Tao it up
This came in my daily tao widget today (July 1, 2006) and really moved me, so I thought I’d share

Chapter 33

Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.

If you realize that you have enough,
you are truly rich.
If you stay in the center
and embrace death with your whole heart,
you will endure forever.
from dailytao.org

5 Ways to Stay on Task While Working at Home   

When working from home one of the biggest obstacles to getting things done is the fact that your at home. I know this seems a bit counterintuitive but it’s true; we are creatures of habit and after spending most of your life at home as an escape from the daily grind, it becomes pretty hard to spend time at home as a part of the daily grind. In my quest to be productive at home I have come up with a few quick ways to promote a  healthy working environment in the one place that you’ve designed not to be.

1. Don’t work where you sleep:
   I’m a college student so my desk is in my room and that’s usually where I try to get my work done. But guess what? I rarely do. Since I’ve started freelancing I’ve found that I can actually get a lot more work done if i move to the kitchen table. It might not be a first choice for your home office, but at least there’s not much else that’s interesting there.
2. Don’t work in your PJs:
   The first thing people usually ask me when I tell them I work from home is if I spend all day in my PJs, because that’s the dream isn’t it? Well as much as I do, I’ve found that if I actually shower and get dressed like I’m going to work, I might actually trick myself into going into ‘work mode’
3. Get a timer:
   Let it run while you work and only while you work, if you get up to make lunch or to take some personal time, stop the timer. It’s crazy to spend a whole day ‘working’ and then find out that you actually only managed to clock about 5 hours. Where did the time go? Who knows, but at least you can keep track of the time you use effectively and use that knowledge to motivate you to keep working.
4. Keep a schedule:
   Just because it’s super sunny outside doesn’t make it okay to skip work, and it definitely doesn’t mean that your going to make up that time at night. If you work at night, work at night. But if you work during the day, don’t give yourself a beach day and then expect that you’ll actually buckle down from 4pm to Midnight and make up for lost time.
5. Get accountable:
   My biggest weakness is my girlfriend, when she wants to hang out, I’m usually down regardless of the fact that I’ve got work to do. The only way that I can fix this problem is to ask her to help me stay on task when I need to work, meaning don’t call me up when she knows I should be working, and don’t accept any invitations from me when she knows I should be working.