Portfolio Design Study: Design Patterns and Current Practices

 

we asked our readers about case studies they would like us to conduct. One of the most popular suggestions was a detailed case study of portfolio websites.

Following the requests of our readers, we have carefully selected 55 design agencies and Web development agencies, analyzed their portfolio websites and identified popular design patterns. The main goal of the study was to provide freelancers and design agencies with useful pointers for designing their own portfolio.

We have brainstormed on the most important design issues and asked designers across the globe what design decisions they often have to make when designing a portfolio website. We also asked designers what questions they would like answered or analyzed in our case study. In the end, we came up with a bag of 40 solid portfolio-related questions — sorted, grouped and ranked according to importance. Finally, we searched for a good mix of established design agencies and well-designed portfolio websites of small and large agencies.

Finally, we created a questionnaire with these 40 questions and went through the websites of all of these design agencies, noticing design patterns and filling out our quite lengthy forms. Overall, the study took over 75 hours to prepare.

This post presents the initial results of our big portfolio design study. Below, we discuss the visual design, structure, layout and navigation of portfolio websites. We also get into the design details of every single section, including the about, clients, services, portfolio, workflow and contact pages. Of course, you do not necessarily have to follow the findings presented here; rather, use them to get a general idea of what other portfolios look like, and then come up with something of your own that is usable, distinctive and memorable. We would like to thank Mark Nutter for helping us gather data for this study.

1. Light vs. Dark Design 

A general question that comes up often is whether to design a visually appealing dark website (that is, use big bold typography and vivid colors to give the user a colorful and memorable experience) or a softer lighter website (one that has a simple structure and clean typography).

Surprisingly, according to our studies:

• 82% of portfolio websites have a light design with neutral calm colors. The backgrounds of these websites may be a light shade of gray or yellow, rather than pure white (e.g. Happycog, SimpleBits, ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ and Concentric Studio).
• 29% of portfolio websites have very vibrant, striking colors (e.g. 45royale, Hicksdesign, Duoh, Frexy and Odopod)
• Dark websites are much more likely to have big typography and strong visuals (e.g. OrderedList, Blue Flavor, and pod1).

Of course, picking a dark or light design depends strongly on your personal approach and individual goals for your portfolio. Saying that the “trend” strong favors light designs would be inaccurate because each type serving its purpose in its particular context.

2. How Many Columns? 

Interestingly, many of the portfolio websites we researched tend to vary the number of columns between sections. Client and about pages usually have two columns, while front pages often have three to four columns and present the most important sections of the website in a compact overview. In fact, we see pages getting more and more columns: every sixth portfolio website we saw has at least one page with four columns.

According to our study, few websites risk experimenting with so-called out-of-the-box layouts, or navigation like JavaScript scrolling or other kinds of original layouts. Most portfolios have traditional block-style layouts, with two to three clearly separated columns and a simple, convenient navigation menu.

carrot creative has an original one-page layout with JavaScript-scrolling navigation, which is unusual and memorable but not necessarily intuitive.

Also, most portfolio websites consist of multiple, detailed pages, with relatively deep sub-sections. Minimalist one-page portfolios are rarely encountered: only 5.4% of the portfolio websites we saw have simple and minimalist designs (namely, Neutron Creations, Fish Marketing and ⁸⁰⁄₂₀).

3. Introductory Block On Top? 

Portfolio websites commonly have a large introductory block in the header of the page, essentially a short friendly statement about what the agency offers and what advantages a customer will gain by using its services. The block will usually blend vivid imagery with big typography. It conveys both the company’s overall image and the personal tone of the agency’s staff, making it equally professional and friendly. Such blocks usually appear immediately below the logo on the front page.

According to our study, 79% of portfolio websites have some kind of an introductory block in their upper region. We noticed, though, that some portfolios forgo an introductory block in favor of showcasing their recent projects (concentric studio, HUGE inc. and Wishingline being examples). For such designs, a small “About us” block is placed somewhere else on the page, often below the fold.

45royale Inc. has friendly introductory text on its front page. It communicates that the website belongs to a Web design studio that is located in Canton, Georgia and that creates clean, unique and usable websites and Web applications.

