KPF Announces Design for Block H of Seoul’s Yongsan International Business District

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) recently presented the firm’s design for Block H of Seoul’s new Yongsan International Business District (YIBD) in Seoul. At 1264 feet (385 meters), the tower sets the standard for new design and construction innovations in the YIBD, a new business district emerging off the north shore of Seoul’s Han River. Reflective of Seoul’s transformation from an industrial powerhouse to one that drives technological progress and is more friendly to sustainable business and living, Block H will incorporate more natural building angles and a plan that will capitalize on Korea’s abundant sunshine.

The Plan for the 1.8 million square feet (167,225 square meters) Block H includes a hotel and residential tower with a massive basement will have room for retail and a spa. But instead of the traditional tower structure, KPF designed Block H to mimic the organic growth of a crystal. Three asymmetric wings branch out from the building’s base and reach out towards both light and views of the river.
The result is that the tower’s hotel rooms and apartments will boast ample natural light with views of the Han River, nearby Yongsan Park and the view of Seoul’s iconic Namsan Mountain. All spaces will wow visitors with incredible corner views while offering residents and guests maximum privacy. Meanwhile rooftop gardens and trees will offer much needed greenery and shade in this city of 10 million, and sections of the tower will mirror Korea’s mountainous countryside with natural woods and slabs of stone. Along with much of the YIBD, Block H is scheduled for completion in 2016. KPF’s vision is another reason why Seoul is a global hub for daring, cutting-edge architecture. Watch for YIBD to rival other business districts in Seoul, including KOEX, Kangnam and the old downtown area around City Hall and Seoul Station.

http://www.kpf.com

Sweden’s Treehotel Now Selling Stunning Mirrorcube Treehouses!

We're huge fans of Sweden's stunning Treehotel, so we were excited to hear that now you no longer need to travel to the Arctic Circle to experience it - you can mail-order the Swedish hotel's most stunning room -- the Mirrorcube -- and have it built on your own piece of land! The sparkling cubic treehouse designed by Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård will reflect all its surroundings - where you set it high up in a tree or in a corner of your backyard.

The Mirrorcube can be delivered as a kit to just about any location in the world in about four months. If you’re lacking in DIY carpentry skills then you’re in luck – the Treehotel offers options for construction and installment.
An original idea for an enchanting treehouse, the Treehotel‘s Mirrorcube is a magical retreat set high up in nature. Made mostly of wood and recyclable aluminum, it comes with under-floor electric heating, lights, furniture and a water-efficient toilet space. And don’t worry about distracted birds flying into your mirror-walled-space – each unit is wrapped in an infrared film that is invisible to humans

Edmonton Airport Unveils Massive Air-Cleaning Living Green Wall!

 Edmonton International Airport in Canada has a beautiful new addition that will not only turn heads, but also make the indoors a healthier place to be. The living green wall by Vancouver-based Green Over Grey features 8,000 plants representing 32 different species. The triptych living installation was inspired by cloud formations and two famous abstract paintings by Canadian artists Emily Carr and Donald Flathe. Built with recycled materials, the huge living installation works to draw pollutants and CO2 from the air and returns fresh oxygen and moisture, making the airport terminal a much sweeter place.

Visitors to Edmonton International Airport were greeted this week with a breath of fresh air and what is likely the largest living wall installation in an airport. Green Over Grey’s latest project is a 1,420-square-foot vertical garden located on the main terminal. The project was made possible by the Stantec Architects, who provided space for a living wall in their design of the new airport. The triptych features a large center panel and two smaller panels on the 2nd level. The larger panel was inspired by high altitude cirrus cloud formations and the two smaller panels are based on famous Canadian paintings, Tree Forms by Emily Carr and Unnamed Abstract by Donald Flather.
No soil is used in the project, as the walls are completely hydroponic, and they are monitored closely to ensure that every part receives the right amount of water. The rigid waterproof eco-panels are made from post consumer food grade plastic (such as milk jugs, plastic bags, soda pop bottles, etc) and the moss mimicking rooting material is made from recycled fibres from the textile industry. Featuring 8000 individual plants from 32 different species, the installation is hard at work to remove indoor air pollutants and pump out fresh air. Most of the species are plants that NASA has proven substantially improve indoor air quality are included. Another benefit of the project is that it increases the humidity, which is a great bonus as the air in Edmonton is quite dry. Great job!!!

