However, it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. There are a number of downsides associated with freelancing, which is why I’ve made the decision to go back to a full-time corporate job as a community manager. I’ll still be a web worker, collaborating with people around the world online, but I’ll be doing it as a full-time employee.

Turning Hobbies Into Paying Gigs

When I began freelancing, I was excited that I could turn things that I was passionate about and doing for fun as hobbies into something that people would pay me to do. I could do fun work and earn money! This worked for me for quite a while, and maybe it continues to work for some people over long periods of time. For me, those things that I used to do for fun all became work, and they became less fun as they started to feel like work. I also realized that I really didn’t have hobbies anymore, and I was just spending all of my time working, which left me burned out, tired and grouchy.

Pressure

On a related note, I used to enjoy speaking at conferences, blogging and attending events when I used to do them mostly out of a passion for the topic, and because they were fun. As a freelancer, these became business development opportunities. I started feeling a big weight on my shoulders and pressure to speak or write only about topics that were directly related to my consulting practice so that I could use them to get more business. Attending events shifted from hanging out with my friends and meeting new people with interesting ideas to meeting people who might need my consulting services. All of these activities became less fun as a freelancer.

Logistics

Anyone who has ever freelanced full-time knows that the logistics can be complex, painful, time consuming and sometimes expensive. Taxes are much more complicated and time consuming even when you have an accountant do them for you because there are so many things you need to track. Independent health care plans are expensive and not nearly as good as when you get them through your employer. Retirement savings is also more difficult, and you can’t save nearly as much in an IRA as you can with a corporate 401k, especially since most employers match at least a portion of your contribution. I can be very detail-oriented when I need to be, so I was able to manage all of the logistics without any big issues, but it was just one more thing that I didn’t enjoy doing.

Could I have made changes in my working style to make all of this manageable and still be happy while maintaining my sanity at the same time? Maybe. For now, the best choice for me was to go back to working for a company. I’ll still continue blogging and playing with cool technologies, but I’ll go back to doing this evenings and weekends in the hope that they start to feel less like work and more like hobbies again. If not, I’ll just have to find some new hobbies. Bridge, anyone?

What is your least favorite part of freelancing, and how do you overcome the dark side of freelancing?

Photo by Flickr user weeta, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I started my career as a UNIX sys admin, so I know the importance of having good backups, and I’ve seen so many horrible things happen to good data. As a result, I’ve learned to be pretty paranoid about backups. I even had my own little catastrophe a few years ago, when I was using Mozy to back up my data. I was taking frequent backups, and I had even tested my solution by restoring a few files; however, when it came to doing a full data restore, Mozy failed me. I was eventually able to get my data out of Mozy, but it wasn’t an easy process, and it took too long to get my data back. Now I have a two-pronged backup strategy that even the most paranoid among us should appreciate: a combination of on-site, full system, incremental backups, coupled with cloud backups.

On-site, Full System, Incremental Backups

Your full system, incremental backups should be a way to quickly recover from a complete data loss due to hard drive failure, computer theft, flying computer knocked off of a tall table or porch, small child who dumps a whole glass of orange juice into your laptop, etc. Since I have a MacBook, I use Apple Time Machine to back up to a terabyte hard drive sitting on my desk. It does hourly backups whenever I am at home and hooked up to the drive. This is my solution for when I need to do a full restore of my entire computer. By having it on a local hard drive that I control, I can quickly do a full restore without having to wait for anyone else to find my data or deal with any network-related slowdowns.

However, this solution has some serious limitations. If I have a home disaster (fire, flood, volcano, earthquake, etc.), I could easily lose my computer and my backup at the same time. I’m also highly mobile and often working on local files from business trips, vacations and coffee shops between meetings, so I don’t want to rely on a hard drive at my house for backups when I’m on the road.

Cloud Backups

Now that the full backups are taken care of, you need something that will back up all of those critical files even when you are away for a week at a conference, at a client site, or even just working remotely from coffee shops all day. My second backup solution is using JungleDisk, which backs all of my important files up to Amazon S3 every six hours. I only back up my documents and a few other critical files. In a pinch, I can restore my operating system and applications from other sources, so to keep costs down, I only back up the things that I create and that could not be easily recovered by some other means. Because I’m careful about how much data I back up to the cloud, the whole solution only costs me a few dollars a month and only takes a few minutes to complete. In addition to being able to save my data from some terrible catastrophe, I can also save myself from silly little mistakes even when I’m on the road. If I accidentally nuke a file, I can still get an older copy from my backup.

