Tips for better Japa meditation

When we practice Japa Meditation we mainly practice chanting without offences. The main offence we come across while meditating is inattentive chanting. Many people chant and everybody know about the offences and that chanting should not be a mechanical act but an act of devotional meditation on the holly name. When practicing meditation, I sometimes find it hard to keep my concentration on the sound of the holly name. The mind tends to run wild. How to restrain it? Here are a few tips I collected to help me:

* Srila Prabhupada said that when you chant the holly name it should me like a child calling his father to come and take him. We call Krishna to tale us away from our material entanglement.
* The Lord and his holly name are one. Therefore, when you chant the holly name you're in direct contact with the lord. If a respected personality was to be here in the room with you, were you not to give him all your attention? Would've you be distracted? In fact, that is the case when you practice the chanting of the holly name. Try to be aware of that.
* It is enough to say the holly name even once, with grate concentration, and reach the spiritual platform. Even once! So you should try it. And if you do not succeed, try again. And again and so on try to pronounce the holly name with concentration in your japa.
* If thoughts arise between you and the mantra, simply ask them "not now" and make them go away. They can wait. Your doing your meditation now.
* According to authority, during japa your thoughts should be on only one thing: a prayer to Harinama to reveal to reveal himself before you. I was told that if images of the deities, the devotees or holly places pops into your head while you're chanting, that is fine, but you should not make a special effort to think of anything but the sound of the holly name while chanting. A swami from West Bengal once told me he finds it good to think about Krishna-Lila while chanting.
* If possible, chant with others so you can hear them chanting. If not possible, you can play a recording of a senior devotee chanting and listen to it while you chant. (A recording of Srila Prabhupada chanting is available here: http://www.krishna.com/en/node/388)
* Try to clear enough time to sit down, relax and chant. Try not to stuff your rounds in free slots of time here and there during the day or chant while you do other things. Chanting 16 rounds should take an hour or an hour and 15 minutes of you're day. Think how much time people dedicate to mundane things such as watching television or shopping of things they don't need. Is it really impossible to dedicate some time a day for chanting?
* Try not to see chanting as a chore. See at as an attempt to find bliss. You practice chanting and when you do it correctly you find bliss. Practice so that your chanting will be more and more blissful.