Efficient labor organization

Much has been written about project management and the organization of the enterprise, but what about the personal effectiveness? What makes a well-organized workplace of an employee of the mind and keyboard?




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I'll start with the principles behind well-organized work:

• information is structured, differs by type of data (documents, books, music, video, photos)
• comfortable, well-studied, sharpened by themselves working tools
• automate repetitive actions
• working documentation
• professional literature at hand
• mastering universal working skills (blind printing, the ability to find rare information on the Internet)
• regular data archiving
• set of devices

And now in more detail on each item:
Organization of information.
It is a good practice to have a folder in which all the work performed is stored so that you can always find some previously used solution.
On the desktop, only the necessary minimum: a folder with completed projects, folders on current projects (after execution are moved to completed), shortcuts to books, documents and what you use every day.
Due to this, it is always clear where to look for the necessary file, the search is performed in a couple of clicks.

Tools.
The mail program is a single interface for working with all mailboxes, accessible from anywhere, allowing you to store archived letters, do searches, etc. (you can use a well-developed mail client with letters sorted into folders).
I myself use Gmail: there are handy chips - collecting letters from all my email accounts on one, powerful spam filtering, sorting letters using the shortcut system, almost unlimited free space, accessibility of the box from any computer / device where there is internet + a bunch of google mules which may be helpful.
A messaging program that supports multiple protocols (icq, jabber). Sorry have not yet seen a similar combine with support for Skype.
Specialized software - everyone has their own preferences, I note only that it is better to own one program (even if it is Vim) than to know from the top ten.

Automate repetitive actions.
How nice when routine work is done by a computer for you. Enters passwords, archives data, makes frequently used operations of 3-4 actions. There are a lot of scripts in the network that help in this, well, knowledge of any scripting language is always a plus.

Working documentation.
I use mediawiki , write down there all the problems and solutions that I have to face. If a month later I stumble on the same problem, I do not have to google again, the documentation is always under another. Plus it is posted on the Internet, I can see my notes from anywhere and share links with friends.

Professional literature
The concept of a workplace becomes blurred, today it may be the company's office, tomorrow a home table, the day after tomorrow a table in a cafe. Carry a suitcase with books nekomilfo, so it is better to have e-books. It is possible that in the near future a service will appear / develop that allows you to place your books on an online resource (although it is difficult to imagine this taking into account copyrights), but for now, it is better to store them in a directory on a computer.

Mastering Universal Work Skills
the ability to use search engines to search for complex, rare things. (the information age, I provide many services to other people, simply because I can find in Google what others cannot). Here not only search engines come into play, but also professional communities, forums, personal appeals to specialists from relevant areas in the social. networks.
Ten finger print is a mega skill, in the modern world with active correspondence by mail, instant messengers, social networks - it saves a lot of time (a person working in the IT field and looking at the keyboard obviously loses in the competition). Ways of Solving - Solo on the keyboard (I taught the Russian layout on it: it is written about the correct position of the fingers, competent recommendations are given on the position of the hands, it is constantly reminded of this, there is a sense of dialogue with the program). I mastered the English keyboard in a notebook, stupidly for a month for half an hour I typed in English phrases and phrases. Now I easily type on both layouts.

Regular data archiving
At one time I was busy with specialized backup programs, but then I wrote a script in a couple of lines that simply copies the contents of my disks to an external HDD. You can also use SVN / Git to save different versions of documents.

Minimum set of devices

• flash drive (convenient to carry between computers)
• external hard drive (backups, plus something that does not fit on the main computer and it’s a pity to delete (for example, rare movies). Plus, you can merge photos.
• comfortable keyboard (keyboard, this is what we work with most of our time, it should please)
• monitor - large screen - at least 23 inches - some large
• pen and notebook - to think about your brilliant ideas

Why bother?
Any creative person is interested in working with new, interesting tasks, constantly moving forward, increasing the complexity and level of his work. It's a shame when the routine, the fight against force majeure takes most of the time. Thanks to good organization, you can minimize problems by freeing up time for interesting, important tasks (for example, write an article for Habr :))).