4. Layout Alignment 

Back in ‘90s, website layouts were traditionally left-aligned, with either vertical navigation in the left sidebar or horizontal navigation near the head. With growing adoption of wide-screen displays, this has changed. More and more designers are horizontally centering their layouts so that the passive white space around the page balances the layout. We did notice a trend towards more original, even right-aligned, layouts at the beginning of the year, but not a single portfolio in our current survey has a right-aligned layout.

According to our study,

• no portfolio layouts are right-aligned,
• 89% of portfolio layouts are horizontally centered,
• the rest have either original adaptive layouts (Method and Carrot Creative), a vivid background image that fills the remaining screen space (Duoh) or just left it empty (e.g. Ideo, maybe.for.you and Area17) – of course, you will see the remaining screen space only if your display has a wide-screen resoluton.

5. Navigation Alignment 

Where to put the main navigation in the layout? The question isn’t trivial and often leads to a debate among designers. Surprisingly, our study revealed that most portfolio designers place the main navigation in the upper-right corner of the layout. In fact:

• 80% of portfolios have large horizontal navigation,
• 51% of websites have horizontal navigation with right-aligned elements (e.g. Concentric Studio, Mark Boulton Design)
• 16.4% have horizontal navigation with left-aligned elements (e.g. BarbarianGroup),
• 11% have full-width horizontal navigation with large clickable elements (e.g. buffalo, SimpleBits).

Vertical navigation is rarely used, and other approaches (such as horizontal navigation at the bottom of the page) are found on unconventional out-of-the-box layouts, though still uncommon.

Area17 has a left-aligned layout with left-aligned navigation. Each navigation element is a fairly large clickable block element.

6. Search Box Design 

While many portfolio websites are quite small, presenting visitors with only some general information about the studio and its design process, some portfolios go the length and present a variety of case studies, a blog and detailed information about its every major project. In general, if a website contains a lot of information, search functionality would very likely benefit some visitors to the website. As it turns out, very few companies integrate search functionality into their website.

• 89% of the portfolio websites we studied have no search functionality,
• Only 11% of websites have a search box, usually a simple, clean one. Most of the owners of these portfolios have a blog that they update regularly (including pod1, OmniTI, fortyseven media, Ideo, Viget).

7. Flash Elements 

Flash, which is an established technique for rich interactive design, seems to be losing popularity among Web designers — at least among designers of portfolio websites. The reason is probably that certain Flash effects can be replaced by advanced JavaScript techniques, which are often available from popular JavaScript libraries as easy-to-use plug-ins.

Slideshows, animation effects and transition effects can now be created with JavaScript solutions that are lightweight, quicker and much easier. Rich Flash animation and video effects are being replaced with simpler, subtler JavaScript techniques. Flash is still sometimes used, though — for instance, for dynamic text replacement.

BKWLD is one of the few portfolios in our study that uses Flash heavily throughout the website.

In our study, only 3.7% of portfolio websites used Flash heavily (notably, Lift Interactive, Bkwld, and others, but mainly for slideshows and presentations). The reason is very probably because we did not include any interactive motion design agencies, Flash design studios or video production studios in our study.

8. Where To Put Contact Information? 

One important objective of our study was to understand how designers generally convey information about contact options. Do visitors have to click on a “Contact us” button to get in touch with a design agency? Or is contact information placed prominently at the top of the page? Or do most designers put contact information in the footer – the place where most users are expecting it anyway?

The websites we analyzed put contact information in almost every area of the page: top, right, left, bottom, even the middle of the page. But we also noticed some interesting patterns. Note that we were interested in a) where the link to the “Contact us” page is and b) where the actual contact information is positioned.

It turns out that:

• Only 12.7% of websites display a phone number in the header of the page (e.g. Things That Are Brown, Headscape, Clearleft and Concentric Studio),
• Only 9.1% of websites display their email address in the header of the page (e.g. buffalo, Kyan media),
• A postal address usually isn’t displayed at all (54.5%) or else is placed in the footer (40%) or upper area of the website (5.4%),
• A “contact” link usually appears in the upper-right corner (71%) and/or the footer (45.4%),
• “Contact” (59.7%) and “Contact us” (21%) are most popular wordings for the link to the contact page.