Yes, I could always be a little more paranoid, but I have a backup solution that is practical, relatively easy to maintain and seems to cover all of the most likely data loss scenarios. On the other hand, I also find that backups are becoming a little less important as I move more and more of my information into the cloud. Gmail and other online data storage mean that I have less on my hard drive, but what I do have is important, and I want to be confident that I can recover it.

How do you back up your valuable data?

Photo by Flickr user gregw66, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Orvet’s 20-minute talk has just been published online by the organizers of HDLive; it’s also embedded below.

Maybe you’d think I was crazy, but almost two years ago, we speculated that the web workers of the future may begin taking their digital designs and producing tangible items to sell, using online fabrication and production services such as Ponoko. Since then, the infrastructure of personal manufacturing has become gradually more accessible and affordable, suggesting that boutique production could become a viable career choice for many of us.

Last month’s issue of Wired explored some of the culture around  personal manufacturing, noting that “global supply chains have become scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony.” Wired’s piece drew some criticism, with Gizmodo suggesting that rather than being the the “future of American manufacturing,” the developments of the last few years are really only affecting hobbyists — who are actually just outsourcing work to China. Despite this, it’s clear that everything from open-source car designs to customized LEGO parts are just a click away.

“Thing” Directories and Fabrication Services

Companies such as Ponoko and Shapeways are providing end-to-end services that enable product designers to submit designs, have prototypes manufactured for review and then listed in online stores where customers can customize them, place orders and have items shipped.

Other services such as Thingiverse act as open-source directories of “construction files” for items as diverse as engagement rings and light-duty pliers. Elsewhere, Flexible Stream is offering free, downloadable portfolios of designer’s work for use in rapid manufacturing devices such as 3D printers and CNC machines. The company’s catalog includes objects as esoteric as collections of wood joints for making furniture.

Other creators are offering their designs as direct downloads from their own sites and blogs; designer Julien Madérou’s downloadable papercraft iPhone stand is a great example. Indeed, rather than printing such a design on paper, services such as Ponoko or Shapeways enable such designs to be fabricated from tougher materials, such as wood and metal.

3D Printers and Rapid Manufacturing Fabrication

Where the likes of Ponoko enable hobbyists to submit a design file for fabrication at a remote facility, for the more adventurous designer who’d like to make things at home, tools such as 3D printers are becoming more affordable and accessible.

New York’s MakerBot Industries are producing 3D printers that cost less than $1,000 and can purportedly manufacture any item that’s less than 4″x4″x6″. Though currently limited only to ABS plastic as a material, the price point and capability of these devices will only improve over time.

In parallel with these low-cost fabrication devices, networks of fabrication workshops are emerging as a kind of “coworking for machine shops.” The most prominent of these — TechShop – is concentrated in California. More recently Ponoko and ShopBot Tools (a manufacturer of CNC tools) launched a joint venture — 100kGarages — to bring together creative consumers and local fabricators in a global network of “garage workshops.”

Between fabrication services, “thing directories,” low-cost 3D printers and “comaking” workshops, the opportunities for web worker careers is growing, moving beyond the production of digital value and into a new world of boutique physical items.

Have you considered adding making and selling boutique items to your portfolio of skills?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: 3-D Computing From Digital Cinema to GPUs

Read more: http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/10/report-3-d-computing-from-digital-cinema-to-gpus/#ixzz0f9XwNgkf

One of the best ways to find this news and interesting information is by using sites that provide smart ways to aggregate content. In some of these examples, the content is curated by real people, but in others, it’s generated algorithmically in that the posts being linked to or discussed rise to the top. Here are a few of my favorite ways to discover new and relevant content to get you started.

Techmeme

Techmeme is probably the most well-known way to find the hottest tech industry news. It uses a combination of human editorial input and algorithms to find the posts that people are talking about and linking to. My favorite thing about Techmeme is that it has an excerpt of the main story along with links to many of the other bloggers who are discussing the same topic. It’s easy to get a quick understanding of the story, while getting a look at how different people are reacting to the news. These reactions can be particularly fascinating for some of the more controversial stories. I use Techmeme to keep up with the news that all of the rest of the bloggers are discussing so that when I go out with my geeky friends in the evening, I’ll be ready to talk about the latest news.

