Read an interesting article on Fast company on ‘Time Blocking’ as a method to avoid distractions and increase productivity. The writer has given the example of an office with no cubicle or private space where getting work done becomes a difficult task due to constant disruptions due to surrounding people.

Today with the internet, even in a cubicle or private office a person can find himself disrupted all the time with emails, chat messages, notifications and more!

Gina Trapani suggest in the article to block some time off where you are focussing on the particular work,

Being available to your boss and co-workers is part of your job. But the most creative and important work you do requires total focus and attention for an extended period of time. Your brain needs at least 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to dive in, concentrate on one thing, and get into the zone where you’re truly focused and doing your best work. Time blocking is a technique that sets the stage for that to happen. Read More.

I totally agree with this, definitely time blocking is needed in work as well personal life! I find it crucial to spend time with myself and also with friends and family. These time outs ensure that things are going on the right or desired track.

What do you think? Is this something you do to manage time better?

Some more cheers pouring in since last few days from Twitter. Thanks all you guys for recommending us!

Do join us on Twitter, @DeskAway. We troubleshoot simple queries and tweet out interesting and relevant info for SMB’s!

If you are using Mac OS X system, you might have an issue while unzipping the exported zipped file that you received after initiating a backup/export of all your DeskAway projects. We have seen this happen a couple of times with the inbuilt Mac Archive Utility. To overcome this issue here are 2 solutions:

1. See if the zipped file is corrupt by running this command in your Terminal window:

unzip -t filename

2. If all is well, then use this command to unzip the file. This should most likely work:

unzip filename

3. We have had success with using this application instead of the default archiving tool:

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

Hope this works!

Just came across this interesting article at Terry Starbucker’s blog, on productivity and how to make best use of our time. He has also noted down a few points that should help us with prioritizing our actions.

In any day there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of actions you can take.   Which ones you choose are critical to living a productive life, or being the most productive person at the office.

It’s the art of constant prioritization – a mental “to do” list that goes through a special kind of algorithm, a kind that only a properly focused  human brain can pull off. Read More.

This is something that all of us face on a personal as well as business front in life. At DeskAway we have a slew of to-do’s. Be it new feature requests, fixing bugs, revamping sections and a whole lot more.

Some things we keep in mind are,

1. KISS: Keep it Simple, and thats what we always attempt.
2. Customer Insight: What does the customer really want and what would add most value to him/her?

What do you do to manage your time well doing the RIGHT activity?

Quite a bit of buzz happening on Twitter. More compliments, praises, support queries, questions and the occasional grievance.

Thanks guys!