All that help can quickly turn into a problem as you try to keep track of everything. Fortunately, there are ways to keep all those helpful pieces of technology from overwhelming us.

You don’t necessarily need to limit the number of tools you’re using to control your day-to-day routine more effectively — although a few excellent tools are always more helpful than a laundry list of mediocre applications. What causes more inefficiency is switching constantly or “upgrading” to seemingly better tools. Online, it’s easy to get the impression that there’s a better invoicing application or project management tool available every week. But moving your invoices or other information around on a weekly basis just isn’t practical. Here are a few options to make the most of the excellent tools that are available, without letting your toolbox get out of hand.

1. Set a time for considering new tools. It’s hard to even remember what tools are in your toolbox when you’re constantly adding new things. Rather than sign up for every cool application that crosses your desktop, make a list of those that you want to consider. Set a date when you’ll consider switching out the tools you’re already using for something new — more often than once a month is probably not feasible, at least for those applications that you use on a daily basis.
2. Keep track of issues with your existing set of tools. Whether the application has broken or has too much downtime or there’s just a feature you’d really like to see added, make a note of it in the same place you’re keeping track of new applications worth consideration. Don’t be afraid to ask in your favorite tool’s forums if the developers have considered rolling out the features you particularly want.
3. Read up on news about your particular tools, especially if you’re considering swapping one out. That feature you may particularly want could be forthcoming. Even better, you may find ways to make use of your tools.
4. Make sure you can get your information in and out of your tools easily. If you’ve wound up with an application that doesn’t have a lot of options for exporting your data, it may not be worth making the switch anytime soon, no matter how cool the alternative is. Also, try to make sure that any new tool you start using offers some level of data portability.

For a while, I changed out the application I used to manage my to-do list every two months or so. That sort of approach only guaranteed that things got lost in the shuffle, especially because I couldn’t easily transfer information between applications. It seems like it should have been common sense to stick with one, but in the moment — when something that seems a lot cooler than what you’re using comes along — it can be difficult to resist the temptation to jump ship immediately. Just the same, holding off even a little while can make your day a lot smoother.

How do you keep your toolbox under control?

Photo by Flickr user L. Marie, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Applications For Individuals

@wordpost  — Andrew Swenson

Google Calendar + Tasks because it’s free, easy to use, and syncs up everywhere (including on my iPhone).

@maryshaw — Mary Shaw

I use iCal for time management because it syncs with my iPhone and I set reminders to beep me at all hours. It’s a lot of beeping.

@nickf — Nick Finck

I have iCal running on Google Calendar with Teux Deux for task level stuff. It just works well. Simple, easy to use.

iCal comes with Macs and lets you keep separate calendars; you could have one for work, one for each client, one for home and another for school.

@Jchristopher — Jonathan Christopher

I chose OmniFocus after going back and forth between it and Things for at least two months. I became more attached to certain higher level features of OmniFocus, and came to realize that a preference between the two is simply of a personal nature from designer to designer. Some people feel differently, but I’m actually a huge fan of the OmniFocus interface design and find that it caters to the complexity (or simplicity) you prefer.

OmniFocus and Things are also Mac applications.

@gregpincus — Greg Pincus

My favorite time management app is old-school: the timer/alarm clock. (I use it on my iPhone to make it cool) :-) I have a broad schedule and my issue isn’t where, but how much. Blog reading could be three hours if I didn’t time it.

@arikhanson — Arik C. Hanson

I like Remember the Milk because of its full integration with Google and phone.

Remember the Milk is a nice task management web app. However, it works with Google Calendar and has iCal feeds available for those who want to tie tasks to a calendar for time management. The app can send reminders and notifications through many avenues including IM, Twitter and email.

@anoop_sahgal — Anoop Sahgal

I use Outlook for both professional and personal uses, and it syncs with my phone. Since Outlook is already set up on everything, it worked for me.

Applications For Teams

@gregmcqueen — Greg McQueen

I use Backpack from 37Signals for just about everything — writing included. It’s simple. 37Signals designed it so you don’t need to read a manual on how to use it. They succeeded.

Backpack is another popular web app.

@stenoknight  — Mirabai Knight

I like ididwork.com (Twitter-style task logger) and ManicTime. I use it because of the efficiency of Twitter, plus privacy and weekly reports, without having to set my actual Twitter feed to private. Accountability is key.

Ididwork is a web app that has team-based features, reports and tagging. ManicTime is a Windows app that collects computer usage data and provides graphic reports.

