WebWorkerDaily readers are a diverse bunch. Every week, I profile a different reader and ask them to share what they do, how they do it, and some of their favorite hints and tips.

Who are you and what do you do? My name is Sam Glover and I wear two main professional hats: I am a consumer rights lawyer, and I write and edit Lawyerist with my business partner, Aaron Street. My law practice is a two-lawyer firm, and my associate, Randall Ryder, and I are full-time litigators. We sue debt collectors and defend consumers who are sued by debt collectors. Lawyerist happens almost entirely online. We call it a “lawyering survival guide,” but you could also call it a blog. In November, I will start writing a column on law and the Minnesota legal community for MinnPost, an online media source.

What’s a typical day like for you? A combination of online and offline meetings, working on cases (usually writing things), writing for my consumer law blog, writing and editing posts for Lawyerist, and researching and writing for MinnPost. I do a lot of writing.

Meetings with clients generally happen in my office, but I can use Skype to attend by video. Other meetings may be in person or over Skype or the phone. Court hearings obviously happen in court, and I average three or four per month. I spend a lot of time networking, and I try to have coffee or lunch with someone every day.

I usually work from home or my office, but some days, I prefer a coffee shop or the Minneapolis Public Library. It’s nice being almost completely mobile, and my associate and I are rarely in the same place at the same time for long, so we use Skype when we need a face-to-face meeting.

What gear and software do you use and why? My computers are a ThinkPad T400 running Windows with Bitlocker enabled and a Dell desktop (whatever was cheap at the time) with a 22″ widescreen monitor. Randall uses an old iMac at the office and a MacBook Air for the road. We have three Fujitsu ScanSnaps — one at home, and two at the office (one for my Windows PC, one for Randall’s iMac). We use Google Apps, Remember the Milk and Freshbooks to do most of our work in a browser. Local apps include OpenOffice.org, GnuCash (until January, when we will switch to Quickbooks), Skype and Dropbox.

The two most important programs I use are Dropbox and Skype. I am paperless because paper is inconvenient and ties me down, and Dropbox keeps all my files synced up, and makes it easy to share client files with Randall and Lawyerist files with Aaron. We use Skype for the phones, so we can answer the same number wherever we are. It also lets me have face-to-face meetings with my co-workers and clients, even if I’m not in the office.

What’s your favorite web working tip? Use the web for what it does best — sharing, collaborating and communicating — but not for what it does poorly, like personal networking and document production. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are to networking as Google Docs is to OpenOffice.org: a complement, but not a replacement.

If you would like to be profiled on WWD, get in touch with me at simon (at) gigaom (dot) com.

SimplyGTD is a new, extremely simple to-do list/task management web app. I’ve been playing with it today, and thought I would record a quick screencast showing how it works, and in particular how it compares with Google Tasks, my favorite simple task management app:

In summary, if you’re looking for a very basic, free to-do list app — especially if you’d like to print your to-do lists — then SimplyGTD might be worth checking out, but I think for most people the extra functionality, integration with other apps, and flexibility offered by Google Tasks (which can even be tweaked into a reasonable Getting Things Done app) or Remember the Milk would make them better options.

SimplyGTD’s main selling point is that it is very simple — but is it too simple?

Whether freelancing, or in the corporate world, we all have to contend with deadlines. Deadlines generally come off sounding like shlock horror villains: they inch closer, approach, loom and grow larger. I’ve worked in settings where deadlines were paramount, and followed rigorously, and in situations where they meant surprisingly little.

In this post I’m going to discuss deadline management. Successfully managing deadlines is part knowing why specific deadlines exist in the first place, part knowing which are soft and which are firm, and a big part relationship management. Striking the right balance depends on the situation at hand, but generally speaking, deadlines fall into one of three categories and should be managed accordingly.

First Type: The Faildate

Depending on the institution you’re dealing with, and the level of consultant or employee they’re used to working with, a deadline might actually be a test to see if your work is up to their standards. As a consultant taking on a first contract with a high profile client, for example, a deadline could be the point at which you’re no longer considered for future work. And that’s if you meet them, not exceed them.

To beat these kinds of deadlines, you actually have to beat them. Coming in early is the real key to success, but of course your product can’t suffer as a result. You’ll know when these kinds of deadlines are in play if you do adequate research before signing on with a new client or employer in order to find out about their corporate climate.

