All Hallow’s Eve is nearly upon us, and like many others, I’m scrambling to come up with last-minute costume ideas for the weekend festivities. I can always pull out the old tickle trunk, replete with the bits and pieces of costumes past, but where’s the fun in that? If possible, I like to repeat as little as possible.
Instead, why not embrace my web working identity as a source of costume idea inspiration? These costumes may not be instantly recognizable by everyone, but those who do recognize them will make it all worthwhile, especially if you travel with a web-savvy crowd. Please note that any ribbing that follows is of the good-natured variety. Read the rest of this entry »
November is almost here, and that means it’s also nearly time for NaNoWriMo. That’s National Novel Writing Month, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the abbreviated term. It’s an event run by Office of Letters and Light, a not-for-profit organization that takes as its primary focus encouraging young people to write through various education-based programs.
The goal is for participants to write an entire 50,000-word novel, from start to finish, within the space of a single month. Sound challenging? It should, unless you’re Stephen King, who seems able to match that kind of production without even meaning to. It’s free to enter, although donations are encouraged to help the organization pursue its charitable goals. Read the rest of this entry »
I am a big fan of the latest generation of smart phones. The variety of applications that make them so much more useful than the previous models, which were mostly focused on email usage with a little web browsing on the side. I have an iPhone, but I spent the last weekend helping my significant other get his Android phone set up. Once we got the basics up and running, the first thing we did was start exploring the Android Market and installing applications.
Playing with applications on an Android phone got me thinking about how I use applications on my iPhone. I’m always interested in seeing what applications my friends are using on their phones, so I thought people might be interested in reading about the iPhone applications that I use. Read the rest of this entry »
I recently came across a video by Jon Larkowski entitled, “The Way I Get Things Done,” in which he outlines his personal productivity system. He offered several useful tips for increasing productivity, but the two phrases that really stuck out to me were that you need to firewall your time and guard your attention.
Time is our most precious resource, and how we spend it ultimately determines how successful we are in life and business. Read the rest of this entry »
In an earlier post, I mentioned using a virtual assistant (VA) to help with my work so that I could free myself to focus on more important tasks, including taking much-needed time off. Many readers asked who I used for virtual assistant services, and one reader asked for an post on how I use VAs. So I thought I’d share my experience, as it might help you in your own business.
VAs have been very effective in helping me get things done, while freeing me to focus on other, more important, areas of my life and business. Here are a few things to ask yourself before hiring a VA. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, I’ve been doing major cutbacks in my work day. It started with my lead generation. I’d been putting myself through the wringer for six or seven months in an attempt at kicking my results up a notch, only to have the opposite effect. I finally had to draw a line in the sand or run the risk of burning out.
I pulled the plug completely and took a couple of weeks off the lead generation hamster wheel. The result? My incoming leads and my revenue actually increased. Was it that my energy had improved? Maybe. Was it that I was focusing more on the right things? Possibly. Either way, I wasn’t going to stop a good thing. I started cutting back in every way imaginable, and my work schedule was the next thing to take a hit. Read the rest of this entry »
Being a web worker can mean learning to handle many facets of running a small business, including dealing with difficult clients, which can often be one of the biggest frustrations that come with the territory.
But how do you know if your clients are abusing you? Here are a few telltale signs and tips for how to fix and avoid these situations. Read the rest of this entry »
As a freelancer, I spend most of my time trying to manage information overload. Like Charles, I use spaces to quarantine focused work from other distractions, and I have some tricks for efficient RSS reading, creative uses of RSS to increase efficiency, and filtering techniques to help reduce the time I need to spend consuming information. Despite this obsession with efficiently gathering information, there are also times when I actively seek out information overload.
While a fire hose of notifications and feeds can be too distracting when I’m working on things for client, if I’m looking for inspiration for a new blog post or new venture of some sort, I want to see as much information as possible in the hope that something will catch my eye and provide the inspiration that I need.
Here are a few of my favorite tools for embracing information overload. Please beware that these tools are known to sap productivity and suck up precious hours that can never be regained! Use these techniques at your own risk. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