@prchicago — Toni Antonetti

Love SmartSheet — it helps track projects for clients and team. It lets us share project sheets with clients, input time and info in web form that goes into Smartsheet and it’s easier than emailing spreadsheets.

SmartSheet is a web apps that works similarly to Backpack, in that it tracks individual work, lets you collaborate with a team and updates clients. It also includes tools for sales management, marketing and human resources.

Two Things Consider in Your Decision

Many things can factor into your search for the ideal time management application. You can narrow the list by looking at two things:

• Team or individual: Do you need an app solely for your own use, or do you need to manage a team or update clients?
• Type of application: Do you need a web app that you can access from anywhere? A desktop app that can automatically collect time tracking data of all of your activities? A mobile app that you can use from your phone?

What time management app do you use? How did you choose?

As of now, the Kindle — although I find it professionally beneficial in the sense that I find myself reading more — doesn’t have a direct and measurable impact on my work life. I can think of a few ways apps could change that situation and make the Kindle a valuable tool in my web working toolbox. After all, the Kindle has always-on 3G connectivity and extremely good battery life, both very desirable things in a mobile platform.

A Twitter App

It’s an obvious pick. Basically any device that can have Twitter on it almost inevitably will have Twitter on it, eventually. But Twitter on a Kindle would be a good fit because it requires very little in the way of resources and processor power. It’s basically text, and if there’s one thing the Kindle does well, it’s text.

Sure, there are lots of images, videos and web links on Twitter, too, and some might feel that that was the most important aspect of the service. For my purposes on the road, though, I’m less concerned with deep engagement and more concerned with basic access. As long as I can read my stream, and, more importantly, post updates from my Kindle, I’ll be more than satisfied.

A Gmail App

Another mostly text web-based tech that would work on a Kindle is Gmail. The ability to browse your text-only email with a simple, light interface via the Kindle would actually be preferable to reading it on a computer, in my opinion, since it would make it that much easier to actually concentrate on the content of your messages.

It shouldn’t be that hard to include a simple composition component, too, since the Kindle has a full keyboard. The key to making this app really useful will be keeping it simple, so let’s hope all parties involved keep that in mind. For instance, just because the Kindle can now read PDFs natively, doesn’t mean a Gmail app needs to be able to display PDF attachments. Basic email is all I’m looking for.

A Word Processing App

I want to use my iPhone to write things on the road from time to time. I don’t want to have to get my laptop out just to jot down a basic idea, but I can’t, in all honesty, use the iPhone’s virtual keyboard for anything longer than a text message or a very brief email or tweet. It’s functional, but nothing more.

Despite the small size of the keys, I definitely prefer the hardware keyboard the Kindle makes use of. I use it all the time to make notes in the books I’m reading (a favorite Kindle feature of mine), and after an initial adjustment period, I now find it quite comfortable. A basic app that allows me to create even basic text files that I can then transfer to my PC for further editing and use in other documents is exactly what I need from a Kindle word processing app.

A To-do App

I know the iPhone (and other smartphones) sort of has this covered, but since my to-do needs are very basic, I think I’d actually prefer to do this sort of thing on the Kindle with its basic, paper-like e-ink display. It might not be as easy to navigate without a touchscreen display, but I might actually be more inclined to use something attached to my reading platform than to my phone.

No iPhone, But Not Without Merit

The Kindle isn’t an iPhone; it’s designed to be a single-purpose device. I don’t think Amazon ever foresaw a future in which it would begin offering apps for the platform when it conceived of the Kindle, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. As a mobile device, the Kindle has a lot of advantages over media players and other platforms, and with the right kind of effort in the right directions by developers, it could be a very handy little web working tool.

What kind of apps would you like to see on the Kindle?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Evolution of the e-Book Market

asapLocal displays many different types of information specific to your location, including job openings.

Career Bliss provides inside information about companies, including salaries.

HireSyndicate shares real-time job info from recruiters.

CLBFree provides mobile access to Craigslist, including the job section.

BusyBee finds freelance and contract opportunities in your local area.

JobTweet Job Search utilizes Twitter for search for open positions online.

JobRadio.FM is a 24/7 Internet radio show dedicated to careers advice.

InterviewBuddy offers a slew of advice, tips and tricks for interview preparation.

GetApps Done is a little different than the other apps in this roundup. It caters to the development community, connecting those who are looking for development work and those looking for developers.

Interview Buzz Lite is another interview preparation study app with 32 free questions. The Pro version includes 300 questions.

