Entries Tagged 'work' ↓

If you’re thinking about becoming a self-employed freelance writer, you need to weigh up the pros and cons.

Certain authorities on the subject will describe and exaggerate the positives – working the hours you choose, working from home, working in your pyjamas, working on assignments you prefer – without filling you in on the negatives. And make no mistake about it: there are plenty of them.

It takes a particular type of individual to spend the whole day working in isolation. Many have tried and failed, simply because they require the company of others. They need to be in the presence of other people, to have someone else to talk to, to debate ideas with, to give them encouragement or just to tell them what to do.

Freelancers can work at a pace that suits them, can take breaks whenever they want to, can enjoy walks or drives in the country when time and weather permit. But most freelancers have to work hard to earn enough to get by, and they can’t do that if they’re out swanning around all day. They need to be disciplined and organized or their careers are doomed.

They can enjoy a lie-in every so often if they’re so inclined. Starting work at 8 or 8.30 in the morning probably won’t make a huge difference to the average freelancer, especially if the office is just across the hall. A two-hour session at 3 in the afternoon can be just as productive as at any other time of the day. Other people prefer a solid stint in the early hours of the morning before the rest of the world intrudes. It doesn’t really matter when you work, as long as you do.

It’s a Job
Just like any other “job” the freelancer has to produce the goods. The work might be more pleasant than another person’s but it’s equally as time-consuming and demanding. There’s still the potential for stress, anxiety, and frustration, although a brisk walk along the canal can help to get rid of some of these issues.

According to WebMD sources, job-related stress is caused by a variety of factors, including:

• Lack of control – the biggest cause of stress in the normal workplace
• Too much responsibility – it’s often hard to say “no” to bosses face to face
• Too little job satisfaction – if your work isn’t rewarding it can make you depressed and miserable
• Lack of support –workers are often left to their own devices, only getting feedback when there’s a problem and receiving little or no real support
• Poor working conditions – badly lit rooms, noisy environments, long hours and infrequent breaks can lead to a whole range of health problems

Naturally you’d expect a freelance writer working from home to have a comfortable chair in a well-lit room, a sturdy desk with ample working space, a bookcase or two with a good supply of reference books, and a decent computer. You’d expect him or her to have control over the types of assignments accepted and fulfilled. You’d expect him or her to experience job satisfaction to varying degrees, depending on the subject chosen, the enjoyment writing about it, and the amount of remuneration.

It simply wouldn’t make sense for any freelancer to have to endure poor working conditions or settle for work that’s dissatisfying. After all, you can get that just about anywhere. Despite the fact that you frequently have to tout for business to keep projects and finances flowing smoothly, working for yourself is supposed to be liberating and enjoyable. If it’s not, you’re doing something wrong.

Freelance writers can work just about anywhere. If the office space begins to feel stale or claustrophobic, there’s always the local Internet café. If a particular job is tedious and draining, a walk in the woods with a notebook can help clear the brain and provide much-needed inspiration.

No More Clock-Watching
Working as a freelance writer from home was the best thing I ever did. As soon as I started, I took off my watch. I haven’t worn one in five years. I don’t have as many lie-ins as I’d like, but that’s because I can’t wait to get up and get to work. Weekends are precious, though, and work is rarely allowed to intrude.

As for my wardrobe, it consists of little more than the bare essentials (no pun intended). I don’t need “business” clothes for every day of the week, so most of what I wear is casual or semi-casual. If I need to meet clients face to face I wear something smart, always conscious that they’re paying me to write and not to appear in a commercial. Most of my work comes to me online, so I often don’t meet the people I write for.

Conclusion
Working for yourself isn’t a piece of cake. You get to be your own boss, but that means you have to continually motivate yourself. No-one else is going to do it. Either you work hard or you fail.

You need to balance your work life with your social life, or one will take over the other. You need to make sure the work you do is worth doing in the first place, and that the time you put in earns you a decent amount of compensation. You need to be determined to succeed, willing to learn, patient, committed, optimistic and resilient. You need to believe in yourself whole-heartedly and be willing to work to meet deadlines, even when the sun is splitting the rocks just outside your window.

If you can do these things, your career will likely go from strength to strength, and then you can buy as many pairs of pyjamas as you want. Whether you choose to work in them or not is up to you.

I don’t have an office anymore. You know, like a place in a building, with its own door and chair and internet connection and phone lines and locker and Rolodexes. I worked in one for ten years, while I had one of the biggest online publishing companies in Romania. I guess ten years is the maximum lifespan for an office in my system.

Now, I work anywhere. I named this lifestyle “digital nomading”. I don’t really know if “nomading” is a word, because my spellchecker is complaining big time, with a red and kinda flashy line underneath it. But I’m gonna use it anyway.

Being a digital nomad means I’m working pretty much in coffee shops. Or at home. Or in the park. Or in airports. But, most of the time, it’s coffee shops. I usually get there when they just opened the place. I take a cup of tea and a bottle of water, plug my laptop in, wire my iPhone and iPad to it, and start doing stuff. Checking email, writing blog posts, coding iPhone apps or sketching and rehearsing my next workshop.

