Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jared Goralnick (@technotheory), founder and productivity evangelist of AwayFind, a web application that helps people to stop constantly checking their email.

Like many of you, email and social network messages have threatened to overwhelm me in recent years. Over time, I’ve developed a workflow and schedule that helps to keep me a bit saner. This workflow involves a number of tools and methods that allow me to stay in touch without being continually interrupted, and that’s what I’d like to share with you today.

From 9am to 12pm, I get things done outside of email. Every night, I jot down two or three important tasks and take note of any appointments for the next day. When I wake up in the morning, I don’t check email. With Outlook, Postbox and Gmail all closed, and my task list in hand, I start my day around 9.

So how do I stay connected to my inbox without constantly being interrupted by it? Well, I get a little help from some applications:

• I use RescueTime (Solo Pro, $5-8/month) to keep me away from social networks and distractions until noon. When I turn on its nifty “Get Focused…” feature, it actually blocks distracting sites from my web browsers, without needing much customization. (Disclosure: RescueTime is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.)
• I use AwayFind Orchant (currently in private beta) to send me alerts if anything critical comes up over email. So if an important client or the person I have lunch plans with that day emails me, I’ll get an IM, SMS or voice call that tells me their message. (Disclosure: AwayFind is Goralnick’s own product.)

I check my email just before lunch. I have my own approach to batch processing my email that is fairly similar to Inbox Zero. The stuff I want to deal with later gets put in a folder called “@to-do or read.” Since I clear my inbox completely at this time, I actually will go back to this folder several times throughout the day and when I create the next day’s list. The “To-Do” folder approach fails for most people because they usually have a more urgent task list still sitting in their inbox; so they never even end up looking at the “To-Do” folder. Don’t leave anything in your inbox!

There are a few tools and techniques I use to make this batching easier for me:

• I use NutshellMail (free) to keep me out of the narcissist’s rabbit hole that is Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. NutshellMail delivers an email just before lunch that summarizes activity on my social networks that morning (Facebook notifications/messages/birthdays, Twitter searches/@’s/DM’s, LinkedIn requests/messages). I can respond from within NuthsellMail’s summary message without getting sidetracked on those sites.
• I use Outlook flags to create reminders for email items that I need to address at specific times. If you use Outlook 2003/2007 for Windows and haven’t tried flags, it’s as easy as right-clicking the flag at the right edge of a message and choosing “Add Reminder…”
• You might be wondering how I stay responsive on Twitter if I’ve shut down my other applications. I have a virtual assistant who monitors and responds to urgent messages — as well as certain search terms — on a few of my Twitter accounts. I also leave Seesmic Desktop running with one or two particularly urgent alerts that rarely go off.

An important part of my email workflow are the email accounts themselves, as they play a large role in my ability to process messages. I typically spend most of my time in my work account, and less time in the others. My four accounts are:

• “Work” account (in Outlook 2007) — this is the most important inbox to me, and where most of my processing time is spent. It also has a separate inbox within it for customer support inquiries for AwayFind.
• “Personal” account (Google Apps, accessed via Postbox ($30)) — this personal account is where I receive mail from friends. There’s zero junk in this account, and anything work-related gets responded to from my work account.
• “Purchases, Newsletters, and Sign-ups” account (Google Apps, accessed via Postbox) — this account is for sites that need a consistent email address, or for content I may want to read or at least file for reference.
• OtherInbox account (Free or $20/year) — While I don’t use OtherInbox to organize my email, I still love using the entire domain it gives me for bacn email. For instance, when I want to download a “free e-book” that requires an email address, I can use “ebookname@myusername.otherinbox.com.” I rarely log in to my OtherInbox account, since it forwards daily summaries of stuff that’s been delivered there. This is the ultimate bacn-block (and it shields your identity, too).

After lunch, I try to spend most of my time outside of email, but often that’s not possible. Since I had left my morning completely free from emails, calls and meetings, the afternoon is often cluttered and requires some that I spend some time in Outlook. Either way, my morning accomplishments help me to actually get some real work done.

I’ll process email again at around 5pm using the same process as above. In the evenings, I’m hopefully away from my computer. If not, I’m free to slack off however I’d like.

How do you structure your day? Are there other applications that make it easier to spend more time outside of your inbox and to make better use of your time within it?

Photo credit: stock.xchng user GretheB

Internet-based communication is changing so quickly these days that there seems to be an endless stream of beta releases. Yesterday, Simon wrote about some of the latest browser betas; let’s look at a few products and services for interacting with social networks, Twitter and instant messaging.

I don’t generally like living on the bleeding edge, but some betas are very usable, and I’ve already incorporated them into my daily workflow. Others look promising, but are not stable or are lacking too many features right now. But all of the following are worth trying, and watching as they develop. We’ll review them more thoroughly as they mature.

Adium is my favorite IM client for the Mac OS. Its latest beta supports all of the instant messaging protocols, and also has rudimentary support for Twitter and Facebook Chat. Unfortunately, the latter is not working as I write this, although a fix is expected shortly.

VoxOx is an ambitious program combining IM; social networks (Facebook, MySpace and Twitter); SMS texting; faxing; private email; file sharing; video conversations; and voice connections. As I wrote a few days ago, it is very rough around the edges now, and desperately needs improved tools for managing contacts.

Imo.im is a web-based multi-system instant messaging client with some intriguing features, like shared whiteboards. This service is listed as being in alpha, so we can assume that it has considerable development ahead of it.