Sometimes these types of clients will also want frequent, regular status updates, either weekly or bi-weekly, but even if they don’t, it’s a good idea to micro-manage these deadlines by breaking them down into sub-tasks on a fairly small scale. Hourly goal setting might even be appropriate. Good tools for this kind of work include GTD apps that send you notifications on a schedule you set (Things or Remember the Milk are recommended).

Second Type: Firm, But Flexible

This sounds contradictory, but it isn’t. This will cover the vast majority of deadlines you’ll encounter. These are deadlines that are set as firm, and that should be met if at all possible, but that are susceptible to change depending on circumstances and when in conflict with other deadlines.

The key to successfully negotiating these deadlines is finding out why they exist in the first place. If, for example, a deadline exists for the group you’re working with because without that piece of work, another group is just sitting around waiting, then that deadline takes priority. If it exists because it’s based on a reasonable, pre-project estimate of how much time a task should take, then consider it flexible and move on.

Zen is a nice tool to use to track these kinds of deadlines, because it allows you to create custom groups for your different tasks, so you can make your own priority categories depending on the deadline source.

Third Type: Staledate

The final type of deadline isn’t really a deadline at all. It’s the date at which something ceases to really be a concern, and passes into a client or employer’s distant memory. Be careful, because no one you work for will likely admit that these kinds of deadlines exist, so identifying them won’t be easy.

The best way to go about finding your staledate deadlines is by watching ones from the second category you’ve flagged as low priority. Other signs a deadline may actually indicate when you can drop something entirely include a lack of ability to quantify what would result from meeting said deadline, a lack of client stakeholders associated with it, and lax reporting requirements.

Keep tabs on these as you normally would other dates in your usual PM tools, but don’t worry too much about following through until someone important starts asking questions.

Deadlines don’t have to be the movie monsters we make them out to be. Sometimes they’re just a way of saying “we would like this done within a reasonable period of time,” or even “we don’t care about this at all, but we have to pretend to until time X because the policy says so.” If you listen to your deadlines and monitor them properly, the won’t loom so much as pass uneventfully.

How do you manage deadlines?

Image by Flickr user wili_hybrid.

James over at jkOnTheRun has an excellent post describing his custom Gmail setup, which enables him to make the best use of his screen real estate. Like many web workers, James spends a large part of his day working with Gmail — it’s the one app that he has open all day — so customizing his setup helps him to be more productive. James tweaks Gmail’s layout and functionality using Labs features like Multiple Inboxes and Superstars, and by incorporating gadgets for Google Calendar, Google Docs and Remember The Milk. Check out James’ post for extensive details.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my quest to organize my workflow, it is that everyone’s brain works differently. There are almost as many answers to the question “what task management tool do you like” as there are people, and we’ve reviewed a host of those solutions here at WebWorkerDaily.

I’ve struggled for years to try to find the right solution for me. I’ve used a Franklin Planner, a Palm T/X, Microsoft Outlook (s msft), Remember The Milk, and a few other options. Nothing ever seemed quite right for me, though, and at times I found myself scribbling on paper pads still.

That was the case until I bought my first Mac and started looking for a task list for OS X. One of my friends recommended Things from Cultured Code. I almost didn’t try it because of the price ($49.95 desktop, $9.95 iPhone app). Thankfully, there is a free trial of the desktop application, so I was able to check it out without committing to the hefty price tag. It’s good that there’s a free trial, because I would otherwise have passed it by.

Put simply, Things has been the solution I’ve been searching for. It has revolutionized my productivity. It works with my natural flow, instead of against it.

I like to make long lists of tasks. There are urgent tasks that I have to get done immediately, the ones I need to get around to soon, and my projects and long-term items. Things gives me ways to track all of those items, without them having to be in my face all the time making me feel overwhelmed.

The desktop version of Things is very Leopard in its look and feel. It is simple, uncluttered and intuitive to use. It syncs with both iCal and the company’s iPhone app (via Wi-Fi).

I can easily drag-and-drop my tasks between the Today, Next and Someday lists to prioritize them. I can use tags or areas of responsibility to filter the list to show only certain types of tasks.

It isn’t quite as easy to move tasks around on the iPhone app. Since drag-and-drop isn’t an option there, it takes a few more steps. But the iPhone app is excellent for adding items on the go, or reviewing your current list and marking tasks complete.

