In this article we’ll take a quick look at 9 things you can do to stay focused and productive.

1. Work from a To-Do List Each Day

One of the best ways to stay focused and on task is to have a list of specific things that you need to do each day. Without having a to-do list it is easy to get distracted or to dedicate time to things that aren’t important, but with a to-do list you’ll always know exactly what you need to do each day. Most of us don’t like to end the day with things from our to-do list still unchecked, so it serves as motivation to stay on task and to get things done.

2. Eliminate the Easy Tasks from Your To-Do List First

This may be more personal preference than anything, but for me it is one of the most important things I can do to stay focused. Each day will have a few siginifcant tasks that will take up most of the day, and a few smaller tasks that can be done in a matter of a few minutes. When I look at my to-do list and see things crossed off I feel good about my progress and it’s easier to stay focused. When I leave the little things till later my to-do list will look more intimidating all day, and sometimes it can be distracting. I prefer to take care of the easier things early in the day so I can get them off of my list and then I can focus completely on major tasks without distraction of having a to-do list that looks very full.

3. Keep Your Expectations Realistic

There is only so much that you can get done in one day. If you overload your to-do list you will be stressed out all day and you probably won’t do your best quality work because you’ll be feeling rushed. If you keep a smaller number of things on your to-do list you can focus more on doing your best quality of work.

4. Work Ahead of Deadlines Whenever Possible

Working on tight deadlines can hurt your focus in a few different ways. First, if you’re thinking more about the deadline than the details of the project, it can hurt your work. Second, if you have deadlines coming up you’ll have little choice about what you’re going to work on since you’ll need to rush to meet the deadline. When you’re not working with tight deadlines you’ll have more flexibility to choose what you are going to work on each day, allowing you to use your time and attention wherever you want.

You won’t always be able to avoid tight deadlines, but it’s a good habit to work ahead of deadlines whenever possible.

5. Close Out of Unneccesary Programs

Most designers and developers work in a lot of different programs throughout the day. If you have programs open that you are not using it’s easier to get distracted by something that you aren’t expecting. Closing the programs that you’re not using at the time will help to declutter and you’ll eliminate potential distractions before they can become an issue.

6. Turn Off Your Phone

Phones can be a distraction not only when you’re receiving calls. Most people receive and send several text messages each day. By turning your phone off you won’t hear notifications of new text messages, and you won’t pick up your phone to read it. Once you pick up your phone the interenet and apps can also be a distraction. Turning the phone off for a while obviously helps to eliminate these distractions as well.

7. Don’t Try to Multi-Task

Multi-tasking is one of those things that most of us have been programmed to do, and it’s often considered to be a great skill. The problem is that when you are multi-tasking you’re not focusing on any one thing, and your work will typically suffer in all areas.

Rather than trying to do several things at once, focus on one thing at a time and move through your to-do list by checking things off individually. This will help you to get things done faster and with better quality of work.

8. Have a Comfortable, Dedicated Office Space

Your environment has a lot of influence on your focus. If you’re working from home make sure that you have an area that is dedicated to being your work space and nothing else. A private room with a door is best, but if you don’t have the space for an office make sure you at least have a desk and a section of a room for your work space. This work space should be confortable (including a good chair) and preferrably in a quiet area of the house.

9. Take Short Breaks Throughout the Day

Trying to work for too long without any breaks will lead to poor focus. Just taking 5 or 10 minutes to stretch your legs, get some fresh air, or get a drink will help to improve your level of work. Breaks don’t usually need to be long in order to have an impact. If you feel like you are struggling to focus, take a break for a few minutes.

What’s Your Experience?

How do you stay focused throughout the day? If you have tips or advice for our readers please share in the comments.

Theme features include:

• 7 color schemes from which to choose (screenshots of each are shown lower on this page)
• Customizable homepage slider
• Events calendar
• Organization news publication
• Upload your logo, or just use the site name in text

This WordPress theme was created with non-profit organizations in mind, including features that are needed by most organization websites. The homepage slider allows you to promote your programs and services, or attract attention to any initiative. Images in the slider can be linked to any page.

Most organizations have a lot of events going on, and with this theme you can have an effective event calendar. The homepage even displays 5 upcoming events for added exposure. When you set up the events you insert the date and time, and as it passes the event will be automatically removed from your site so you don’t have to remember to delete each event as it occurs.

The theme also includes a custom post type for news announcements, so you can publish press releases or other announcements and have them featured on your website. As with any WordPress-based site, blogging functionality is included. The theme’s home page template includes links to the most recent blog posts.

WordPress’s custom navigation menu feature is used for both the header and footer menus, so you have complete control over the links that are shown in your menus. The header menu supports drop downs.

From the WordPress dashboard you can enter links to your Facebook page and Twitter profile and the footer icons will be linked appropriately. If you don’t have social media profiles, simply leave the URL fields blank and no icons will be displayed.

Scroll down to see the alternate color schemes.

Documentation for the theme is available in this PDF file.

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Alternate Color Schemes:

Calls and Screen Sharing

Join.me
It’s simple, easy, and free. Either join someone’s screen share or share your own. You can invite up to 250 viewers into your screen share and can even let them take control of your computer. Join.me has a great list of features, such as internet calling, chat, and file sharing, which makes it a great all-in-one solution for screen sharing presentations.