Tokyo’s New Sky Tree is the World’s Tallest Tower

The sky-scraping 2,080 foot Tokyo Sky Tree recently opened in Japan on the site of a former freight shunting yard on the Sumida River. The lofty needle tops the communications building, which is now the world’s tallest tower. The tower was completed just a few months after its deadline, due to a shortage of resources caused by last year’s Fukushima Nuclear disaster.

Located on the east side of Tokyo in the Asakusa traditional district, the Tokyo Sky Tree rises in gleaming silver, dwarfing the city blocks around it. The communication tower is the lone skyscraper in the neighborhood, so it soars above the surrounding structures – it even trumps Toronto’s CN Tower by 265 feet.
Tokyo tourism hopes that the Sky Tree tower attracts tourists like the CN Tower does, as tourism has dwindled since the Fukushima disaster. It’s a likely prospect, since the height of the tower is only eclipsed by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

The tower itself cost $806 million, not including the communications structures inside, and it took 580,000 workers to construct. The tower is linked in with a Tobu Railway hub, enabling visitors to reach the tower from any point of the city. Visitors can enjoy sprawling views of Tokyo at observation decks at 1,148 feet and 1, 476 feet. Inside, the tower will also offer an array of restaurants, office space and other shops.

Tipniques: Firing Up Revit Architecture 2013

It’s that time again for yearly Revit glee and groans. As overwhelming as working on office Revit projects and simultaneously keeping up with software updates can be, here are some impressions of what goodies are offered and what you are faced with in moving to version 2013.

You can’t go “Home” again in Revit Architecture 2013.  I used to tell students “if you don’t know where a command is, go “Home” “to the Revit Home tab.  A quick inspection shows that the tab that was named “Home” has been renamed “Architecture” and, I suspect, in Revit versions for other design disciplines, named for the appropriate profession (i.e. Structural). Oops, looking past the renamed tab to the drawing area, my model window and curtain wall glass telegraphed through the model, as all too-solid “ghosts” regardless of the visual style selected from the view bar.  Fortunately, this obtrusive specter had an easy solution found in updating my Nvidia graphics card driver.
Life in Revit is good again; let us see some of what we have in our 2013 grab bag:

Browser Search

You can now select any item in the browser, right click and select “Search” and it will bring up this dialog box that lets you search for views, families etc. in the ever growing browser list. Welcome indeed! 
Dimension Enhancements
Three new dimension styles:

Diameter Tool: On the Annotate Tab lets you dimension diameters and control diameter appearance in the Properties dialog
 

Split Dimension Chains: Allows you to remove a segment(s) from a continuous string by selecting segment and deleting it

Dimension Properties in Equality Strings: You can now create equality formulas using Properties and Edit Type command for Equality Display Formula
Revit Exchange
If you are tired of web hopping to find Revit apps, Autodesk has started a new apps site where you can find some of them (think Seek).  Log on to http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/RVT/Home/Index  and look at the nascent collection of 13 free and free trial apps currently available. If you have previously felt that Revit’s “elevators didn’t quite go all the way to the top” you might enjoy trying Elevatorarchitect, a free app that does a fairly impressive job of helping select and model Otis, Kone, Mitsubishi, and Thyssen Krupp brand elevators. The only glitch I found was that even though it creates both cab and opening doors, the app does not cut an opening in the shaft wall to allow the doors to display (just use Revit’s Opening>Wall command to create the opening to solve the problem).

View Type Creation

One of my favorites in this year’s new bag of goodies, it allows you to create new floor plan, elevation, section etc. views by simply using the Edit Type, Duplicate commands with an existing view as the basis.  In this example, I created a new Elevation View named “Building Elevation Illustrative”.  The new view’s properties include the ability to use Identity Data>View Template Applied to select a template to set its appearances.
Stair by Component

This new addition reduces pilgrimages to your office stair zen-master. In addition to creating stairs as an assembly and by sketch, you can now create them by components (run, landing, support, and railing).  Using Modify|Create Stair,L shaped, U shaped, winder, switchback, and circular stairs are created with increased simplicity.  Some of the previously inherent boxy rail appearance can now be reduced using the new Edit Rail Joins option.