One of my favorite functions in Things is the ability to make project lists. For a large project with multiple tasks or steps, I can create a project list of all those tasks and then drag individual tasks to my Today or Next lists while still also viewing them as part of the project as a whole. If a time comes when I am focusing almost solely on a project (such as the trade show I have in a few days) I can use the project list as my main working list.

Scheduled tasks are probably my other favorite feature of Things. For a future task, either a one-time or a recurring one, it is easy to create a scheduled item that will not appear on my main lists until I need to see it. This avoids distracting clutter and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by tasks that don’t actually need to be seen at the moment.

Task management that fits well with how I think and work is worth the price of Things to me.  I am getting more things done, and feeling less stressed about it. That is priceless.

Do you love your task manager? Or are you still looking?

In the past I’ve been known to speak rashly. I actually declared the BlackBerry the victor in matters of mobile device web working, but a recent development in the iPhone world has me wanting to recant. Those of you familiar with my Apple  leanings will no doubt utter, “Hmph. Figures,” and wash your hands of me, but I beg you to bear with me and learn the reason for my latest team change.

iPhone OS 3.0 brings a lot of new features to the table, but I could’ve easily gone on living without all of them, copy and paste included, except for push notifications. Push is the killer feature that elevates the iPhone platform to a whole new level of usability, both as a standalone device, and as a piece of companion hardware to your existing workstation setup.

The iPhone has taken the place of an entire screen in my current home office configuration, freeing up a whole display for more productive use. Here’s a breakdown of the apps that make this possible, and how I use them.

Beejive IM — Death of the Desktop IM Client

For me, IM can be a terrible time thief. Generally speaking, I intend to use it primarily for professional purposes, especially during the day, but having a desktop client constantly open and in plain view, it becomes hard to resist the urge to chat with a pal who’s just popped on for the first time in a few months, for example.

Thanks to Beejive with Push for the iPhone, the temptation isn’t nearly as strong to engage in distracting IM conversations. Using Beejive, I have an always-on solution that can stay out of sight, and therefore, out of mind. Even if someone contacts me, I find it much easier to politely ignore their advances when they come via my iPhone than when messages pop up on my computer’s display.

Remember The Milk — Task Management I’ll Actually Use

I have a problem with most GTD apps. Actually, the problem is more with me than with the apps. I just don’t use them, for whatever reason, for any length of time. I’ve tried a wide variety, but no combination of features seems to result in an experience that I’ll stick with.

Push has changed that. With Remember The Milk (Toodledo also offers push notifications, if you’re more inclined that way), I get an alert at a scheduled time when a task is coming due. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough to make the difference between paying attention to my task management software and not. It keeps me on schedule when I’m working at home or on the road.

Prowl — Growl Goes Mobile

Growl is a great utility for when I’m actually seated in front of my main work computer. It’s an OS X notification utility that works with an incredibly long list of applications to keep you informed, even when app windows aren’t in the foreground. What Prowl does is take some or all of those alerts and turn them into push notifications that you receive on your iPhone.

Which means that regardless of what I’m doing or where I am, I can be aware of anything my home workstation wants me to know. This includes Twitter @ mentions and direct messages — a much-requested push feature from iPhone Twitter users — and push email notifications that actually display the title and content of a message, rather than just modifying the icon like the iPhone’s built-in Mail app currently does. That means less time spent opening and checking emails that may or may not require immediate action, and more time focused on the task at hand. Best of all, you can set priorities and arrange it so that you won’t receive push notifications unless you’re actually away from your computer, to reduce redundancy and fluff.

The iPhone Arrives as a Business Tool

Not that I wasn’t using the iPhone for work before, but this is the first time it’s acquired the status of an integral part of my web working machinery. Heretofore, it’s been a nice, supplemental nice-to-have, but push is the killer feature that makes it a necessary device. Kudos, Apple, for providing an update that’s only just begun to hint at its eventual utility.

What do you think about Apple’s implementation of push on the iPhone? Do you find your device more useful now, or, if you don’t own one, does it add to the phone’s appeal?

I firmly believe that any to-do or task management system will fail if creating tasks is too difficult. For me, the key is getting them out of my stream of consciousness and into a system that I trust, where I know they’ll be when need them, as quickly as possible.

One of the things I’ve always appreciated about my task manager of choice, Toodledo, is the ubiquity of its data entry points. I can enter tasks by email, through a handy Firefox extension, through Twitter, Jott, and more. So I was jazzed to see the availability of a new gadget for Gmail that lets me enter and monitor my tasks right from my email provider of choice.