The Twitter Tim.es

My new favorite content discovery site is The Twitter Tim.es because my personalized page is curated by the people that I choose to follow on Twitter. It takes the links posted by the people you follow and links from friends of friends, and puts them into a newspaper-style layout with the most frequently tweeted links at the top with larger headlines. Since I only follow people on Twitter that I really want to keep up with, the content that appears on my Twitter Tim.es page is highly relevant for me. It usually contains a mix of general technology information and Portland news, which is my perfect mix. You will need to sign into Twitter to create your pages, but as it uses oAuth to authenticate with Twitter you don’t have to give up your Twitter password.

Lazyfeed

I’ve just started using Lazyfeed, but it shows some real promise. You pick any topic that you want to learn about, and it provides real-time updates on the most recent content in your topic. It has a couple of features that make it particularly useful. First, it is really easy to add or delete topics, which makes it a great way to keep up with a hot topic temporarily (like a product launch) and then delete the topic after the buzz dies down. It also suggests related topics, which can be helpful when you are starting research on something new or to pull in some additional information.

What are your tips for discovering new and relevant content?

These days, though, I’ve been getting up at 5 or 6 a.m. In a lot of ways, the early morning hours are a great time to write and do projects that require uninterrupted effort. But I find that it’s way too easy to get sidetracked. Since I work at home, I’m tempted to sit down at the computer first thing in the morning to “check my email.” Unfortunately, too often, I find that “checking the email” has turned into a marathon session of “checking the email, responding to email, reading online news, and catching up on Facebook and Twitter…” and the next thing I know, it’s already 9:30, and I haven’t yet eaten or gotten dressed.

So I’m going to try a few things to regain my mornings:

• Turn off my computer at night. Not only will I save energy, it will require an extra effort to turn it back on in the morning.
• If I must leave my computer on for some reason, I plan to shut down my mail software, web browser, RSS reader, Twitter client and anything else that’s likely to send notifications overnight. I’ll probably leave my IM client on, but will set my status to “away” or “not at desk.”
• Route my business email accounts through a service like AwayFind. I used this a while ago, but haven’t tried it since Thursday wrote about its new features.
• Use a VoIP service like onSip to set my business phone lines to take messages, or forward calls to me in an emergency. I’ve found that most clients are quite understanding about what’s really an emergency.
• If I do turn on the computer in the early morning hours (for instance, if I get an idea that I want to write down), I won’t fire up my email client or my browser, but will instead go directly to my word processor or to Evernote.

It’s going to be a challenge to follow these recommendations, especially since I live on the U.S. West Coast, and most of the rest of the world is already working by the time I get up. We’ll see how I do.

How do you keep your mornings to yourself?

Photo by stock.xchng user swissboy

Here I go again, writing about organization. This time, though, it’s not because I’ve found a great new app to help me. You see that picture? It’s my inbox, aka my “to-be-dealt-with” pile. And there are two more like it. If only there were an app that could help me!

It’s so much easier to stay organized when everything is virtual. Or, if the files on your hard drive aren’t organized, at least you’re not tripping over them on your way to the kitchen. The moment I have to deal with something tangible these days, I seem to get in trouble. I used to be organized, but my life changed. So I need to get re-organized.

Part of the problem is that when I came to Paris from the U.S., the physical space I could use was drastically reduced. Another part of the problem was adjusting to the organizational methods — if they can be called that — of my office mate (husband).

Just as I was reaching the point where I could no longer tune out the chaos around me, when it was getting really oppressive, I discovered the 5S methodology. You may have heard of it if you’ve ever worked in a place with lots of equipment and people. It’s a five-step program that originated in Japan and was designed to get a work environment organized and keep it that way, all in the interest of maximum efficiency. I’m going to see if I can apply it to the occupational hazard I currently call my office.

The 5S Process

The five steps of 5S, and their approximate English translations are: seiri (sort), seiton (straighten), seiso (shine), seiketsu (systemize), and shitsuke (sustain).

1. Seiri (Sort): Get rid of anything in your work space that is not absolutely necessary for your work.

This first step is supposed to enable you to simplify tasks and use space effectively. It’s also supposed to help you be more selective about what you introduce into your work space and keep the number of work-related items around you to a minimum.

Frankly, for a personal office, I think this is a little extreme and bad for morale in any circumstances. I have a couple of things on my desk that are just there to give me something fun to look at. They’re staying. But the rest can go: the Advil, CDs, business cards (the bane of my existence), masking tape, Christmas postcards I meant to send to the two people I know who haven’t discovered email… There are a few other trouble spots I need to hit too, like the top of the filing cabinet, and that box of cables taking up space I could use. Step one is going to take me a full day at least.

