In this article I aim to give you some tips on how to be able to work better, undisturbed by everything that is going on around you. Depending on what you work with it may some times be a big advance to be able to work without the interruption from Facebook, e-mail, texts, TV, radio or other things.

Working from home can be a big challenge which is why I decided to share some these tips. Especially if you need to use your creativity and concentrate, it can be hard to get back into the workflow if you are constantly interrupted.

Here are 11 ways to be able to work better in an environment without too much “noise” around you.

1. Make rules

Picture by Lavinia Marin

If you work from home and/or as a freelancer it takes a lot of discipline to be able to work as efficient as you should. The good thing is that you can set your own work hours, but it requires a lot of discipline to work out. My hottest tip on this subject is to make yourself an hour-to-hour timetable for every day. I use the first hour of every Monday to plan the rest of the week. That way it is a lot easier to get a full overview of what needs to be done. Looking into some sort of time management application can be very beneficial aswell.

2. Choose what can disturb you (and when)

It is important to look through your routines and decide what you can allow to “disturb” you. The more unneccessary applications you have open at one time, the bigger chance it is to lose quite a lot of time to that during the day. Don’t be on Twitter, Facebook or similar services unless you have to. If you must check them during the work hours, at least make sure to do it at set time. Same with e-mails and phone calls where you can do certain adjustments too.

Picture by Pascal Montsma

3. Turn off the tv and/or radio

Picture by Vince Petaccio

Unless you for some reason work better when you have the TV or radio on, you should just turn it off before you start working. It’s very easy to be distracted and during a week the this can steal a lot of valuable time away from you if you’re not careful. Some people work best with the radio on in the background, but be careful. Try radio stations that only play music, iTunes, Spotify or Antenna. Just remember that if you have anything turned on in the background, it should be something that doesn’t draw attention away from your work.

4. Answer mails and DMs to specific hours

Once you start getting a few mails directed from your website, ongoing projects and so on, you will see that it can quickly take your mind off what you were doing in the first place. If you decide to look through and answer these one or two times during the day, you will soon feel that your workflow gets a lot better real quick. Same goes for Facebook and Twitter messages, along with other kinds of social media. Decide when you can reply to these and do it that way.

5. Eat at set hours

Picture by Foxumon

Food is important to be able to work well. If you are too hungry or too full it’s harder to focus on what you are doing. The breakfast is the most important meal of the day – always take the time to eat properly in the morning. If you feel you don’t have time to eat properly before you start working, then get up 15 minutes earlier instead. Having a set time for lunch as well, is a good thing for both your body and brain. If you don’t have set hours for eating it can affect the workflow in many ways.

6. Work when you work (everything else should wait)

Keep private errands away from your work schedule. You would be surprised if you realized how quickly a little private mail, phone call or errand eats quickly of your work time. Decide that you will leave everything that is not work related until the afternoon when your day at work is over.

7. Make the best surroundings for yourself

Picture by Henk L

If you sit more or less all day in front of the computer, you have to take a look at your surroundings to make sure you get the work done the best way possible. Make sure your chair is good, that the room isn’t too hot or cold and don’t leave old coffee cups and mess all over your desktop. A little “mess” can be good for your creativity, but try to keep it at a decent level. Remember to get up off your chair for at least a few minutes every hour or so to get your blood flow going.

8. Software settings

If you write a lot, I would recommend a program like jdarkroom where the program can be used in full-screen to not let you be disturbed by other programs or system messages that may pop up. Set as many programs as possible to work in full-screen as it can really boost your workflow. If you have set your system to do timed defragging or backups/virus-scans, try to have these run either in the background (if they can) or set them to run when you are not working.

9. Upload and tag in bulks

If your work requires uploading files/art to various websites, I suggest that you do this in bigger amounts at a time. The same goes for tagging files you import from your camera or elsewhere. By doing things in bulks you get way more efficient. Instead of getting your workflow disturbed by uploading or tagging one thing at the time you will get more done in less time, and keep those tasks from interrupting other parts of your work.