Every once in a while I stop and start to look around. People are coming in and going out, sit at their tables sipping their coffees or eating their sandwiches. Sometimes I spot some business meetings, with two very tense parties trying to get the best deal out of each other. Sometimes I gaze at teenagers making out, because, you know, they can’t get a room yet. Sometimes there is this classy lady reading a magazine or just staring at the pages blindly while letting the music fill her up. Nice images.

The Problem

But, as much as I would like to stick to the images only, sooner or later I have to accept the fact that I’m more than just images. Namely, a flesh and blood human being, with very basic needs. After a few hours, my digestive system is done with the tea and water, and there is this overflow inside me, if you know what I mean. In much simpler words, I have to take a leak.

But that creates a problem. A real problem. You know, I usually get the best place in the coffee shop, the one near the handiest power outlet, and with the best view. That’s why I’m getting there just after they opened the place. If I just take my stuff and put it in the backpack, go to the toilet, do what a man’s gotta do and come back, I may find my best seat taken. Actually, it happened a few times, in the beginning. And that’s frustrating. And unproductive.

The Solution

So, I decided it’s time to solve this problem once and forever. You know, a repeatable, effective and productive solution. We’re productive guys, so let’s solve this productivity issue.

And the moment I took this decision I realized I can’t do it only by myself. The real solution was bringing somebody else into the picture. Like, to ask somebody else to look after my belongings while I was out. It was by far the only manageable solution in that specific context.

But believe me, this was a very, very difficult thing to do. At least for me. I was never too good with relationships. Especially with casual, coffee shop, emergency relationships. But I also knew I have to do this.

Once I decided what I’m going to do, I begun to work on the “how am I going to do it”.

For starters, I started to look at the people in the coffee shop with a different eye. It wasn’t just the “how nice these people are” kind of look, but also “would they agree to look after my belongings for 5 minutes?” kinda of look. The pretty lady with a kid may not be a good solution. Too busy. Oh, maybe the two blondes with half a kilo of jewelry on each arm? Neah, two busy searching for available males. Maybe this businessman on the next table? Yeah, perhaps.

And what exactly should I say to the other person? “I’m going to take a leak, can you watch my computer for a while?”. Nah, too straightforward. “I’m gonna be out for five minutes, can you be so kind to look after my belongings? I’m extremely grateful, thank you”. Neah, too precious. I even started to type out a script for myself in a text editor. From long experience, I knew that you have to be prepared when the emergency strikes. And a pressured bladder is quite an emergency.

After a few trials and errors with the opening text and some observation exercises, one sunny Wednesday, I took the risk. No more packing my stuff, rushing to the toilet, doing my thing and then rushing back to the coffee shop, only to see my seat taken. No, sir. Let’s get out into the wild and ask for some help.

I stood up, went straight to the table I’ve been observing for some time, and started to talk. I must have babbled big time because I clearly remember the eye of the lady (yes, first time was a lady) staring at me with surprise and a little bit of fear, while I was repeating for the fifth time “I have to go out for a few minutes, can you look after these for me?”. Eventually, she understood and accepted gladly: “But of course, no problem”.

I ran to the toilet, washed my hands and then rushed back in. Everything was in its place. I thanked to the lady and she smiled at me. I made my first connection.

From that point on, I practiced this approach each and every time my biological mechanism was asking for his rights. I gradually became better at this. I needed only a few seconds to know which one of the people in the coffee shop will be willing to help. I also started to diversify my conversational opening lines.

And one day something amazing happened. I started a conversation with the other person. She seemed to be English, so I asked her if she was waiting for her plane. “Actually, yes”, she said with a touch of surprise. “How did you guess?”. And then we started to really talk. At the end, we exchanged Facebook and Twitter ids. Another time there was a man who was working just like me and we shared my power outlet. And another time it was a guy I knew from the industry who happened to be in the same coffee shop for some time.

A small, but very consistent bond was created each time I stood up, approached the table, smiled and asked if they could watch my stuff. Deep down, people love to be helpful. They smiled at me politely at first, and then, when they realized I needed them, they were actually caring and observing. When I got back and thanked them, they were somehow relieved but happy.

It’s What Makes Us Vulnerable

The biggest lesson I learned by being a digital nomad was not about productivity. I got that covered anyway. It was about relationships. Simple, unexpected and honest relationships.

Because, you know, most of the time, when I read about relationships, I have to face those big words like “commitment”, “empowering”, “gratitude” and so on. Big words are nice. Impressive. But they are not very helpful. Not when you’re in a simple, biological situation. When all you want is to take a leak and still be sure that your stuff is taken care of. In that case, you have to open up, be honest and give the other person some control over your belongings. And hope they’ll agree. And deliver. That’s all. That’s where real connections are created.

