by Raj Dash

Whether you freelance or not, if you’re like many working adults, you probably find yourself wishing there was more time in the week. If you work at home, time has an unusual way of slipping by. (I’m probably less productive now than when I worked in an office somewhere, though there are several other factors at play.) At the end of the week, you might be wondering why you didn’t get more work done, as might your clients!

Recognizing Your Work Demons

With all the web technologies out there, it’s tough for web workers in particular to keep up, and sometimes bad online habits can become very addictive. These could be some of the things that are holding you back from freelance success.

Here are some of my work-demons, often the result of poor work habits:

1. IM. Satisfying friends’ “need it now” social voting requests via AIM.
2. Twitter. Getting distracted by incoming Twitter tweets (via the Twhirl client) and an even more addictive Twitter-like service, Plurk. (My addiction used to be Google’s MyMaps, or any kind of mapping mashup.)
3. Email. Being signed into GMail all day (tsk tsk), and obsessively checking for new messages, only to waste time mostly filtering spam.
4. Comments. Visiting sites where I write, to see if I need to respond to any comments. (I don’t always get an email alert, despite “subscribing” to the comments of a post.)
5. TV. Turning on the TV capture card on my computer, and telling myself I “need” to watch something in particular, to get ideas for blog posts.
6. Being indecisive. Fooling myself into believing I can start several projects for one client and not deciding which to finish for the week. This is anti-productivity (but is not the same as multi-tasking). It doesn’t work, and nothing done means no dinero.
7. Over-booking work. Taking on too much work because I don’t like to tell people “no.” As my online brand grew, the number of offers grew — though not being selective results in damaging to my reputation.
8. Attempting too much. Trying to cover way too much in a project. For example, trying to do a “31 and a half reasons” list instead of five, seven or maybe eleven good, well-thought out reasons that you can elaborate on. This over-reaching comes from an abject need to give that cliched “110%” on a project. The net result is performance anxiety and incomplete projects.
9. Working at home. This environment has its benefits, though there are many home-related distractions.

Ways to Fool the Anti-Muse

For years, when I was not writing creatively for a living, I had a writing muse, even a coding muse. However, sometime before I started freelance blogging full-time, that muse started going AWOL, showing up less and less often, occasionally replaced with an anti-muse. Here are some of the strategies I have to employ to fool that anti-muse:

1. Use two computers/ laptops.
   Run email and chat clients on one computer, A, and do work on the other, B. If you have a few people that need to communicate with you daily, set up a secret IM username and make sure they don’t give it out. This has worked very well for me. (I still do social voting for other online friends who either ask via email or use a social site’s “shout” feature.) You can still turn on IM accounts on computer A less frequently in the day. It’s easier to adhere to an “I’m only available on IM at such and such times of the day” rule. (Using two computers is not an option for everyone, but if you freelance at a home, and web-work is how you earn your living, you should think about having a backup computer anyway.)
2. Tune out.
   If computer A is getting too distracting with all the incoming message/tweet sounds, turn off the audio. The Twitter client Twhirl, for example, is configurable so that only incoming direct messages will cause a “beep”. That’s far less distracting than beeps on every tweet, and will alert you to when you might need to respond. In extreme cases, turn things off.
3. Turn off.
   If tuning out doesn’t help, turn off computer A’s screen and only check back once every few hours, or when you complete an important task. If you’re only working on one computer, just shut down all communications applications for a few hours. I have successfully tried answering emails only at lunch and supper times. It’s not easy for the perpetually distracted, but it’s possible. Just ask yourself, will any truly urgent message ever come in via email, IM, or Twitter? Probably not. So turn them off for now.
4. Seek virtual company.
   TV is a terrible distraction, and even if I’m “researching” ideas for pop culture articles, the TV eventually needs to be turned off. This is difficult for a TV addict, and if you’re at home and feeling lonely, it’s even worse. Listening to music sometimes helps, though everyone has their own idea of what type of music is productive or not - I prefer Baroque music, some types of opera, and occasionally rock - unless I feel compelled to sing along to Pavarotti or Rage Against the Machine. Spoken-word podcasts, on the other hand, nearly always work for me.