2. Seiton (Straighten): A place for everything, and everything in its place

This step is about efficiency. It encourages you to make optimum use of your work area and to outfit your space with functional storage. It is also important for everything you use for work to have a convenient and appropriate home to which it is returned when you’re done using it.

This is how I used to operate, back when I had a lot of space. Once upon a time, I knew where everything I owned was. The fact that I couldn’t find a recipe last night, despite having paper files for my old, pre-computer recipes, may be the very reason why I’m writing this today. (Getting them onto the computer is on my to-do list. I have gotten as far as comparing recipe management software.)

3. Seiso (Shine): Clean up after yourself

This third step is about being responsible for keeping your own space neat. Most importantly, it doesn’t work unless everyone who shares the space does the same. The idea is to treat your office as if you might have a client drop in at any moment.

OK, once I get all the junk off of my surfaces, I will clean them. Regularly. There’s no way I can begin to do seiso without getting through the first two steps. Until then, no clients allowed.

4. Seiketsu (Systemize): Make it a habit

This fourth step is about establishing standards and a system for organization, and integrating them into your workflow in order to maintain a high level of neatness.

Some time last year, I stumbled across the concept of the “unpleasant task day” on the blog of a management consultant, and thought this would be a good way to approach this step. Michael Wade, the author of that blog, suggests you pick one day a month to do the things you hate to do. But since the 5S process is about neatness and efficiency, I’m thinking it should be more frequent. Maybe I’ll have a weekly “terrible task afternoon” for cleaning up and filing instead.

5. Shitsuke (Sustain): Prevention of backsliding

This last step is more accurately translated as “discipline.” It’s about making yourself maintain the neatness standards and system you’ve put in place.

Because I was once very organized, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to get back in the habit. I’m not so sure my husband is going to like this whole 5S thing though, even though he has the most organized hard drive I’ve ever seen.

The Reality

Clearly it’s unlikely that any of us could strictly adhere to a system like this, especially given the constantly changing nature of our work. Plus there may be uncontrollable factors (like husbands) that can toss a wrench into the works. But I’ve always found that a little structure never hurts when it’s used as a guideline, so I will try it out and see how it goes. Then I’ll try to apply it to my computer files, emails, etc. Anyway, it’ll be fun to say “Seiton!” the next time my husband puts the pliers down on the corner of my desk.

How do you stay organized outside of your computer?

OK, you get the idea. I like a more pragmatic approach. No one response or solution is going to be right for every situation, every person or every organization, and any “expert” who uses this type of absolutist thinking is probably not be someone you should rely on for advice.

Yes, I provide quite a bit of advice on blogs and for clients, but I try to show how my approach has worked for me or for my clients while giving people the flexibility to come up with a solution that works best for their needs. Many of these tips work for some people, but not for others. For example, my recent inbox zero post prompted this tweet from fellow WebWorkerDaily author, Doriano: “Inbox zero is just like the Loch Ness monster, bigfoot and honest politicians… don’t fall for it folks.” Obviously, he’s not a fan of inbox zero, but he probably has a system for managing and processing email that works just as well for him.

I like to try out a variety of approaches and see what sticks over the long term. When I switched from a PC where I used Outlook for email and tasks to a Mac, I had to find a new task management system. I probably tried a dozen different applications before finally settling on Hiveminder, which is working well for me, but I still continue to make slight tweaks to my system to become even more efficient at managing my to-do list. Plenty of friends made suggestions, and I read many online reviews of various task systems, but ultimately, I had to pick the one that was right for me and for my situation.

This is true in social media, too. No one approach will work for everyone, and people or companies shouldn’t be pressured into joining too many social web sites, especially if they aren’t prepared to spend the time required to maintain their presence. Businesses and people don’t have infinite amounts of time or money, so we need to carefully choose how we allocate our resources. The exact mix will probably be different for your business than for mine.

Don’t let consultants, experts, bloggers or friends bully you into a particular solution. Think about what you want and pick an approach that works for you.

How do you decide what works best for you?

But when I upgraded from Firefox 3.5.7 to 3.6 the other day, I discovered that a few of the add-ons that weren’t yet compatible were important to me. In fact, they had become such an integral part of my daily workflow that I was significantly slowed down without them. Luckily, almost all of the add-ons were updated within a couple of days so I’m back up to speed now, but I realized how much I missed them when they weren’t available. In this post I’m going to share the add-ons that I find it hard to be without.

Some of us at WWD have ditched Firefox in favor of the faster Chrome, but until these add-ons are also available in Chrome for Mac, I won’t switch. In the meantime, I’m sticking with Firefox, and hoping that 3.6, the newest version, lives up to its claims of increased speed.