It’s not our strengths that are creating valuable relationships. At most, our strengths can make a relationship survive when bad times are coming. But our true, meaningful and useful relationships are created by our vulnerabilities. And by the genuine need to accept and expose them. I can hardly imagine a bigger vulnerability than the one created by an almost exploding bladder, in the middle of a crowded mall. You’re so powerless and cornered and desperate. You gotta solve this fast. You gotta take some risks and put out some trust, otherwise things may literally explode.

This small exercise of opening up and practicing a little bit of trust each and every time I have to take a leak at “work” became, as strange as it may seem, one of the biggest highlights of my days as a digital nomad. Because I know now that not only I will solve this in an effective and productive way, but, what’s even more important, I may end up with some new friends too. :)

Something that has sped the development of awesome web and desktop applications over the past 10+ years is the idea of a technology or set of technologies coming together in harmony in what is known as a framework. There are many popular technical programming frameworks out there today like .NET for Windows, Ruby on Rails, or Zend for PHP. These frameworks help the programmer development applications rapidly and in much less time than it took before the frameworks were available.

What these types of frameworks do is keep programmers productive by allowing them to concentrate on building their application rather than getting mundane and trivial things to work like database access, control usage, and even deployment in the environment the application will be used in. Without getting too-too technical, it’s pretty easy to see why frameworks are needed and appreciated by developers:

1. They keep mundane things out of the way.
2. The give the programmer awesome tools to work with to get more work done.
3. This allows the programmer to concentrate on creating her app rather than what language or technology she is using.

Creating a framework for your life

That being said, why don’t we take a lesson from software development and engineering and apply it directly to our productivity practice? The idea of Getting Things Done is to keep track of the more mundane and next action type of stuff to clear our heads so we can concentrate on creating rather than just checking off a list of unimportant or habitual things that need done.

Developing a framework for your productivity can be just as liberating for us as a programming framework for coders. But what should this framework entail?

The mundane and everyday

One of the best tutorial ebooks I have read in the past year was Using OmniFocus by Kourosh Dini. This book should be bundled with the task management system OmniFocus because of its in depth setup of the system as well as some awesome insights about personal productivity.

Dini details how to setup some “Routine Maintenance” folders and projects that contain all of the routine stuff you have to keep track of. This forms the basis of the system and allows you to free yourself from simple things and look towards more creative actions and processes. He also discusses creating templates of repeated projects so you don’t have to weigh yourself down in the future with “boilerplate” types of processing.

But what’s this mean if you aren’t an OmniFocus geek like myself? Well, you need some lists or reminders around that keep the mundane and everyday things off of your mind. Whether it be a morning, noon, and night checklist of things that need done, weekly reminders, monthly and otherwise; all you need is to set something up to remind you and help you from thinking that you are forgetting something.

Before I was on the OmniFocus wagon I would have a repeating event on my calendar right before I left for work that had a simple checklist of things that needed done before I left the house. Things like, remember all needed school books, review your errand list for things that you need to take with you, remember your work ID, wallet, chargers and phone, etc. This simple, stupid list helped me keep the whole “I know I’m forgetting something” feeling away. This allowed me to concentrate on other bigger things that needed done in the day. It also allowed me to have my cup of coffee in peace and to actually relax before I entered my work day.

Taking care of the simple and mundane stuff everyday is a key part of creating your productivity framework. Without it, you will always have that sinking feeling that something is “falling through the cracks”.

Creative tasks and doings

Something else that I have found to be of utmost importance is to create repeating tasks for the creative parts of my life. These are things that I need to do everyday to keep my creative energy flowing and to allow myself to do something other than think about “real work”.

There are a couple of creative tasks that I have now that repeat every single day including writing 750 words and working for at least an hour on my web app idea. This time is blocked out everyday, so no matter what I am doing two things that benefit my spirit and sanity.

Being productive and spending your energy on “real work” is great, but without having some “you time” your productivity framework can fall apart. Sometimes we just need to be selfish a little bit every day.

From framework to getting important things done

Now that you have created a framework of the mundane and creative things that you want to commit to every day, it’s time to clear them out of the way so you can concentrate on moving your projects forward and accomplishing your goals. Making these routine tasks a normal part of your day is the first step in creating a productivity framework for your life.

The more that you don’t have to think about, especially the habitual and even boring stuff, the more you can concentrate on important aspects of your work and creating real value in the world.

If you are a creative person, you may understand the idea of writer’s block in some form or fashion. You don’t have to necessarily be a writer to experience this, in fact software engineers, artists, or anyone that has to create things for a living is susceptible to the horrible affliction of writer’s block.

There are a ton of ideas out their on how  to get over this creativity stumbling block, but they all come back to a standard tome.

Work.

Creativity is work no matter which way you slice it. It isn’t always fun and in paraphrasing Merlin Mann, “you don’t need a beret to be creative.” Creativity is a dirty job. It is something that requires passion, long hours, and banging your head against the wall. It requires you to make a ton of mistakes along the path of creating something awesome. Creativity isn’t about being perfect; it’s a about working hard and making things, having ideas, scrapping projects, and getting to a point where something you have made is awesome.