Given that the majority of my tasks originate from email, I’ve always really appreciated that I could forward messages directly to a special Toodledo address and have it create a task for me automatically.

But as good as that system is, it can be a bit clunky. I have to clean up subject lines and info and then remember all the syntax required to have it sorted and completed fully and properly. I’ve longed for an easy way to create tasks right from within Gmail. Basically, I’ve been jealous of Remember The Milk users, who have had a Gmail gadget for some time.

The new Toodledo Gmail gadget mirrors the company’s slim widget interface available for iGoogle and mobile users. While not as feature-rich as the normal, full interface, it so far has been very useful. Not only does it allow me to quickly create tasks on the fly, but it also allows me to monitor and change the status of my tasks based on feedback from others. Because I spend so much time in Gmail, having direct access to my to-do items has proven indispensable.

The Gmail gadget is available for free to all Toodledo/Gmail users. You can get more details on their Google Gadgets Page. Be sure to to enable the Gmail Navbar drag-and-drop labs feature, which allows you to reorder the items on your Gmail sidebar, to get your tasks right up at the top.

How well does your task manager get along with Gmail? If your task manager doesn’t integrate with Gmail, or if you don’t use Gmail at all, what other systems have you come up with?

Editor’s note:  With this post we wecome Doriano Carta to the WWD team. Doriano, better known as “Paisano” on Twitter and everywhere else online, has written for several blogs including Mashable, SarahLacy.com, PistachioConsulting and Chris Brogan’s Dadomatic.com where he is also the Editor-in-Chief.

How much are you willing to pay for your favorite web apps and services? That’s the key question to which every app developer wants an answer. It seems as if the provider of every once-free service is now pondering ways to make money and extract revenue from their members, which makes sense when you consider that they are, after all, businesses.

Remember that old adage, you get what you pay for? Will we continue to see more of our favorite free services following this model of offering stripped down freemium accounts along with feature-rich premium plans? Will online advertising ever allow these sites to generate enough revenue to avoid going this route?

Proven Winners

Here are a couple of services that have found the right formula for success when it comes to charging their members. There might be some valuable lessons learned by examining these successful services to see how they managed to get their users to take out their wallets rather than their pitchforks and torches. Flickr was one of the first sites to capitalize on the fact that its members needed its services. They knew that people love their photos and they would be more than willing to pay a small fee for the convenience of storing and sharing their precious collections online. The paid accounts offered a few other bells and whistles, too, which only made the decision to pay easier.

Evernote is another service that was clever enough to jump on a need it knew its members would pay for — storing notes and information in the cloud, and then having them accessible via the web from their desktop and mobile devices.

When the iPhone was released with its feeble notes app, Evernote swooped in with its own much more fully featured app, which allowed even more users to tap into their service, and thus into their wallets.

Contenders or Pretenders

Here are a few services that show promise as they venture into paid subscription territory from the freemium universe. They originally hooked their users with totally free service, and only later announced their membership plans. Time will tell if they made the right move.

Jott emerged on the scene with an ambitious service that allowed its members to save their audio notes to the web via their mobile device. It also cross-posted to other services such as Twitter, Facebook and Remember the Milk. For the longest time it was free and in beta, then it announced its premium plans. There’s still a free plan but it’s extremely limited. Many members opted out, but many of them stuck around for one of the new paid plans.

Box also enticed members with free online storage but then later added premium plans with greater features such as larger file size for uploads (25 MB vs 1 GB, for example) and much more storage space (1 GB for free accounts vs. 30 GB for Business accounts).

While there are a slew of online storage services comparable to box.net (including some free ones with much larger storage), Box has wisely continued to innovate and has released many new features and options to make its service stand out. For example, its ability to work with your desktop applications as well as mobile devices is very handy. It has also released its own online apps to create documents and save them directly to your account.

Dropbox is another online storage service. It’s similar to Box but it does things a little differently. It provides the ability to automatically synchronize your files from multiple computers and provides twice the space of box.net for free accounts (2 GB). It also has premium accounts for far greater amounts of data.