Mozilla Prism. This add-on allows me to create a site-specific browser for locations I visit frequently. I’ve used it to create a “Google Reader” application that appears in my dock, can be placed in a separate Space, and operates separately from Firefox. I’m not sure why Mozilla hasn’t updated this yet; I’m using Chrome to view Google Reader for now.

LastPass. This password manager not only keeps track of my passwords, it syncs them between browsers and computers. I imagine most web workers have as many passwords as I do — they’d be impossible to keep track of without a program like LastPass. I also use 1Password for the Mac, and sync its data using Dropbox, figuring that it doesn’t hurt to keep such important data in multiple places.

Xmarks. This handy extension syncs my bookmarks between browsers and computers.

Adblock Plus. I appreciate all of the content that is available on the web, including WebWorkerDaily, thanks to the support of advertisers. But some sites have such obtrusive advertising that they are unusable. Google (which makes most of its money from advertising) is allowing ad blockers in its Chrome browser in the hope that advertisers will make “useful” ads that no one will want to block. Until then, Adblock Plus is a necessity for me.

Gmail Manager. This is the Firefox add-on that I use the most. It’s the best way I know to manage multiple Gmail and Google Apps mail accounts.

I’ll also add two tools that are incredibly helpful to web developers: Firebug and Web Developer. Both help me and my colleagues to test and debug web sites.

…and finally, Cards. Well, OK, I guess I can live without this one, but I’ll have find something else to do while I’m on the phone.

What browser add-ons do you rely on?

We have to take some risks if we want to be successful and make our mark on the world in some way. If you don’t believe me, here are a few quotes from people you might recognize:

“Taking risks takes practice, and if we keep doing the same things we already know, in the same way, our willingness to dare to be different atrophies.” — Kathy Sierra “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” — T.S. Eliot “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

I’ve taken my share of risks. Some of those risks have turned into amazing experiences, while we’ll refer to some of the others as great opportunities for learning. Some risks that have turned out very well for me: moving to California to take a job at Intel and letting them move me again to Oregon 6 months later; organizing some large events for the Portland technology community where hundreds of people were counting on us to pull it off’ co-founding a non profit; blogging; speaking at events in front of hundreds of people; and many more. I’ve also learned a few things from some of the risks that didn’t pan out as well: not every online community can be saved; the best technological solution doesn’t always win no matter how much you wanted it to succeed; and some projects just need to killed swiftly before they die a long, slow and painful death.

The key to taking risks is to keep things in balance without swinging too far toward either extreme. Don’t jump into something that involves a serious risk without at least taking some time to do a little research and think about whether you are doing the right thing. However, you don’t want to make the mistake of swinging too far toward the other extreme of  over-analyzing every possible outcome and missing the opportunity.

If you aren’t already a natural risk taker, here are some tips to get you started.

1. Find some work that takes you outside of your comfort zone that involves both some risk and a nice reward, but that won’t leave you bankrupt or dead if it doesn’t work out. In other words, start with some small risks and work your way up.
2. Do just enough research to make a smart decision about the opportunity. Don’t just jump in and do something stupid without at least taking a quick look at what you might land in after the jump, but don’t spend forever analyzing it, either.
3. Ultimately, just do it. Try something and see if it works.
4. If you didn’t have a wild success the first time around, learn from your mistakes, go back to step one and try again.
5. If you were successful, go back to step one and try again with something a little bigger.

I try to make sure that I’m always doing something that feels at least a little uncomfortable. It is way too easy to coast along in life, but coasting is boring and not much fun. I’d rather take a chance and do something incredible (or fail miserably) and learn something new in the process.

How do you take risks?

Image by Flickr user lumaxart used under Creative Commons.

First, let’s look at how people react to boredom in the work environment. According to Susan Cramm on the Harvard Business Review blogs, there is a good chance that you are making your job boring. Here are her three questions to test whether the thing that’s making your job boring is you:

1. Are you on autopilot? When we have been doing any task for a while, we tend to go on autopilot. This makes our jobs easier, but it also reduces our interest level and leaves us bored.
2. Is your energy level down? Boredom saps our energy reserves and makes it more difficult for us to focus on our work and be successful.
3. Have you become a conformist? After you’ve made the big changes needed early in the job, it can be too easy just to let things slide rather than continuing to look for areas where you can make additional improvements.

I have a few suggestions to help you snap out of your work-related boredom.