I am about to be a full time Programmer Analyst for an insurance company and have found that in working part time I have a lot to learn. I create crappy code and refactor it until it is something that is decent and then refactor it again until it is readable and somewhat efficient. It takes time and energy to make code that is worth a damn. To get to the spot of creating something that is worthwhile, I had to make a bunch of stuff that kind of sucked.

750 Words

This is where the idea of 750 words a day comes in. I have partaken in writing 750 words a day for the past 90 days and I have to say that it is truly liberating. What this practice does is allow me to make mistakes and write a bunch of crap every day to get ideas out of my head and on to paper without being too critical of myself for 15 minutes.

Writing 750 words a day is all about letting your “stream of consciousness” take the wheel allowing yourself to not think too much about what you are writing. It wakes up the creative “juices” and helps you get ready to work on real project that requires your full attention.

The practice

Writing 750 words a day is not at all my idea. I heard about it a while back in the form of “Morning Pages” which is the idea to write about 3 pages, long hand, every single morning. It is part of Julia Cameron’s, “The Artist’s Way” which can be combined with “The Artist’s Date” which is a weekly “date” with yourself to explore something creative that interests you.

I highly suggest writing your 750 words every morning, but you can write them anytime. There really isn’t a wrong way to do this; just as long as you write 750 words a day no matter what. Also, don’t try to critique anything you write or edit it while you go. In fact, don’t even re-read the crap that you wrote. Just let it come out, whatever it is, and then be done with it until the next day. This helps you to get in the habit of creating something without being critical.

The tools

I can’t say that there is any one tool or set of tools that make you a better “750 word writer”. You can use a junky notebook, a text file, a Word document, or even the 750words.com service. No matter what you use to write with the most important part is to write.

Being the techy that I am as well as being obsessed with stats, I chose the 750words.com service. It’s free to use and keeps track of what you write. It also has monthly challenges that you can sign up for to keep you on the right track. Over the past 90 days I have written a total of 68,567 words. Most of which are total junk I am sure, but what is nice about 750words.com is that it parses your writing and gives you charts and graphs of what emotions your content carries, the “maturity” of your writing, your concerns, and your mindset. It’s a handy way to see what you are writing about and a good way to keep you motivated.

Get to work

Now that you have a decent tool to overcome writer’s block and to spawn creativity it’s time to use it. We can think of a thousand reasons why 750 words a day won’t work for us or will be too hard or is stupid, but the fact still remains that we have to do something to induce creativity. Writing like this everyday is an awesome way to start and no matter what field you are in this practice can benefit you.

If you want to make the big bucks, you’ve got to be willing to put in a little overtime. And while we’re generally all about working smarter (not longer), it’s worth noting that tons of America’s richest business owners earned their billions only after putting their noses to the grindstones and becoming serious workaholics.

But being a workaholic alone doesn’t guarantee major earnings. Here’s a list of 4 famous American workaholics, along with their “secret weapon” for success.

1. Thomas Edison

Major Accomplishments: 1,093 US patents at the time of his death (plus more in several other countries around the globe), often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Oh yeah, and that whole “inventing” the lightbulb thing.

Secret Weapon: Never being reluctant to work long hours or work hard.

“I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident…. Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard work.”

Edison wasn’t about working smarter, just working harder. And that doesn’t come as much of a surprise to us today, given that one of Edison’s most famous quotes is “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

But most people don’t realize that that’s only half the quote. Just like the New Hampshire state motto of “Live Free or Die”, there’s more to the quote than just the most frequently repeated bits. Here’s the whole Edison quote:

“Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a  ‘genius’ is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.”  

(Incidentally, the full quote that “Live Free or Die” was extracted from comes from General John Stark, who once wrote, “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of all evils.”)

2. Oprah

Major Accomplishments: Winner of multiple Emmy awards, author, humanitarian, and a net worth of around $2.7 billion.

Secret Weapon: Do what you love, and work doesn’t feel like work.

“What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

Oprah works crazy long hours, has a magazine and a TV show and now a whole TV network;. The secret to her success has to be loving what she does, and when she can bring so much good to charities and other good causes, it’s easy to see why she’s happy to work so hard.

3. Donald Trump

Major Accomplishments: Real estate magnate, TV show host, casino owner, and operator of numerous national beauty pageants.

Secret Weapon: Seeing work as a way to get a rush of adrenaline

“Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

Trump’s made his position on workaholics very clear. After a 2007 study found that America was “a nation of workaholics”, Trump told the New York Post that “They don’t want to miss what’s going on. Although vacations are supposed to be about de-stressing, some people admitted it would be more stressful not knowing what was going on at work while they were away. And those are the kind of people I want working for me.”

It’s easy for someone with Trump’s level of success to love working, because he gets a rush from sealing a deal. If work is fun, perhaps even addictive, then it’s no wonder he’s a workaholic.