9. “About Us” Page 

The about page is used on portfolio websites to present the members of the team, explain the philosophy of the agency and prove the company’s expertise and professionalism. The page gives the design studio a personal touch and — if designed properly — elicits the trust of potential customers.

Weightshift.com’s “About us” page shows team members and describes who they are.

An about page is clearly a must for portfolios: 89% of those we analyzed included a link to the page in their main navigation (exceptions include 31three and Huge Inc and others).

The level of detail you use to describe your agency is up to you. 59.1% of about pages we surveyed have no sub-pages and offer visitors a brief, compact overview. Photos of team members, their personal information, and information about the design process are very common on such pages. The tone of the main copy is usually informal, friendly and sometimes even funny. The most popular wordings for the link to the about page is “About” (43.6%), “About us” (27.3%) and “Who we are” (7.2%).

10. Client Page 

One of the surest signs of professionalism and a good reputation in the industry is a solid list of clients with whom your company has worked. Of course, the more prominent the companies in the list, the more likely potential customers will turn their attention to you. In our experience, many customers seek out a client list, case studies, and testimonials when searching for a design agency. So we were surprised to find only a few agencies that have a standalone page listing their clients.

The client list on Squared Eye lists every important client this company has worked with. With names such as the Gates Foundation, the US Institute of Peace, Fox Television and the US Postal Service, the company certainly seems trustworthy.

Of the portfolios we analyzed, only 47.2% have a client page (either as a standalone page or part of a portfolio page). In most cases, clients are represented by their logos, which are often linked to detailed case studies that discuss the work done by the agency and client testimonials. The most popular wording for the link to this page is “Our clients” (46.1%), “Clients” (39.6%) or “Client list” (15.4%).

11. Services Page 

Given that visitors usually come to such websites because they are looking for services, validating their search with clear introductory text on the front page or with a standalone services page is reasonable. Potential clients usually have a pretty good understanding of what they are looking for (motion design, print design, Web design, CD/DVD jacket design, etc.), so putting your major offerings on the services page is a good idea.

Signalfeuer’s services page explains what the company offers very concisely. Icons and small illustrations are used to good effect.

67.2% of the portfolios we looked at have a standalone services page of some kind. The rest put their information on the about page or the front page. The services pages sometimes have sub-pages (35.1%), but in most cases the single page is quite long and detailed.

Linking your portfolio page to your services page is definitely a good idea because it bridges theory and practice and shows exactly what your agency is capable of. The most popular wording for links to such pages is “Services” or “Our Services” (75.7%), followed by “What we do” (10.8%).

12. Portfolio Page 

Potential customers obviously want to see what a design agency is capable of. Does its style match theirs? What aesthetic does it communicate for visual design, typography and usability? Do its designs feel intuitive and look pleasant? These are the questions potential customers want answered when they become interested in a design agency. So, a solid showcase of previous work could close the deal and convince the customer to contact the agency.

Huge Inc’s case study: an example of one of dozens of fairly detailed case studies.

In general, be selective with the work you showcase, and let the visitor order and filter the projects by style, industry and year. Also provide some information about the project, or even conduct a detailed case study, with testimonials and insight into your workflow. Unfortunately, few portfolios do that.

According to our study:

• 7.2% of websites don’t have a portfolio at all,
• 12.7% have only logos or screenshots, without any description or case study,
• 16.4% briefly describe each project next to a logo and/or screenshot,
• 63.6% have a very detailed page for every project, including case studies, testimonials, slideshows of screenshots, drafts and sketches (see Bright Creative and 45royale).

Surprisingly, the most popular wording for the link to the portfolio page is “Work” or “Our work” (47.2%), followed by “Portfolio” (27.2%).

13. Workflow Page 

Actually, the workflow page works rather well as a sub-section of the about page, rather than as a standalone page. However, some designers want to make their explanation of their workflow more prominent. While 74.5% of websites do not have a workflow page at all, the rest go to rather great lengths to explain to potential customers how their process works and what expectations both parties should have.