Skype
Skype has over 600 million users, so chances are high that even your client will have an account that he/she can hop on to at any time. Skype is a great way to have face-to-face conversations with clients when the option of meeting them in person is unavailable. In addition, if you need to chat with more than one person in a single call, Skype comes with conference call support so you can include as many people as you want in your presentation. Most importantly, Skype has a built-in screen sharing ability that allows you to switch from video to design comp with ease.

GotoMeeting
GotoMeeting is a familiar business go-to for conference calls and screen shares. You can attend meetings from your phone or your computer and utilize its convenient scheduling features to help better organize your meetings and presentations.

Google Video Chat
You probably already have your Gmail inbox open, so why not hop on a video or audio call with your clients within the same workspace? If you live in your Gmail inbox archives and frequently reference email exchanges and attachments in your workflow, Google Video is the perfect solution for communicating with your clients.

Google Voice
This is a frequently underrated communication tool that makes living our work lives on computers that much easier. Free up your hands by using your computer as your phone. Even if you miss a call, you can easily access it via Google voicemail or email transcription!

Presenting: Information Architecture and Prototypes

Axure
Axure is a powerful and robust flowcharting, wireframing, and prototyping tool for all of your IA and prototyping needs. Axure is easy to use and is packed with every sort of web tool imaginable for creating the web wireframe or prototype of your dreams. You can even utilize its dynamic panels and widgets (including user-created widgets) to make your prototypes interactive. And if you want to get even more complex with your prototypes, you can integrate APIs and data to make your prototypes work with remote data!

Mockingbird
If you’re looking for an inexpensive, browser-based solution, Mockingbird is the way to go. If you’re working with a team, everyone can access and work on your wireframes together. Previewing and sharing your wireframes is easy, and since everything is online, you’ll avoid having to deal with more file organization and clutter. To make things even easier, Mockingbird has an intuitive UI, with simple drag-and-drop interactions, smart text resizing, and interactive page linking.

Omnigraffle
Omnigraffle is a great Mac solution for creating and presenting flowcharts, sitemaps, and wireframes. While it comes with a great span of tools to create your IA needs, it really shines with its “stencils” feature. For a fully customizable and personalized look, you can utilize Omnigraffle’s stencil or user-created libraries.

InVision
Want to create beautiful wireframes and prototypes? InVision is a simple and intuitive web application that allows you to take your design jpgs, pngs, or gifs and turn them into interactive prototypes within minutes. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to turn your flattened PSD images into dazzling working prototypes.

Presenting: Designs

Photoshop full view mode and layer comps
Did you know you can utilize the different screen modes in Photoshop to view your PSD file? Photoshop’s Full Screen view hides everything but whatever is on your canvas and allows for easy toggling access back to the PSD in case you want to edit some nitty gritty elements of your file. Another great way to present designs is to use Photoshop layer comps. Layer comps allow you to save specific visibility, position, and layer styles for different versions or parts of your design. These layer comps are saved to your PSD so you can come back to them at any time.

Preview for Mac
If you’re using a Mac, Preview is a powerful default image viewer that allows for easy viewing of your jpgs, pngs, and pdfs. If you have Lion OS X installed, you can take preview one step further by taking advantage of the revamped Slideshow or Full Screen modes. These two modes have the same functions as Preview normally does, but they’re now packed with beautiful isolated presentation screens that allow you to swipe between multiple images in a subtle but showy sliding interaction.

Picasa Photo Viewer for PC
While Windows Picture and Fax viewer has some merit to its usability, a great image viewing app that you might want to consider installing on your PC is the Picasa Photo Viewer. It’s got a great interface for navigating through files, and its black overlay background makes viewing a single design (PSD or image file) both clean and easy.

Browser Viewing
For web-based projects, another interesting way to present a design is to drag your image file straight into your internet browser. This gives your clients the experience of seeing your design in its natural environment and helps capture a better overall impression of how the design will feel. Also, if you’re HTML/CSS savvy, you can make edits with the browser’s “Inspect element” screen to center and throw a background color behind your image. You’ll hardly be able to tell that the design isn’t live!

Feedback and Collaboration Tools

Notable
Notable app allows your clients to give feedback straight onto the designs themselves (image files only). What’s especially nice about Notable is that feedback is displayed as an overlayed highlight area that clearly indicates what parts of the design are being discussed. You can then have a threaded conversation on that feedback or even create your own notes on your design.

InVision
InVision was mentioned earlier for its wireframing and prototyping capabilities, but it also allows for collaborative feedback on these projects. So not only will you have beautiful IA and designs to show your client, you can also ask them make comments right on your InVision mockups.

Basecamp
Basecamp is one of the most popular project management systems on the web. Apart from its project management system, however, is its feedback environment for designs and PSDs. Since many of your clients will probably be familiar with Basecamp, having them provide their feedback within the app itself will be beneficial for both of you. This helps you keep your project organized, recorded, and easily accessible. If you’re looking for free alternatives that yield similar results, take a look at Freedcamp and Podio.

Google Docs
Free and popular, Google Docs is a great area for storing feedback on Word docs, Excel sheets, and many other document types. Google Docs has a particularly useful commenting system which allows for easy comment threading and discussion. Especially if your clients enjoy giving written feedback, consider taking advantage of this online resource.

About the Author:

Jessica Moon is both the blog editor and a UX/UI designer at digital-telepathy, a user experience design studio that specializes in creating products like SlideDeck, Hello Bar, and Impress. She has a passion for illustration and design, and enjoys blogging and sharing what she’s learned via Twitter and Google+.