4. Bill Gates

Major Accomplishments: Making the computer a common household appliance, forming the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and accumulating a net worth of over $50 billion.

Secret Weapon: Not being a control freak, and soliciting ideas from a talented team of employees.

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.”

A company is only as strong as the sum of its parts, and it’s refreshing to see that Gates is willing to credit Microsoft’s success to his co-workers and employees.

As Gates has said in past interviews, “Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.”

Conclusion

Working hard is all well and good, but make sure to play hard, too. While the workaholic lifestyle was right for these famous faces, it can put a major strain on your heart and your personal life. And the last thing you want is to be too invested in your work, like P.T. Barnum. As he lay dying, Barnum’s last words were, “How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?”

Are you a workaholic? What other famous workaholics do you look up to? Tell us in the comments below!

In high school, didn’t a part of you always wonder how the cool kids did it? Popularity remained an enigmatic aspect of human existence that ceased to be relevant once we threw our caps in the air…right?

There are scores of research studies on popularity in schools, and most have indicated that popular children are viewed as better students and make and maintain friendships more easily. In 2009, however, organizational psychologists Timothy Judge and B.A. Scott at the University of Florida demonstrated that popularity plays a significant role on success in the workplace. They defined popularity as being “accepted by one’s peers” and conceptualized it as a function of both an employee’s personality and the situational position within his group. As a result of studying two samples of employee populations, professors Judge and Scott reported that co-workers reliably agreed about who was popular on their team – and who wasn’t. Co-workers also felt that an employee’s popularity was associated with receiving more favorable treatment at work. Why? Judge and Scott suggest that popular employees are rewarding to interact with for both emotional and instrumental reasons. In addition to being “fun to be with,” popular individuals are thought to increase co-worker status by association and make it easier to get things done.

Meg Cabot just wrote a book for teens called How to Be Popular, but rest assured, I’m not going to make you read it. Instead, here are some painless tips for increasing your popularity on the office social circuit.

• Be interested in other people: Human beings love to talk about themselves and be listened to. By taking the time to learn about what a co-worker deems important and inquiring about those things, you’ll make her happy and encourage her to like you.
• Shift attention away from yourself: Don’t chat on endlessly about what you and your boyfriend or girlfriend did over the weekend, and if a co-worker broaches a particular topic, don’t immediately turn the discussion to your own experiences. Instead of trying to be admired, be admiring.
• Eradicate self-consciousness: People who lack confidence make others feel nervous and awkward. When conversing with co-workers, try to be natural and relaxed, without worrying about how you’re being perceived.
• Organize team building activities: You don’t have to be your department’s cheerleader, but it’s nice to occasionally take charge of getting the group together for drinks or another fun activity after work or during the holidays. Most people like to be social, and the individual who takes responsibility for being the organizer usually gets popularity points.
• Help whenever you can: Always be generous with your knowledge, expertise, and time without expecting anything in return. People like those who they can count on in times of stress and who are willing to pitch in without making a big production out of it.

Alexandra Levit's goal is to help people find meaningful jobs - quickly and simply - and to succeed beyond measure once they get there. If you're struggling with what to do with your career in the New Year, visit www.newjobnewyou.com for free guidance and resources.

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It’s December and one side of my brain is already thinking about presents, imagining the warmth of home, and preparing a list of “must-buys” for Christmas entertaining . The other side ois stuck with the reality of my daily life: me, at the office, dealing with day-to-day tasks. My attention has been divided and this can be seen in my results. It’s not the best situation you want to deal with, especially when the boss has clear expectations from you and reminds you that holiday starts only on  the 24th of December. Therefore, we all most refocus and get concentrate to get things done in time. If this sounds like you, the tips listed below might help.

1. Create shopping lists on the weekends. Gather with your family and write down everything you need to buy for Christmas: food, presents, etc. This is also the right moment to decide where you will go and to make reservation if applicable.

2. Beat the rush. To remain productive at work it’s important to make plans and schedule while you are home and to do this in time without delaying untilthe last moment. In this way you will not be stressed before Christmas.

3. Dedicate your after-work time to online shopping. If you are searching for gifts and sales after work then you will not be tempted to do this at work the next day.

4. Ask for favors. There’s nothing wrong in asking for help from your friends and family if you find yourself stressed by time.

5. Organize your work and get things done. Once you get to the office, forget about Christmas and organize your work. Schedule your tasks and start working.

6. Deal with important tasks first. Morning is the most productive part of the day for most of us, so it’s better to get the most important tasks done in this part of the day. Doing this you might get some free minutes for daydreaming about the holidays in the afternoon (but don’t be too obvious).

7. Steal time from your break if you want to check last-minute offers. If you know there will be a good promotional offer and you want to catch it, you can do this during you lunch break. But don’t waste all your time in front of computer eating junk food because this will definitely not increase your productivity.

