This approach doesn’t have to only apply to corporate employees — it can apply to web workers as well. Whether you’re a freelancer or a corporate employee, if your work is measured on your performance rather than your presence, your work hours may be flexible enough to accommodate your own “20-Percent Time.”

But why do it in the first place?

• Innovation and creativity. Innovation is one of the most cited perks of 20-percent time. According to this handy infographic, half of Google’s products are a result of this employment perk. The products that have resulted from 20-Percent Time include Google Adsense and many Google Labs features. An example that might seem closer to home is cartoonist Hugh MacLeod. He drew his first gapingvoid cartoons during his downtime while he was working as a copywriter. Now he’s published a book and does commissioned art. He may not have had a firm policy on creating things outside of work, but it’s easy to lose sight of side projects when one focuses on their “real” work almost every waking hour to the exclusion of everything else.
• Exploration. By making the time to pursue personal passions, you can dabble in different areas, which sometimes results a broader understanding or a new perspective on the field you’re working in. It might even lead to a new line of work altogether. 37signals started as a web design firm, but couldn’t find collaboration tools suited to their needs so they created Basecamp. This led them to develop their own web apps instead, eventually leading to the Ruby on Rails framework.
• Opportunity. By making time for personal projects you give yourself license to act on ideas, questions and passions that you might not be able to do during your work week. You’ll have a chance to do tasks would’ve been too risky, or even seemed downright strange.
• Motivation. In a popular TED talk, Dan Pink discussed the science behind three major motivators in the workplace (which I elaborated on in a previous post). These motivators are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Though your experience with the latter two may depend on the project you choose, giving yourself 20-Percent Time allows you to exercise your autonomy.

Setting Your 20-Percent Time

Before you schedule your 20-Percent Time, remember that the number shouldn’t be taken literally. Allocate the time that works for you. You can take one day each week, an entire weekend, or even 30 minutes each day. Personally, I like to start my day working on a personal passion project. It gives me fuel to work through the rest of the day. Plus, it eases me into a heavier workload ahead — after all, if I make a mistake on my personal project, none of my clients will suffer.

As Simon noted in a previous post, it’s easier to get burned out when you don’t work a typical 9-to-5 job. With that in mind, how can the typical web worker manage to have 20-Percent Time especially if they have a busy home life? It’s hard to squeeze in a personal project if your family, pets, and home errands suddenly require your attention.

Taking a cue from Sylvia Plath, why not work on your project before your household wakes up? This might mean waking up earlier than usual, but even 15 minutes per day spent on a passion project is better than nothing. Plus, the quiet environment might make it easier for you to work.

But here’s some more common sense: mark the end of your workday. It may not be a cutting-edge life hack, but it’s simple and, more importantly, it’s true. Only by setting actual work hours can we draw a clear line between work and the rest of our preoccupations.

Do you set aside time for personal projects? If so, how did you manage it and what do you do with your time?

Photo by flickr user net_efekt, licensed under CC-BY-2.0

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?

Zoho CRM, Zoho Mail and Zoho Docs all get new abilities to interact with and use documents from Google Docs, which should be welcome news for anyone wanting to try out the Zoho alternative without either starting from scratch or going through an arduous migration process with their existing library of docs.

Zoho CRM

Attach files directly from your associated Google Docs account to Leads, Accounts, and Cases within Zoho CRM. All you have to do is authenticate using your Google credentials when prompted, and voila, your Docs should appear for you to choose from, in addition to your Zoho Docs and files on your desktop.

Zoho Mail

Adding an attachment when you’re composing an email is as easy as clicking on the little arrow next to the “Attach” link, and selecting Google Docs from the list of sources. If you haven’t done so already, Zoho will send you to Google to authenticate, and then your files will appear in a list with checkboxes next to them so you can select multiple attachments at a time. Zoho also allows you to filter your Docs, so that you can view only text, spreadsheet, or presentation files.

Zoho Docs and Projects

The same interface is used to get documents directly from your Google Docs account to both Zoho Docs and Projects, although you might want to note that with Zoho Docs, uploading directly from Google is supported only in the dashboard view. Trying to do so from the dedicated Docs window only allows you to import from Google Docs files you’ve downloaded to your desktop.

I’ve always been a Google user myself, but upon revisiting Zoho’s offerings for the purposes of this piece, I find myself wondering why. I’m not a Gmail or Google Calendar guy, and short of forthcoming integration with Google Wave, which I’m not crazy about anyway, there’s really no reason I should stick with Google when the competition is clearly much more obliging. For now, I’m going to test the Zoho waters and see how things turn out.

Does Google Docs integration give you a reason to give Zoho a try?