A Mighty River specializes in assisting African-Americans with finding new job opportunities and goes beyond that with career guidance.

CBT Nuggets lets you watch many free IT training videos to help you sharpen your skills.

JobServe Connect is the official iPhone app for the service that’s been around since 1993.

UK Jobs is useful for finding jobs in the UK, not just for those living there but also for those thinking about moving across the pond.

Job Search provides a bunch of videos with advice on how to find the right job for you.

techVenture Job is from a Silicon Valley search firm that connects investors, developers and co-founders.

JobFinder serves the U.S. and UK with a powerful search engine that taps into some large job sites such as Monster.com and Indeed.com.

LinkUp Job Search Engine is different from the other apps here, in that it only lists jobs from company web sites.

TechCareers searches the niche markets for tech and engineering jobs.

SnagaJob uses your iPhone’s GPS to locate jobs within a five mile radius of where you’re standing. It also uses zipcode searches to locate positions anywhere else.

JobCompass is another job search app that utilizes the power of the GPS and displays available jobs surrounding your current position. This comes in handy when traveling to a new town or even while you’re on your way to a job interview. You just might find other positions while en route!

CareerBuilder taps into its massive 2-million job database and provides notification of any replies to job applications you’ve made on its system and new positions that become available.

High Paying Jobs claims to search more job sites than any other free job app.

ALB Legal Jobs caters to finding positions in the legal sector.

Which apps have you found useful in your job hunt?

So here I’m going to give those apps a chance to shine, because even if I can’t personally use them during the course of my day-to-day business, it’s entirely possible that many of you can. Accordingly, here are four oddball little web applications that do things you may not even have realized you wanted one to do in the first place.

Create Your own YouTube with Fliggo

As the prevalence of video on the web continues to grow, it makes sense that video social networking should grow, too. And since there are already numerous apps that allow you to create your very own social network, it also makes sense that one should also exist to help you create your own social video site.

Fliggo (covered by Liz over on NewTeeVee last year) allows you to do just that. It’s a smart, simple, easy-to-use and visually stunning platform for easy construction of a video sharing site of your very own. It works well whether you want to set up a home for a series of instructional training videos for your workplace or client, or if you just need a place for the family to gather and share home videos online.

Design Your Space with Floorplanner

My brother recently had to create a plan of the tenant apartment he recently put into the basement of his new house. Part of the process required that he submit a floorplan of the converted space to the city for licensing purposes. Neither of us are good at AutoCAD, so we had to look around for another solution.

Floorplanner does just what we needed. You can map out your space and design the layout of furniture, fixtures, etc. quickly and painlessly. Everyone from office managers to interior decorators can probably find a great use for this.

Put Your Heads Together with ResearchGate

I’m no scientist, but that hasn’t stopped me from always wanting to be one. Sure, I took basically the opposite career path and went into English, but I still like to think that I have a fairly scientific mind.

If that mind were properly trained, I’d use it to contribute to the community at ResearchGate. It’s a social network designed specifically for professional scientists, so that they can connect, share findings, and form mutually beneficial partnerships and research teams. If you’re actually working in a scientific field, it’s well worth checking out.

Get Everyone Together and Active with TeamSnap

I never really used to like team sports all that much growing up, but now I play in two dodgeball leagues two nights a week. It’s a great way to meet people, stay active, and just have fun, and the range of athletic ability means everyone can participate.

Managing a team for coed, intramural or beer league sports can be a tricky thing. Tracking down team members, arranging and sharing game time and location information, and keeping track of who’s paid what and who’s in need of equipment or uniforms or things like that can all present quite a challenge. TeamSnap takes a lot of that trickiness out of the process, and there’s a free plan, so it works on any budget.

There are some great little gems hidden out there in the world wide web. It can be hard to sift for diamonds, though. I try to note as many promising ones as I can, and hopefully the ones I’ve passed on today will help some of you out there in your personal and professional pursuits.

Found a hidden gem of an app recently? Let us know about it!

Projects is one of the most full-featured, yet still affordable, PM solutions I’ve seen on Apple’s mobile platform. That said, if you’re looking for something that replaces Microsoft Project, you’re looking in the wrong place. Projects is more like an advanced task manager with some PM app characteristics and tools. It’s a supplement, rather than an all-in-one solution.