8. Focus on your work not on how your vacation will be. I know the holiday spirit has caught hold of you, but stay on target. Try picturing yourself not taking that vacation because you lost your bonus due to sloppy work while you were daydreaming about your holiday trip.

9. Avoid distractions. You will receive e-cards, your colleagues will go on about their vacations, but you have to ignore all that and stay focused. Don’t get involved. Choose an e-card and schedule it to be sent automatically to all your contacts and in this way you won’t have to worry you missed someone.

10. Be consistent in your work. If you start falling behind, don’t give up! Take a 5 minute break and start over with new energy and fresh ideas.

11. Think about the consequences if you won’t finish the work. It’s not a nice approach but this might motivate you.

Like everything else, we have to find a balance between work and Christmas preparations. Managers will not accept unfinished projects no matter how badly you need to go buy gifts for your family and friends. Moreover, you don’t want spend the Christmas Eve at the office finishing tasks that you’ve put off. Choose to be productive and you might receive a nice reward for your work.

How do you stay focused at work with the holidays upon us? Share your strategies in the comments!

Elisabeta Ghidiu is an Internet marketer and advocate blogger, writing about productivity and technology on Cyclope-Series - Let’s talk about productivity - a manager-oriented blog. She is also the women behind AllAnonymity Online and Security blog.

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What should you do if you really cannot get on with your boss at work?  Maybe there has been a breakdown in trust, in communication or in respect.    In any event it is ruining your time at work and making you frustrated and unhappy. Let’s call your manager “John” and see how we can approach the situation.   (The advice here works equally well whether your boss is a man or a woman).

1. How do other people find him? Does everyone have a hard time with John or is it just you?  Check out how other people get on with him by asking subtle questions – do not rant about how awful he is and see if others agree.  If everyone has a problem with him then you have some common ground on which to work.  If only you have difficulties with him then you need to examine yourself and your relationship with him.

2. Ask yourself why. List all the reasons why you think things are not working between you. There are probably some big assumptions on your list so you will need to validate them carefully.

3. Have a heart to heart meeting. Schedule a time to meet John when he is not under pressure.  Tell him that you want to discuss some important issues.  At the meeting explain very calmly and rationally that you do not feel the relationship is working well and that you would like to explore why and how to improve it.   Do not go into a long list of complaints and sores.   Take a factual example if you can and start from there.  Let him do most of the talking.  Try to see the situation from his point of view and understand exactly what he sees as the issues.  See how many of the problems you listed at point 2 above are real.

4. Agree an action plan. If you can agree a plan for outcomes that you both want then it really helps. What is it that he wants you to achieve?  If you deliver it will he be happy with your performance?  Even if you disagree on all sorts of other things try to agree on what your key job objectives are.  Ideally you should agree actions that each of you will take to improve the working relationship.

5. Try to understand his objectives and motivation. Even if John is lazy, dishonest and spiteful you can still find out what he is keen to achieve and work with him towards his goals.  If you can find a way to help him with his objectives then maybe you can work around his faults.  A good rule at work is to help your boss to succeed – whether you like him or not.  Other people will see you do this and it works to your credit – especially if they know that your boss is difficult.

6. Go over his head. This is a risky option but sometimes it is necessary – especially if most other people share the same problems with John.  Have a quiet word with your boss’s boss and say that you feel that the department is not achieving all that it could.  Make some broad suggestions about how things could be improved without making direct accusations against John.  Let the senior manager read between the lines; he or she probably knows already.

7. Move sideways in the organization. If you cannot move up then move across for a while. Get some experience in another department.  Eventually John will move on, be fired or quit.  If you are seen as a positive contributor then you may get your chance to do John’s job better than he did.

8. Quit. Life is too short to spend it in a job that makes you miserable.  If you have tried all of the routes above and are still blocked and frustrated then find a job elsewhere.  There are plenty of good bosses who want enthusiastic and diligent people to work for them.

Sooner or later most of us will get a difficult boss to deal with.  Do not become sullen or aggressive.  The trick is to figure out a way to get on with the boss in a manner that helps both of you.  It can nearly always be done.

Paul Sloane is an author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking. His most recent book is The Innovative Leader. He helps organizations improve innovation, creativity and leadership. He is the founder of Destination Innovation. He has written 15 books of lateral thinking puzzles and hosts the lateral puzzles forum.

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This is not a post about teaching, but teaching is what I do and what I know best, and this post is about thinking about what we do.

People often wonder if I find it frustrating to be a university instructor. I teach topics that students resist a lot – in Women’s Studies, I teach with an explicitly political edge, challenging students to face up to the realities of social and economic injustices; in anthropology, I have to bring students to see the value of practices that they find disgusting or blasphemous (or both). While I have my share, maybe even more than my share, of students who really “get it”, I also have a good number of students who resist me at every turn, who are personally affronted by nearly every thing I say.

“Don’t you sometimes feel like you’re wasting your time?” people ask me. “Doesn’t it feel futile when they don’t change at all?”

