Tech Conniption

Having a web site and being visible on the net can be really exciting. After years of hard, but interesting work it can reward with a million dollars or simply fall into oblivion. The only way to keeping head above water is continuously provide a value for visitors and investing time to a site from day to day.

For many of us a web site is not a primary work. Sometimes we can spend a lot of time for a website, while other important tasks remain incomplete. But another time we have a lot of other work and can forget about site for weeks or even months. Thus to get everything done we are working other time and can’t bother about anything else. We can’t take a rest, can’t spend more time with the family and friends, we can’t do anything other than work. This leads to stress and unsatisfied life.

But wait. There is a way to make life better. We can find a time for everything we need. Really few time management principles can bring our lives to success and improve site ownership to really profitable and fascinating work.

Set up your goals: long term and short term

To make life better, first of all you need to know what is “better” personally for you. Where do you want to be next week, next quarter, next 2 years, or even next 20 years (if you young enough . You must decide for yourself what are you wanting from your life, and why you are still where you are.

Do not lazy planning

Napoleon told what only properly planned things can produce the desired result. Don’t ignore this principle and invest time for planning. Remember, mussing is not planning. I like classic citation: “Sometimes I sit and think and sometimes I just sit”. Usually this phenomenon can eat much of our time. If you found yourself mussing, switch to another work, look at the window or simply relax your eyes.

Update your plans according to reality regularly.

If you can’t plan, just track

Watch for yourself if you can’t plan anything this time, you will be able to comeback to planning later. Just track what you are doing on paper, excel sheet or using task management software. Update at least hourly, not at the end of a day. This will help found common interrupters and recurring tasks, thus you can plan these things in the future.

Look at your time journal and try to find things that don’t really need to be done, things what could be done by someone else, work what can be done more effectively or quickly, actions what wastes others’ time.

You can download a simple time tracking template here.

Reuse others experience or mimic their steps in achieving similar goals

Huge part of promoting and maintaining websites seems very similar for most site owners. It includes search engine optimization, public relations, some sort of paid advertisement, keeping original content and many other things. If we decided seriously engaging in this business we need to pay attention to every detail. It is not possible without proper planning. Why not go on the road what others web masters went? We can reuse experience and “go in their shoes” to success, simply reusing proven plans widely available on the net.

Collect all tasks in a to do list

Sometime we don’t have anything to do, but later we remember a lot of important tasks, which automatically became urgent. To avoid such situations the only way is collecting tasks in the to-do list. Add tasks to a list whenever it comes from your mind or colleague. If you can’t access computer, don’t remember the task, write it down on a scratch or any other media. Transfer it to the main list when possible.

Estimate every task, set deadlines for yourself. This will help you to avoid doing things at the last minute.

Adjust priorities

Drucker Dictum told: “Doing things right is not as important as doing the right things”. In web development or promoting a site it is possible to spend a lot of time for tasks what produce insufficient value or even do not produce it at all for achieving desired goals. There is no silver bullet what can shoot all prioritization cases, but few tips can help:

1. Rate tasks in a matter of distance to achieving most important goals. Reflect on things what you doing at a moment. Is it worth time spent?
2. If someone else dependent on specific task then do it first.
3. For equal tasks set priorities using task difficulty: routine tasks first.

Delegate when feasible

If you know people around you, who is available to take a part of your work, do not hesitate to delegate it. Give objectives, not procedures, require responsibility, accountability. Describe task clearly. Provide an example of satisfied result.

The following rules can be used to determine delegate specific task or not:

1. Will he/she do it better or quickly than you? If yes, no doubt, delegate it.
2. Will you commit a task to somebody if you have more important tasks to do? If yes, delegate it.
3. Is available person can complete a work without your assistance when you are out of office? If yes, delegate it.

Perfect is not better than good

When writing an article, for example, it is more important to finish in time than worry about perfect words. Get the whole picture done and you can add or improve details later.