45royale’s process: the company explains how its process works and how customers will be involved throughout the design process.

Giving potential customers a better understanding of how they will be involved throughout the design process is certainly a good idea. The most popular wordings for the link to this page are “How we work” or “Working with us” (42.8%), “Process” or “Our process” (35.7%), and “Approach” (7.1%).

14. Contact Page 

If everything goes right, and your portfolio has earned the visitor’s interest, then the contact page will be their final destination. Do everything you can to make it as easy as possible for them to contact you. Make sure the customers provides all necessary information by presenting a simple, clean Web form that can accommodate the essential information about their project. You could also provide your phone number, postal address and email address: the more, the better. Driving directions, social profile buttons and vCards are a good idea, too.

Omniti’s contact page has driving directions, an office address, personal contact information, vCards, telephone numbers and working hours. It also tells the visitor whether the office is closed right now. An example of a good contact page.

According to our study:

• 9% of websites don’t have a contact page (instead, contact information is included in the footer of each page),
• Driving directions (often with an interactive Google map) are given on 45.4% of portfolio websites (!),
• 83.6% provide a phone number and email address on the contact page,
• 76.7% provide a postal address on the contact page,
• 69% of websites have a contact Web form,
• 14.5% offer a vCard for downloading, usually next to the email address,
• Links to social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are often used (14.5%).

15. Specials And Extras 

We also noticed a few distinctive elements that some design agencies offer potential customers. One popular approach is to offer some kind of project or proposal request form, which prospective clients are expected to fill out with their project’s main details when submitting a request (e.g. Mark Boulton Design, stuff and nonsense, 45royale, Duoh and Clearleft)

Also, some design agencies offer a project planner (including buffalo, Happy Cog and 45royale) or help customers estimate costs (such as OnWired) or offer a more detailed pricing guide (like Blue Flavor).

Buffalo’s online project planner guides potential customers smoothly through the project worksheet, making it easier for them to fill in data and avoid mistakes or missing information.

Among the other interesting things we noticed were a chat window on the contact page (e.g. Agami Creative, a “Stress-o-meter” that displays the company’s current availability (e.g. Bright Creative), a quote calculator, and a “Capabilities and Credentials” presentation (usually in PDF).

16. Other Findings 

We also found out that:

• None of the portfolio websites have an FAQ page,
• 76.3% of websites have at least one blog. And many portfolios have two or more blogs,
• 14.55% have a newsletter or mailing list (e.g. bkwld, area17, buffalo, Viget and 45royale),
• 9% provide a detailed site map (e.g. Ideo, OmniTI, pod1, Erskine Design and Wishing Line).

Summary 

• 82% of the portfolio websites we analyzed have a light design, with neutral, calm colors,
• 79% have traditional “block” layouts, with two to three columns clearly separated and a simple, conveniently located navigation menu,
• 79% of websites have some kind of introductory block in their upper area,
• 89% have horizontally centered layouts,
• 80% have large horizontal navigation,
• 51% have horizontal navigation with right-aligned elements,
• 89% do not have search functionality,
• Only 3.7% use Flash heavily throughout the website,
• A contact link appears in the upper-right corner 71% of the time, and/or in the footer 45.4% of the time,
• 89% have the link to the “about us”-page in the main navigation,
• Only 47.2% have a client page,
• 67.2% of portfolios have some form of standalone services page,
• 63.6% have a detailed page for every project, including case studies, testimonials, slideshows with screenshots, drafts and sketches,
• 74.5% of websites have no workflow page,
• The contact page should contain driving directions, a phone number, email address, postal address, vCard and online form.

How To Find Time For… Everything!

 

Time management is one of the most important skills a freelance worker can learn. With a good time management system you can easily find the time to do the things that are important to you, whether in your professional or personal life.

Successful time management can be challenging, especially to those who are new to freelancing or being self-employed. When you have a boss telling you what to do and when to do it by, it’s much easier to prioritize and figure out what needs to be done and when. But when you’re not only dealing with client deadlines but also all of the day-to-day parts of running a business, on top of trying to maintain some sort of life outside of work, time management gets a whole lot trickier.