The answer is that no, I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time. Not in the least. Granted, it can be frustrating in the heat of the moment. Students often look to their professors for truths that we simply can’t give – what we can give are outlines of various theories and arguments and help lead our students to understand their ramifications. And in the absence of hard, fast truths, some students just shut down, and it’s a real bear to re-engage them.

But for the most part, even the most resistant student doesn’t discourage me. A couple years ago I had a student who expressed his resentment of every single thing I taught by reading a paper in class. It was, of course, intended as an insult, but I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I consider that one of my highest successes.

Wait, what? How can a student ignoring me be a success? Simple: I take a longer view than 16 weeks (the length of a semester).

Everyone knows about the Butterfly Effect, right? The idea is that in a interconnected chaotic system, like the global environment, small events can turn into big consequences. A butterfly flapping its wings in China might whip up the tiniest of atmospheric disturbances which, as it interacts with the forces in the environment, is magnified and intensified until it sets off a massive hurricane in the Caribbean.

Teaching is like that. We set off butterflies in the mind, whose wing-flaps have little effect today and tomorrow but which, somewhere down the line, might blossom into a full-blown mental hurricane – a brainstorm, if you will.

(A professor I knew in grad school preferred a somewhat more military metaphor: mind-bombs. We plant landmines, in the hopes that someday our students will stumble across them and *BOOM!* I find the image of explosions in my students heads a little overly graphic for my own taste; butterflies are, I think, a little less objectionable.)

In the long view, I don’t have to be convincing. I don’t even have to be right (though I like to think I am more often than I’m not). Being convincing, being right – these are beside the point. The real outcome of the work I do day in and day out will come months, years, even decades down the road, and I won’t be around to see it. My job, as I see it, is simply to cultivate butterflies – to lay out a set of facts, theories, and ideas and make sure my students know what they are. The ones that resist, the ones that are so deeply offended, they’ll have their whole lives to think about this stuff, to argue with it, to reason out why it doesn’t apply to them or to the people around them.

In case you’re thinking that I can take this fuzzy-headed view towards my work because I teach in the fuzzy-headed liberal arts, think again. I was an engineering major lo these many years ago, and while my professors may not have realized it, they too took the long view. The professor of fluid dynamics doesn’t stop to ask whether her student will be building missiles or wheelchairs, machine guns or microsurgical instruments, she just teaches the physics. She, too, is cultivating butterflies.

Here comes the point: we are all cultivating butterflies. To some extent, everything we do has the potential to set off a chain reaction that results in something HUGE months, years, decades in the future. And most of the time, we don’t have any idea, can’t have any idea, what that butterfly moment is or what it will result in.

What we can know is that we’re doing it. That the work we do today isn’t just about today, that it doesn’t have to be finished, closed-off, polished and perfected and done. That it’s ok to leave things open-ended, to let them unfold like a butterfly’s wings as she emerges from her cocoon, to let them surprise us with their iridescent beauty – or disappoint us with their moth’s-wing drabness.

Far from frustrating me, the part that’s out of my control is what makes it possible for me to do the job in front of me. If I had to “convert” all my students, I couldn’t do it. It’s the uncertainty of what they’ll do with what I can teach them, even the ones that hate me and hate the material and hate the class – it’s that uncertainty that makes it possible to teach at all. What about you? How do you cultivate butterflies – or plant mines – in your job? Or in your life?

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Earlier this week, I began a discussion of the way that manhood in American society is changing. Today, I want to revisit the topic with some of my own ideas about how these changes could lead to a more enriching and satisfying take on masculinity.

Before I do that, though, I want to say how thrilled I was at the response the first post got – I had never expected such lengthy, thoughtful comments and the depth of insight that you, Lifehack’s readers, have shared with us. I had intended to respond directly to some of the comments, but they turned out to be so rich and complex that any response I could give would hardly do them justice. If you missed that post, I implore you to go back and look at the comments.

I also want to point out that these changes are not limited to the American scene, though that’s the context I know best. Around the world, women are emerging as major players in the increasingly global economy. One sign of the role women are playing is the success of the microloan movement, many of whose programs lend primarily or solely to women.

I don’t claim that I have all the answers, by the way. In fact, despite the fact that I teach women’s studies for a living and have spent more than a decade dwelling on the issues I’m raising in these posts, I am as prone to chauvinistic thinking, objectification of women, and just plain dumb behavior as the next guy. It’s the way we’ve been socially and culturally conditioned — creating unconscious thought processes that aren’t always immediately apparent. The best I think we can hope for is self-awareness and growth, not the instant transformation of every man into a superhero overnight. It will be the next generation, the kids who grow up in a world where women are full participants in our public lives, that will show us best how to be men that embrace true equality – and I have no doubt that they’ll look on me as unkindly as I look on, say, the anti-Suffragists of the last century.

We are all feminists now.