Brizzly is a web-based service that looks a lot like Twitter’s own web interface, but with improvements. It supports multiple Twitter accounts and has recently added Facebook support. The multiple accounts aren’t as well integrated as I would like, but I assume that will come.

Tweetminer is another web-based service that includes support for multiple Twitter accounts, tweet scheduling, and RSS feeds. Its interface is attractive, but features are minimal at the moment. There are also Adobe AIR or Fluid-based desktop versions, for those who prefer standalone apps.

Socialite (formerly EventBox, which Imran wrote about here) has just released beta 2, which seemingly broke support for Facebook updates. When this issue is fixed, Socialite could become my favorite, as it combines support for Facebook, Facebook Pages, multiple Twitter accounts, RSS feeds and Google Reader in one attractive interface.

Seesmic Desktop is another Twitter and Facebook program which has worked well for me, but it shares with many Adobe AIR programs some ugly screen fonts and a propensity for using large amounts of memory. Seesmic also has a promising web version, but so far, it lacks support for multiple Twitter accounts, and for Facebook.

Nambu only does Twitter, but does it very well, in what I think is the most attractive interface of any program of its type. I can choose three different layouts, and switch between them easily. Nambu’s development is very rapid, with a new beta released every couple of days.

I find the popular Tweetdeck to be totally unreadable and unusable, due to its AIR interface. I wish Adobe would make AIR on the Mac look as good as the native OS X fonts and windows.

There are lots more betas out there, of course. What beta software and services do you use?

Image credit: Stock.xchng user OmirOnia

As someone who covers cutting-edge tools for WebWorkerDaily, it’s very tempting to think that everyone uses the kind of technology that we rave about every day. Clearly that’s not the case, but some figures in a new Forrester report, “The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption: US Benchmark 2009,” which surveyed 2,001 U.S. information workers, in companies of 100 or more employees, really surprised me. For example, according to the study, one out of every five information workers shares a computer:

Also very surprising is the low take-up of collaborative software, like video conferencing tools, document sharing and even IM:

Email is obviously still king when it comes to collaboration in most workplaces (a topic I wrote about for GigaOM Pro, sub required, in “Email: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated“), but I was shocked by the IM stats. According to the study, only about 25 percent of workers use IM at all — and only about 10 percent use it on a daily basis. Is corporate America that far behind the curve? It’s not like IM is a new thing. Obviously there are concerns about employees “goofing off” on company time, but surely the productivity benefits outweigh that risk.

This low adoption rate of collaborative technologies is even more surprising given that the same study reveals that one in three of the workers surveyed telecommutes at least some of the time. Part of the reason behind this low takeup might be that the workers surveyed seem very change-averse — according to the study, only 10 percent would be happy to see their word processor changed, for example.

The figures revealed in this report represent a serious opportunity for vendors in the corporate sector — if they can penetrate a market that is obviously reluctant to embrace new productivity-enhancing tools. If only one in 10 workers is currently using video conferencing on even a monthly basis, for example, there is plenty of room for the sector to grow substantially in the future. No wonder there are so many companies currently jockeying for position in the market. It’s up to vendors to create tools that demonstrate clear productivity benefits, can be slotted into current working practices and are very easy to use.

If this report is any indication, few businesses are taking advantage of the productivity-boosting technologies and tools that many of us take for granted. If you work for such an organization, maybe it’s time to demonstrate how much more efficient it could be if it adopted just a few of these tools.

Are you also surprised by these figures? Do you believe that they’re representative of corporate America?

So you’re a web worker, but you still meet people in meatspace that you want to network with, and making them type an email into their phone or handing them a plain jane business card either feels awkward or isn’t getting results.

There are other things you can do, things that are far more representative of your trade than a lifeless rectangular slip of paper with some contact information printed upon it. That’s not to say that all rectangular slips of paper are without merit, just that most traditional ones just aren’t getting the job done like they used to, following the demise of the Rolodex. Here are some alternatives you may want to consider.

Email/Blog Address Fortune

Maybe I just have a lot of superstitious friends with hoarding tendencies, but I, and people I know, tend to hang on to the fortunes we get from fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants. At least until the next time I wash the pants I’m wearing, at which point I empty out the pockets and re-read said fortune.

Lucky Brand jeans uses this as a marketing tactic, and includes a branded fortune in the pocket of a new pair of its product. You can do the same. Find a memorable quote or write an interesting fortune, print them on slips of paper with your logo if you have one, and put an email or blog address on the back. Handing these out will not only help you network, it should spark conversation, so long as the content you print on them is interesting enough. Try to come up with a variety so that you can hand them out in groups without doubling up.

QR Code

Depending on the crowd you’re mixing with, and whose attention you want to attract, you might want to riff on the traditional business card by handing out cards printed with QR codes. QR codes are a type of barcode that can be used to link to digital content via a scanned, printed symbol. Here’s an example:

QR codes can be scanned by software readers on smart phones with cameras (as long as there’s an app available for the phone, which there often is) and will process the information and launch the appropriate content. For example, the one above should open a link to WebWorkerDaily. You can generate your own QR codes here.

Obviously, you have to be careful who you give this kind of thing to. It works best with tech professionals who’ll either be familiar with QR codes, or with tech enthusiasts who’ll be interested enough to find out more about them.

Contact Info T-Shirt

If you’re going to a trade show or convention, and you aren’t afraid to do a little shameless self-promotion (which you really shouldn’t be if you’re in this line of business), then have a t-shirt printed up with either your email or web address on it.

Now that cell phone cameras are so prevalent it’s unlikely you’ll come across someone who doesn’t have one, all you have to do to share your info with someone is stand very still for a couple seconds while they snap a photo. It’s memorable, it’s environmentally-friendly, and you get to feel like a rock star for a day while getting your picture taken.

Business Rock

This isn’t mine, it’s something I found on Instructables, but it was so off-beat that I had to share. Basically, the idea is just that you find a well-worn lake or river stone, hand-write your details on it, and distribute that in lieu of a business card.

It’s time consuming, sure, but it doesn’t cost a thing, and it will help you stand out from the field, especially if you work in a creative line of business. You can pick up a relatively inexpensive customizable craft stamp if you’d rather simplify and save your hand some cramping, too.

It’s a little out of left field, but maybe in your line of work, that’s seen as a good place to be coming from.

Let’s face it. The business card isn’t useful. It’s a little like wearing a hat in public. An odd tradition left over from a bygone era that evokes some nostalgia, but that’s about it. You don’t have to start carrying around a sack of rocks, necessarily, but try and shake things up a bit, and your business relationships will benefit.

What business card alternatives do you use or have you come across and thought about using? Any tangible benefits to do doing things differently?

Photo credit: bargainmoose

Have an email that you want to share on the web or on a social network? Forward it to “post@moomeo.com” and you’ll receive a return email with a web link. The email from Moomeo will also include links to share the original email on Facebook and Twitter. You don’t need to sign up. You don’t even need to visit the Moomeo web site.

That’s really all there is to Moomeo, although it does have some nice features. The posted email does not include the addresses of sender or recipient, and Moomeo provides a link that allows you to delete the post. And people with whom you share emails can add comments.

Moomeo is about as simple a service as I’ve seen for a while. It reminds me of bit.ly, is.gd, and the many other widely used URL shorteners. But as the folks behind tr.im found out, it’s been hard to monetize such services, and I wonder how those behind Moomeo will make a return on their investment.

Have you used Moomeo?

As I noted over at TheAppleBlog, Google has turned on push for Gmail on the iPhone. That means that your incoming messages will be pushed from the Google servers to your phone, instead of your phone having to call in periodically to check for new mail. It means you’ll be more up-to-date, and your phone will use a lot less of your battery’s power than if you use Apple’s Fetch alternative.

For Gmail users with an iPhone who work from home, this is great news. Often, those of us not plugged in to the corporate world miss out on the little niceties like Exchange information syncing. Google Sync, now that it includes Gmail, offers a great free alternative for those of us who’ve left our office working days behind. And it uses Microsoft Exchange technology to do it.

Now you can manage your contacts, calendar and email all from your smartphone, and have that information synced back to the cloud in real time, so that wherever you access it, you’ll be looking at the same thing. I’ve been using MobileMe to do that for about a year now, but since many people already use Gmail, and since Google’s alternative is free, this is much more useful for most people.

If you’d like to set up your iPhone or iPod Touch to work with Google Sync, check out the instructions posted by the official Google Mobile team. Some may prefer to continue using Gmail on IMAP with their device, since it means you can set the schedule by which you’re notified of new mail, instead of having incoming messages dictate to you. Also, keep in mind that the iPhone supports only one Exchange account at a time, so if you have one already for work, you won’t be able to take advantage of Google Sync.

Are you using Google Sync?

You’d be more than forgiven for thinking there must be something better out there than either Microsoft’s Outlook or than Apple’s Mail.app for desktop email management. You’d be right, too, especially if you’re looking for something that plays nicely with most major webmail service providers. I’m talking about Postbox, a Mozilla-based email client Aliza took a look at back in March.

When Aliza originally reviewed the software, it was free beta release software. Now that it’s reached version 1.0, it comes with a $39.95 price tag for registration. Users can still download a free trial, so you can take Postbox through its paces before deciding to make a purchase.

I tried Postbox back when it was still in beta, right around the time Aliza originally reviewed it, and there are some definite improvements in the 1.0 release.

Better Search

One of Postbox’s main selling points is its advanced search capabilities. In Aliza’s original review, she talked about how you can search for all emails within a certain time period, or search for attachments and links within emails. Postbox also now boasts a number of search operators usable without opening the advanced settings panel, including “from:name” and “subject:keyword” if you prefer doing things all from one window.

Search and email indexing is also much faster than it used to be. Even with a large archive of messages, many of which are heavy on images and links, it took almost no time at all to download and make available my entire MobileMe archive; much less time than Mail takes to perform the same task.

More Add-ons

Add-ons like Lightning for Postbox, which brings your calendar into your Postbox window via a new tab, are a big part of the program’s appeal. There are utilities for Google Calendar access, message import/export, to-do lists, backup services, Growl notifications, and managing multiple identities on a single account. More are being developed every day, so expect the list to continue to grow.

One of my favorite Postbox-compatible plugins is ThunderBrowse, which allows you to view web pages directly in the application, without having to switch over to your browser of choice: great for digging in and really trying to conquer your inbox during a marathon session.

Easier

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what usability changes occurred between earlier betas and this final release, but in general things seem redesigned with greater ease in mind. One great example is the ability to drag and drop email messages across accounts in the sidebar. It’s great for keeping your inboxes organized according to how you want to respond to messages, instead of according to how misinformed senders might try to reach you.

Postbox’s already impressive Conversations view for threaded viewing of replies also got easier, with on-the-fly notification of updates sent while you’re reviewing. That way, if someone sends an email continuing a conversation you’re currently reading, you need only click a button to view the latest response.

A Lot More Social

Maybe the biggest change since Aliza’s early experience with Postbox is the addition of multiple social network support. Postbox users can now sign in to their Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter accounts via the application’s web services menu.

Doing so will not only allow you to post new status updates to those services via Postbox, it will also enable profile photo matching in the links/additional info sidebar to the right of the message reading window. If, for example, you get a DM from someone, Postbox will automatically retrieve that person’s current Twitter profile pic and display it. Messages you receive directly from contacts you also have on Facebook or Twitter will likewise display their profile pic from those services, though I’m not sure which takes precedence in the case of double matches.

For Aliza, the problem with switching to Postbox was that she had become so used to Gmail that learning a different system seemed like re-inventing the wheel. For me, it was that the early betas were actually fairly buggy, and just didn’t feel like something that could be a full-time solution for what is a core tool in my web working arsenal. This final version seems much, much more capable, and will definitely see full-time service on my Windows 7 machine. Will it replace Mail.app? As Aliza pointed out, old habits die hard, so we’ll have to see if I can avoid a relapse.

Let us know your thoughts on Postbox in the comments.

Many organizations block access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other social networks. NutshellMail can deliver your friends’ updates to you in an email digest, which neatly sidesteps corporate blocking software, and could also useful if you just prefer keeping tabs on your social networks via email. Additionally, it can pull messages from other email accounts via POP or IMAP. NutshellMail collects the updates and messages into a digest and emails it to you.

Setting up the service is simple. NutshellMail connects directly to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace using their authorization schemes; you’ll need to provide usernames and passwords for LinkedIn and for email accounts.

You can specify when you want to receive messages — both by time of day and day of the week. You can also specify the order in which sources are presented within the emails NutshellMail send to you. You can even select a particular email message, and have it forward to you separately.

NutshellMail doesn’t operate like webmail: there doesn’t appear to be any way to view messages through its web site. You can, however, ask it to send you a digest at any time, showing activity covering one to five days.

Nutshell is in beta, but seems to work well. The service is offered at no charge; NutshellMail’s materials indicate that it will continue to be a free service. Privacy concerns are covered in detail on the NutshellMail web site; the service also makes it easy to suspend or delete an account.

NutshellMail will be appealing to those who cannot get web access to social networks because such sites are blocked at their workplace. It might also be useful for those using mobile devices, although the emails it sends are pretty heavily formatted and include such elements as Facebook photos. NutshellMail could also be another useful way of focusing on work during business hours; a daily digest could be less distracting that visiting various social sites during the day.

Would a daily digest of social network activity be less distracting than visiting sites for you?

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu caught on with the advent of cage fighting in the early ’90s. Now, some 20 years later, we associate this martial art with the brute strength and violence of Ultimate Fighting Championship television shows. But the core practices of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu don’t only belong in the cage. We can apply them to other things, too, like better email management.

The beauty of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) comes from combining three core principles: patience, control and efficiency. These principles can be applied to your email management practices.

BJJ Fundamentals

To be successful in BJJ, the fighter must always keep two solid points on the ground at all times, and then have one free point in order to manage his opponent — thus becoming a stable triangle. (In geometry, the most stable shape is a triangle.) The two grounded points are what set the basis for controlling any movement your opponent can throw at you. Think of any incoming movement from your opponent as energy. You can manage the incoming force in one of three ways: you can stop the motion, you can deflect the motion, or you can move with the motion.

Now, let’s take these fundamentals and extrapolate them to email management!

Stopping Your Opponent

You basically have three kinds of emails. Junk mail that needs to be tossed, read emails that need filling, and unread emails that require some sort of action. These are your opponents.

Now don’t panic, remember your mantra: patience, control and efficiency. Start by getting rid of all the emails that have absolutely no value to you. Toss them. Remember our BJJ principle of efficiency: Get to the source of the zero-value emails. Be it Facebook updates or useless forwards from family and friends, stop them dead in their tracks. If you can’t turn them off at their source, make use of filters to route those emails directly to the trash. By making them bypass the inbox, you are practicing the art of stopping your opponent.

Deflecting Your Opponent

Now that we have the easy stuff out of the way, let’s start cleaning house with some organization of our read emails. I use Gmail, so I’m going to describe my labeling method, which uses Gmail’s labels, but you could use folders in any other client.

The great thing about Gmail is that there is no limit to the number of labels you can apply to any one message. That said, you will discover (as I did) that having too many labels just makes you a labeling junkie. Make use of your patience with this process because your labeling system will probably need to change over time. Remember that efficiency is the ultimate goal, so make use of global labels. What I mean by that is having a set of labels that can be used across multiple emails, regardless of who or what they are associated with — don’t make them too specific. For example, I use a “Peeps deets” label for any email I am sent containing a person’s contact information. (Don’t be afraid to use your own odd lingo for labels. After all, it’s your system.) Now start smacking those labels on your read emails and archiving them! Start with the easy stuff like friends and family, for example. With a system for organization in place and read emails archived, you are practicing the art of deflecting your opponent.

Moving With Your Opponent

Now we have the base of our triangle set: Our inbox is under control. We just need to deal with those unread emails that require some sort of action on your part (those in your inbox now and those still to arrive). Let’s get hands-on and start moving with our opponent.

You need to create a standard for how you handle each email that requires action. A good rule of thumb is if any action required of you can be done in less than two minutes, just go ahead and do it. That one simple rule will keep you from getting bogged down with a lot of emails clogging up your inbox that kill your flow. That said, don’t send off quick, knee-jerk responses to those 2-minute or less emails. To get the most of the momentum you are generating with your productivity, you will need to give every email your full attention. Be sure to respond completely and concisely, so that the most important information can easily be digested.

OK, so how about emails that are going to take longer than two minutes to deal with — the multi-action emails? First thing’s first: Open the email and identify the actions that are being requested of you. Next, create a label for the project and apply it to the email. This is the same label you will apply to any other emails that will be associated with the project. Now, identify your first most doable action to get the momentum going on the project. Does the action fit the 2-minute rule? If yes, do it, and get the ball rolling. If not, ask yourself two questions. First, am I the best person to be doing this? If not, send off an email to the person best fit for the action item and apply a global label of “Waiting On” to the project email to remind yourself that a response is necessary to keep the project going. Second, can this wait till later? You must decide when is the best time to handle the action item. If you need to handle the action now, apply the gloabl label “Action” to the email so you have a visual reminder that you are doing something with that email. If you can defer it until later because it is not a priority, apply the global label of “Review” to remind yourself that you will need to deal with it later.

That’s it! Now start the process over again, each time juggling only as much as you can handle. Keep up on your emails labeled with “Action,” follow up on your emails labeled with “Waiting On,” and keep an eye on those marked “Review.”

Your inbox should now be empty. As the emails start to pour back in, it is easy to see where you left off on a project, thanks to the labels, and you can easily get going on the next step of the project. You have truly mastered your opponent.

Oscar Avellaneda is a photographer and year-round cyclist living in Alaska.

A friend of mine who is new to teleworking was complaining that her overseas prospects wanted to speak with her on the phone. Since she didn’t want to have to pay for international calls, she turned down these lucrative offers. “I don’t want my fees to be consumed by phone bills,” she said.

“You don’t need to use the phone, you can always use voice chat or VoIP,” I suggested.

“What’s that?”

It seems that not everyone who sets out to do web work knows how to establish their communication methods. There are many tools that allow us to sidestep more traditional — and usually more expensive — means of communicating with our clients, such as client visits and phone calls. For those who are just starting out, here are your options:

Email

Sometimes I still see online contractors with casual email addresses like “sexychick2009@example.com.” While you can use any email address to communicate with friends and family, stick to something more formal for professional use. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of checking multiple inboxes and notifying personal contacts about your new email address, you can easily use multiple email accounts instead, and access all of them via one master inbox.

To avoid having your email addresses plastered all over the Internet (and attracting spam), set up a contact form on your web site. In my experience, potential clients often prefer a contact form they can fill out on your site, since they don’t have to open their email client to send you a message.

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is real-time text chatting over the web. IM is useful for real-time client support and quick exchanges that are too short for email.

Some people have trouble expressing themselves via instant messaging, so don’t make this your only option for client support. Also, if you have clients that aren’t tech savvy, they rarely want to communicate this way. Still, many corporate remote workers I know stay in touch throughout the day via instant messaging. Here are some IM applications you can use:

• GTalk
• Windows Live Messenger
• AIM
• Skype

If you need an IM app that allows you to handle multiple accounts using the same interface, you might want to look at Lifehacker’s roundup of the five best instant messengers.

Phone, VoIP and Voice Chat

Although it might seem simpler to have one phone line for both business and personal contacts, it’s wise to keep them separate. You don’t want to provide 24/7 phone support for colleagues and clients, and you don’t want your workday to be interrupted by a call from your mom, either.

But what if you’re working with people who are overseas, as in the case mentioned earlier? That’s where VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) comes in. Instead of using regular phone lines, VoIP transmits audio through the internet. We’ve covered VoIP here at WWD before, including how you can use it to cut business costs.

There are many available options for VoIP and voice chat apps, including Skype, Truphone, Vonage, Gmail Voice and Video Chat, Calliflower, Phonefusion One and FreeConference.

Fax

While I’ve never felt the need to purchase my own fax machine, there are still some situations that call for faxing. For those of us who primarily deal with local clients, a regular fax machine might be enough even if it’s a second-hand unit. But if you’re mostly working with people overseas, sending faxes back and forth can be costly. Online faxing solutions such as efax and MyFax can be much cheaper in the long run.

Postal Mail

If you’re wary about giving your home address out to clients and business contacts, you can use a PO box or take advantage of online mailbox services such as Earth Class Mail or its European equivalent, Swiss Post Box. There’s also Private Box for those who want mailboxes in New Zealand.

Establishing multiple ways for clients to communicate with you isn’t that hard. When you’re starting out, it’s usually enough to have two different ways for clients to reach you (say, email and phone). Should you need more, the apps and services above give you plenty of options to choose from.

How do potential clients usually contact you? Which method do they use the least?

Image by tecknare from sxc.hu

Thunderbird, Mozilla’s email client, is a favorite of many web workers because it’s free, open source and feels faster, lighter and more efficient than Microsoft Outlook. But did you know that, like Firefox, Thunderbird has a wide range of free add-ons available that can enhance your email experience by customizing the app to your liking?

I recently moved to a new computer, which compelled me to revisit my Thunderbird add-ons. Here’s a list of my favorites. I’ve put them into a WebWorkerDaily Thunderbird Collection to make it easy for you to find them all.

AttachmentExtractor: Adds more power to Thunderbird’s attachment management feature. With AttachmentExtractor, you can save all of the attachments to an email to frequently-used folders. You can also save all, delete all and detach all files, rather than having to do it one-by-one.

Enhance attachment management with Attachment Extractor

Attachment Reminder: Most of us will have sent an email from where we have forgotten to include an attachment. Attachment Reminder looks for the presence or certain keywords (attachment, attach, etc.) in the text of your email. If the keyword is present but no file is attached when you go to send the email,  a window will pop up, asking if you need to attach a file.

Check and Send: Checks for keywords in the message body before sending, so can perform the same role as Attachment Reminder; which one you use is a matter of preference.

Contacts Sidebar: Adds a sidebar containing your contacts list for faster access.

Disable Drag and Drop: This genius feature stops you from accidentally moving one folder into another. I’ve had this happen to me before. If you need to move your folders around, disable the feature and then enable it again (you’ll need restart Thunderbird after disabling and enabling).

eMarks: This add-on enables you to bookmark important emails for later reading.

Lightning: Adds a calendar feature to Thunderbird. If you use Google Calendar, Lightning can sync with it, with a little help from Provider for Google Calendar.

Lightning adds a calendar to Thunderbird

LookOut: Have you ever received an email that has an attachment called “winmail.dat” or “body_part”? Sometimes Outlook sends an email and puts the contents in an attached file. LookOut opens up the contents so you can read it rather than go through the complicated process of trying to convert the encoded file into English.

Nostalgy: Improved productivity by creating keyboard shortcuts to instantly change folders, move messages into a specific folder, change between the To, CC and BCC fields, use folder name auto-completion, and more.

Quote Collapse: If you’re bothered by excessive quoting in emails or newsgroup posts, this add-on can help you by automatically collapsing them. You can expand them again by clicking on them.

Signature Switch: An icon appears on the toolbar instant switching between email signatures. You can also set up auto-switching by recipient.

I install new add-ons one at a time rather than a bunch in one sitting. This way I can test each add-on to ensure it works before adding another. Also, before downloading an add-on, remember to verify its compatibility with your version of Thunderbird.

What are your favorite Thunderbird add-ons?

These days, there seems to be a new product aimed at managing projects every week. Just in the last month or so, WWD has reviewed MissingLink Project Center, Zen, Zoho Projects and EasyProjects.net. Joining this parade is WizeHive, which has just released a new beta with several upgraded features.

I find a project management system indispensable. Like a lot of web workers, I’m always juggling multiple projects and clients, and such systems are the only way for me to easily track deadlines, time spent, and progress. So I’m always interested in new options, although my three-person company has been generally happy with ActiveCollab.

Thus, when I look at a product like WizeHive, I confess that I have some preconceived ideas as to how a project management system should operate. I’m not entirely sure that WizeHive would work for me, but it does include some good ideas, and the latest update offers some nice features:

• Email and Twitter integration. The folks at WizeHive understand that some people prefer to use tools with which they are familiar, rather than navigating through a web site. Thus, it’s possible to post files and comments, and to follow discussions, directly from email and Twitter.
• Desktop software. For people who’d rather have a standalone application, WizeHive offers an Adobe AIR-based client. I haven’t tried this, but it’s supposed to have the same functionality as the web app, and can be customized using the WizeHive API.
• Easy setup. The first time you log in, you’re taken through a series of screens that help you set up the basics. These screens are well-written and easy to understand; much more so than many others I’ve seen.
• Home screen. There are actually several home screens, depending on how many workspaces (sort of like meta-projects; see below) you create. Each workspace has its own home screen, marked “Recent Activity.” Here you can see messages and tasks from you or others related to the specific workspace. You can specify whether to show replies or not, and whether to limit the length of messages that are displayed. The resulting effect is somewhat like the Twitter web site. There is also a tab marked “All,” which shows activity from all workspaces.
• Task management. I like the layout and customizability of the task screen. You can choose to view just about any aspect of tasks, and arrange the display to suit.
• Version management. WizeHive automatically saves multiple versions of the same document; earlier versions can be retrieved if needed.
• Backups. WizeHive told me that they do real-time mirroring, with another mirror every 15 minutes, plus document backups through Amazon S3. I like that approach, since project management data really is mission-critical.
• Extendability. WizeHive has developed an API, and is working on an SDK, that will allow users to develop their own modules. It already has a “ratings” app for clients who need to conduct votes among project participants.

I haven’t decided if I like some features of the other WizeHive features, though. They may appeal to you more than they do to me.

• Workspaces. This is one of the features that WizeHive is most excited about. It describes workspaces as being appropriate for people who have more than one company or organization with which they work. Thus, you could have a “Company A” workspace and a “Family” workspace, each with its own color scheme, layout and set of users. I’d probably want to make each project a separate workspace, which would cause the need to scroll the tabs at the top of the screen. Luckily, it’s possible to change the order in which the tabs appear.
• Pages. Most other project management systems would call these “Projects,” but WizeHive has made Pages more open-ended. WizeHive pages can be created for aspects of a project, or they can be used to collect data on present or potential customers.
• Email archives. I’m not thrilled about getting a daily update of activities from the program, but it’s easy to turn off. I prefer RSS feeds, which WizeHive also has.

There are also some limitations in WizeHive that I’d like to see addressed. Some seem to be simple bugs, which I assume can be fixed relatively easily.

• Management of user profiles. Administrators can invite new users to share a workspace, and have control over whether they’d like the program to send invitations, or send their own. Users can create their own profiles, and add a significant amount of information. But administrators can’t edit other people’s profiles, so WizeHive can’t easily be used as a CRM solution.
• Documentation. Given that the introductory setup screens are well-written and laid out, I was surprised that I found some parts of the help system to less than clear. It could be that the help hasn’t yet caught up with the new features, so let’s hope that it will improve.
• Creating files online. WizeHive has options to create documents or spreadsheets online. These options redirect users to Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet, respectively, but after creating and saving test documents, one has to close the Zoho window manually and refresh the WizeHive screen to see the updated list of files.
• Uploading files. WizeHive now allows uploads of up to 50 files at a time. When I tried it, however, it crashed Firefox 3.5. Their one-file-at-a-time uploader worked, but the image preview function did not display either a small GIF or a small PNG.
• Pricing. WizeHive is currently in beta (although it’s been available for over a year) and is free. The WizeHive folks told me that the plans listed on the pricing page are subject to change. Right now, they’re thinking of making the number of users for all plans unlimited, and charging for the amount of storage used and for some of the more sophisticated features. Hopefully, they’ll decide on their pricing structure soon, so that potential users can make informed decisions as to whether they want to deploy WizeHive.

Mike Levinson from WizeHive told me that he and his colleagues couldn’t find a project management system they liked. So they built one. The result is an admirable attempt at creating a very flexible system that can be used in many different ways, while giving users guidance in how best to make the most of it. However, I’m not entirely sure they’ve succeeded, as WizeHive reflects an idiosyncratic view of how to organize projects. WizeHive’s flexibility could be a great strength for some people; for others, a more structured product may work better. Nonetheless, WizeHive has potential, especially for those who haven’t used a project management system before. For those of us who are familiar with other systems, it definitely takes some time to get used to how the site is organized.

Have you used WizeHive? What project management systems do you prefer?

Managing the flood of electronic communication — phone, voicemail, email, SMS, IM, micro-blogging and status updates on sites like Facebook — is an increasingly difficult task. It’s being reported that Bill Gates recently left Facebook due to a surfeit of friend requests. I’ve struggled to manage these communications, and like most businesspeople I’ve talked to, my system is based on having different voice, email, IM and social network accounts for personal and professional uses. I can thus give real-time access to clients during business hours, while after-hours access is limited to friends, family and emergencies.

Several upcoming products (Google Wave, for example) want to make every communication channel available in one place in real time and should, in theory, help to make all these communications easier to manage. But will these apps actually make it harder to separate business and personal lives? Will real-time access to all electronic messages make it more difficult for us to provide effective customer service while maintaining personal lives? As Mashable asks: are we ready for the walls between email, messaging and related technologies to come a-tumbling down?

These products appear to be the next-generation “universal inbox,” although as Sam points out, such services have been tried before, with limited success. I wrote about a couple of message aggregators a few weeks ago, although the services I profiled aren’t real-time. At first glance, these next-generation universal inboxes appear to be good ideas — messages of any sort, using whatever channel, will go to one place, and important people can have priority visibility.

Some companies with significant clout are pushing the next-generation universal inbox. Google Wave has been extensively covered, and will be more widely available in September. Google Wave is expected to have additional capabilities, but its real-time communication features are key. Real-time communication is also included in Shareflow, which Darrell reviewed recently.

In addition, the cellphone maker HTC (previously known as manufacturer of such phones as the Android G1) is planning a major consumer push, with its own Android-based “people-centric” software and interfaces. In its software, you will prioritize your contacts, and the interface will display all communications from that person (whether email, SMS, IM or Facebook) in one place.

All of these products (none of which I have yet used) seem to assume that we will go to the trouble of assigning each of our contacts to one or more groups, which can then be given an appropriate level of access. This is an old idea that’s been a feature of every operating system that I know of.

But frankly, users like me, with over a thousand contacts in my address book, won’t want to individually assign people to groups. It’s much easier to give clients one email address, and friends and family another. The same is true of IM accounts and phone numbers. Similarly, some people don’t “friend” business connections on their Facebook accounts, preferring to use a site like LinkedIn instead.

I worry that the next-generation universal inbox services will require a lot of setup and maintenance, and ultimately, make it harder to carve out personal time. People are already feeling the need to check email, text and tweet at concerts and baseball games. Maybe it’s time to bring back pagers.

How will you prioritize electronic communication in the approaching era?

We’ve previouslycovered the impressive Microsoft Outlook add-on Xobni. The company behind it has just released a new premium edition of the product called, appropriately enough, Xobni Plus, available for a one-time fee of $29.95. There are a number of productivity-boosting features that are exclusive to the new edition.

Social Inbox

Xobni Plus reveals a great deal about your contacts, and provides instant access to their profiles on some of the most popular social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. This can really come in handy when trying to connect with a new colleague, partner or customer.

I like how these services are integrated with the Xobni interface; with one click you can either add them as a contact on the service or go to the site for more information. The exciting part is that Xobni is continuing to add more popular services, such as Skype.

