How to stay focused at work?

[coreageek]

I'm not telling, I'm asking.
I'm already breaking rule #1 - Don't post on Zgeek at work.

This is the first job I've ever had where I'm not doing some generic retail crap or sweating in a factory. It's very strange to have my own desk and computer to work at, and I'm left in the office alone quite a bit. I'm still getting all my work done, but just not as efficiently as I'd like to.

Anyone have any hints (other than advising me not to visit Zgeek at work)?

[druid]

Coffee and persistence.

[LevarBurton]

The damn virtual Stripper that's on my pc always distractssssssssssssssss.... oh..... there she goes again....... oh man..... what's she doing?????? oh hell YEAH!! You won't believe what shes doing with Network Neighborhood right now!..... Holy crap.... here come the Pingpong balls.... Oh my GOD!!! she's shooting them across the screen. God I love technology!!!!!!! She's aiming for the recycle bin....... She shoots........

GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !
GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Now..... here comes her sexy redhead friend..... with baby oil, a stack of salami, and a nortic dwarf, ya know...... the kind that look like the ones in Golden Axe. Ohhhhhh Maaaaaaaaaaan.

I gotta go polish a photon torpedo

[King_Crud]

join my work, where they've banned any half interesting websites. It gets so boring sometimes that I do work!

[Uther Pendragon]

I find music helps. Other people tend to distract me a lot so I whack on the ole ipod and off I go. It can help when you are starting out to scribble down the "list of shit to get done in the next couple of days". Go through that list and knock items off it as you work and after every serious piece of work take a 10min break to grab a drink, browse zgeek, whatever. As long as you aren't browsing all day long and getting work done nobody should really care.

I try to not have too much coffee as it can mess you up, 2-3 cups a day is plenty and if you need more than that to keep going you really should try to just get the fuck to bed a little earlier every now and again.

Also try to get all your little annoying niggly shit tasks done in the morning leaving the arvo for serious blocks of work. I find it just works out better that way for me.

Also if you are doing programming work I find that it can take anything up to 45min to get back into the project I am working on if somebody comes and interrupts me enough.

[Uther Pendragon]

P.S. The other good thing about keeping a rough list of what you have done/are doing is that when your boss comes up and says "so what have you been up to" you can rattle off a dozen things you have fixed. He/She may not have any idea what you are talking about but it will impress nonetheless. Plus it is always satisfying to cross things off the list.

[dozer]

sounds like youre doing a bit too much, i try and not rock the boat with a minimalist approach.

[Marshall77]

Coffee and persistence.

This is a good idea but at my work we have a proper coffee machine that grinds and all that crap. So you get a great coffee but it takes a little work to do this as most of the time you have a cappuccino or some other fancy beverage. This means that I spend an hour a day making coffee including talking to people in the walk from my desk to the lunch room and back.

I dont think that most bosses are to fussed about people slacking off a little if the work gets done.

[Cassa]

Music helps me as well, it helps me get into the beat of what I'm doing. Of course, being that I mostly do data processing that advice may not work for everyone.

A reservoir for distraction is not neccessarily a bad thing anyway, if you're able to get the distraction out and keep working.

[druid]

I've found that the music of my liking easily distracts me because what I do often requires an intense focus and keeping several things in mind at the same time (the human limit for multiprocessing is something like 7 things).

Then again some people really find it as a great driving force. It comes down to what type of a person you are. If you're the auditive type then music will probably work wonders. A kinesthetic type may find that the ping pong table is the greatest thing in the office in terms of problem solving.

[Merudo]

Music helps me as well, it helps me get into the beat of what I'm doing. Of course, being that I mostly do data processing that advice may not work for everyone.



amen to that



the periods of my job where i've had to do just simplistic data processing boring stuff, listening to music and just powering through it full speed works wonders.

You lose track of time sooo fast and before you know it, it's time to go home.

JUST THE WAY I LIKE WORK TO BE.

[Sagacious]

caffeine and other stimulants
http://forums.zgeek.com/gallery/data/media/1/Caffeine.GIF http://forums.zgeek.com/gallery/data/media/1/methamphetamine.jpg http://forums.zgeek.com/gallery/data/media/1/cocaine_2d.gif





















Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee............................ ...................

Oh and we play the radio in the office too!

[Glompbot]

I find a good nights sleep helps.

If you're bored at work, ask for more.

[AsterisK]

Using our job logging system (RT), we have been getting only 1 or 2 requests per day for the past 3 months. Because we have pretty much ironed out all of our problems, we have pretty much increased our boringness time.

Whilst its good when everything works, it does seem to get boring not having people to constantly ring up and complain about stuff. Obviously I am talking about the IT sector here. If there is no work, and you have no projects or paperwork or anything to do, think of things you can do. For instance, if you are a network admin in a small IT department (say 5 people or less), think of projects that could increase productivity for the IT department, or more impressively, the rest of the company.

One of the things I did was interface with RT's MySQL database via PHP to show all current jobs and stuff for the current user, as well as graphical reporting of current jobs, jobs in the past 7/30 days etc etc. Another one I came up with was the redesign of our company's intranet. Alot of ideas went through my head as we keep alot of document templates and regularly update pages. We also keep a phone list on there. I proposed that the phone list be database driven instead of a static HTML page updated once every 6 months.

[Chocoholic]

If it wasn't for my weekly meeting with my boss I wouldn't do anything.
Every monday I have to spend 5 - 10 minutes expaling to my team what I did last week. If i don't have a decent list my boss loads me up with so much work I am lucky if i get lunch the following friday.

[Uther Pendragon]

We also keep a phone list on there. I proposed that the phone list be database driven instead of a static HTML page updated once every 6 months.

Best place to store that sort of info is LDAP. If you are running Active Directory you should really consider pushing the phone numbers into the Active Directory tree. The amount of things that can pull up that info (email clients etc) is really really large. You still keep the web interface as well.

[Jen]

Masturbate 5 times before going to work,

I'm not telling, I'm asking.
I'm already breaking rule #1 - Don't post on Zgeek at work.

This is the first job I've ever had where I'm not doing some generic retail crap or sweating in a factory. It's very strange to have my own desk and computer to work at, and I'm left in the office alone quite a bit. I'm still getting all my work done, but just not as efficiently as I'd like to.

Anyone have any hints (other than advising me not to visit Zgeek at work)?

[Sagacious]

Masturbate 5 times before going to work,
yeah but then you fall asleep on the job

[Sagacious]

I'm not telling, I'm asking.
I'm already breaking rule #1 - Don't post on Zgeek at work.

This is the first job I've ever had where I'm not doing some generic retail crap or sweating in a factory. It's very strange to have my own desk and computer to work at, and I'm left in the office alone quite a bit. I'm still getting all my work done, but just not as efficiently as I'd like to.

Anyone have any hints (other than advising me not to visit Zgeek at work)?
make posting on ZGeek at work a treat for completing a task. Not one set by your employer necessarily, one set by you. could be halving the stuff in your in tray or drinking your third coffee (It could be that arbitrary).