Split difficult tasks in bite-sized pieces

People usually avoid difficult tasks. Break them down into small steps. Complete manageable chunks and soon you will notice what problem resolved. Very helpful approach is adding “how to test” to each task. This will setup a micro goal and will allow determining task completion.

Identify your time wasters

Usually we deal with people around us. This can be our colleagues, friends or kin. They are bothering or gladdening you in various ways. They can contact you directly or via phone, instant messaging or email. This leads to interruptions as well as time spending. Interruption of 6 – 9 minutes will take additional 4 – 5 minutes of recovering. Five interruptions will shoot an hour. You must reduce frequency and length of interruptions. But you can’t firewalling yourself or ignore others. For example ignoring wife phone calls will be over really badly for you The only way to reduce such time spending is investigation of repeatable time wasters. If you know the whole picture you can decide where to save and where you don’t.

Plan times for relaxation and recreation

Keith Frayn, professor of human metabolism at Oxford University, told TV Plus: “Any normal person could survive for up to 60 days without food on just water.” Without sleep people can break much quickly. In 1964 high school student Randy Gardner attempted to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest time awake – 260 hours. Stanley Coren describes the day-by-day impact on Randy in the book Sleep Thieves, as documented by John Ross of the US Navy Medical europsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego. Randy had trouble focusing his eyes on day 2, hallucinations on day 4, and slurred speech and a short attention span by the last day.

Do not expect high productivity if you tired. Sleep recharges our brains and helps us think more clearly. Plan your day adequately, do not save on sleeping.

Web site owners are usually sitting 8 hours a day and more in a work place near computer. This leads to emotional and physical diseases as well. One of our exposed organs is eyes. Looking to the monitor for a long time, even expensive one, will ruin our eyesight. To reduce pernicious influence for our eyes there are many techniques of eyes training. Type “training eyes” in google and find suitable training for you. Schedule it daily, just before a dinner, or to any other convenient time.

Reward yourself

We are all expecting a reward or praise for completed work. Lack of reward will kill our desire to work what leads to reduced productivity. This is why we prefer working for others than doing something for ourselves. Promise yourself a reward for completing each task or finishing the total job. For example let yourself watch an interesting movie when you finish developing page or new promotion plan.

Conclusion

This list of time management tips is just a starting point to the new improved life. Leading by these principles from day to day will show a way to successful career, robust health and welfare.

My university teacher always told me, what every detail is important. In most cases if we did not achieve something, this happens due a little, but important thing, what we forgot or skipped. Help yourself reaching your dreams. Avoid chaotic motion, plan and manage your life time.

About the author

Alexander Fedorenko is a coauthor of AcePlanner – professional time management suite, and other interesting Internet related products and websites.

More and more webmasters nowadays do not value the importance of a complete website backup (files and databases). They have left this to chance and good luck which poses a great risk to their online presence.

Can you relate to this? Then read this important article which might save you an arm and a leg later.

Web site backup is the most ignored task of the webmasters simply because it poses no immediate threat to them until something worse happen to their hosting server. Many times, this task is set aside, delayed and even regarded as nuisance to the busy website owner.

They just don’t realize what is at stake here.

So before your website will be wiped out of the internet by unexpected accidents like server breakdowns, harddisk failures, hacking and DDOS attacks among other bad things, let me share with you the 10 Backup E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L-S you should not live without online.

EXPECT – Know that your webhosting company (even the biggest and the most boastful out there) may encounter problems and that your diligence to backup up will pay off later on. Online computing has never been so unpredictable that the worse of times will happen when you least expect it. With the proper mindset, you are insuring the continuity of your online endeavour in any eventualities. In short, be ready.

SCHEDULE – Your backup process should not compete with your busy schedules. Create your own backup schedule at the most convenient time for you in the week. If you’re like me, I do this during lunch and dinner times. Sometimes, I have to leave my PC overnight working on the backups. If you can make it not to conflict with your busy schedules, you will be able to keep up with the demands of this job. In short, don’t complicate.