Landing Work

While your first visit to Haystack may leave you with the impression that the site is only meant to help out clients, it’s already proved useful for many designers. Some web designers report landing projects within hours of posting a listing on Haystack. The general idea is that the site can better match prospective clients to your services who are browsing online — you might not be highly ranked enough to be found through search engines, but your skills can make you stand out among other web designers on Haystack. 37Signals takes care of promoting the site via advertising, blogging and marketing to its user base.

Any web designer can post a listing on Haystack for free. That includes anyone from freelancers to big web design companies. The basic listing includes one portfolio image, the type of budgets you generally work with, the nearest big city to where you work and a contact email for your company. A Pro listing, priced at $99 per month, allows you to post more images, change placement and place for your logo. The Pro listings do seem to show up first in search results. Clients can search for web designers based on budget and location.

Scoping Out the Competition

You’ll find that Haystack has a few uses beyond landing clients. It’s an easy way to get an idea of what your fellow web designers are up to. You can check out prices, portfolios and services offered for a whole list of web designers in one place. You can tell quickly how well your prices fall in with your competition’s, as well as learn about how they’re landing clients — valuable business information no matter how you look at it.

There are some design reasons to look at what other designers are up to, as well. Need a little inspiration? Browse through some of those designs that have been posted on Haystack. You might see a technique or style that sparks a new idea for a project you’re working on.

Haystack’s Background

The minds behind Haystack are already well-known for creating tools. The site is a new offering from 37signals, the same company that created Basecamp, Backpack and other well-known tools. Haystack is a logical extension of these tools — 37signals’ original application, Basecamp, grew out of a tool that the team designed for their own use. With the 37Signals team’s roots in web design, it’s easy to understand how they would come to create Haystack.

That background has definitely contributed to the site’s overall usefulness. While it takes a slightly more subtle approach to inviting web designers to join than it does to inviting prospective clients to shop, Haystack is built to be an effective tool for the web designers posting listings.

Have you listed your company on Haystack? Has it generated any leads for you?

How do you know if a project has failed? Although you can have specific quantifiers such as revenue or number of users, the simple way is to ask yourself this: “Did it meet any of its objectives?” If the answer is no, then that means you’ve got a failed project in your hands. Some of these projects can remain buried and forgotten, but there are others that you can’t stop thinking about even years down the road.

What do you do if there’s an old failed project that you want to bring back to life? Why Try Again?

The first thing I do when I try to resurrect an old project, whether it’s mine or a client’s, is to evaluate why it should be done. The reason is sometimes simple. It could be that when the project started, the people working on it weren’t mature or skilled enough to give it the proper follow-through. Now that they know better, they think it’s time to try again.

This was the case with one of my new clients. When he started his blog, he bought into get-rich-quick schemes and short-term tips on how to boost traffic. As his blog’s advertising income diminished and he saw few returning visitors, he called the project a failure. After looking into his mistakes, he’s determined to try again. It’s the classic case of being passionate about a project but not knowing enough to execute it well.

There may be many reasons to revive a failed project, but there’s one you should avoid. Don’t bring it back to life just because you have nothing better to do. I have to admit that sometimes this is the justification I have, and every time I use it all I get is a new way to fail at an old project. “Well, I need something new to work on…” is not going to cut it if you want to rework an old mistake and turn it into something great.

Evaluate Your Past Efforts

The first things we need to look at are our mistakes. In “The Dip“, Seth Godin lists 7 different reasons why one might fail. This includes the lack of time, money, or enthusiasm. Other reasons include picking the wrong thing to try, getting scared, not being serious enough, or focusing too much on the short term. In the failed projects I’ve evaluated, I can see that all of them failed because of at least one of these reasons.

Many of my failed projects, and even some of my clients’ failed projects, were also the result of a lack of definition. Here are some of its common symptoms:

• Saying “Our target audience is everybody.”
• Adding all the possible features and widgets into the project, even when they are unnecessary.

Apart from looking at these past mistakes, we also need to celebrate our successes. In the midst of all the chaos, what worked for you? What went well before the project failed? By looking back at both our successes and our mistakes, we can be better prepared for our next attempt to make it work.

Starting Over

If you’ve realized that resurrecting your failed project is the best thing to do, there are some things you need to keep in mind:

• Remember to quantify. “What’s measured improves,” as Peter Drucker once wrote. If you can, quantify the hours, cost, and other resources used up by your project. Other necessary statistics such as sales, users, and bug reports should also be recorded. By keeping a close eye on the numbers, we can predict most incoming challenges and plan for them accordingly.
• Things to avoid. Instead of just writing a lengthy to-do list, why not factor in your previous mistakes and remind yourself what you shouldn’t do? It’s easy to fall back on bad habits, especially if new processes take longer to pay off.
• Keep it simple. Whether you’re relaunching an old product, service, community, or blog, start with the simplest version you can possibly think of. This allows your project to remain flexible when there are a lot of unpredictable and volatile factors that may affect your success.

