I’ve been using my AOPA MasterCard to purchase fuel at FBOs. At first, the program offered 3% rebate on all purchases at participating FBOs. Then that percentage jumped to 5%. Since it cost nothing for an FBO to participate, just about all of them did.

Among the participating FBOs were flight schools. I earned rebate dollars on all of my helicopter flight training. Since most flight schools also do maintenance, I also earned rebates on most of my helicopter maintenance and repairs. Now we’re talking big bucks. With an annual inspection costing $2,000 or more, 5% is a truly welcome discount.

The AOPA rebate program had two problems, as far as I was concerned:

  • Rebates were not automatic. You had to go to the MBNA Web site (later the BofA Web site) to indicate which transactions were eligible. Although they probably assumed you’d look up all the FBOs in their list, I never did. I just checked off all the transactions — after all, I only used the card to buy aviation-related things — and let them figure out what was eligible or not. It was a pain in the butt because it required a trip to the Web site each month. If you forgot, that was okay — you could always do it later. But it was an extra step just to get the money.
  • Rebates were limited to $250 per year. If you do the math, that means only $5,000 of purchases could earn the rebate. I’d easily reach the limit by September or October each year. A helicopter flight student could reach it in a month or two, depending on his schedule. It would have been nicer if there were no limit.

On the plus side, the rebates, once requested and verified, showed up on the following credit card statement as a reduction of the account balance. I liked to think about it as a fuel discount and that’s how I accounted for it in my accounting records — a reduction of fuel expenses.

Well, the AOPA MasterCard moved to BofA when BofA bought MBNA. (Sounds like alphabet soup.) And they — either AOPA or BofA — decided to change the program. They now have some kind of point system that you can use to buy merchandise. Or something like that. Frankly, I didn’t look into the details. I don’t want points. I want dollars. I want to reduce my operating expenses.

Meanwhile, when I switched my maintenance to Silver State in Mesa (at Williams Gateway airport), I discovered that BP, which the FBO there represents, had a 5% rebate credit card with no limit that applied a sliding scale rate to purchases: 5% of BP purchases (at airports or auto gas stations), 2% of travel and dining, and 1% of other expenditures. Since BP is relatively common around airports, I signed up for the card and got it. Now I use that for most of my aviation-related expenses.

Well, it turns out that this Rebate program isn’t quite as convenient as it could be, either. (I think that’s how they get you — make it such a pain in the butt that you don’t bother claiming the rebate.) In order to get the rebate I have to:

  1. Create an account on the Chase.com Web site. (A one-time deal.)
  2. Log into my account periodically.
  3. Navigate to the Claim My Rewards area, which isn’t exactly easy to find.
  4. Use a shopping cart to “buy” rewards using my earned points. The options are a $25 BP Card (costing 25 points) that can only be used at BP gas stations (like I want one of those), a $25 check (costing 25 points), or a donation to charity (costing 25 points). Of course, since you can only buy in increments of 25 points, you’ll always have a balance leftover.
  5. Wait for the check(s) to arrive.
  6. Take the check(s) to the bank and deposit them.

Obviously, this isn’t the best solution either. But it does reduce my operating costs, so I do get the desired end result.

What I should do is look for a good rebate card that works everywhere and doesn’t make you work to get the rebate dollars. I’m sure they’re out there, but since I really hate applying for and having credit cards, I haven’t looked for them. I guess that should go on my To Do list for this year, right after clean off my desk.

Any suggestions? Use the Comments feature to let us know.

CDs vs. Downloads

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I couldn’t have said it better myself.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the inconvenience of downloading music from iTunes. Yes, you read that right. I said inconvenience.

Sure, it’s great to download music immediately, when I want it, and pay only 99¢ per song. But what’s not so good is the restrictions on music use:

  • I must register every computer I want to play my purchased songs on and I only get 5 of them. That covers my desktop Mac, my PowerBook, my Mac test mule (for writing Mac books and articles), my Windows test mule for writing Windows books and articles), and my husband’s laptop. About a year ago I was faced with a not-so-unique problem: the motherboard on my dual G5 went bad and needed to be replaced — before I could unregister it from iTunes. I lost one of my computer registrations and had to do battle with Apple to get it back.
  • I can’t easily back up my purchased music. I need to go through some kind of procedure that I simply haven’t had time to explore. In fact there seem to be restrictions on how I copy the music, period.
  • Apparently, there is some loss of quality if I burn purchased music to a CD and then rip that music to a computer. I haven’t played around with this enough to have the full story, but I shouldn’t have to spend the time to figure out why my music quality should change. It shouldn’t change.

Fortunately, I have an iPod (or three) so the fact that iPods are the only MP3 players that can play iTunes purchased music isn’t a problem for me. But I understand that it’s a major gripe for other people.

I was going to write a blog entry about all this, but now I don’t have to. I just read a piece that expresses my feelings and frustrations on this matter better than I could. From Alpha Geek: CDs vs. Downloads on Lifehacker:

DRM, the chief source of all this grief, is the love child of Satan and Osama bin Laden. If I could pay 99 cents for an unprotected, unrestricted, 320Kbps MP3, I’d do it in a heartbeat–and it would be all over for CDs. Instead, online music stores treat us like thieving children, locking us into one bit rate, one file format, a limited number of CD burns, and other annoying handcuffs. Apple and Microsoft impose the worst kind of restriction: Songs purchased from iTunes and Zune Marketplace can be played only on iPods and Zunes, respectively.

And later:

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve rekindled my love affair with CDs. They let me do things, to borrow from Old Blue Eyes, my way. See you in hell, DRM.

Thanks, Rick Broida, for putting my thoughts into words. See you at the CD store.