A Quick App That Needs to Be Quicker

The idea behind Projects is that you can do some basic PM on the go. As such, I think it’s really key that the app be tailored towards pick-up-and-go usability, but as it currently stands, that isn’t really the case. Your default view upon entering the app, for instance, is a list of all your current ongoing projects. That’s handy, but it took me a minute to figure out that I had to hit the “Edit” button to create a new project to begin with. A quick add button is something many iPhone to-do apps have, and it perfectly suits the platform and the concept behind Projects. Hopefully it’ll be forthcoming in a future update.

You also can’t swipe to delete any projects, which could arguably be a data loss prevention feature, but actually feels like another missed opportunity. Likewise, neither project phases nor groups can be quickly added or deleted, but tasks, which are two levels down, can be. I’d advise the developers to just make the adding/deleting features universal.

Better Fit For Different Types of Projects

I do like the options you’re given when you’re creating a project, even if I’d like it to be easier to get there in the first place. Projects lets you create either Group- or Phase-based projects, which, depending on the type of work you’re doing, can provide a great advantage. Being able to choose between an organizational model and a more linear progress-based tracking model is a definite advantage Projects has that you won’t find in a lot of the more simple to-do apps.

Creating tasks for projects also provides a decent amount of flexibility. You can add notes, set a flag (which unfortunately is only a star-based rating system at this point) and set dates and duration. You can also assign it a status, choosing between “To Do,” “Waiting,” “WIP,” and “Complete,” which should cover all the bases for most people. I also really like the date interface, which allows you to pick dates from a calendar and makes everything a lot easier than it would be with manual input.

Gantt Charts and More

Perhaps the most notable feature Projects brings to the table is to be able to look at all your tasks for your various projects in Gantt chart format. While they’re a standard feature of project management apps, I’ve yet to see Gantt charts so well implemented on the iPhone. Viewed in landscape mode, the charts are even more legible and helpful in providing a quick overview of where you stand with regards to your various deadlines. Tasks are also color-coded according to their status, making your at-a-glance takeaway even more informative.

Finally, you can export your projects, which is really helpful if you want to use them on a desktop platform as well. You can export your data as text or as an MPX file, which can be read by Microsoft Project. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to sync or import data, which is a major limitation of the app, but at least data on the phone doesn’t have to stay there.

For $6.99, you really have to judge whether or not what amounts to a standalone PM app is necessary for your iPhone. Keep in mind, though, that Projects is a very handy to-do application as well, so the cost isn’t terribly unreasonable, even if you’re only using it for personal projects and day-to-day activities.

Would a standalone mobile PM app be useful for you?

The interface is well-organized and keeps things simple so the user can fix one set of problems at a time. Its five key functions are maintenance, performance, problem fixing, customization and something called “turbo mode.”

Maintain system: Maintenance addresses registry problems, removes orphaned shortcuts and unneeded files and moves data on the hard disk for optimal performance and defragmenting. Maintenance functions can run automatically or manually.

Increase performance: Analyzes system performance, Internet settings and visual effect settings for unused programs, identifies functions slowing down performance, and optimizes hardware and other settings.

Fix problems: Repairs frequent Windows problems and display errors, restores needed deleted files, reviews the hard drive for errors and improves running programs.

Customize Windows: Windows customizations can contribute to slow performance. This function helps customize Windows to your liking, while ensuring optimal performance.

Turbo mode: This new feature in the latest release lets you configure the software so that when you need the computer to perform fast, you can quickly switch to Turbo mode, based on your customized options.

I knew I had some applications being loaded on startup that didn’t need to be there. But to go through them one-by-one would have been very time consuming. TuneUp Utilities simplifies this by listing all the startup programs by the program names — something you don’t get in Window’s System Configuration Utility’s startup list — and whether they’re necessary, optional or unnecessary.

Those identified as unnecessary are redundant startup applications, like iTunesHelper and Adobe Acrobat Quick Launch. Every startup program contains a description to help you judge whether to keep it or remove it from startup. I made the changes and it sped up my computer’s startup without any errors.

My newish computer had issues shortly after I received it, and TuneUp Utilities can only do so much in repairing performance. It performs best with computers that have had software installed and removed many times, something I haven’t done much of with my computer yet. In spite of this, I ran a performance benchmarking application before and after running TuneUp Utilities and it showed improvement.

I give TuneUp Utilities 2010 kudos for its simplicity and providing enough information so users can make informed decisions whether to make changes. It only recommended a couple of changes that I didn’t accept while I let it fix the rest. My computer has had no new problems after running the application for several weeks. We always must use caution when running performance applications like this, but TuneUp Utilities gives you what you need to make sound decisions. A full version of the app retails for $49.95, while an upgrade from earlier versions for $29.95, and a 30-day trial download is available.

