Productivity helps you to be … well productive. We all need to be more productive in both our personal live and our professional lives. This is particularly true if your profession revolves around creativity or anything artistic. For example, if you are a writer, then you are among those who have artistic and creative professions. Using productivity methods and tips is highly important, as artistic types tend to wander from the subject and lose time that could be used for working.

Increasing your productivity, whether it is for work or personal reasons, takes a little planning and a lot of motivation. Once you’ve found the productivity technique(s) that works for you, it should become a permanent change in your work habits. The change will help you in your long term goals, as well as your short term goals.

Time management has become one of the most popularly discussed aspects of daily life on talk shows, online forums, and even in the media. The simple truth about time management is this - we all want to learn how to effectively manage our time, and we all have it in us to do so. That being said, let’s look at a couple of ways to manage time, from work to home, that are easily implemented and can help you considerably when it comes to your daily life.

Stickies 6.5a

Stickies is a free program that lets you create desktop notes. It sits in your system tray, and clearly displays the number of stored notes. Notes can be made to sit on top of all other windows, and you can create up to 10 different styles, which is great for separating 'work' and 'personal' for example. Notes can be hidden from view for any number of minutes, hours, week or months.

Time management is important in all our work lives, but it is particularly so if you work from home. With the onslaught of companies that are now allowing their employees to work from home, not to mention those who have home based businesses, it is not surprising that some home workers get lost in their schedules and seem to accomplish little. Working from home has many benefits; particularly for mothers as you are able to be with your children and take care of the home as society deems is your responsibility.

Quick intro: This is one in a series of Top Productivity Hacks - little tips and tricks that are designed to make you more productive. At the end of the series I’ll post them all together in an overview.

Productivity Hack #1: Do something you’re passionate about.

Finding the right planning tool depends primarily on your personal style and preferences. Certain planning tools that work well for some may very well not work for others. When choosing a planning tool it is important to know that the first method you try may not work for you. If this happens then simply move on to the next and the next, until you find the one that works best for you personally. You may actually find a planning tool that works but needs a little adjustment in order for it to be exactly what you need.

One of the revelations of GTD is the very simple (and in retrospect, very obvious) mandate to write everything down. Capture all your thoughts on paper (or digitally) — don’t let them float around in your head, where they will surface at inappropriate times, stress you out and be forgotten when they are needed. Have an idea? Write it down, right now, before you forget. Thought of an errand you need to do? Capture that as well. Just remembered something for your grocery list? You know what to do.

Zotero is a Firefox 2.X add on that is currently free. Zotero is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux. If you spend countless hours on the internet each day then Zotero is a very valuable resource. You can collect and categorize data, as well as tag, archive and link to it. It allows you to manage and cite your research sources easily and quickly because it works within the browser itself. Zotero is great for storage of all your PDF files as well as images and complete web pages.

We all procrastinate — let’s admit it. And if you’re like me, you’re always trying to find ways to stop the procrastinating. Here’s the trick that works best for me: