Web Worker Daily

37signals’ Haystack promises to make finding a web designer easy, offering a simplified way to search for clients looking to hire a professional. While it’s a useful tool for someone with a web design project, it can also prove useful for web designers. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I’ve noticed that more new clients are coming my way with a single request: to help them revive or resurrect a project, web site, or product that has failed in the past. I’m also capable of creating failed projects myself — sometimes I look at my track record and try to fix my worst projects hoping that I can make them better. Read the rest of this entry »

Soon after I clicked the “Publish” button on my blog dashboard, I realized I had made a mistake.

I’d read my post through three times before hitting that button, but somehow missed adding a crucial word — the word “don’t”. Inadvertently, I had told my readers that they “have to sacrifice too much to lessen their cost of living,” . Furthermore, two of the hyperlinks I had added were broken.

I am a sloppy self‑editor, mostly because I am forgetful. I realized it was time to create a standard checklist to remind myself of all the steps I have to take before clicking “Publish”.

Since creating this checklist, I’ve made fewer mistakes and I haven’t had another “oops” moment. I created a similar list for my fiction, too. Anyone who does creative work should have a similar checklist to ensure that their projects are polished before submitting them. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago I was starting to get conscious about my online presence, so I Googled my name. One of the first things I saw were links to my earliest projects, which were how-to e-books about dating and seduction. I remember using a pseudonym at that time so I was surprised to get the byline.

While I believed in my output and knew that the customer was satisfied with my work, I didn’t want these projects to be the first thing that potential clients saw. After all, I hadn’t written about dating for several years. I wanted to focus my writing efforts on business, freelancing and travel.

If you’ve ever done low quality work, accepted a project only for the money, changed niches, or even worked on something ethically dubious, you might understand this situation. There are just some past projects that should be buried by your current ones.

How can you make sure that happens? Read the rest of this entry »

Finding work on the web isn’t easy. The time I’ve spent looking for work on freelance job sites has always left me fairly underwhelmed.

OK, that’s a huge understatement. I dislike having to sign up for different services to access the details of the jobs they’re offering. I loathe having to wade through the reams of alerts I receive from each one. And I can’t be bothered trying to remember which ones require me to buy a subscription in order to pitch for jobs, and which ones don’t, as well as all the other little nuances of each service.

I can safely say that so far, my job search subscriptions have not paid off. For me, the tedium and frustration of tracking all these individual subscriptions has far, far outweighed any value I’ve obtained from them. Last week I wound up just trying to search direct through Google in a desperate attempt to find the kind of project I wanted at a decent rate. Yes, I was that fed up. So when I heard about DoNanza, a service that’s touted as “redefining the search for online projects,” I hoped it might actually live up to its own PR. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the advantages of working from home is the flexible schedule. No matter how many things you need to accomplish, or how many simultaneous projects you have, you can still control when you can perform certain tasks, as well as how long they take. While this is more true of freelancing than it is for employees, it’s this schedule flexibility that makes the prospect of teleworking more attractive.

Whether it’s a do-it-yourself renovation of your home office, a one-month trip, or participating in NaNoWriMo, there’s always the big, personal project that you’re trying to fit in your schedule. How do you make sure that it won’t have much of a negative impact on your work? Read the rest of this entry »

In a single day, I signed up for not one but two fee-based Web applications/services that are transforming the entire way I manage my home-based Web working business. Why did I wait so long to embrace these apps? Was it the fear of an insurmountable learning curve? Was it the thought of paying for a Web app when most of the ones I use are free?

Whatever the reason, I admit that I’m a janey-come-lately, and I hang my head in shame. I’ve actually known about both applications for several years, but it wasn’t until I forgot to invoice a client yet again and then numbered several invoices incorrectly and having to go back to the clients with corrections that I became desperate. I posted on Twitter that I was seeking solutions to manage clients and projects. The response tweets were almost unanimous.

So without further ado, my new bacon-saving apps are (drumroll, please)… Read the rest of this entry »

If you keep a projects list (and I recommend it), you probably have a few projects that have been lingering there for a little while, nagging you to either finish them or banish them from the list.

I hate those kinds of projects.

How great do you feel when you knock one of these projects out? When you finish a project like that, that’s been dragging on your mind, it’s like a huge burden off your shoulders. You breath a sigh of relief, and your day is that much better.

While it isn’t always possible, I suggest trying to knock out such a project all in one go. That’s right: instead of breaking it into little chunks (as you often hear recommended), do it all at once, and get it out of the way. If you can, it’s often the best way to get your projects done. Devote a chunk of time to the project, and complete it.

Read the rest of this entry »