The truth is that it takes a lot of planning, effort and passion to bring an old project back to life. If done right, the attempt is usually worth it.

Have you ever tried to revive a failed project such as a blog, online community or an app? What was your experience like?

Image by eduardtrag from sxc.hu

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.

Why Have a Standard Checklist?

Apart from remembering the small yet essential steps to finishing one’s work, there are other reasons why a standard checklist can be useful:

• Smoother workflow. Since all the steps to a polished project can be seen in a single page, you spend less time asking yourself “Is there anything I’m forgetting?” Once you’ve checked each item on the list, you can look at your project one more time and feel confident enough to send it.
• Objectivity. Ideal list items should be objective enough for you to check off each one without much thought; it’s hard to measure items like “Make the design pop” or “Write compelling copy”. Opt for quantifiable points, such as “Test design/copy with 10 different users and make sure that at least 8 take the preferred action”.
• Consistency. A standard checklist for major projects allows you to deliver a consistent output. Plus, it becomes a handy reference when you’re subcontracting work.

It helps to look at the project checklists of other knowledge workers for inspiration, so you might want to look at the following examples:

• A web site accessibility checklist by Aaron Cannon.
• A comprehensive content quality checklist by Colleen Jones from UXMatters.
• A list of essential checks before launching your web site by Lee Munroe from Smashing Magazine.

Making My Own List

For my blogging projects, I spent half an hour listing the important things I had to do before publishing a post. Some of the items I included were as follows:

• Print the article and read it. Spot all spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes.
• Make the necessary corrections on the soft-copy.
• Read the revision backwards, sentence by sentence to check for overlooked mistakes.
• Add post tags.
• Use correct HTML for punctuation.
• Preview the post, click each hyperlink and make sure they work correctly.

To make the list reflect how I work, I also noted the gaps and weaknesses in my process for the last three posts I wrote. While I added an odd item from time to time, I had to remind myself that the goal was not to create a longer list. The goal is to make sure that each article I deliver is as clear, concise and as polished as it can be.

Which brings me to my final point: Know the reason why your checklist exists. By having a clear objective, you’ll know whether your list works or not. It’s supposed to streamline your process, rather than adding another step to an already saturated workflow.

Do you have a project checklist that you use before handing finished work to clients?

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

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?

Highlight your best work. To reduce the negative effect that an embarrassing project has on your portfolio, focus on promoting your best work instead. Revamp your portfolio to include only relevant, high-quality samples. If you use social media, put them at the foreground when discussing your work.

Work the search engines. My problem with the embarrassing e-book projects was that they belonged to the top three search engine results for my name. This meant that anyone — from potential employers to curious friends — would find that project if they typed my name into Google. If you can easily find your “bad” project using your name as the search term, here are some ways to fix it:

• Purchase your own domain name if you haven’t done so already. Many new web workers tell me that they just can’t afford to buy their own domain name and set up a blog. But what they really can’t afford is the lack of control over what shows up first when you enter their names (or the name of their business) in search engines. This is why it’s important to get domain names based on your real name and your business name. Anything you pair up with it — a blog, a splash page or a static site — has a good chance of ranking well.

You don’t necessarily have to buy hosting and code your own site, either. You can point your domain name to your LinkedIn or Facebook profiles or to a free hosted blog (such as Blogger or Tumblr).

• Get backlinks. Once you have your domain name make sure people link to it. This is easier to do with a blog, since it’s more encouraging to link to something that contains an interesting idea or discussion, rather than just a personal profile. Also, it’s better if they use your real name as the anchor text.

• Learn the basics of on-site SEO. You don’t need to be an SEO (search engine optimization) guru to get your professional blog to rank well for your name. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and using some of those techniques might make your blog look spammy. Here’s a good introduction that talks about capitalizing on simple, long-term tactics rather than the “SEO trick of the month”.

Contact the person in charge, if applicable. Since the agreement with my previous client involved using a pseudonym for the dating e-books, I immediately contacted him about it. In a polite email I asked if he could use my old pseudonym for the books. He apologized and told me that he had simply forgotten about our agreement when he had his site and the e-books redesigned. He then corrected this oversight and changed the byline.

This approach may not be useful to those who have different arrangements. Still, if you can do it without upsetting anyone and it’s within the limits of your contract, it doesn’t hurt to ask a previous client to change the credit or byline. They can be very understanding if you explain the situation well.

Become more conscious of these projects from now on. As the old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. Go uncredited or use a pseudonym for projects that aren’t up to your usual standards or that are incompatible with your personal brand. Your future self will thank you.

Remember that whatever happens and no matter how shameful your previous projects may be, it’s important to stay honest. If ever someone asks you directly about these projects, tell the truth and accept it with grace. These projects may be embarrassing, but it’s more bearable than being caught in a lie. Have you ever worried about embarrassing projects from the past? How have they affected your brand?