Have you tried TuneUp Utilities? Did it speed up your computer?

For some tasks, you absolutely need network access, but for others, a rich and varied stock of offline-accessible information and research resources should provide plenty of fodder for getting things done. Your iPhone or iPod touch can be a great supplemental resource for exactly this kind of thing. Here’s how to turn your device into an offline road warrior.

Instapaper or Read It Later

These apps are great because when you do have connectivity (if you get a signal briefly, for example), you can quickly save articles for reading in extended blackout zones of little or no coverage. Both these apps allow you to capture and store web content as offline pages. What’s more, integration with both of these apps is often baked into other iPhone gems, like Tweetie, the popular Twitter client that recently got a brand new version with lots of extra bells and whistles.

Instapaper comes in two flavors: a Free version, and a Pro version for $4.99. The more expensive app allows for Folders, article recommendations, background updates, and more, and really is worth it if you’re an avid Instapaper user. Read It Later also comes in Free and Pro flavors, with the Pro costing only $2.99. It features full-screen reading, sharing, and the ability to send articles to other iPhone apps.

Dictionary.com or WordBook

Despite having impeccable spelling skills (quiet, Simon), even I can see the value in a dictionary app. For instance, I often have an overwhelming urge to look up the origins of words. Not necessarily of tremendous professional value, but still. And of course, I’m kidding about the spelling thing. I often need to double-check words, especially ones for which I seem to have a mental block like “aesthetics.”

Both Dictionary.com (Free) and WordBook ($1.99) offer offline access to more than 200,000 definitions. My personal preference of the two is WordBook because of the UI, but both provide a thesaurus, word of the day, audio pronunciation guides, and more.

Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is a great on-the-spot reference for background and contextual information on new and unfamiliar terms and concepts. Which is fine when you have an active network connection, but doesn’t help much when you’re on a train in a 3G dead zone and you’re looking to provide a quick overview of the USB 3.0 standard for a client report.

Enter Encyclopedia ($8.99, iTunes link), an iPhone/iPod touch app that stores a complete full-text offline version of Wikipedia on your device. All internal links function, and you can navigate your history and backtrack when you need to. Beware, references are excluded in the interest of usability, and it will take up a full 2GB of your device’s storage space, but it’s much simpler and more convenient than the alternative.

myPANTONE

Web designers, and people who just take an interest in the finished look of their documents and web work, will truly appreciate the usefulness of the recently released myPANTONE app. The app gives you access to Pantone’s color libraries, and allows you create color schemes on the go. You can even use colors from photos taken with your device to find matching Pantone hues. Even if you’re not a professional print designer, this app can still be very helpful in coming up with pleasing color combinations for documents, personal websites and more.

It’s a little on the pricey side at $9.99, but it does let you do really cool things like GPS tagging, and voice/text annotation of palettes you create. If color is important to the work that you do in any way, there might be no better way to spend otherwise unproductive time out of network range.

The Pocket Reference Re-imagined

Imagine how crazy the idea of having an encyclopedia in your pocket would’ve seemed 20 years ago? Plenty crazy, I’d say. Thanks to the versatile platform Apple developed for its mobile devices, you can now have multiple encyclopedias on hand in a package slimmer than most people’s wallets. And it doesn’t end where I’ve stopped here. There are plenty of very specialized reference apps available via the iTunes App Store, for little or no money.

What reference apps do you carry with you?

oneforty, which launched yesterday, is the creation of social media consultant and “Twitter for Dummies” author Laura Fitton. According to the site’s welcome screen, it is “currently tracking 1,336 apps that make Twitter better.” It is hard to believe there are that many apps built to work with Twitter, especially since most of them have lived in obscurity without a platform like oneforty to promote them. (And if, somehow, one is missing from onforty’s massive catalog, there is a place on the web site to suggest new additions to the site.)

The site’s home page features a variety of menus to facilitate access to various app selections. There is a featured app, an essentials list, a popular list and a category menu. The design is clean and intuitive to use.