Below are sixteen tips to help you better manage your time and find the time to participate in the things that are important to you. Also included are some further resources to improve your time management.

1. Get Organized 

Taking time away from your work to find things, whether on your computer or your physical desktop, can be one of the biggest time-wasters out there. This is one of those things that varies a lot by industry and personal preference, but you absolutely need to have a system in place to handle the information, files, and data that comes your way each day. This might include folders and tags on your computers, or file-folders, piles, and inboxes in your physical workspace.

Experiment with different organizational systems until you find one that really works for you. Personally, I have a folder called “work” on my desktop and within that I have folders for each client I work with on a regular basis. For one-off projects I’ll create a folder for that client while I’m working on the project, and then those folders will get moved into a “completed” folder once the project is over (and usually moved to my portable hard drive instead of remaining on my laptop’s hard drive). I have very little physical paperwork, so piles on my desk work just fine for me.

2. Separate Work Space from Everything-Else Space 

You need to have a dedicated workspace. If you work in an office, this is easy enough to manage. But if you work from home, you’ll need to put a bit more effort in. Here are a few tips for creating a workspace if you don’t have space for a dedicated office:

• Get a desk.
  Don’t try to work from your coffee table or dining room table. It’s inefficient and you’ll constantly find yourself having to pick things up just to bring them back out later. It’s better to have a space where you can leave your work things set up all the time.
• Go into “work mode” when you’re in your workspace.
  This might mean wearing “work clothes” when you’re working. Or it might mean putting shoes on when you’re at your desk (this is one I do most of the time).
• Steal unused space.
  Is there an unused room, corner of a room, or even closet somewhere in your home? Is it big enough for a desk? If it is, then you might have just found your dedicated office. If your space is part of a larger room, consider buying an office armoire to hide away your work stuff when you’re not using it. If it’s in a closet or other tiny space, a built-in desk and shelving might work best (otherwise you’re likely to waste space with a desk that’s smaller than the total space). Commandeer unused space in your home to carve out a dedicated work space.

3. Take Advantage of Time Management Tools 

There are hundreds of tools out there for organizing and managing your time. Whether you opt for a physical date book or calendar or go for an online app, take advantage of the ready-made tools available. I use a combination of tools. Remember the Milk keeps my to-do list (with the Pro version you can also access it from an iPhone). I have a dry-erase calendar for my monthly schedule. And I flag emails that have important information in them until I’m done with that information.

Previously, I’ve used those yellow Post-It notes to keep my to-do list organized (I’d stick them to my desk in front of my keyboard) and a pocket-size black Moleskine notebook. Both tools worked well, but I finally decided I wanted to have a to-do list I could access from anywhere.

There are tons of other time management tools. Experiment with a few and see what seems to fit with the way you work. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution out there that will work for everyone. But there’s almost certainly a tool out there for everyone.

4. Set Goals 

Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do to manage your time. If you don’t have any goals, how do you know what’s important? What deserves your time and attention? The short answer is: you don’t.

Goals don’t need to be formal. They don’t need to be long-term either (though long-term goals can also help). What they do need to do is focus your attention on what’s important.

One of my goals might be to get all of my work done by Thursday so I can take Friday off, or use Friday to work on a personal project. What that goal does is get me to focus on working more efficiently so I can finish my work in 80% of the time. Cutting 20% of my work time isn’t that big of a deal most weeks. Simply turning off TweetDeck while I work (or setting it to only pull updates every 30 or 60 minutes) can go a long way toward doing that. So can working through lunch or getting up a half hour earlier (or staying up a half hour later).

Your goals should be attainable and specific. You can set recurring goals (“I want to take every Friday off.”) or one-time goals (“I want to finish my new website design by next Tuesday.”) or any combination of the two. You might write them down somewhere or you can just keep them in your head. Just make sure you always have a goal. Your goal could even be as simple as, “finish this logo mockup before lunch.”

5. Set Deadlines 

Deadlines are sort of like a built-in goal for a project. If you know something is due next Monday, then you’re more likely to structure your work on it to make sure it gets done by Monday. (If not, you definitely need this article more than most.)