   On the other hand, I find that the spoken voice is at least soothing and rarely counter-productive. (This does not work for TV by leaving on audio and turning off the video simply because there’s too much content transition.) Another option is to simply set aside a bit of TV watching time, or take a short break at the local cafe - though I haven’t the discipline to pull the latter off. (I think this is something that varies a lot between different people. For example, I can’t listen to music with lyrics or have the TV on when I’m writing because I can’t tune it out. — Ed.)

5. Choose your battles.
   If too many projects for one client inhabit my mind and I can’t decide which to work on, I’ll try to suss out which requires the least time to complete and pick that one. If that’s no help, maybe it’s time to work on another client’s project. Still not productive? Maybe it’s time for a break.
6. Consider outsourcing.
   If you’re taking on too much work, there are only a few possible outcomes:
   1. Say “yes” and lose more of your personal time to get the work done, possibly having to outsource some of your personal tasks. Downside: more work, less play time.
   2. Say “yes” and don’t finish the work. Downside: damage your reputation (even if your intentions were good).
   3. Say “no”. Downside: losing a potential client.
   4. Say “yes” and delegate some of the work to a colleague or other freelancer. Downside: you’re on the hook for the quality of the work.
7. Respect yourself.
   For those of us who had to be competitive in our early years, and lived with that stupid “put in 110% effort” motto, it’s time for some self-respect. You’re more valuable to your clients when you complete 100% of a project on time rather than trying to offer 110+% and not getting anything done. Striving for perfection is fine if you don’t get obsessed — especially on flat-rate projects. Respect yourself and your clients, and streamline your “100%” effort so that 110% isn’t necessary.
8. Resolve your distractions.
   Every home-based freelancer will have different distractions, but do what you must to resolve them. Where I work, there are birds, cats, dogs and occasionally young men driving by in their loud cars. I have a very small window for my podcast recording work each week, and I try to schedule everything around this, if I have the luxury.

Final Thoughts

If the anti-muse has been visiting you far too often, some of the above might help. A few might seem anti-social, though when you’re a freelancer, it’s hard to justify being social if you’re not putting food on the table.

What distracts you when you’re working, whether at home, in a cafe, library or office? How do you cope with your work demons?

Read also:

http://www.studymatrixart.com/blog/smx-spotlight/keys-to-time-management

There isn’t a freelancer alive who doesn’t get stressed out, trying to juggle projects, trying to meet deadlines, trying to deal with difficult clients, trying to have a life while working multiple jobs.

It’s not the easiest job, and although we probably wouldn’t trade it for anything, freelancers need ways to cope with the stress of the job and ways to avoid becoming a burned-out, ex-freelancer.

Today, let’s look at ways to deal with stress. You’ll never eliminate stress completely, at least not while you’re alive, but there are ways to keep it manageable:

Don’t overcommit. We often take on more than we can actually do. That leads to overwork, stress, and missed deadlines. Take on only as much as you can handle without too much stress.

Learn to say no. In order to avoid overcommitting, we need to learn to turn down projects and requests. Many of us have problems with this. Practice makes perfect. Turn down as much as you can afford to.

Work on small tasks, not large projects. Tackling large projects can be overwhelming. Instead, focus on one small task within a project — something you can easily do in a short amount of time (10-20 minutes is perfect, but a little longer is OK). If a task takes longer than that, break it down some more. Now just focus on that little task.

Don’t try to control others, or the world. This sounds obvious when written down, but in reality, we often try to do both. You cannot control other people, and trying to do so will only result in frustration. So will trying to control everything around you. All you can control is yourself — focus on that, and you’ll stress out less.

Coffee Beans May Be Newest Stress-Buster By Ed Edelson, HealthDay Reporter - Fri Jun 13, 8:47 PM PDT

Provided by: Health Day

- FRIDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Just sniffing that first hot cup of coffee in the morning may help ease some stresses you might be feeling, a South Korean trial indicates.