From the home page, users can navigate through the lists or categories to find an individual app that looks interesting. Apps can also be found through lists generated by the site’s tagging system. The app pages are information-packed but not overwhelming, and are simple to read and navigate. There is all of the expected information, such as a link to get the app, the developer’s Twitter ID, and user reviews. But then there’s also somewhat unexpected information, such as related tweets and press mentions. Related tweets displays the most recent tweets mentioning the app, and press mentions links to relevant news stories.

oneforty accesses the Twitter API to create a profile for users on its own site. Users can then customize their profiles by “adding” their favorite Twitter apps to it, as well as adding further information about themselves. App reviews a user has written on oneforty complete the bottom of their profile page (and can be accessed for editing from that location by the user).

For developers, there looks to be much to love about oneforty. Developers are being encouraged to “claim” their apps that are listed in the store’s directory. Once developers claim their apps, they have the ability to add information like screenshots and press mentions to the apps’ profiles. They can also activate functions, such as the donation button (oneforty is ultimately a store, after all). In the future, plans call for developers to have the ability to sell their applications or add-on services on oneforty instead of just accepting donations.

Overall, oneforty is well-designed, intuitive and makes it easy to find apps to enhance the usefulness of Twitter. The only question I’m left with about oneforty is: why didn’t someone do this sooner?

Which Twitter apps do you use?

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.

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?

Propane

It’s a fine way to power a BBQ, but it’s also more than that. Propane is a new piece of beta software that does what I previously did using a Fluid browser instance. Specifically, it runs Campfire-based chatrooms, which are a popular tool for people who need to collaborate in real-time with a distributed team. I use Campfire rooms to coordinate with other writers at various blog sites where time and scheduling is a primary concern, but that’s just one possible use.

Like with a Fluid instance, Propane provides Campfire with the bare minimum of browser chrome, so that it does in fact look like a native OS X app. It also provides some nice bells and whistles that allow you to customize the how and why of notification sounds and messages, including Growl notifications. There’s also great tools for better file sharing, including automatic source detection when you drag content (text and images) from a Safari window into your active chatroom in Propane.

Mailplane

I’m not actively trying to rhyme these app names, it’s just working out that way. Gmail is great, and Mail.app is nice enough, but I’d rather not use the two together if possible. I love Gmail’s web interface, but I’m not crazy about trying to manage my email activities in a browser window. Maybe that makes me old school, but I grew up on Outlook, and old habits die hard.

Mailplane delivers all the Gmail interface goodness with a nice, native app wrapper. Basically it, like Propane, is just a browser instance with some additional features specific to the web app in question that makes it easier to use. It’s those features that make the app worthwhile, though. Mailplane takes advantage of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts to allow you to view and create new messages, reply, attach media, and more using convenient buttons located along the top of the app window. It also badges the app icon in your dock with the number of unread emails, and can notify you of new mail using sound and Growl.

Those with Google Apps and multiple accounts are also in luck, because it supports easy account switching and storage. There’s also an option to display an icon in the menu bar, including new mail count. You can try it out for free for a month, but it is a paid program, and will set you back $24.95 if you do decide to purchase.

Gdocsuploader

This is less an app and more of a handy little applet, but the single, focused service it provides is incredibly useful: a simple drag-and-drop interface for uploading documents to Google Docs. It may not seem like much, but it saves a lot of steps vs. the traditional method, which can quickly add up if you do most of your document editing in Google Docs, like I do.

All you have to do to use it is keep the app icon in your dock, and then drag any document onto the icon to upload it. It’ll prompt you once for your Google name and password, and afterward it’ll just work. If you prefer, opening the app will automatically take you to a file browser for selecting a file to upload manually.

None of the above apps does anything that you can’t do using the web, but they do offer time-saving and usability enhancements that you won’t necessarily get using only the corresponding app for each in a normal browser window. Just because web apps are often convenient and user-friendly doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be more so with a more solid connection to your desktop.

Have any tips on how to make web apps more native? Share them in the comments.

The price is unbeatable for lone freelancers and business owners, with a $0 price tag. If you work with a team that will need access to the software, it’ll cost 30 euros ($40) per user per month, with the first user free. Should the out-of-the-box package not have everything you need, Severa has add-ons available for a fee.

Severa succeeds in standing out from the field with one-click access to common features. The Dashboard (in the screenshot below) has a clean layout with good color contrast to help with quick scanning.

All of the fields, pages and drop-down menus are customizable so you can remove those you don’t need or add more options. Severa does a nice job of ensuring its forms display key information and limit the number of required fields.

You can search your data with keywords and limit searches to just one part of the application. Advanced search has a long list of columns to use as filters for searching. The right-hand side of the app holds a calendar and quick help box that changes based on where you point your mouse.