If you don’t have deadlines imposed by clients or a boss, then you’ll need to have self-imposed deadlines. Think about when you want to finish something or when you’d like to move on to the next project. Put that date in your calendar or mark it on your to-do list as the deadline for your current project. For added accountability, tell someone else about your deadline. I’ll sometimes post self-imposed deadlines on Twitter or Facebook so my friends there can hound me about it if I miss a deadline. Peer pressure can go a long way toward getting you to work harder.

6. Plan Ahead 

Keep some kind of big-picture plan. This might be monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly, depending on your industry and the particular types of projects you take on. As I mentioned before, I keep a dry-erase calendar with my monthly projects and deadlines. I can also mark down appointments, important dates, and other information that might interfere with my deadlines or regular work schedule. Most of my deadlines are on a weekly or semi-weekly basis, so a monthly calendar works great for me. If you have longer deadline periods (or shorter ones), you’ll need to adjust the amount of time you need to look at at once to get an idea of how much work you’ve committed yourself to at any one time.

7. Prioritize 

You have to prioritize the work you do. For the most part, work due immediately (or within the next few days) should be completed first. Then comes the work due within the next week or two, and then everything else.

Don’t forget to include family priorities, too. Your child’s first soccer game is important, so make sure that gets on the list of top priorities. Doctor’s appointments, school plays, parent-teacher meetings, date nights, and parties also need to be taken into account when you’re planning your work schedule. Decide what things you absolutely must attend whether your work is finished or not (there shouldn’t be very many things on this list), what things you want to attend if you get to a certain point in your work (and note what you need to have done in order to attend), and things that you may or may not attend if all of your work is finished.

Set up a system of marking the priority of different items on your schedule. This might be using different-colored pens to write in different items, or it might be putting a star next to the most important things, or even keeping separate lists for each priority. Again, just make sure whatever you choose to do makes sense in your lifestyle.

8. Delegate or Outsource 

There’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little outside help once in awhile. This might mean delegating responsibility for a project to someone else in your office, or even to an assistant. It might mean outsourcing a certain aspect of a project (research, coding, etc.) to someone else so you can focus on the more important parts.

You don’t necessarily need to outsource or delegate parts of your work to be more effective. Why not consider hiring a housekeeper to come in and clean your house once a week? Or getting someone else to wash and detail your car instead of spending Saturday afternoon doing it yourself? These kinds of outsourced services can free up your time for the important things you want to do (like hanging out with your significant other or your kids, or playing an extra round of golf).

9. Optimize Your Processes 

There are almost certainly things you do on a daily or weekly basis in the course of your work that you could streamline. It might be your billing. Or maybe your archiving. Or it could be something you do on almost every project you take on.

These are the things you should streamline and optimize. Look at the way you’re currently doing things and see if there are steps you could combine or cut all together. If you’re a web designer, this might mean creating your own custom set of template files for developing sites. Or using an automated invoicing program for billing. Or any number of other things that can be made more efficient if you’re only willing to take the time to identify them.

10. Learn to Say “No” 

One of the biggest time-management pitfalls you can experience is taking on too much work. You have to learn to say “no” to some people. If you take on more work than you can handle, not only will you have problems meeting deadlines, but the quality of your work and your relationships (both personal and work-related) will suffer.

Before taking on any new work, look at your schedule. Do you really have time for another project? If not, simply explain to the client that you have too many projects going to devote the time necessary for their project. Most will thank you for it. And if you really can’t bring yourself to turn down work, give them a realistic timeline for when you can complete their project. Don’t say you can have it done the following week if you already have commitments taking up your time between now and then.

The same principle goes for personal obligations, too. Nothing says you have to serve on your homeowners’ association board. You don’t have to join the PTA or your local indoor soccer league. And just because you’ve done something every year for the past ten years doesn’t mean you have to do it every year for the next ten. Learn to say no to your friends, family, neighbors, and others in your life so you have time to say “yes” to the things that are really important to you.