• Exercise. Yes, this really is my answer to almost everything. Exercising increases our endorphin levels and helps us stay energized. This will help you get your energy levels back up, and you might even think of some new ideas while you exercise.
• Change the way you do routine tasks. Kick yourself off of autopilot and experiment with some new ways of doing things. Take a routine task, and do something a little differently with the goal of finding some way to improve the process. You just might find a better way to accomplish the task, but even if it isn’t an improvement, you’ll probably come out of it with a renewed interest.
• Pick up a new, challenging project. I try to take on new projects that will be a challenge or at least something a little different from my normal client work; sometimes these are fun, side projects or new client engagements. In Meryl’s plans for 2010 post, she talked about how she takes on a new, challenging project every year to stretch herself. When I was working in corporate jobs, I used to always volunteer for special projects and teach classes for employees because doing something new helped me stay energized and excited about my job.
• Set improvement goals. Pick one thing every couple of months that is important, but that you haven’t focused on in a while, and set a goal of making at least one improvement in that area. This could be a personal development project or some neglected aspect of your work. The idea is to make some kind of regular improvements to break you out of the conformity cycle.
• Find a new hobby or non-work related project. I’ve found that when I am bored outside of work, this can carry over into the work day. Find a fun new hobby that will keep you energized during your off-hours, and you just might find that it helps improve your energy during the work day as well.
• Get a full night of sleep. Yes, I know you are busy and that sleep just cuts down on the hours that you can be doing something more fun. However, being a half-asleep zombie at work will drain your energy and make you feel bored even when the work itself isn’t all that boring. Try it for a week, and see if you don’t have more energy. You might realize that you enjoy those waking hours even more when you are well rested.

These are just a few of the techniques that I have used over the years to avoid succumbing to boredom, but I’m sure that there are other great ways to get re-energized and excited about your work.

How do you break out of the boredom cycle and stay excited about your work?

I’m currently working on a project that is pushing me to my limits, physically — that’s not something that usually happens when I work! There are three components: a lot of interesting and useful Internet research, some less interesting but easy recording of data in a spreadsheet and, the hard part, running all over the city of Paris. It initially sounded like fun, but in reality what I’m doing is quite grueling because, like most Parisians, I get around on foot and using public transport. (Doesn’t sound so bad? I climbed 300 steps yesterday alone!)

In the last 13 days (yes, I’m counting the days), I’ve been reminded of some strategies that have worked for me in situations like this in the past, and decided to share them because they can be useful in any situation where you’re in over your head.

1. The moment you realize you’re in trouble, negotiate the deadline. Even if you can only get a couple of days out of your client, it will help. You can get a lot done in 20 or 30 hours. Plus, even a short extension will reduce that sense of panic a little, maybe long enough for you to take some practical steps to address the problem, like the next one.

2. The moment you realize you’re in trouble, get help. Call on your network, tweet a plea for help and beg for a retweet, do whatever you have to do. The point is to try to delegate enough bits and pieces so that the load you’re left with is manageable. But be careful not to delegate to people who can’t operate without direction or whom you know to be flaky, no matter how desperate you are. They’ll just cause you more stress and fail to lighten your load.

If you can’t get any help, the next three points are even more important.

3. Pace yourself. If you work 18 hours one day, you’ll be much less productive the next day. Then you’ll just be more stressed, which will make you even more fatigued, etc. Sure, if you’re 25, you can probably do crazy long days for longer periods, but it will catch up with you eventually.

4. Schedule in at least one day a week to regroup. Try to accurately assess the amount of time you need to complete the work, and make a schedule that distributes the work more or less evenly over the time remaining till the deadline minus one day a week. And by “regroup,” I mean rest, not spend the day trying to catch up on the 10 projects you’re neglecting because of this one. That won’t help. Reassess the workload and adjust the schedule every day or two.

5. Don’t lose sight of what you’re getting out of the project. This will help you get through your darkest hour and keep you motivated. I’m not talking about the money, although that may be an important factor for you. I’m referring to the intangible things, like what you’re discovering, how you’re growing, how this work and experience will benefit you personally and professionally. You can usually find a bright side!

If you have survival strategies for desperate situations, please share! (I still have 10 days left and can use all the help I can get.)

Photo credit: stock.xchng user straymuse

There are a couple of ways to get out and find other people. Some workers congregate in locations that offer WiFi, like cafes. Unfortunately, where I live, there aren’t a lot of options like that. Pretty much the only places to go are a single small Starbucks and a McDonald’s.