Viewing an account displays all of its contacts, cases and invoices. Like the rest of the app’s pages, the “Case” page avoids presenting too many fields. Cases come with a useful “Internal” tab for non-billable or internal work so you can track non-revenue producing activities. However, adding tasks to a case feels crude, as you can see in the next screenshot. It’s easy to make a mistake by not getting the format right. Those tasks are important when it comes to doing time sheets. The tasks will show up as an item so you can enter the time worked. This ties in with the invoice, which will reflect the time worked and the rate.

As an example, I created a new account called “WebWorkerDaily” (client) with Mr. Simon Mackie as the primary contact. I used this assignment in creating a new case from within the WebWorkerDaily account and referred to it as “Severa Project.” Adding the tasks came next, followed by entering my time for the assignment. So far, so good.

However, I hit a roadblock with the “Invoicing” and “Fees” sections. It took some experimenting before Severa finally spit out the invoice with the right information as it appears in the next screenshot. Once over the hump, I breezed through the application.

Severa has a sleek interface that lets you dive right in. It has a couple of minor obstacles, but so do most applications in this space. The CRM will suit those looking for a well-integrated and even-keeled solution, without feature overkill — it also sports LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Maps integration. Having CRM, project management and invoicing all in one app will make a lot of sense to many web workers.

The Finnish company’s software supports English (both U.S. and UK varieties) and Finnish.

What do you think of Severa’s CRM, project management, time tracking and invoicing solution?

This isn’t the first time I’ve considered upgrading my LinkedIn account and decided against it, which led me to start thinking about all of the “freemium” apps — basically free apps with premium upgrades — I’ve been using. I started feeling guilty about taking advantage of the “free” in freemium services, especially because I’ve had the opportunity to interview founders of these companies, many of whom confess to struggling over pricing.  So what makes us decide to pay for an app?

My decision process works something like this:

1. Is it mission critical? Not every app or tool I use is critical to the well-being of my company, but some are. Our project management system? Critical. Our internal social networking system? Not so critical, because we’ve not all adopted it yet, but this could change.

2. How useful is the free version? In my WWD review, I was impressed that Deskaway’s free version had more features than Basecamp’s. That could have won me over, but its interface just didn’t work for me.

3. Can I live without more functionality? I used Basecamp for quite a while without ever thinking about the reporting available with a paid plan. I was getting my reports from Freshbooks, and Basecamp was just a way for me to manage client information when I was working solo. I only upgraded to the $24 per month plan when I needed to manage more projects. Payment made sense because I had so much more new work to cover the expense.

4. Should I upgrade and pay or seek out a different app? Once I began adding more team members to my company, Basecamp’s inadequacies for deeper project management became obvious. So instead of upgrading a notch or two further — and still not having the functionality we needed — we moved over to 5pm at $4/month more. Again, the cost was palatable because more team members meant greater productivity and more moving parts to manage, so it made good business sense.

5. Do the fee levels hit my sweet spot? I realize I have two tiers of apps that I am willing to pay for, each with its own sweet spot in terms of pricing. For apps that benefit the overall smooth functioning of my business and provide real value that I can quantify, I’ll pay around $25 per month. I feel comfortable having four of these. The second tier contains apps that are useful in some aspect of my work, and I’ll subscribe to up to five of these at $10 per month. That’s about my limit. Right now, I don’t have a real method for deciding how much I will pay — it’s all from the gut. But we’re working to measure the costs of doing business and the impact our apps have on our bottom line, so eventually I should have some real numbers to work with.

6. How entrenched am I? In some cases, I begin to feel “trapped” by the choice I made initially when I started with an app. If I need to upgrade and the next level is out of my price range, what then? When I left Basecamp, I couldn’t easily figure out how to migrate information over to 5pm, so I just downgraded my membership to a free plan, and now cannot figure out how to access my data so it just sits there. Over time, those assets will be outdated and no longer as valuable as they were the first months of the migration, but I still feel a sense of my data being trapped. Avoiding this trapped feeling — as well as avoiding a huge learning curve of a new app — are two big factors when deciding whether to move to another service.

7. Can I afford not to pay? If an app I’m using has a positive effect on my business’ bottom line–or moving away from it has a significant negative impact–then I’m much more likely to dish out the cash.

Back to the case of LinkedIn. The lowest monthly upgrade is $24.95. Per month. For me, that hits a sour note. I get so much benefit out of LinkedIn at the free level and have for years that there is no incentive for me to pay. Just missing out on that Quick Poll feature isn’t enough to entice me over to a paid plan.