When rats inhaled the aroma of roasted coffee beans, a number of genes were activated, including some that produce proteins with healthful antioxidant activity, the researchers reported.

"The meaning of it is not totally clear yet," said Dr. Peter R. Martin, director of the Institute of Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. "What it does show is that coffee smells do change the brain to some degree, and it behooves us to understand why that is happening."

The findings, from a team led by Han-Seok Seo at Seoul National University in South Korea, were expected to be published in the June 25 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The experiment was done with laboratory rats, some of whom were stressed by being deprived of sleep. The researchers did detailed genetic studies that showed the activity of 11 genes was increased and the activity of two genes was decreased in the rats that smelled the coffee, compared to those who did not. In effect, the aroma of the coffee beans helped ease the stress of the sleep-deprived rodents.

The experiment provides "for the first time, clues to the potential antioxidant or stress-relaxation activities of the coffee bean aroma," the researchers wrote.

And they added, "These results indirectly explain why so many people use coffee for staying up all night, although the volatile compounds of coffee beans are not fully consistent with those of the coffee extracts. In other words, the stress caused by sleep loss via caffeine may be alleviated through smelling the coffee aroma."

"They used the latest in technology to see how brain expression of RNA changed," Martin said. RNA is the molecule that carries out the instructions encoded in genes. "This is just the beginning of a very interesting line of investigation," he added.

The aromatic compounds responsible for coffee's odor may be antioxidants, "but they are not the same as the major antioxidants that are in the drink," said Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

Chemically, the antioxidants in liquid coffee are polyphenols, Vinson said. Those in the aroma are heterocycle compounds containing sulfur or nitrogen atoms.

"There are two ways to get things into your system, and the quickest way is to smell them," Vinson said. "Caffeine gets into the brain via the blood stream. Here, aromatic molecules get into the brain through the olfactory system. The levels in the air are parts per million, so obviously these are minor components in the air. But they are doing something."

Previous studies have shown that coffee consumption can reduce depression and suicide risk, as well as relieve stress, effects generally attributed to the caffeine in coffee, the researchers noted. But while some 900 compounds that float away from the bean have been identified, this is the first study to assay their possible effects, they added.

It's too early to recommend that people feeling stress sniff coffee to ease their way, Martin said. But, he added, "people who don't even drink coffee are fascinated by the odor of it. Ever since my little boy was two years old, he has loved the odor of coffee. I have always thought that coffee has some mystic quality, and there is some deep historical basis for it."

More information

The latest on coffee health research is available from the Coffee Science Information Centre.

Good article for parents!

Do you like snowglobe?
I do.

I’ve been meaning to try for years..Hope you will see the result soon on my next posting! :)

Here's a tutorial how to make a simple snowglobe :) Worth to try!

You will need:
A jar with a secure lid
Superglue
Glitter
Decorations for the inside of the snowglobe
Glycerin (optional)

Jar selection is important; choose one that’s got a large enough base and is tall enough for the diorama you want to create, and make sure that the glass is clear enough to see though.
You can use a variety of jars: baby food, pimiento, jelly, or any clear jar with a tight-sealing lid.

Assemble your diorama on the inside of the jar lid, and when you’re happy with how it’s going to look, use superglue to stick all your pieces down to the lid. Let this dry according to the instructions for the glue you’re using.

Use a glue gun, aquarium sealant, or florist clay to adhere your 'scene' to the inside of the lid. Allow glue to 'set' the required time before adding liquid.

Fill the jar almost to the top with water and add some glitter. If you’ve got some glycerin handy, add some, as it will make the glitter fall more slowly. Then carefully turn your lid upside down and immerse the diorama in the water. Make sure you fasten the lid securely, and turn the whole thing upside down.

Shake repeatedly!

Tips:
Adult supervision is required if you are using a glue gun or sealant. Sealants often give off toxic fumes, so be careful!

Read another tutorial here..
Whooops! Learn from other mistakes here!

All about  Déjà vu. Have you...

(a) wonder to yourself why you feel familiar with some events in your life?

(b) Have your dream comes true?

(c) Have you dreamt a realistic dream: you can even recall the people, locations, or time?