Services That Will Start Charging Someday

Hulu is extremely popular these days. It remains free, but look for it to trot out some premium services soon. The companies behind it, NBC and ABC/Disney, are no slouches when it comes to making a buck, so hold on to your wallets. Clear signs of its financial plans is the way it has thwarted boxee’s attempts to share its content with its user base. The message is “No pay, no play”. Yes, even the red-hot popular media darling Twitter has been struggling with the subject matter of monetization. Its difficulties with discovering a way to make money have been analyzed to death by countless financial experts and business gurus. It has looked at charging users for premium services, implementing advertisements and charging third party services for access to its API. Ultimately, no one knows how Twitter will cash in on all of its recent media coverage. No matter what it does, they will become the perfect case study in courses for future web entrepreneurs.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, most sites will fail if they aren’t careful when it comes to charging for their services. Recession or not, there are only so many services anyone can pay for, no matter how slick the interface or how many bells and whistles they offer. However, they also need to conduct themselves as a business and find a way to pay the bills.  At the end of the day, it’s always going to come down to a question quality of service and quantity of need.

Do you use mostly free services, or mostly pay? What factors help convince you that a service is in fact worth paying for?

We freelance web workers multitask like it was going out of style. Question is, is it actually going out of style? Some people think so, and they look to singletasking as the next trend in how we work.

Singletasking is just what it sounds like: approaching and tackling one task at a time, sequentially, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of things at once, as has become de rigeur in our modern multitasking age. If you’re like me, the thought is probably at least a little refreshing, and maybe more than a little appealing right off the bat.

The principle is sound. Take on one task at a time, and don’t begin another until the one you’ve already started is complete. It sounds simple, but you know as well as I do that actually implementing that kind of thing in real life will take a lot more effort than you might first think. For one, it means ignoring any urge to procrastinate, and making sure that you prioritize very carefully in advance, lest you realize too late that what you thought was most urgent actually could’ve taken a back seat to something else.

But if you’ve been feeling like you’re being pulled in all directions, and wondering about how best to counter the cumulative effects of a schizophrenic workflow, you may want to give singletasking a try. Here’s how I’m approaching it:

Avoid Traditional Task Management and GTD Apps

Traditional task management and GTD apps like Remember the Milk and Things for the Mac are great for handling multiple tasks, but they aren’t so great for when you want to drill down and focus on only one at a time. Inevitably, the specter of everything else you have to get done remains present, so it’s hard to devote yourself to any one thing wholeheartedly.

Try out NowDoThis if you’re looking for a minimalist, almost Zen approach to task management. All you see is the task at hand, which it draws from a list you set to begin with. All you see is the task you’re working on, against a plain white background. It’s great for eliminating distractions.

Only Use One Tab

For many, this will be the hardest rule to stick to, especially if you’re using Firefox 3.5 RC 1, which has that very convenient “New Tab” button built right in. But this rule is probably also the simplest way to keep yourself focused.

If you try and try, and yet you’re still unable to avoid opening so many tabs that you have to scroll (this happens to me every 2-3 minutes), you can try out more drastic measures. This handy little Mozilla extension will actually disable the ability to create new tabs. It’s a last resort, but a great one if you doubt your own will power.

Finally, don’t try to work around this by using more than one window instead of more than one tab. That’s just cheating.

Only Use One Screen

I’m a firm believer in the productivity benefits that having multiple displays leads to. My current setup uses not one, but two monitors in addition to the screen built into my 20-inch iMac. It may seem excessive, but once you’ve tried it, you can’t go back.

Unless, that is, you force yourself to in order to achieve greater singularity of focus. Which is what I’ve been trying to do, and finding that its harder than giving up browser tabs. It might be harder than quitting smoking.

But if I can manage to keep my secondary displays turned off, I do find that I can better concentrate on what I’m doing. Even having to actually go to a different site just to get a screenshot and then go back to continue editing a post is strangely calming for some reason. Maybe that’s just the withdrawal symptoms talking.

This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how to shift from being a multitasker to being a singletasker. There’s still the issue of dealing with email, and Twitter, and Facebook, and every other app or service clamoring for your attention. I’ll look at some of those in later posts, but for now, just letting go of Ctrl+Tab is challenge enough.

Have you tried singletasking?

Google Tasks, the simple to-do system built into Gmail (previously covered on WebWorkerDaily), has just been integrated into Google Calendar. Tasks with due dates will now show up in the Calendar, and it’s possible to enter tasks directly into it as well.