Another option in some areas is coworking. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Imran has provided a good primer of WebWorkerDaily’s articles on coworking.

The concept of coworking spaces has always appealed to me, but at the same time left me conflicted. The thought of a nice big and well-equipped space with other people around sounds very inspiring. But then I think “Why would I pay for someplace to work when I have a perfectly good place to work at home? Isn’t avoiding hauling myself to an office part of the reason I like my job in the first place?” Although it does sound nice to be around other professional people semi-regularly, it’s always seemed like it would be an expensive luxury that my budget could do without.

Until now coworking hasn’t actually been an option in my town, anyway, so I didn’t have to make a real choice about it. But for the month of January, a local office rental space is holding a “coworking open house” on Thursday afternoons in its lounge (which are perhaps a little like the Jelly casual cowoking events that Simon has written about previously). Renting a solo office space doesn’t interest me since I can sit and work alone at home. But the coworking open houses finally gave me a chance to find out if coworking was for me or not.

After spending two afternoons at Office Divvy’s lounge with my laptop, I have decided that I like coworking and think that it could have a useful place in my work life. But not, it turned out, for the reasons that I originally imagined.

My coworking experiment definitely was a good social experience. I enjoyed talking about my work with people and learning about what they are doing. To be in a professional environment and being treated like a professional by other professionals was a nice change from being at home in my sweats being rudely interrupted by home security system salesmen.

What I didn’t expect, especially in a small group and with my work being so specialized in the scrapbook industry, was that I actually made helpful business contacts via the people I met. I got the name of an attorney recommended to help me with some business contracts, and met some other people that may be business resources in the future. I had a lengthy conversation with someone knowledgeable about the local scrapbook business scene. And I even got a lead on someone interested in having me do some copywriting work.

I definitely hope to have the opportunity to cowork regularly in the future. I think it would be good for my mental health — and for my business.

Have you tried coworking? How did it work out for you?

“No,” I sheepishly say. “It pretty much looks like this all the time.” Inevitably my response brings an involuntary shake of their heads, followed by a statement that always goes something like, “Wow, I wish my work area was this together.” If they only knew.

On the surface, my office is a well-oiled organizational machine, and, compared to many people, I suppose my compulsive neat-freak streak does win out. But the deep, dark secret of my organizational shame is that my computer, while well placed on my uncluttered desk, is harboring enough unfinished business to choke a horse.

The problem is particle management. Up until a year ago, I was mostly working with five to six major corporate clients at one time. But in the wake of the economic shakeup, I now find myself juggling 10-20 smaller ones. And this requires a whole new way of thinking and managing information. I hunt for data on my computer the way I look for lost keys at the bottom of my purse — shaking the whole thing out on the table and sorting through the junk until I find what I’m looking for.

Let’s face it, my old systems for client and information management had broken down, and I was a loose-ends mess. So I went in search of a system of simplification that would help me regain my sense of equanimity, track my to-do’s effectively, follow up with potential clients efficiently and invoice in a timely manner. I don’t think that’s too much to ask – do you?

In my attempts to find software or web solutions that would keep things from falling through the cracks, I’ve tried at least five to-do-list managers, four contact management systems and several CRM products — all to no avail.

I even consulted my husband Jon for his sage advice. His recommendations seemed sound, but Jon, being a web designer and Internet marketing specialist, was all about the latest and greatest technology. Too much for me, since in spite of all my web work, I’m a simple girl, technologically speaking.

Frustrated, I turned to my administrative assistant Shelah for help. I ran Jon’s ideas by her. “Too complicated,” she immediately said. “Let’s start with the simplest solution and work our way up from there.” And what was Shelah’s simple solution? An Excel spreadsheet, and the to-do list built into my Apple Mail.

“Excel?” I said. “How could a simple spreadsheet resolve my complex workflow issues?” “Here, I’ll show you,” said Sheila. Two hours later, all the data I had been hunting and pecking to find on my hard drive was integrated, organized and optimized into one nice, easy-to-find document with tidy tabs. I wanted to cry.

Next, we took all of the to-do’s off my very sophisticated to-do-list software — with its customized priority, multiple-context, project assigning capabilities — and moved them to my Apple Mail basic to-do list. You know, the kind that reminds you of the pen-and-legal-pad method we used to use, but a bit more sophisticated. I could enter the item to be done, the date it was due and its basic priority (high, medium or low). At the click of a button, I could see what I needed to do on what day and easily move items to a different date as I needed to. Again with the crying.