(d) Have you feel familiar with certain places?

(e) You knew what your friends are going to say before they even start to talk to you?

(f) Feel something existing that unexist?

(g) Feel someone is going to visit before he/she knocked your door? Or grab the phone before it rings?---it happened to me a lot of times! :)

(h) Thinking about someone, and surprise ! Here he is..coming to town!

========== OK. let's skip and go the explanation..===========

Déjà vu also called paramnesia is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has repeated itself). The term was coined by a French psychic researcher, Émile Boirac (1851–1917) in his book L'Avenir des sciences psychiques (The Future of Psychic Sciences), which expanded upon an essay he wrote while an undergraduate. The experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.

The experience of déjà vu seems to be very common; in formal studies 70% of people report having experienced it at least once. References to the experience of déjà vu are also found in literature of the past, indicating it is not a new phenomenon. It has been extremely difficult to invoke the déjà vu experience in laboratory settings, therefore making it a subject of few empirical studies. Recently, researchers have found ways to recreate this sensation using hypnosis.

^{source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu}

^{Ternyata bisa dibedakan lho..}

Déjà vécu (translated literally as 'already lived')
-Déjà vécu refers to an experience involving more than just sight, which is why labeling such "déjà vu" is usually inaccurate. The sense involves a great amount of detail, sensing that everything is just as it was before and a weird knowledge of what is going to be said or happen next.

More recently, the term déjà vécu has been used to describe very intense and persistent feelings of a déjà vu type, which occur as part of a memory disorder

Déjà senti (translated literally as 'already felt')
-Unlike the implied precognition of déjà vécu, déjà senti is primarily or even exclusively a mental happening, has no precognitive aspects, and rarely if ever remains in the afflicted person's memory afterwards.

Déjà visité  (translated literally as 'already visited')
-This experience is less common and involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. Here one may know his or her way around in a new town or landscape while at the same time knowing that this should not be possible.

Related articles can be found here and here :)

Puasa sebentar lagi,ya.
Aku mau posting ini buat bekal diri sendiri, dan mudah-mudahan berguna buat teman-teman semua. Kebetulan lagi senang menyimak pikiram Mario Teguh di O Channel belakangan ini. Lengkapnya silakan kunjungi situsnya di Mario Teguh Super Club,ya.

++++

Hanya seorang yang pemarah yang bisa betul-betul bersabar.

Seseorang yang tidak bisa merasa marah -tidak bisa disebut penyabar; karena dia hanya tidak bisa marah.

Sedang seorang lagi yang sebetulnya merasa marah, tetapi mengelola kemarahannya untuk tetap berlaku baik dan adil adalah seorang yang berhasil menjadikan dirinya bersabar.

Dan bila Anda mengatakan bahwa untuk bersabar itu-sulit, Anda sangat tepat; karena kesabaran kita diukur dari kekuatan kita untuk tetap mendahulukan yang benar dalam perasaan yang membuat kita seolah-olah berhak untuk berlaku melampaui batas.

Kesabaran bukanlah sebuah sifat, tetapi sebuah akibat.

Perhatikanlah bahwa kita lebih sering menderita karena kemarahan kita, daripada karena hal-hal yang membuat kita merasa marah. Perhatikanlah juga bahwa kemarahan kita sering melambung lebih tinggi daripada nilai dari sesuatu yang menyebabkan kemarahan kita itu, sehingga kita sering bereaksi berlebihan dalam kemarahan.

Hanya karena Anda menyadari dengan baik -tentang kerugian yang bisa disebabkan oleh reaksi Anda dalam kemarahan, Anda bisa menjadi berhati-hati dalam bereaksi terhadap apa pun yang
membuat Anda merasa marah.
Kehati-hatian dalam bereaksi terhadap yang membuat Anda marah itu lah yang menjadikan Anda tampil sabar.

Kemarahan adalah sebuah bentuk nafsu.

Nafsu adalah kekuatan yang tidak pernah netral, karena ia hanya mempunyai dua arah gerak; yaitu bila ia tidakmemuliakan,pasti ia menghinakan.