Go into your Calendar, and you should see a “Tasks” link on the left-hand side of the window. Click it, and you’ll see a new Tasks sidebar spring up on the right, with all your tasks synced from Gmail, and a new “Tasks” calendar will be added to your list of calendars.

This means that tasks with a set due date will now show up in your Calendar in the “All Day” section at the top of the window (as tasks can only have a due date, not a a time).

You can enter tasks with a due date directly into your Calendar by clicking in the “All Day” boxes at the top of the window in “Day” or “Week” views (or on the day in “Month” view) and hitting  the “Task” link in the pop-up window.

After starting out as a simple and somewhat useful addition to Gmail, Tasks is becoming a very handy product in its own right, and while not as capable as full-featured to-do list apps like Things or Remember The Milk, it’s possible to use it in some quite powerful ways (for example, see my previous post on using Tasks as part of a GTD system).

Calendar integration was a no-brainer, as not being able to see Tasks due dates in your Calendar was quite annoying, but further integration with other Google products, like Docs, for example, could make the product even more useful.

Have you tried the new Tasks/Calendar integration? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

(via Google Operating System)

There are plenty of great apps out there vying to help the forgetful, from dedicated to-do list and reminder apps like WWD favorite Remember the Milk, to the task and calendar systems in Google Docs and MS Office. New alerts and reminders app task.fm, launching into beta today, aims to be different by providing natural language, semantic text input as a quick way to enter tasks (for example, “dentist appointment at noon tomorrow”). It claims to support alerts sent via email, SMS and phone (through automated text-to-speech technology).

The web site is nicely designed and registering for it is straightforward. While registering, you set up defaults for your alerts — how you’d like to be reminded (email, SMS or both) and how far in advance of each task you’d like to be reminded.

You have two choices for entering tasks: natural language input and “Advanced” (manual input). The default is natural language input, which is fast and works pretty well if you stick to simple sentences and follow the format provided in the example. Unfortunately, once you stray a little from the example format, it falls down, and you have to go in and edit the task. For example, if you try to enter “meeting with Dave in 30 minutes”, it sets a task of “meeting with Dave in 0 minutes” for 3 a.m. on the current day. Natural language processing like this is a really tricky thing to get right, and Task.fm is still only in beta, but having to switch to manual input to re-enter tasks would get annoying fast. It’s also somewhat limiting to have to enter your reminders through the web app. With natural language input, I would like to be able to set reminders on the go through email, SMS or even voice input.

Once your reminders are set, it’s easy to manage and edit them. SMS and email alerts are timely and work just as you would expect, but I couldn’t find a way to set up phone call alerts.

Email reminders are free, but SMS and phone alerts cost 1 credit each. The cost of a credit varies depending on how many you buy, starting at 20 credits for $2. New accounts come with 10 credits, so you can try the SMS reminders for free.

Task.fm shows some promise with its simple, easy-to-use interface, but until the natural language input can deal with everything its users are likely to throw at it, I don’t believe it’s ready for widespread use (I Want Sandy — unfortunately now shuttered — was a great example of simple sematic input done right). I’ll be sticking with Google Calendar for my alerts.

What reminders app do you use?

Just as services designed to help social media enthusiasts manage multiple online profiles are becoming increasingly popular, services designed to manage posting status updates and communication to multiple online profiles are becoming plentiful as well. Recently, I covered Ping.fm, which has now been joined by Italy-based HelloTxt, a similar product that allows users to update a host of social networking, social media and blogging platforms, all at once.

Like Ping.fm, HelloTxt allows you to update a large number of online profiles and publishing platforms through a single entry field. (They claim to support 45 “social networks” as compared to 30 for Ping.fm.) Upon registering for HelloTxt, you’re given the option to add your active profiles from a wide array of services, such as Twitter, Bebo and Remember The Milk.

The number of characters in the status entry field count “up” so that you can make sure to cut status messages off at the all-important 140 mark, to keep with Twitter’s character limit. A nifty feature included in the status entry area is the ability to “post in the future,” setting the date for a status update ahead of time.

Beyond text status messages, images can be posted using your Flickr account, video via YouTube, music and audio files via Blip.fm, and streaming video via Seesmic.

HelloTxt is accessible through the web, and can also be updated via email, SMS, and Google Talk. An API is also offered that allows developers to install the service on other web sites or apps, a popular trend for status update and microblogging products.