10. Say STOP

Picture by Leslie Watts

When working from a home office it’s important to have the ones you live with understanding that when you’re in there, you’re at work. If you have someone else in the house while you’re working, you may need to have a conversation to them about this. Explain that you need to be undisturbed when you’re in there to be able to get things done. Even if they don’t understand it, at least make them respect it. Set up some rules for when you can be disturbed and not. Keep the door closed if possible.

11. Be consistent

When you’ve made your rules and changed all software and such to fit your plans, the hardest part comes. Now it’s time to actually follow through. Try to stick to your plans no matter what. Obviously there can be very rare situations that can be “excuses” to not follow your daily schedule, but these should be very rare.

Picture by Zsuzsanna Kilian

Those were my tips on how to be able to work undisturbed. Most of these things are very logical but easy to forget in the heat of the moment. I hope you found this useful to you in your situation and invite you to share your own tips and feedback in the comments.

We recently did a showcase of 9 common usability pitfalls, and how to avoid them, and in the comments there were a lot of questions about the websites we think stand out, and do a great job of both usability and design.

Today you can see a list of nine great examples of very usable, well designed websites from a wide range of industries/areas to give you an idea of what makes great, usable design. The more we like a site, the more we use it, and the better result we get for all concerned. Read on to see nine usable sites, and what makes them great.

1) Gmail.com

What is does: Gmail is a web based email service from Google, and it aims to be your primary inbox with a big feature set to boot.

Why it’s good: Many of us use it on a daily basis, but how often do you stop and think about how it works, and if it functions well? Not often?

This goes to show how good a job the Google folks are doing with Gmail. Email is a crucial service, and many of use couldn’t live without it. Gmail is constantly improving and adding new features, while keep a consistent UI that is really easy to understand.

The additions they include always make it easier to use, such as drag and drop attachments, or viewing most Microsoft Office documents inside of Gmail, and they don’t interfere with the user experience at all, and in fact make the whole service much more usable. What it does, it does extremely well, and makes the experience more enjoyable.

Think of all the people you know who aren’t the most computer literate, and then think of sites they use without needing to ask you for help. Gmail is right up there in my experience, and that’s why I think it’s a great, usable site.

2) RetailMeNot.com

What it does: RetailMeNot is a really cool website for sharing coupon codes for a whole range of different sites (from the same people as BugMeNot fame) so you can get discounts online no matter where you are buying from.

Why it’s good: As well as having a huge collection of coupon codes, they have also introduced lots of little useful features to make the site that much more usable, and provide a more enjoyable, easier experience.

People can rate the different codes to show which ones are or aren’t working, so you know which ones to try. People can submit their own codes, so it’s always got new codes on the site. If you want to copy the code, you can click to copy, or if you want to be taken directly to the site, it will try to store the code in a cookie (although this doesn’t work for all sites). It just makes the whole process so easy, and saves you money too – all while looking pretty good. What more can you ask for?

3) Audible.com

What it does: Audible is quite possibly the biggest repository of audiobooks in existence, and are the exclusive provider of audiobooks to Apple/iTunes. If they don’t have it the chances are it doesn’t exist.

Why it’s good: As well as having a fantastic collection of books, they have also worked very hard over the years to add new, useful features to the site, and create a better user experience for their users.

There are many examples of this: the bookmarking system of audible means that you can listen on your iPhone, shift over to your computer and pick up where you left off. They have over the air downloads, a good range of quality choices for users and support for more than 500 different devices. The search system on their site works really well, and the whole procedure from first searching for a book, until you’ve finished reading is really a seemless process, and something for other content providers to aspire to.

4) KiwiBank.co.nz

What it does: kiwibank is a New Zealand owned and run bank which offers all kinds of typical bank services – online banking, text and mobile banking, branch services, travel cards and the like. It’s pretty much a typical bank.

Why it’s good: There are a whole range of different banks out there, and the all offer very similar services, with similar rates. What sets kiwibank apart is the ease of use of the whole site (check out the online banking demo).

Content is very easy to find, navigation is well thought out, and although there is a huge amount of information available on the site, it’s so well organised that you never feel like the information is overwhelming you. This is a great example for how to manage content and navigation.

Add in all the methods they give you for banking (text banking, iPhone app, travel cards and more) and you have a winning site that other banks could learn from.