All LinkedIn could do right now to win my paying business — possibly — is to remove the free level altogether. But by doing that, their entire business foundation would crumble as many people migrate quickly away.

How do you decide whether an app is worth paying for? Which services do you consider well worth paying for?

Image by stock.xchng user jana_koll

I was impressed when Exalead detected and offered to index my Thunderbird mailbox during the first run setup wizard. If there’s one thing I shy away from more than desktop indexing applications, it’s the various incarnations of Microsoft Outlook. Of course, Thunderbird’s latest beta allows you to index your accounts for use with Vista’s built-in search, so it’s not critical functionality. Still, better available than not.

I was using my Eee PC as the test device for Exalead, and it wouldn’t proceed with indexing until I connected with a power source, which is something I’m not used to doing, with the eight hour battery on my 1000HE. Still, I suppose they have the user’s interests in mind, so it’s not really that big of an issue. Indexing didn’t take long, although I honestly don’t have much stored on my netbook, aside from my overgrown inbox archive. I also didn’t notice much slowdown of other processes like Firefox, though my usage was admittedly light. It might also help that I’m using a 4GB SD card as a dedicated device to speed up my system with Windows ReadyBoost.

Like other indexing apps, Exalead places an icon in the notification area of your taskbar. Left-clicking once will activate a search, while right-clicking will bring up Exalead’s settings. Back when I was using Windows Desktop Search, I never liked having the search bar in my taskbar, so I don’t miss it here, although some might. Instead, when you click on the icon, you open up a new browser tab or window that shows a search bar page with a local address. You can also search the web, images and Wikipedia from this launch page, among others.

Exalead’s decision to use the browser is both its biggest advantage and most significant drawback. It keeps the app lightweight, ensuring that it won’t hog system resources like Google Desktop and other more cumbersome programs. On the other hand, it also feels a little clunky and slow, taking away from the advantage of having a desktop indexer in the first place.

On the other hand, the results page is very thorough, with your results on the right occupying most of the page, complete with links, dates, brief summaries, associated locations, authors, recipients (for emails) and thumbnails (if applicable). On the right, you can narrow your search in a number of ways, by isolating different sources, searching within your returned results, choosing different file types, dates, sizes, etc. If you don’t like the default view, you can switch to text-only results, too. And all the while, I didn’t hear the engine rev once, which is what keeps me away from these apps in the first place.

If I had to use a desktop indexing and search program (and the more work I do on Windows, the closer I get to that day), I would probably use Exalead now that I’ve tried it out, because it least resembles other resource sapping apps I’ve used in the past. If you’re looking for a lightweight alternative to the main competitors in this space, give it a shot. Best of all, it won’t cost you anything for the free version, although professional and white label versions are available if you want to deploy it enterprise-wide or are shopping for a custom-branded solution for a client.

Do you use a desktop indexing search app?

Believe me, I went into this with a sufficiently condescending attitude. There was no way I was going to say anything nice about this App Store wannabe, especially not in front of my two cousins, both of whom work for RIM. And I was justly rewarded when I had some trouble installing The Hockey News on my very first attempt. But other than that one minor hiccup, installing and running apps went surprisingly smoothly.

And then I realized why everyone doesn’t instantly fall in love with the iPhone. Having never owned another smartphone (although I did have a couple Palm PDAs back in the day), I’d just assumed that the many kinks that come along with the iPhone, specifically those surrounding not being able to run apps in the background, and the need to power cycle whenever you install to ensure proper functioning, were just part of the territory. It’s also hard to find the good apps.

Aside from the first issue with The Hockey News app, every other app installed and ran fine on the BlackBerry. They just worked. They ran in the background, they supported copy and paste, and I didn’t have to restart every time I purchased one. It’s true that if I’d wanted to download any paid apps I’d have to have a PayPal account, which isn’t ideal, but there were plenty of free apps that covered my needs.

With App World, a BlackBerry suddenly becomes a much more web worker-friendly device. With neither the bugs nor the potential to distract of the the iPhone, RIM’s lineup of smartphones now seem to me to be the route to take if you’re looking for a straight-up productivity aid. Which isn’t to say I’m switching anytime soon, but the iPhone is an integral part of my professional life for other reasons.

What do you think about BlackBerry App World? Has it influenced your choice of smartphone? If you’re already a BlackBerry user, do you find the new store has helped your online work? If you’re not, has it given you reason to consider switching?