Editing and Managing Materials

Once again, the Materials user interface has changed.  My initial reaction is that it seems more clearly organized and takes up less screen real estate.  Gone are the 2012’s tabs now replaced by radio buttons that bring up the related properties in the already open properties panel below. Materials is a very happening place across Autodesk platforms and a subject too large to be covered here.  Material properties are now found under the heading “Assets”.  These assets now include Thermal properties along with the already existent Structural (now a subset  “Strength” of a new heading “Physical” properties), Graphics, and Appearance properties.

Assets and Materials can now be saved together as part of your custom library.  These user- and project-based libraries can not only be used on other projects, but shared between Autodesk platforms such as AutoCAD and Inventor.  Autodesk says that manufacturers are now coming on board to add products to Revit’s platform-shared Materials. If you are thinking of the possibilities for the analytic data to be exported from Revit to GBXML, you are right on.  From now, most of the (sometimes boring to architects) data on the strength of materials, R-values, etc. reside right in one Materials library.  

Some analytics occur right in Revit itself.  For example, as you build a Wall Type, Revit calculates an approximate R-value if you assign appropriate thermal assets to each layer.


Visualization Enhancements

At long last, Revit lets you import sky or other background images into all visual styles!  That means your elevations, sections, 3D, and Iso views can show images of the project surroundings, sky etc., without having to export the model to a rendering program. Simply use the Graphic Display Options menu on the View Control Bar to select an image of your import and choice.  If that is not enough, your entourage no longer looks like 2D cardboard placards. In Realistic style those RPC peeps and cars pop into life.

There is far more to “play with” in the new Revit Architecture 2013 and a good place to start is with Autodesk’s videos  http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2013/Help/00004-Video_Galleries/2013_New_Feature_Videos .  We now have the opportunity to apply these new tools and find out how they work when applied in your studio.  I look forward to your comments as we take this shiny new model out on the track for some good solid road testing.

Gerry G. Ramsey is a principal architect and LEED AP BD + C in San Francisco California with over 38 years of experience in public and private sector projects.  He led his firm in its adoption of  Revit Architecture eight years ago.  As an Autodesk Certified Revit Architecture Professional, he currently teaches Revit Architecture I and II at San Francisco State University, and Revit Architecture I at Laney College in Oakland, California and serves as a Revit consultant in the design community.
ggramsey@austin-ramsey.com
http://www.augi.com/library/tipniques-firing-up-revit-architecture-2013

Moses Bridge

The West Brabant Water Line is a defense-line consisting of a series of fortresses and cities with inundation areas in the south-west of the Netherlands. It dates from the 17th century but fell into disrepair in the 19th century. When the water line was finally restored, an access bridge across the the moat of one of the fortresses, Fort de Roovere, was needed. This fort now has a new, recreational function and lies on several routes for cycling and hiking.

It is, of course, highly improper to build bridges across the moats of defense works, especially on the side of the fortress the enemy was expected to appear on. That’s why we designed an invisible bridge. Its construction is entirely made of wood, waterproofed with EPDM foil. The bridge lies like a trench in the fortress and the moat, shaped to blend in with the outlines of the landscape.

The bridge can’t be seen from a distance because the ground and the water come all the way up to its edge. When you get closer, the fortress opens up to you through a narrow trench. You can then walk up to its gates like Moses on the water.

Architects: RO&AD Architecten
Location: Halsteren, The Netherlands
Client: Municipality of Bergen op Zoom
Material used: Accoya wood
Project Area: 50 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of RO&AD Architecten

Why did Vitruvius advocate a broad knowledge base for architects?

I am going to start with Vitruvius’ quote, “Let him be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with the astronomy and the theory of the heavens.” This quote provides the foundations for why one must advocate a broad knowledge base (footnote here). Being an architect himself, Vitruvius proclaimed that the status of an architect is a service to society, it is a noble profession that is more than that of a layperson, considerably a person of social stature(footnote). Growing up in the Roman Empire, the role of the architect was rather different than that of what we understand today, the architect was noticeably prestigious.