5) WebDevRefinery.com

What it does: Webdev Refinery is a forum for web developers, designers and other interested parties to get together, share ideas, get feedback, learn and improve and converse on design and development.

Why it’s good: Of course the community is a key part of any forum, and webdevrefinery seems to be doing well in that respect, but they’ve also gone the extra mile from a typical forum to make the whole system that much more functional, usable and enjoyable.

They make it really easy to monitor different posts, give different subscription levels for each topic, have a very simple direct messaging system, a really simple, easy to use input editor for creating and replying to topics/posts, and a nice head-up display for managing the whole affair. In a time where it looks like most forums were designed in the late ’90s, they have made a nice looking, easy to use forum with a nice community around it too.

6) YouTube.com

What it does: YouTube is the biggest video sharing site in the world, and is the number 3 ranked site overall (according to alexa at least). YouTube is to video as Google is to search.

Why it’s good: I would be the first to say, YouTube doesn’t have the most attractive design out there (I think Vimeo would have to take the cake on that front), but it is so functional, and the design works so well for what it does that it isn’t an issue.

More or less everyone I know can and does use YouTube on a regular basis. My own mother, without any help or advice, has hunted down a huge range of kids TV shows for my nephew to watch, played them full screen, high quality, and bookmarked them for future viewing. This goes to show just how usable and functional it is.

Add in a highly functional search system (hey, it’s Google after all), easy ratings and sharing systems, and ability to embed where ever you want to, and you have a winner.

7) TradeMe.co.nz

What it does: Trademe is the eBay of New Zealand, and one of the most popular sites in the country. It has a huge range of products up for auction, and has a very strong community around it as well, and hence is very successful

Why it’s good: Trademe has a very clear structure, and the way auctions are laid out is clear, consistent and easy to understand. The navigation structure is very easy to follow, and everything is neatly categorized making it that much easier to find. It’s easy to keep track of auctions that you are interested with a well organised watch list, and the design of each page stays consistent throughout the site.

Prices are all clearly laid out, so when you are buying something you’ll know exactly what you are paying, and you won’t have to swap across pages to see all of the most pertinent information about an auction such as delivery costs, sellers location, feedback rating, payment methods and more. It’s what eBay should be.

8) Dropbox.com

What it does: Dropbox is a backup system that allows you to sync your files online, and across many different computers automatically. You can also share files through public links, access files online, on your computer(s) and apps on several different platforms (iOS, Android etc.) – there are really a number of great features.

Why it’s good: Dropbox is a fantastic site for a number of different reasons, but the reason it really stands out is that it just works. Whether you are transferring files in the same room or from country to country, whether you are using mobile devices, Macs, PCs, whatever your usage scenario, it just works.

The fact in, it slips into your workflow so smoothly, you don’t even notice it’s there, and there are so many wonderful features that you don’t really think about until you need them, but they are always there. It’s like they read my mind, and put in all the great features before I needed them, and made it fantastically easy to use too.

Oh, and did I mention it looks great too?

9) GetHarvest.com

What it does: Harvest is a simple time tracking app with a bunch more features thrown in, such as invoicing, expense tracking, budget tracking and more. Pretty useful for freelancers and design companies.

Why it’s good: This is another of those ‘it just works’ kind of sites. It’s really powerful for when you need that power, but it’s really simple for when you just want to get things done. There are more features hidden inside it than you could shake a stick at, and a pretty interface for when you are working with it.

The key thing is that it takes up very little of your precious time, while keeping you on top of your time management, billing, budgeting, expenses and more – which makes life much easier for both you and your clients. Throw in widgets and mobile apps, and you have a winner.

Summary

This list isn’t a definitive list of the most usable or well designed sites out there, but just gives you a small number from a wide range of industries/areas to help inspire you, and to make you realise there really are a number of different ways to approach a project, and a number of different ways to make your site and design more usable.

If you give careful consideration to things such as navigation and menus, feature set, content layout, and come up with a consistent strategy and design for your websites, you will end up with a better site, no doubt about it. Usability testing (tryIntuitionHQ.com) can help prove that the site and design are usable.

The more you think about it, the better it will be. The better it is, the more people will use and enjoy it, and I guess that’s the end game for all of us.