Productivity and creativity are elusive little beasts. Burn out can completely destroy both and it doesn’t seem to take much to burn me out these days.

My productivity/creativity levels have been low most of the year. One of the problems is that I needed to get my glasses replaced to help get rid of the eye fatigue and eye strain. I took care of that and things started looking up.

Yesterday, I finally took the time to recharge and reload my iPod Shuffle that I haven’t used for about a year and a half. Holy cow. The day flew by and I got a ton more done then I normally do. I was much less distracted by every movement and sound around me. My focus was really sharp.

I’ve always known that I have attention problems. I have trouble filtering out external stimuli. When I’m at a restaurant/bar/party it is often hard for me to have a conversation because all of the other conversations in the room rattle around in my head and make it hard to focus on the conversation I am trying to have.

So, if anybody ever hears me whining about problems I am having with productivity or creativity, please feel free to send me an email or comment saying, “Hey, go find your iPod.” I’d appreciate it.

My wife and I are both working from our house these days and we end up sharing the computer room. It is interesting because she apparently cannot work with background distractions and I apparently cannot work without background distractions. Thank God somebody figured out the whole headphone thing.

Do you have any tricks that you do to make sure you can get any work done?