Now, if it is imperative that the architect must have such a large knowledge base, then perhaps we look at where our knowledge comes from. I am an advocate that knowledge is a developed from one’s ability to open all senses and interpret the data each sense particularly decodes. We see the same paralleling ideology of knowledge with Guarino Guarini. According to Gaurini, a preceding architect to Vitruvius, who in turn adopts Vitruvius’ ideologies, “The Architect must be broadly educated in the arts and sciences, particularly mathematics and geometry; for ‘Architecture, as a faculty that in all its operations uses measurements, is dependent upon Geometry; but in spite of its rationality, it must appeal to the senses.” (footnote here)

According to this principle, the unlocking of the senses very much so correlates to the acquisition of knowledge and that knowledge is crucial in attaining such a noble stature of an architect. It is this principle that helps one achieve that of a ‘master builder.’ At this time I would like to quote part of an introduction to a song performed lived by the artist Matisyahu.

“This song is also coming from the Psalms of King David. You know, at that time we could have a real understanding of a king, you know, for us, we don’t know so much as a kingdom or a king, you know, we live in a world of fragmentation, where the majority of the people don’t appreciate or care about so much the person who is running things. You know, at that time the king was the people. The king was the people, meaning the people were a part of the king. The king loved the people with his whole heart, he would do anything for them; he was not just a politician, he was a warrior, a general on the front lines, he would die for his people, he was a singer, a writer, a poet, all these different things you know, a real person….”

I am not drawing the conclusion that an architect comparable to that of a king described as such by Matisyahu. Although, I am drawing a strong similarity between the two figures, in which I would like to reiterate the opening quote. These are people that have an elevated stature, and even though architecture is a discipline, the role of the architect is for someone very special, for someone who unlocks all sensory information, and seeks the depths of knowledge, and “therefore, the possession of such talents due to natural capacity is not vouchsafed at random to entire nations, but only to a few great men…”

Ryan Goodman
Washington DC, USA
rjgjl19@gmail.com

point cloud tools

Bring your visualizations into context with Project Helix, a powerful technology prototype enabling display and rendering of 3D laser scanning/LiDAR data sets with Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design software. With the 3ds Max Point Cloud Tools you can more quickly import as-built site references to help evaluate and visualize your designs in the context of their surrounding elements. Point cloud data sets are often created by 3D scanners and represent a set of measured vertices in a three-dimensional coordinate system. Using an automatic process, these devices measure a large number of points on the surface of an object and output a point cloud as a data file.
The Point Cloud Tool for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design allows you to:

■Import .PTS format point cloud data into 3ds Max or 3ds Max Design scenes (release 2010, 2011, and 2012)

■Display the point cloud data in the 3ds Max viewport with a variety of rendering options and levels of detail

■Render point clouds using the mental ray® renderer*

■Slice point clouds into pieces using geometric display volumes

■Export multiple clouds or parts of clouds to new .PTS files

* mental ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc.

The Facility Technologist: Building Information Modeling

This approach to project documentation has the potential to synthesize the entire life cycle of a facility.

By Tom Condon, RPA, FMA
Published in the November 2006 issue of Today's Facility Manager

A new technology is emerging for the purpose of managing information about the life cycle of a building; it is called Building Information Modeling, or BIM. As it develops, BIM should be of interest to facility managers; they should understand what it means to them, know how to prepare for it, and investigate how it will benefit them.

First of all, it is important to define what BIM is. In its simplest concept, BIM is a methodology for organizing, storing, and maintaining information about the physical nature of a building. It originated 30 years ago with Chuck Eastman, Ph.D., who created the concept at the Georgia Tech College of Architecture and Computing.

Eastman describes BIM as “the provision of rich, integrated information—from conception through design to construction and demolition of a building over its life cycle. It relies on object based, information rich 3-D modeling as the design of record and for as-constructed, as-built, and as-operated information. The benefits enabled by BIM will greatly change the ways buildings are designed, fabricated, and operated.”
Buildings are complex entities, and there is a myriad of information relating to their design, construction, and management. Currently, this information is contained in a number of formats which include paper drawings, digital CAD files, owner’s manuals, design specifications, and maintenance records. This information is often difficult to manage due to different formats and lack of standardization; it cannot be easily combined into a single repository of information that is useful for managing a facility. This is complicated by the fact that buildings have life cycles with distinctive phases, and different stakeholders are involved in those different phases.