It would seem that HelloTxt is an emerging player in the status update space. The company claims that it has attained 30,000 users “with no marketing to date,” with 35 percent of daily status updates coming from third-party sites, through its API.

Like any evolving web product, it has some rough edges that should be worked out over time. For example, after adding a product (such as Bebo) to your HelloTxt account, you can add that same account again later; an indication that you’ve already added it would be helpful.

It must also be noted that HelloTxt’s tagline, “we are status,” is quite catchy!

What’s your take on the growing popularity of status update services such as Ping.fm and HelloTxt?

If you have a problem with procrastination, you might like to try novel to-do list app ForceDo, which lets you set a timer for completing your tasks.

ForceDo works just like any other online to-do list management app — users of Gmail Tasks and Remember the Milk should feel very much at home — except that when you set up a task you can estimate how long it should take to complete. When you start the task, you set the clock running. You can optionally set alarms to sound before the end of the task and when the time is up.

The idea behind the app is that by heaving a timed deadline to work toward, you’ll be less likely to procrastinate or get distracted. You can also use ForceDo to measure the amount of time you take to complete your tasks.

Here’s a quick screencast of ForceDo in action:

WWD Screencast: ForceDo from WebWorkerDaily on Vimeo.

Personally, I think it’s a bit gimmicky, and as it’s a very basic to-do manager it won’t be suitable for GTD-devotees, although it does support multiple to-do lists. I’m not tempted to move from my current app, Tudumo, but if procrastination and distraction are ruining your productivity and you’re looking for a very simple to-do manager, you might like to give ForceDo a try and see if it works for you — it’s free.

Thanks to WWD reader Dane Baker for the tip.

Would working to a deadline with ForceDo force you to concentrate?

Last week, Pinch Media released some interesting statistics about App Store usage in a presentation, now available online.

In short, they’ve found that while free apps are downloaded like crazy, active use drops off fast. Paid apps tend to see more use after installation and are used for longer periods. If it’s a paid game, all the better.

Long before he stopped using his iPhone altogether, Om raised similar questions on GigaOM regarding app usage.

Does your own iPhone usage support this data?

Looking at my iPhone I find that most of the applications I actively use are those that support or work in cooperation with the web-based tools on my desktop computer. Even though I’m not using a wide variety of applications, overall I’m using my iPhone on a daily basis far more than I have used any other mobile device.

My app mainstays include Remember the Milk, Facebook, TwitterFon, Salesforce, BeejiveIM (expensive at $15.99 but worth it), 1Password and Box.net. I also regularly launch eReader, TWC (Weather Channel) and Now Playing. While I still have a few games on my iPhone, I can’t remember the last time I launched one.

I took a rare visit to the App Store to see what I might be missing.

#9 on the Top Paid App list is something called “White Noise”, which pretty much sums up what the store is like for me these days. Not much seems to stand out in a sea of mindless games and fluff entertainment.

Part of the reason I’m bored by the App Store is how often I’ve been burned by apps that don’t live up to their promise. The ratings aren’t as helpful as they could be since you can’t see which version the reviewer was using when they cast their vote. So instead, I tend to grab apps from developers I already trust or those that are recommended on other web sites.

What apps, if any, are still making your cut? How do you decide what to buy/download?

A while ago, I wrote about Planzone, a collaborative project management app, and how it allowed me to organize and manage all the pieces and players of two major projects I have going on. I have the free plan, which includes two projects. But I also needed something that would help me manage my most chaotic project (the one called “My Life”) and keep track of everything else: a to-do list for an upcoming trip, personal and professional side projects, those brilliant ideas…I know you know what I’m talking about! All the things that float around in your brain, coming and going whenever they please, popping back into your head at 2 a.m. or, when you’re in the shower, which is really not helpful.

Just when I needed her most, along came Doris, a free, web-based task management app developed by Seagull Systems originally for their internal use. (Disclosure: Seagull Systems has done development work for one of my projects.) Doris, their personal assistant, turned out to be so helpful that they dressed her up, in the form of a nice UI, and decided to let her help the rest of us get organized, too.

I’ve tried several task management apps and never found one that was quite right. Producteev is a very nice option, but it has more features than I need. Remember the Milk never did anything for me, though many swear by it. I’ve even tried digital Post-its for my desktop. (Don’t go there. They’re cumbersome, harder to deal with than paper Post-its, and very slow to load.)