Now, I’m not saying that an Excel spreadsheet or a mail program to-do list is the right answer for everyone, so please — no cards and letters. But what I am suggesting is that folks who work in the world of high tech often look for more functionality in their productivity solutions than they really need in practicality.

How often do we as web workers make things more complex than they need to be? Because in the end, productivity isn’t about how many bells and whistles a solution has; it’s about how easy, practical and efficient it is to use. Sometimes, less really is more.

Are your productivity systems overly complicated?

So I’ve changed the focus of my work, and effectively moved into a different field within the same discipline. And as you might expect, most of my plans for 2010 are about building on this new approach.

Clients

I’m planning to expand my client list this year, and hopefully do repeat work for some preferred clients. This will take some research, seeing as the offshore market is likely to be significantly larger than the domestic market for the work I do. So I’ll need to spend some time researching markets, seeking out good prospects, and then researching them. In short: a lot of leg work.

Skills

As I mentioned when I reviewed my last decade of work, I’m keen to do some more study this year, as I’ve found a few gaps in my knowledge that I’d rather not have to work around. I’m hoping that some extra training in, for example, interview techniques, will help improve the quality of my work output, and increase the satisfaction of my clients.

I’ve also started a modest self-directed learning regime to help sharpen up some of the skills I have, but need to exercise more often.

Setup

My home office setup is working well for me, and an imminent shift from wireless to cable Internet is sure to make my work day more efficient and less frustrating,

I’m also in line for a new phone this year, as well as a hand-me-down computer that’s significantly faster than my trusty old iBook G4. Since I’m one of those rare web workers who’s not wildly passionate about technology, I actually see these changes as hurdles rather than excitements. That said, I am looking to get more out of my gear this year, since I know I’m not using it to its capacity, or getting the most out of its capabilities.

Work Focus

In my field, there used to be much talk of specialization being key; with the market as it is, the prevailing wisdom now indicates that freelance writers should diversify. My plan is to specialize in a particular approach to my subjects, rather than in a topic area itself. Madness? Possibly, but I’ll give it my best shot. I’m also trying to work out where the sites I manage and maintain fit into my work and skill development plans, and what I need to do with them next.

How about you? What are you planning for 2010?

Gear

I accumulated a lot of new gear in 2009, but that doesn’t stop me from still having some gear goals for 2010. One of those goals I already fulfilled by purchasing a Canon 270ex flash for my Canon XS last week. I can now avoid the recurring expense of renting a 430ex ii when I attend trade shows, and the 270 will do the job with less weight to carry.

Like Simon, I’m looking forward to an upgrade to my iPhone 3G when I’m eligible this summer, right after the traditional new model rollout time. I’ve also been shopping for EVDO card options after our Christmas week Internet outage (and another one caused by our cold snap this week in Florida) made me realize I needed a better Internet access back-up plan. So far, I’m leaning toward a MiFi from Verizon.

I’d also like a 15” MacBook Pro to upgrade the MacBook I bought as a refurb last April. I didn’t anticipate that machine becoming my primary computer (it waved goodbye to my Vista desktop once I got my hands on that MacBook) and the 13” screen gets a little cramped. But that may have to wait until 2011.

Work

My business and career were expanded greatly in 2009. I aim to continue to carry that momentum into 2010 in several ways.

The first goal was already met, with the successful relaunch a few days ago of the scrapbook audio show that I co-host online called Paperclipping Roundtable. I also am working on constructing a brand web site for my media company, and plan on rolling out some additional web properties for the company during 2010. Unlike previous properties the company has experimented with, these properties will offer content somewhat related to the main Scrapbook Update topic, part of a move toward a more cohesive vision for the company.

My goals also include making progress toward becoming an established speaker in the areas that I work in. I also hope to have the opportunity to travel more so that I can do more in-person professional networking.

Personal

Like several other WebWorkerDaily folk, one of my 2010 goals is to get a lot of reading done. I also wish to spend more time on my scrapbook hobby, instead of just on my scrapbook job. Another goal is to simplify our home to more easily accommodate our busy schedules. And perhaps most important of all is my goal for my autistic six-year-old daughter, which is to finish the process of toilet training her. We’ve made major progress on that in the past six weeks and fully achieving that would be a major milestone in her development.

If a few of these sound suspiciously like the resolutions I’ve said I abhor, then I’ll tell you that I think of them as projects. And my Things is loaded down with projects for 2010. It’s going to be a busy year, but I think it’s going to be a really good one.

Does using the term “project” make a goal seem less intimidating to you?