Now imagine the BIM vision: a digital repository of all building information that is easy to use and helps to manage the facility. All the documentation from the design and construction phases, operations data, and information about every component in the facility are available in a single digital interface. Imagine opening a 3-D model of the facility—one that users can rotate, zoom into, and even “walk through” on their computer screens.

A facility manager can click on a component in the computer model and see information about that item—including manufacturer, model, serial number, specifications, and even maintenance history. The model could also allow more complex analysis, such as simulations of smoke propagation during a fire or how the facility would fare in severe weather.

The use of BIM would enable a whole new paradigm of facility management. Need to replace a component? Get the information from your BIM, and order a replacement. Need to estimate costs for replacing carpet or repainting? Use your BIM to calculate the square footage quickly. Want bids for work on your facility? Send your BIM information to vendors, and they will all bid on the same work without having to create design drawings.

The primary benefit of BIM is the reduction of time spent dealing with incomplete or inaccurate documentation regarding phases of the facility life cycle. Because there are no standards for managing building information, this type of data is frequently lost in transitions between phases of a facility’s life cycle. For example, during the design and construction phases, a tremendous amount of information is generated, which is very often not passed on to the facility manager. Floor plans and other design drawings are passed on fairly often, but even these most basic documents are sometimes lost after the construction phase.

I have spoken to many facility managers who have had their own as-built drawings compiled, because they had no records from the construction phase. Furthermore, more arcane records like design load calculations are rarely available to the facility manager after the design phase is completed.

The cumulative effect across the country is tremendous. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) completed a study that estimated the total waste due to “inadequate interoperability in the U.S. capital facility industry” at $15.8 billion in 2002 alone. The report stated that continued use of paper-based business practices, lack of standardization in documentation, and inconsistent technology adoption among stakeholders were key reasons for the waste. With two-thirds of that cost borne by facility owners and operators, there is a huge amount of money to be saved.

So, with its benefits and a significant cost savings, why isn’t BIM already in widespread use? One reason is it spans multiple facility life cycle phases and multiple stakeholder groups. During the design and construction phases, architects, engineers, and construction managers have little reason to devote the extra effort to creating a BIM, because it does not substantially help them to do their jobs; this information is more useful in the operations phase.

Another reason BIM is not commonplace is there is no universal standard for digital design drawings. There are many different proprietary formats with varying levels of functionality. For instance, a 3-D model created in one software package may not be usable in software made by another company. Creating a universal BIM format that can be read and understood by many different software programs will be a significant challenge.

Even more vexing for BIM advocates is that many architects are not using CAD software to its fullest capability. Instead of using CAD to create 3D models and intelligent drawings, many architects still see CAD as just a way to produce a “picture” for printing on paper. Until architects fully embrace CAD capabilities, BIM will not be a reality.

There is one group of stakeholders that can apply the pressure needed for all the other stakeholders to adopt and use a BIM standard—facility owners and managers. They will benefit most from BIM and are the only ones with the leverage necessary to motivate other stakeholders.

Support for BIM among owners and managers has been slow in coming, mainly due to a lack of information and understanding about BIM. But owner support is starting to gain momentum, partially because one of the largest facility owners in the world—the United States government—is keen on reaping the benefits of BIM. As an owner of hundreds of millions of square feet, the U.S. government could potentially achieve huge payback with the adoption of BIM. The General Services Administration has been a big proponent of BIM, having recently conducted a successful BIM pilot program. The Coast Guard has already instituted a BIM standard.

The next step is a national standard, which is an effort that will undoubtedly take years to evolve fully and be widely adopted. But tremendous progress has been made toward the first iteration of a national BIM standard. The National Institute for Building Sciences (NIBS) has formed the National BIM Standard Committee (NBIMS), which is pushing to establish a national BIM standard by the end of the 2006 calendar year.

So what can facility managers do to prepare? One way is to get acquainted with BIM; several informative Web sites are listed in the box at the end of this article.

