Look For Tools That Will Make Your Life Easier.

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I can’t say that I have specific tools in mind for this post. I know that is cheating a bit, but it is still good advice.

How can this advice be used? As you do your work pay attention to repetitive tasks. Often, there is a tool that can make your life easier or else you can create one. If it is a task that comes up often, creating the tool will most likely save you more time than the initial effort to build the tool. Sometimes, the tool might be as simple as getting notifications when certain events happen – such as an email from certain people, or a post on a blog you find useful. Getting these notifications automatically can save you hours over the course of a year. Instead of opening up a page and looking for the desired information, only to find out it isn’t there yet is a waste of time.

Save time where you can so you can focus on the actual things that need your attention.

Don’t Let Negativity Destroy Your Work.

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Negativity has a way of creeping into work. It can show up in many forms – our own thoughts, frustration, errors that won’t go away, or a bad review. We are taught from an early age that negativity is bad and we should simply pay attention to positive thoughts. While, there is some value to that thinking at times, it ignores the potential gains you can get if you can find a way to be constructive with the negativity.

An easy example is in the form of a negative review. If the person making the review took the time to give reasons for that review then it is worth given those reasons some thought. Do their points reflect issues that other people may have? Are there suggestions for new features that would make sense to implement? Are they having a problem understanding some aspect of your program that could benefit from some documentation or an interface update? Does the description of your program suggest features that don’t exist? There are many possible reasons for a bad review – many of them will suggest useful updates that will allow your program to better serve its intended users, or even open it up to new users.

It is also important to realize that the outcome of a bad review won’t always be positive. That’s ok, too. No program can possible make everyone happy. It just isn’t the way it works. If you have a large collection of bad reviews for one program then you really need to find out what the problems are and fix them. But, if you only have a handful of bad reviews spread through a large number of good reviews then take what you can from them and find a way to put it behind you. I know that’s easier said than done, but it is necessary. If you let the negativity be your focus then the rest of the program is going to suffer. If you let that happen, then you will never succeed in creating useful programs or apps.

Also, know your intentions with your program and don’t let their suggestions take those away unless it makes sense. I know some of my own apps have changed drastically because of a reviews and they were better for it. On the other hand, I’ve also ignored suggestions that were brought up in reviews because they would change the app at a fundamental level that didn’t make sense.

I have also had several reviews that simply stated the app didn’t work or didn’t work as they expected. As far as I can tell, the app wasn’t crashing. There didn’t seem to be any other issues that I could see. At the same time I was getting great reviews and emails praising the same app, so it helped me push those useless bad reviews out of my thoughts. If it had been the other way around and I was getting more bad reviews that good reviews then I would have taken a serious look at the app and figured out how it was failing.

In the end, in all of these cases, I was able to use the reviews to better apps and the app experience. But, the negativity doesn’t just come from other people. How can you get past your own negative thoughts? That one is a bit trickier and will depend on your own personality.

For me, I often step away from a project for a bit. Either I work on something else, or I do something distracting away from the computer. If I’m fighting a problem that can’t seem to be solved, I often walk away completely for a bit. I have solved many issues on walks, in the shower, or in my sleep. If you get frustrated to the point that work isn’t getting done, then it makes no sense to keep trying. Walk away. Come back to it later or the next day. If you can get away from the computer altogether, then do that. If not find an unrelated project and focus your attention there. Yes, even if there are deadlines in place. If you brain is stuck, it needs a change of focus before it will unstick itself. Trying to do anything else is going to hurt the overall project and just waste your time and possibly other people’s time.

So, the short version. Negativity happens. Find a way to take anything valuable away from it and walk away from the rest.

Progress Tracking – The Usefulness of a To Done List.

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Years ago I began to feel like I wasn’t getting anything done. I knew that I was doing things, but for some reason it didn’t feel like much progress was being made. I decided that it would make sense to track just what I was actually doing each day – thus was born The To Done List.

The idea is simple. Each day I write down any task that I worked on or finished. I would also include things that took some time out of my day or represented activities that I didn’t normally do, but felt like an accomplishment.

Some examples of things that I wrote down – work on an app, reading a book or article, watching tutorials, working around the house, shopping, going out to eat, meeting friends, meetings in general or writing. This blog post will make it on my list for today along with several other things that I have done – mainly watching tutorials, and some other educational videos.

A picture of my own To Done List

I have a running record for years of my life that I can look back at and see what I was working on at that time. I list the date and then follow with a list of activities I accomplished. But, it’s more than simply a record of what I’ve done – it’s also an incentive to accomplish something each day. I make a point to at least attempt do something that I feel worth writing down each day. But, the list at times also contains days that I really wasn’t up to doing much useful, and those days were ok.

To make your own list, get a notebook and write the date followed by activities that you did that day. You can decide what you choose to include. You can also change what you list over time. I do make a point to keep my descriptions limited to a few words and I split the page into columns to conserve pages. But, it’s your list and you can keep it how you want.

If you haven’t tried an idea like this, I recommend it. Try it for a few weeks or longer and see how it works for you.