Basanta Thapa's Blog

Here are some tips on how to stay focused as you move through the workday, while still enjoying all the unique benefits of working at home.

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1. Respect Your Own Time

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When you work at an office, family and friends seem to naturally respect your schedule. But when you’re working from home, you’ll inevitably get calls at 11:00 a.m. or be expected to handle the daily errands. I’m not saying you shouldn’t wait for the cable appointment or chat on the phone, but be mindful of how easy it is to have time ripped from your workday.

It’s important to set boundaries, if needed. People will respect your schedule, only if you respect it first.

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2. Impose Time Limits on Specific Tasks

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It’s easy to become distracted, particularly when dealing with a task that’s challenging or a bit dull. If you find yourself losing focus, tell yourself to dedicate just 15 more minutes to the task on hand. Knowing there’s an end in sight might inject new energy into the project. And if not, move on to something else and return to it when you’re in a better mindset.

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3. Set Strict Deadlines

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Ever wonder why you’re ultra productive when facing a tight deadline, while a simple task can take hours to complete? You might chalk this up to working well under pressure, but it could also be Parkinsons Law, which basically states that a task will expand to fill the time you can give it. Combat this phenomenon by imposing your own deadlines for specific tasks. These can be as complicated as finishing a proposal or as simple as responding to a client email.

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4. Log Off for “Power Productivity” Hours

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Digital distractions aren’t just limited to Facebook and YouTube. For most, the daily barrage of emails and IMs from friends and colleagues ends up being the day’s biggest time sink. If you’re stuck in your inbox, dedicate chunks of the day when you unplug from your phone and email to get work done. You can log back on afterward and power through the necessary responses.

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5. Delineate Your Workspace

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Ideally you can have an area dedicated as your office (and preferably with a door so you can shut out unwanted distractions). Creating boundaries not only helps you be more productive “at work,” but also helps you decompress during your personal time.

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6. Slowing Down? Change Your Environment

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If you find yourself stuck (and you’ve already tried the “just 15 more minutes” tactic), change your environment. Go work at the café for an hour, or brainstorm at the park. A change in scenery can spark new ideas and give you newfound focus.

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7. Conduct a Time Audit

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Ever finish up the day and wonder where your time went? If you’re self-employed, it’s important to understand exactly how you’re using your time. Every so often, conduct a detailed audit of your day and keep track of what you did and how long it took. These audits can reveal great insights into your daily workflow and can help you make adjustments where needed — whether it’s getting help for your bookkeeping, dropping an overly demanding client, or condensing multiple trips to the grocery store.

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8. Create Task Lists

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I tend to have multiple lists running at any given time. One list keeps track of longer term goals (for example, the projects I need to complete by the end of the week or month). Then each morning I also create a focused outline for the day’s tasks. Try to keep your daily list as realistic and uncluttered as possible. Nothing can sap your motivation like staring at an overly ambitious list full of items you can’t possibly complete.

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9. Make Your Breaks Count

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Whether you’re working at home or in the office, it’s not possible to stay focused for hours on end. Breaks are an integral part of the workday, but make sure your free time counts. Have you ever denied yourself a trip to the gym or lunch with a friend “because you’re too busy?”

Chances are that on that very same day, you spent well over an hour browsing eBay, watching TV, looking at Facebook, checking your online bank account, or organizing your medicine cabinet. Busy work doesn’t accomplish anything and won’t recharge your batteries. So take your dog for a hike, take an actual lunch, or do whatever you enjoy. You’ll not only end up being happier, but more productive as well.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/work-from-home-productivity/

You may be wondering how to encode plain text password and save it on DB so that if somebody authorized person(like manager, admin) wants to see your password from his/her account or even directly on DB then that person shouldn’t get any username’s password then you can use following techniques to encrypt/encode password using MD5/SHA in Java. This is just a once way encoding technique. For comparing the user’s password again you need to encode the password submitted by user and compare it with the value stored in Database and can authenticate the user.

import java.security.*;

public class MD5
{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{

String password=  md5("useThisAsASalt" + args[0]);
System.out.println(password);
}

public static String md5(String str) throws Exception
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (byte b : md5(str.getBytes()))
sb.append(Integer.toHexString(0x100 + (b & 0xff)).substring(1));
return sb.toString();
}

public static byte[] md5(byte[] data) throws Exception
{
//MessageDigest md5 = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
//md5.update(data);
//return md5.digest();
MessageDigest sha = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA");
sha.update(data);
return sha.digest();

}
}

In the above code, i have also used the concept of salt (i saw it being implemented in spring-security). The concept of salt is to reduce password guessing as we will be having hard-coded string appended with the password, which reduces the chances of password guessing.

Hope this helps you in doing some encoding in Java for passwords.

Keep up the good works!!!!!.

Author: Sudan Gautam (Guest Post)

Last week I was meandering around my locality, to the places that I had never been. I was trying to expose myself to the positive randomness and take advantage of it. To my surprise, I found the first day very exciting as I came up with a thought that left me to think and research more on it. I am not sure how many of you might have realized that when we try to solve our problem we get stuck on it. We hardly come up with the solutions that make us feel proud. While on the other hand when someone else has got a problem and asks us for a help we quickly find out solutions and surprisingly those ideas are far better than what we could have imagined. Why is it so?

Is it because we don’t take much concern about ourselves as much as we do to others? OR Is it because we get more freedom to think and find solutions for others comparative to ourselves? OR Is it because we perform better when we try to impress someone else who matters to us? OR Is it just a psychological phenomenon that I was unaware of?
When we are better to solve someone else problem, shouldn’t we think about solving our problem in the same manner? After much thought on it, I came up with these strategies which might be helpful for you too.

1. Share your problem with your tribe rather than wasting your time thinking on it. You will realize that a problem shared is problem half solved. When someone else can come up with better solutions and within a short span of time why waste your time thinking over it? (Think but don’t overdo it).

2. What if your tribe can’t help and you are the only one who is bound to find out the solution within a given deadline? Don’t worry there is a way. Try doing that particular task as if you were doing for your loved ones or someone who matters you a lot. I have realized this many times that when I am doing her assignment my focus is too sharp and the solutions are far better than I could imagine. It won’t be as easy as said. In the beginning you will struggle to set up this mind frame and solve the problem but with practice you will start enjoying it.

Bonus Tips: Personally I think about the problem while taking my shower or while I am cooking or washing my dishes. I quickly jot down those random but helpful ideas on my sticky pad or notepad for the future purposes.

Now it’s your turn. What do you do to get your problem solved? Do you have a different but better approach? Please share so that we could give it a try. Remember: Sharing is caring…..