I was most struck by the simplicity of Doris. I have little time or patience for steep learning curves, and there is literally none with this app.

Once you create an account (just two fields), the first thing you’ll want to do is create groups (one click) for your to-dos. I created one of for WWD article ideas, and one for side projects, among others.

There is no need to set due dates or priorities. Nothing else is required beyond creating groups and adding tasks. You place groups in any order on the page by dragging them. Within a group, you can drag tasks up or down in the list, and you can drag tasks from one group to another.

How does this help you get things done? You simply check your Doris page every day and drag urgent items from their group into the “Today” group. Then you check them off when they’re done and they go into your “History.” There’s a “Tomorrow” group by default, but you could also create groups for next week, next month; whatever you need.

I really wanted simplicity, and that’s what Doris offers.

Doris is still in beta. I provided my feedback right away and said that I would like to be able to collapse groups individually. They responded by saying you can already do that, just by clicking on the group name, and that they’ll be sure to make that more clear. Seagull Systems are constantly improving the app, so do share your feedback: it could have a real impact.

She’s currently available in English and Russian but, pretty soon, approved translators will be able to log in and translate the whole app in 20 minutes or so via a GUI. In the near future, you’ll be able to share tasks with contacts and set Doris up to send you e-mail status reports if you want them. And you’ll soon be able to synch Doris with your iPhone. Look for her in the app store any day now!

Have you tried Doris?Are there other task management apps that work for you?

Producteev is the new kid on the block in the collaborative task management arena, but this app puts the emphasis on the social and makes multi-tasking, our 21st-century way of life, a lot easier.

Just to be clear, this is not another Basecamp-type application. It is a product of the less-is-more mentality, which often makes for the best applications. Producteev is for managing your activities and communicating with the other people involved in those activities.

My sister-in-law could really use this. She’s a swim team president, an assistant den mother, and in charge of fundraising for a large muscular dystrophy group in Los Angeles. On top of that, she is the Project Queen, at any given moment managing more of them than I ever could; everything from putting solar panels on her roof to organizing a family reunion in Hawaii.

All of our lives are like this to some degree, and web workers have to juggle not only home but also professional activities. We’re under particular pressure to be sure that nothing falls through the cracks. If you haven’t found a solution to that problem yet, read on.

Task Management

For each of your projects, you make a task box. With just a couple of clicks, you can name them, color code them and add tasks. In this image I have color coded work, home, leisure, and personal activities differently. You can drag the boxes around in your dashboard and drag the tasks up and down within the boxes.

Producteev is much more than a multiple-project to-do list, however.

You can click on a task and, in the callout on the left, enter a status, set reminders for yourself (which you can receive through any of several channels) and leave comments. Other members of the team can leave comments too. You can get an overview of all items in a task box by clicking the Overview button at the bottom right of each box.

You can assign a task to other members just by dragging the task onto his or her avatar at the bottom of the page. An assigned task appears on your dashboard in the Imported Tasks box. From there, you can drag the task into the specific task box where it belongs.

Note that you can give different people access to different activities so that they will only see activities they’re involved with.

Communication

The app has a new approach to the social aspect. The integrated Live Feed acts like Twitter or Facebook’s news feed (in the context of a project such a thing might actually be useful) so that you can easily stay on top of the actions and comments of team members. The Live Feed automatically displays new tasks, reminders, etc., and members can also use it to communicate.

Another great thing about this app is that it’s already tied in to the most popular communications channels, allowing you to send yourself tasks and receive notifications in the ways that are most convenient for you. Your IM options are currently Twitter, Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, MSN, and ICQ. Mobile options are on the way: Nokia (due next week), iPhone, and Blackberry. And there will soon be an Adobe Air app (also due next week) that will allow you to work with Producteev from your desktop.

Other features

You can import existing tasks from Microsoft Outlook or Remember the Milk. You have the ability to upload and share files, with versioning and comments by team members for each file.

Producteev, one of 30 startups chosen to compete at LeWeb ‘08 in Paris, is still in private beta, but they’re planning to switch to public beta and launch the iPhone app in about three weeks. If you’re eager to get in and play with Producteev, you can request an invitation now to participate in beta testing and help them create the product you want. You could also develop for Producteev using their API!

I’ll be sure to let you know when the app goes into public beta. Producteev is free to use during beta, but after that it will be available by subscription, which the founders assure me will be “very cheap.”

Let me know what you think!