Second, if you have construction projects underway, consult the architects on their experiences with BIM and their current and planned capabilities to deliver BIM-compliant documentation. You may even want to request they attempt to deliver a BIM package alongside the sets of traditional drawings they provide. And, finally, educate colleagues and superiors on what BIM is and talk up its benefits to the organization.

The arrival of BIM may seem far from being realized at this point, but if facility owners and managers push for adoption of the national BIM standard and use their leverage, BIM may become a reality in the near future.
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Condon, a Facility Technologist and former facility manager, is a contributing author for BOMI Institute’s revised Technologies in Facility Management textbook. He works for System Development Integration, a Chicago, IL-based firm committed to improving the performance, quality, and reliability of client business through technology.

BI M for Sustainable Design:Results of an Industry Survey

Recently , growing environmental concerns and rising energy costs have tremendously
increased the demand of sustainable buildings. More and more, both public and private organizations are requiring architects, engineers and constructors to design and build with minimal environmental impact (Azhar and Brown, 2009).
The most effective decisions related to the sustainable design of a facility can be made in the early design and preconstruction stages. Traditional CAD planning environments typically do not have the capability of performing such analyses in early stages of design development. Building performance analyses are typically performed after the architectural design and construction documents have been produced. This lack of continuous analysis leads to an inefficient process of retroactively modifying the design to achieve a set of performance criteria (Schueter and Thessling, 2008).

To assess building performance in the early design and preconstruction phases, access to a comprehensive set of data regarding a building’s form, materials, context and technical systems are required. Because building information modeling (BIM) allows for multi-disciplinary information to be superimposed within one
model, it creates an opportunity for sustainability measures to be incorporated in the design process (Autodesk, 2008).

Research objectives and design

In order to evaluate the state-of-the-art and benefits of BIM-based sustainability analyses and design, a questionnaire survey was conducted. The target audience consisted of design and construction firms who use BIM technology and/or sustainable design/construction practices in most of their projects. These firms were identified through a published list of the top 100 green contractors as of 2009, members of the AGC BIMForum, members of the buildingSMART alliance™, and direct contacts made within the architecture and construction industries.
The questionnaire was launched on October 12, 2009, and closed on January 8, 2010. Of the 145 respondents, the majority worked for architecture (44 percent) and construction companies (34 percent), followed by design/build firms (16 percent) and BIM consultants (6 percent). It is important to note that the survey population was not selected using any statistical methods and hence the results should not be considered as statistically significant.
The questionnaire was designed based on a skip-logic method, in which the selection of the next question is based on the answer of the previous question. The skip-logic method prevents respondents from answering questions which they are not qualified to answer. The questionnaire
had two skip-logic questions. The first skip-logic question identified the survey respondents currently using BIM. Of the 145 respondents, 131 (90 percent) were using BIM technology in their projects; while 14 respondents (10 percent) were non-BIM users. No further questions were asked from the later group and the rest of the respondents were directed to the second skip-logic question which identified the respondents currently employing BIM-based sustainability analyses/design measures in their projects. Of these 131
respondents, 87 (66 percent) were using BIM-based sustainability practices; while 44 (34 percent) were not using BIM for this purpose.

http://www.wbdg.org/references/jbim.php

Are You Killing Your Productivity?

Whether the work week is made up of two hours or two hundred, all freelancers, entrepreneurs, business owners, experts have one common goal: squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of time spent working. After all, time is money, and maximizing productivity is something that typically translates directly into bigger profits. But even the most experienced veterans of work can unknowingly fall victim to productivity killers and undermine their earning potential, or worse – willingly and actively participate in killing their productivity. Here are six productivity killers you need to watch out for to ensure that you stay productive, stay on point, and maximize your potential.


1. Weak or Absent Goal Setting: Are your goals well thought out and clearly defined? If not, your productivity will take a hit. Specific projects, job-hunting strategies, bidding practices, and your long-term career plans all need clearly defined goals and milestones to maximize output. Otherwise, you’re spending valuable energy constantly re-evaluating where you stand, how far you’ve come, and where to go next, robbing yourself of not only work time, but also a clear map to success.