STICK with it – Just do it. Patience is key to your backup tasks. Once you have a schedule, stick with it. You must do this diligently every time it should happen. This is a tough challenge especially to busy people working online. But the sooner you discipline yourself and make backing up your files a habit, the more you will benefit from a worry-free online environment. In short, get a good habit.

EVALUATE – After a while, test your backup files. A good backup can be tested by simply restoring it on another system. Evaluating your backup results from time to time is good way to know that you are keeping what you should keep – a good and working backup. In short, be sure.

NO Complacency – After some time, your backup schedule may slip away and you will tend to forget or intentionally miss it. Don’t succumb to this temptation. Man has never been so busy in his lifetime like it is today in this era of the high tech trends, new developments and discoveries. In short, don’t be lazy to backup.

TRASH – Know which files to keep and not to keep. You need to do this to keep your backup process as short and as efficient as possible. It also saves you valuable resources like hard disk space and backup mediums. Backup only what you need. Keep out the trash and dump it. In short, don’t sweat with the trash.

INTUITION – Have faith in your backup results. Believe that what you are doing is for your own good later on. Like vitamins that keep your body healthy, backups keeps your mind away from stress and worries. A good working backup will make you smile even on the worst of times because you are insured by your patience. In short, believe in good results.

AUTOMATE – Look for alternatives to traditional backup process that can make your life simpler. There are several technologies and softwares you can use now to generate the fastest and safest backup files you will need to restore in case of emergency without you lifting a finger. Automation is king in this lazy man’s world. In short, be efficient.

LIBERATE – Free yourself from worries and anxiety of theunexpected. A death sentence that can be prevented will not kill you. So think about what you can do more (like sleepingmore at night) than to think about what harm may come. With your own backup systems established, you can retire at night calmly knowing the next day, if you don’t see your websites as you should, you know you can pubish it back within the day even if your webhost cannot recover it for you. In short, relax and enjoy life to the max.

SECURITY – Nothing beats the feeling of being secured. This is the reason why the insurance businesses have flourished over the years. But more importantly, your commitment to backup your files will not only save you from stress, humiliation, frustration, anger and guilt, but also lift your spirit and confidence because you know at the end of the day, your self reliance is well worth it.

And that, my friend, is a great and wonderful feeling.

As a business owner or manager, the decision to opt for offshore software development can be difficult. As anyone who has experience knows, there are advantages and disadvantages to outsourcing software development. How then, do you balance the risks and rewards and come out on top? Here are five tips to ensure that you receive an excellent return on investment:

1. Complex project management experience. When selecting an offshore software development company, ensure that they have extensive experience in complex project management. The company’s internal team should run like a well-oiled machine, and they should have longstanding relationships with their own subcontractors.

2. Specialized knowledge and expertise. The most agile software development companies have an extensive network of specialists. These specialists may not be on the company payroll (which is why the company can offer you significant cost savings), but they can be depended upon to complete the necessary tasks on time and within the budget.

3. Knowledge of your industry. In theory, offshore software development companies should be able to perform custom software development for any type of business. There will be less of a learning curve, though, and greater chances for success, if the company has knowledge of your industry or a related industry. For this reason, ask for referrals and determine if the projects the company has managed are similar to or in alignment with the goals of your project.

4. Delineate areas of responsibility. Chances are, you’re considering hiring an offshore software development company because you don’t have the in-house expertise to get the job done and know that it is more cost-effective to outsource the project. Nonetheless, you will need to actively participate in a needs assessment and at various benchmarks throughout the life of the project. By creating a clear delineation of areas of responsibility, you will have a clear understanding of the number of staff hours you need to devote to the project, and plan accordingly.

5. High standards. Both you and the offshore software development company you choose should adhere to high standards. Aside from the talent of the technical experts involved, successful custom software development depends upon rigorous testing. The most dependable companies use the highest industry standards in testing each aspect of the products they create so that you receive a product that is ready to implement.

Essentially, the most successful offshore software development companies are competent and flexible, and see their role as an information technology partner who solves your software problems, supports your team, and manages your projects from beginning to end. When you choose such a company, you can rest assured that you will receive an excellent return on investment.