We all like to procrastinate from time to time all the time, so it’s important to formulate new working habits to work around our slack. Here’s a good work hack from LifeClever that might help you become a more effective worker.

I’ve implemented the (10+2)*5 procrastination hack with a shareware application called Meridian. So what is this (10+2)*5 math mumbo jumbo, you ask? The idea is simple: dedicate a fixed amount of 10 minutes for work and 2 minutes for play. Repeat 5 times.

• 10 - Work for ten minutes with single-minded focus on moving toward completion on a single task. Ten minutes, and that’s all you’re allowed to do is work, work, work. No cheating, because (DING!) you actually get a break when you’re done…
• 2 - After ten minutes of sweaty, dedicated work you get a 2-minute break to do whatever you want—drink coffee, read 5ives, call your bookie, whatever. When the two minutes are up, it’s back to work on the next task on your list. This is important.
• You’re going to iterate this four more times for a total of one hour’s working/breaking

They chose Meridian because it has multiple timers and doesn’t take up too much real estate, but you can use your own favorite timer. I suggest using the old fashion chess clock. *ding* it’s work time… *ding* it’s time to call the bookie… *ding* Uhhh you get the point.

Liz over at Successful and Outstanding Bloggers talks about 9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer which can help all of us understand our readers better.

It can seem complicated to write for a readership that includes beginners to experts. I’ve done it for almost three decades. It can seem like there’s too much to consider to meet them all at their own level.

Yet my experience is that beginners and experts are not that differernt when they read. They might choose to read different things, but we all do. Beyond that difference of content, beginners, experts and those of us in the middle — every reader — wants the same things from a writer.

Her breakdown on these ten things include picking an idea that intrigues you, tracing out a simple structure, writing for someone who’s like you but doesn’t know what you know about the topic, making clear decisions about what to include, setting aside your expensive vocabulary, and so on.

This is really worth reading if you want to improve your readership and if you care about repeat visits and readers satisfaction.

Via ProBlogger.

We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their work and fully tuned out of their environment. They lose track of time and produce great stuff through absolute concentration…trouble is that it’s so easy to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers – especially interruptions by coworkers – all knock you out of the zone. If you take a 1 minute interruption by a coworker asking you a question, and this knocks out your concentration enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.

Joel Spolsky, software developer, Fog Creek Software from Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas?

Jason Fried from 37signals wrote at Vitamin about getting in “the zone” where you can shut down the world around you and focus on your work. He compares “the zone” with REM sleep, when your body really rests and recharge. Getting in the zone is not easy, and getting out of the zone is a snap. Just as before you get into REM sleep first you have to sleep, and any interruption would make you start all over again.

When you’re in ‘the zone’ you get your best work done. But how do you get in that ‘zone’ when colleagues, e-mails and IM are vying for your attention?

His suggestion, get a good amount of alone time when you can’t be bothered. This is when the real development magic will happen.

From Vitamin.