Increasing your productivity

I wasn’t online online as much as I usually am at the weekend because I got my new laptop delivered. After installing everything I needed onto my new laptop and transferring all of my files I quickly realised how much my blogging is going to get easier. Before I went travelling last November the motherboard in my desktop pc burned out so since then I have been using my Sony T250, a 1.2GH centrino laptop with a 10.6″ screen. Whilst it still allowed me to work, I certainly found the speed of the laptop frustrating and the small screen was annoying sometimes too. It’s a great laptop to travel with, it just shouldn’t be used as anyone’s main computer!

So long Mr Sony

I ordered an inspiron 1520 at the start of July however I cancelled my order on Friday due to terrible support from Dell and my estimated delivery date being pushed back time and time again. On Saturday my Asus G1S arrived and it has made working much easier. Not only has my laptop screen increased from 10.6″ to 15.4″, I’ve also been able to hook up my 19″ monitor so I can keep one screen for emails and photoshop and the other for browsing and writing.

My new setup

Some tips to increase your productivity

A few changes in your blogging routine can save you a lot of time, it’s simply a matter of picking up good blogging habits!

• Use 2 monitors. OK, I’m still a newbie with this but I’ve quickly realised how handy two screens are for working on the internet. LCD monitors are very cheap nowadays so if you can afford another one I would say do just that!
• Use a feed reader such as Bloglines, NetVibes, PageFlakes or Google Reader. It’s important to keep updated with the latest news for your blog and newsreaders make this task quick and easy.
• Organise your blog commenting.Seperate your feedback emails and your post updates.
• When you get an idea for an article but you don’t have the time to complete it, write the title of the post and save it as a draft. I find it very easy to forget to write about a certain subject and if I’m ever struggling to think about what to write about I just check my draft posts
• Don’t spend too much time checking stats. It’s important to check stats but try and limit this to once or twice a week at most. It’s very easy to forget this and spend more time checking stats than writing new content for your blog.
• Excercise when you can and get enough sleep. When I’m tired my productivity drops considerably, infact sometimes it’s so bad I force myself to go back to sleep for a few hours. I’ve also found that I’m much more productive after a session at the gym. I’m not a coffee drinker though so maybe coffee fiends don’t need to do this - haha.
• Schedule and Organise. If you sit down at the pc without a clue of what your going to write about that day you might struggle for posting ideas. Next time you’re out with your friends or at the shops or whatever and you have an idea for a blogging topic, make a quick note of it so when you sit down at the pc it’s just a matter of putting pen to paper (so to speak!).