Another feature that I like is the integrated Google search box; it’s very useful for instant access to a Google search for that particular contact.

I must admit that it’s impressive how many useful features Xobni was able to cram into such tiny screen real estate without making it look too cluttered.

SmartMail

Xobni Plus includes some interesting new options that give Microsoft Outlook some much-needed smarts. For example, right out of the gate you’ll notice the much-improved autocompletion feature while filling out the “to” field for a new email message. Outlook is extremely feeble-minded when it comes to filling that address out, seemingly only supplying the most recent of most-used email addresses. Xobni Plus provides a boatload of names to choose from thanks to its powerful new search engine, which indexes all contacts, including those only found in the “cc:” field. Another useful time-saver is the way it can find an email address just by typing a part of an address, such as the company name.

These are all features that Outlook should have built in by now. Over the course of a few days, these seemingly small time-savers made a big difference to my productivity.

Search and Rescue

Also available in the Plus edition is a souped-up search feature. You can not only search for contacts but also any keyword or phrases in the subject and message body. There’s also an advanced search query builder for ultra-detailed searches.

There’s also the very handy ability to search and filter within threaded conversations and within each contact’s network, which would allow you to look for that colleague of one of your contacts that you have forgotten the name of, for example.

The Bottom Line

Here are some other benefits that come with the Plus edition:

• One year of tech support
• No ads
• Multiple .PST file search

The free version of Xobni is very useful and might be sufficient for many people’s needs. However, for power email users, Xobni Plus offers more than enough features to warrant the one-time expense of $29.95 (with a charge of $9.95 for each additional computer you want to use it on).

If you’re a Xobni user, will you be upgrading to Plus?

Recently, I posted about singletasking, a new trend that many are turning to after having burned out on multitasking. One key component of singletasking is setting aside blocks of time during which you check and deal with email, instead of having it interrupt your work flow continually throughout the day. Ignoring email is probably the most challenging aspect of singletasking for me, and I suspect the same is true for many web workers.

Kukoo is a web app that’s specifically geared at helping you maintain what many would argue are healthier email practices. I found that emails were far less pressing than I thought they were when I used it to limit myself to checking, replying and generally managing my accounts only twice during the day.

Kukoo works by setting you up with a custom email address based on your existing one. Emails sent to that address are governed by rules of your choosing, and senders are notified according to these rules about when to expect a reply. As a sender, you get more piece of mind because you don’t have to wonder whether or not you’re being ignored. On the receiving end, you’re free to let things pile up a little bit without worrying about whether clients are getting impatient, and the pressure of replying will be somewhat alleviated. And if you feel like giving senders more info regarding your inbox habits, you can even include information regarding when you last checked your email.

There’s always a catch. In Kukoo’s case, it’s that anyone sending you emails has to add “.kukoo.com” to your existing email address in order to receive your auto-reply notifications. That’s a problem, because people are creatures of habit and as such, won’t change their address books. They’ll also figure out that emailing directly to your address bypasses the auto-reply function. Finally, if you’re concerned about branding, having “yourdomain.kukoo.com” as your go-to address might, er, water down your image somewhat.

If you aren’t able to stomach the idea of leaving senders hanging while you scramble to get a million more urgent things done before you reply to them, Kukoo might be the answer for you. If you haven’t been able to give singletasking a proper go, this could be the app to get you started.

As a web worker, I’m typically attached to my laptop. But there are times when using the computer isn’t particularly practical, like when I’m driving. Checking my email on the road is significantly easier if I don’t have to type anything — such as with Voice on the Go. The service allows you to check email, schedule appointments, send text messages and complete many other tasks just by placing a call on your cell phone.

Handling email through Voice on the Go is a relatively simple process: Once you dial into the system, you can have it read individual emails to you, as well as transcribe any replies you want to send. You can forward and compose emails with equal ease. The voice recognition software used by the system is fairly reliable — I’ve yet to find one that was completely without fault. In particularly noisy places, the system does have some issues, but you do have the option of using the keypad to give the system instructions.

Voice on the Go interfaces with most web-based email accounts, as well offering the option of accessing your email through POP3 or IMAP. The company has also gone to some lengths to provide encryption and security for email and other data. The price tag on a Voice on the Go account is $5.99 per month, plus taxes, and the site makes note that your calls are subject to normal carrier rates. In comparison, Jott offers a similar service for prices ranging from $3.95to $12.95, but has some limitations as to how much you can record.

There’s also some disparity between the services available from Jott and Voice on the Go that may tip the balance in favor of Voice on the Go. Jott does not offer an easy transition between checking your email and making a phone call, while Voice on the Go allows you to break into an email currently being read and have the system call a phone number in your address book. Voice on the Go also offers you the ability to access traffic, weather and travel information, along with news, through the same system that you use for email and text messaging.

It does seem like a smart move to invest in a headset if you don’t already have one, but what hardware you use is up to you. Even if you have the most basic cell phone, it will work just fine — you can even call into Voice on the Go from a landline if you need to or through Skype if you use a Skype-enabled phone.

At this time, Voice on the Go has local access numbers for approximately 40 U.S. area codes, as well as almost 20 Canadian phone numbers. There are also 25 international numbers available, for such countries as Australia, Mexico and even South Africa.

What’s your current in-car setup for handling calls, emails, etc? Do you think a voice over solution is something that you will make regular use of?