Nafsu juga bersifat dinamis, karena ia menolak untuk berlaku tenang bila Anda merasa tenang. Ia akan selalu memperbaruhi kekuatannya untuk membuat Anda memperbaruhi kemapanan Anda.

Maka perhatikanlah ini dengan cermat; bila Anda berpikir dengan jernih dalam memilih tindakan dan cara bertindak dalam kemarahan, nafsu itu akan menjadi kekuatan Anda untuk meninggalkan kemapananAndayang sekarang -untuk menuju
sebuah kemapanan baru yang lebih tinggi.

Tetapi, bila Anda berlaku sebaliknya, maka ke bawahlah arah pembaruan dari kemapanan Anda.

Itu sebabnya, kita sering menyaksikan seorang berkedudukan tinggi yang terlontarkan dari tingkat kemapanannya,
dan kemudian direndahkan karena dia tidak berpikir jernih dalam kemarahan.

Dan bila nafsunya telah menjadikannya seorang yang tidak bisa direndahkan lagi, dia disebut sebagai budak nafsu.

Kualitas reaksi Anda terhadap yang membuat Anda marah, adalah penentu kelas Anda.

Kebijakan para pendahulu kita telah menggariskan bahwa untuk menjadi marah itu mudah, dan patut bagi semua orang. Tetapi, untuk bisa marah kepada orang yang tepat, karena sebab yang tepat, untuk tujuan yang tepat, pada tingkat kemarahan yang tepat, dan dengan cara yang tepat -itu tidak untuk orang-orang
kecil.

Maka seberapa besar-kah Anda menginginkan diri Anda jadinya?

Memang pernah ada orang yang mengatakan bahwa siapa pun yang membuat Anda marah-telah mengalahkan Anda. Pengamatan itu tepat-hanya bila Anda mengijinkan diri Anda berlaku dengan cara-cara yang merendahkan diri Anda sendiri karena kemarahan yang disebabkan oleh orang itu.

Itu sebabnya, salah satu cara untuk membesarkan diri adalah menghindari sikap dan perilaku yang mengecilkan diri.

Kita sering merasa marah karena orang lain berlaku persis seperti kita.

Perhatikanlah, bahwa orang tua yang sering marah kepada anak-anaknya yang bertengkar -adalah orang tua yang juga sering bertengkar dengan pasangannya.

Bila kita cukup adil kepada diri kita sendiri, dan mampu untuk sekejap menikmati kedamaian kita akan melihat dengan jelas bahwa kita sering menuntut orang lain untuk berlaku seperti yang tidak kita lakukan.

Dan dengannya, bukankah kemarahan Anda juga penunjuk jalan bagi Anda untuk menemukan perilaku-perilaku baik yang sudah Anda tuntutdariorang lain,tetapi yang masih belum Anda lakukan?

Lalu, mengapakah Anda berlama-lama dalam kemarahan yang sebetulnya adalah tanda yang nyata bahwa Anda belum memperbaiki diri?

Katakanlah, tidak ada orang yang cukup penting yang bisa membuat saya marah dan berlaku rendah.

Bila Anda seorang pemimpin, dan Anda telah menerima tugas untuk meninggikan orang lain; maka tidak ada badai, gempa, atau air bah yang bisa membuat Anda mengurangi nilai Anda bagi kepantasan untuk mengemban tugas itu.

Ingatlah, bahwa orang-orang yang berupaya mengecilkan Anda itu-adalah sebetulnya orang-orang kecil.

Karena, orang-orang besar akan sangat berhati-hati dengan perasaan hormat Anda kepada diri Anda sendiri.
Bila mereka marah pun kepada Anda, mereka akan berlaku dengan cara-cara yang mengundang Anda untuk menjadi pribadi yang lebih baik.

Sedangkan orang kecil? Orang-orang kecil membuat orang lain merasa kecil agar mereka bisa merasa besar.

Anda mengetahui kebesaran yang dijanjikan untuk Anda. Maka besarkan-lah orang lain.

(Sumber: Mario Teguh, MSTS 13.07.2006)