Aside from a few hard-core traditionalists, just about everyone now accepts as a given that both men and women will have an education, a career, and a public life. Each and every one of us benefits daily from the greater participation of women in our society: we use medicines developed by women, we use products designed by women, we live by laws written by and voted on by women, and so on. By lowering the barriers that prevented women from developing to their fullest extent in the past, we have effectively doubled the pool of talent that we as a society draw on.

The idea that a woman can’t be this or that is falsified by the reality that there is virtually no job category that women haven’t entered and excelled in. Real men encourage those around them, male or female, to realize their fullest potential, regardless of their own or others’ preconceptions. That’s feminism.

There is no “men’s work” and “women’s work”, there is only work.

Sociologists estimate that there are as many as 2 million stay-at-home dads in the US right now. And fathers as a whole – stay-at-home dads or otherwise – spend almost as much time with their children as mothers do. Men do laundry, cook dinner, buy groceries, and drop the kids off at soccer practice. Meanwhile, women write legal briefs, run for office, work construction equipment, and direct corporate mergers. The idea that certain kinds of work are “feminine” or “masculine” is dead in the water. Although there are plenty of holdouts who are still inclined to fill positions based at least in part on gender, the most successful businesses work hard to focus their hiring on demonstrated talent. Likewise, the most successful families have found that splitting household tasks not according to gender but according to skill and available time. There are plenty of un-handy men around, and plenty of non-domestic women, and we all benefit when they’re encouraged to do the things they’re good at instead of the things their gender allegedly suits them for.

Parenting is fundamental.

The reason that so many men are choosing to spend all or a significant part of their lives elbow-deep in domestic parenting tasks is that we are finally learning how much we’ve been missing in our traditional 8am-8pm work+commute+overtime workaholic schedules. Whole generations of men have missed not only seeing their kids grow up, but seeing themselves grow up. Parenting is about so much more than financially supporting someone through their childhood years, it’s about tending to cuts and scrapes, putting a balanced meal on the table, and dealing with the scores of childhood traumas that mark our growth into personhood. It’s about sacrifice, hands-on responsibility, and struggling alongside our kids to make sense of the world. The stereotypical middle-aged man sporting a ponytail and a convertible is, I think, a product of the kind of selfishness that real parenting necessarily eliminates.

Passion is a priority.

Manhood in the 20^th century was about financial success – working a job you hate because it puts food on the table. With both men and women supporting their families, though, some of that pressure is lifted. Of course, we still need to work, but just as important as earning a living is the passion that drives us to excel – even at careers that are not especially lucrative. We can see, for instance, the rise of “lifestyle entrepreneurs“, people who start their own businesses not so much in hopes of getting rich but in order to support themselves doing something they love, as an indicator of the way that income is giving way to passion as a measure of one’s manhood.

Embrace difference.

It’s becoming harder and harder to take people who rant about the difference between men and women seriously. For every generalization, we can point to a thousand exceptions – men who love shopping and women who hate it, women who whoop and holler over their football team’s victory and men who couldn’t tell you if the Cleveland Browns play in the American League or the National League*.

Traditional masculinity was about punishing any man who stepped out of bounds, whether it was because he was gay, feminine, physically weak, or in some other way short of the masculine standard. That simply doesn’t fly any more – there are as many different ways of being “manly” (or “womanly”, for that matter) as there are men (or women). And success doesn’t come in spite of those differences, it comes because of it – they create the diversity that allows businesses, organizations, and other endeavors to be flexible, to adapt to changing circumstances, and to innovate. In short, difference allows us to thrive, and we need to stop fearing it and embrace it.

And that goes for other kinds of differences, too – racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, religious, national, linguistic, you name it. Being a confident man these days means not being threatened by what we don’t understand, it means seeking greater understanding.

* Yes, I know. It’s funny, see?

It’s about us.

Though “being one’s own man” has long been held up as a standard of masculinity, it’s rarely been realized in practice. The eras of manhood that we look back to nostalgically as models of “when men were men” – I’m thinking, for example, of the Mad Men era – were times of stunning conformity. We weren’t our own men, we were beholden to a particularly narrow model of what men should be, and men who didn’t fit that model were punished, often brutally.

The 21^st century offers men a real opportunity to live up to the ideal of being our own men, though. The possibilities for personal development and self-expression have never been greater. It’s no longer about what women find attractive – freed from the need to find man to support and protect them, women are finding themselves attracted to a wide range of types that in the past might have been considered “unmanly”. It’s no longer about being “one of the boys” – that kind of conformity is poison to the modern workplace and to modern communities. No, manhood today is about us, about living our own lives as fully and satisfyingly as we can.

It’s about you.

Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m intensely curious about your thoughts. I’ve left some things out, too – most notably sex, but also fashion, personality, and matters of taste or style. These things have become so various that there’s no way I could do them any justice here. By and large, I think they fall under the category of embracing difference – of recognizing that in a society where diversity is a crucial value, men will find a huge variety of ways to dress, act, enjoy their leisure time, and make love. But maybe you have thoughts on those topics as well – the conversation in part 1 was brilliant, let’s see if we can keep it up in the comments here!

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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