Some people prefer the ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants’ method, but in the long run, this can be self-destructive. Yes, even with clear cut goals, there needs to be room built in for creative brainstorming and trouble shooting; two things that strive on the positive stress of winging it. However, using this model for an entire project, or worse, your entire career, can keep you in a constantly high-stress state causing burnout and health issues that will eventually sap productivity levels to nothing. Speaking of health...

2. Sacrificing Your Health: Health issues aren’t just a concern for providers who don’t set clear goals. Everyone can fall victim to this big productivity killer. Living the dream means setting your own hours and being your own boss, but the dark side translates to late hours, lack of much needed sleep, overworking, and other potential health issues. If you’re not sleeping enough, your productivity most likely will not maintain its optimal level.

And don’t forget diet and exercise. Long hours toiling over projects is hard on the body, so if you don’t make sure to eat well and exercise, it will show in your work. If you take the time out to take care of you, you’ll have more energy and sharper focus, making projects easier to complete in less time. This makes investing in your health very worthwhile for yourself as well as those you work with.

3. Freelance Style Faux Pas: Multi-tasking is a big buzzword and sets up many workers for a huge potential productivity trap. Some people thrive only while juggling a dozen or more projects at once. But what if you don’t?
Many freelancers and business owners feel pressured to juggle multiple projects as part of the lifestyle stereotype, but doing so is by no means a requirement and can actually destroy your productivity. It all depends on how you’re wired.
Multi-taskers need the heightened stimulation achieved by solving many unrelated problems at once. The downside is that motivation suffers when a multi-tasker is forced to concentrate on a single task. On the other hand, focused workers thrive on devoting all of their energy onto one specific task before moving onto the next, and juggling many can cause overload.
Both styles have their ups and downs. The trick to maximizing productivity is to know your style and work with it rather than try to be something you’re not. And for bonus productivity, build your team with a good mix of both styles to ensure everybody is performing at maximum productivity. Or if you’re a sole contractor, pair up with an opposite style freelancer to pick up or offload tasks to maximize both of your styles.
4. Playing the Victim: You lost the perfect deal, job, or contract you were sure was made for you. You’re crushed and can barely bring yourself to turn on the computer, let alone hunt down for more business opportunities. You mope around and do anything and everything you can think of to console yourself, except for the one thing that will actually cure you’re blues – land another deal. If you feed off rejection and let it sap time away from your end goals, you’re robbing yourself of time and money, starving your productivity in the process.
Rejection is hard, but unfortunately, it’s part of the business world. If rejection interferes with your productivity, a mindset shift is needed. Use the disappointment to fuel your productivity rather than hold you back, and you’ll not only increase your productivity, you’ll also decrease the impact rejection has on you in the future.

5. Time Bombs: Many freelancers and business owners thrive on pressure, but too much is never a good thing. Taking on too many projects, jobs, or business clients or grossly underestimating the time required to reach a deadline is a sure way to destroy your productivity.
A good rule of thumb is to always overestimate required time and underestimate the what you can handle. Otherwise, you run the risk of stretching yourself too thin and entering the space where pressure turns into panic. Next, productivity goes down the drain.
6. Senseless Acts of Procrastination: Most workers are guilty of these petty crimes, and justifications easily roll off the tongue – “Facebook and Twitter are good for networking…” “Checking email will only take thirty seconds…” Sound familiar?
A minute here and a few seconds there add up to a lot of wasted time that could be better spent. If you’re serious about increasing your productivity level, treat your work time sacred and log onto networking sites during ‘networking time’. And don’t think leaving it open in the background is acceptable. Why distract yourself with the temptation? (Check out this article "How To Ditch Distractions And Stay Focused When Working Online")
Some less obvious, but no less serious procrastination crime: Spell-checking and self editing several times as you go through rather than once at the end of the work session, grabbing that second (or third or fourth) cup of coffee, or the big one – taking phone calls. Let voicemail do its job – keep you distraction-free and raise your productivity – then return calls once your work time is up.

Then there's the professional procrastinator standbys: Refilling your stapler, fixing that squeak in your chair, de-fragmenting your computer, or having an uncontrollable need to clean everything around you immediately. If you find yourself doing these or any similar things, you’re participating in some serious procrastination and delivering a mortal blow to your productivity.

Don’t be your own worst enemy. Stay productive and make every working moment count.
Alex

May 27, 2010