11. Learn When You Work Best 

One of the advantages to being a freelancer is that you can set your own hours. Pay attention to when you’re mot productive. For me, that’s from about nine in the morning until around two or three, and then again from about six or seven in the evening until eleven or twelve. I don’t force myself to work in those hours when I know I’m not productive (from 2-7 most days). But I make sure that I’m in work mode in the morning and then again late in the evening so I can get more done when I am productive.

12. Set Regular Working Hours #

This is related to when you work best. You should have regular working hours that you try to stick to every day. If you work best from 4:00AM until noon, then work every day during that time. That also means that you should stop work at noon and go do something else. The same goes fro weekends. Take at least two days a week off if at all possible. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Saturday and Sunday; you might choose to take Wednesday and Thursday off or Monday and Tuesday. Whatever works for you. Just make sure you have some down time when you’re not working. Otherwise you’re likely to end up burning out.

13. Don’t Waste Time 

Look at the things that waste time during your day. Are you constantly checking Facebook or Twitter? Getting up to get a glass of water? Taking your dog for his sixth walk this afternoon? Whatever these things are, try to figure out ways to minimize their ability to interrupt you. Take the dog for a nice, long walk right after lunch. Only check Facebook or Twitter once an hour (or every two hours); keep them closed other than at their allotted times. Get a refillable water bottle so you only have to get up a couple times a day. Identify what you waste time doing and eliminate it.

14. Avoid Multitasking 

Multitasking works in some circumstances. But when it comes to getting any substantial work done, multitasking usually does more harm than good. Work on one project at a time. This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to work on one project until it’s completely finished, but it does mean you shouldn’t skip back and forth between three projects every two minutes. Set yourself a minimum work time; it might be fifteen or twenty minutes or even an hour, and then work on just one project during that time.

The multitasking advice also applies to trying to work while you’re checking your email, playing solitaire, talking on the phone, and any other distractions that prevent you from dedicating your full attention to the task at hand.

15. Take Frequent Breaks 

Burnout is a huge bar to productivity. When you get burned out you end up unable to focus or complete work as quickly as you might otherwise (if you can work at all). Taking regular breaks from your work helps prevent burnout. This might mean going for a walk in the middle of the day, taking a break to watch the news after lunch, doing your shopping in the midafternoon instead of in the evening, or even taking a week off a couple times each year for vacation.

These little breaks refresh us and keep us eager to work. Without them we grow tired and our concentration lags. I generally take a couple hours each afternoon and get out of my house. This might mean going to visit relatives, doing some shopping, going for a drive or a walk, a short hike, or swimming in the summer. I also take a few five or ten minute breaks throughout the day to recharge and rest my eyes (staring at a computer screen all day is very hazardous to your vision). And I take long weekends (3 or even 4 days off) on a regular basis to recharge.

16. Maintain 

Maintenance is incredibly important to any time management system. But it’s not just your system you need to maintain. It’s all the parts of your life that you need to keep running smoothly in order to get your work done.

This means basic maintenance on your computer (backing up files, emptying your trash, cleaning out your inbox), basic maintenance on your office or workspace (dusting, emptying the trash, vacuuming, etc.) and basic household maintenance (washing dishes, doing laundry, home repairs, etc.).

Don’t overlook maintenance on yourself, either. Getting some exercise every day and eating right can go a long way toward making you more productive.

You might be asking yourself what this has to do with finding time to do things in your life. Well, here’s the thing: If you don’t maintain all the things in your life that need it, eventually something is going to fail. This might be something as simple as having to take time out on a work day to do laundry because you’re completely out of clean clothes, or it might be something more major like a preventable illness or injury. When unexpected disasters crop up, they wreak havoc on our productivity. You end up spending more time playing catch-up than you would have if you had just maintained things in the first place. And if you include regular maintenance in your schedule, they really don’t take up much time at all.

Further Resources: 

• 10 Tips for Time Management in a Multitasking World A great article from Brazen Careerist on time management.
• 11 Time Management Tips An excellent time management article from About.com.
• 43Folders A blog devoted to the Getting Things Done system and other personal productivity and time management topics.
• How I Work in Chunks An article covering one method of time management.
• GTD Toolbox: 100+ Resources for Getting Things Done One of my own articles, a roundup of time management and productivity tools.