Image by linusb4 from sxc.hu

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.

What’s the big deal about DoNanza? It’s a job search engine that pulls results from freelance and remote working job sites across the web. No longer do we mere mortals have to visit multiple sites to search their listings. DoNanza appears to be a one-stop shop for job search.

So far, so good. I took it for a spin and found that an immediate benefit of the service was that it introduced me to freelance sites I’d never heard of, let alone visited — many of them in countries other than my own. So automatically it puts you in touch with a much wider pool of projects and employers.

Then I noticed a very cool filter pane on the left of the search results page. This pane uses sliders to allow you to filter the search results by price, project type, time left and date posted. You can also use it to include or exclude results from specific sites. I find this particularly nice because it lets me refine my search right on the results page — I don’t need to make extra clicks to access the “refine search” options. Hooray! Of course, DoNanza also offers all the usual features you’d expect: related search prompts, RSS and Twitter tracking, the ability to email results to friends, and so on. And — wait for it — you don’t need a(nother) subscription!

Keep in mind that DoNanza is not a job board. It doesn’t offer its own jobs (yet — will this change in time?); it acts purely as a search engine for other job sites. So when you click on a result, you go direct to the site on which it’s listed. As such, the service is very highly focused. It does one thing — offer web-wide job search — and I think it does it well.

It’s interesting, not to mention timely, that DoNanza has launched now, when many of us are feeling the pinch of financial uncertainty and looking for projects. It makes very short work of the search process itself, and takes the immense hassle out of finding freelance job sites that have the kinds of projects you want at the right rate. As I used the site, I began to wonder why no one had launched an equivalent service already — and those kinds of thoughts are usually a sign that a new idea is going to be a big success.

Do you use online job sites to secure freelance work? If so, what are some of the good ones you’ve come across? Do you think DoNanza might help your current job search process?

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?

Evaluate Your Situation

There are several issues you need to address before you rearrange your schedule around your personal project. To start with, ask yourself the following questions:

Which projects will be affected the most? Some projects consume your time and effort more than others. Identify the clients or the tasks which will be most affected by the changes in your schedule. The best way to do this is to audit a typical workday and see which tasks you accomplish and how long it takes to finish them.

It’s also important to note how they will be affected. Will you have less time for live support? Will there be connectivity issues that will prevent you from uploading and downloading large files?

How will the work get done? Are you going to do all the work yourself or will you require assistance? Whenever I’d take more than a week off, I always do as much work as I can beforehand, so that only daily tasks such as checking and responding to email are affected.

Still, no matter how much work you try to finish ahead of time, new tasks will always accumulate and someone has to do them. Subcontractors or assistants can be helpful — but only if you hire and train them well. There are many things that can go wrong with such an arrangement, especially if it’s your first time to work this way. To ensure that your relationship with hired help will go smoothly, plan for a transition or trial phase and start working with them before you make any real changes to your schedule. What is the best way for clients and colleagues contact you? While you’re working on your personal project, will your clients have to change the way they contact you? Let them know the best way to reach you in case of emergencies that can’t be easily discussed via email.

Develop a Contingency Plan We’ve discussed contingency plans here at WWD before. If having contingency plans is important during regular workdays, they are even more important when you’re making changes to your schedule. After all, you might not be around when problems occur. Here are some problem areas you should plan for:

• Internet connectivity
• Hardware and software failures
• Data backup
• Revision requests and new orders from clients
• Complaints, questions and other support issues

Let Everyone Know

After planning the adjustments you need to make, you have to decide whether you’ll let relevant parties know about the changes. Sometimes, personal projects hardly make a difference in your schedule or work process. But if they will, your clients might need to know about it.

While you may have clients that are supportive and understanding, there will also be those who will worry and think you are abandoning them. Think about each client’s attitude to risk and changes before spilling all the details. As long as you don’t sacrifice the work quality or your adherence to deadlines, they shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Once in awhile, it’s good to take advantage of the flexibility that our teleworking schedules have to offer. With careful planning, we can strike a good balance between both paid and personal projects.

Have you altered your work schedule for a trip or a personal project? Share your tips in the comments.

Image by shadowkill from sxc.hu

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)…

Freshbooks to the rescue! Signing up was quick and easy. I opted for the cheapest fee-based level at $14/month to manage up to 25 clients and 1 staff member versus the free version that handled only three clients and 1 staff person. Adding more staff to my account is $10 per person.

By the end of the first day, I had entered all of my client information; started several estimates including using the handy time tracking widget; sent some invoices in a timely manner; and was relieved to find that the invoice numbers were inserted automatically and sequentially. Wonder of wonders.

Next, I signed up for Basecamp. I opted for the $12/month base level versus the free one so I could manage three active projects at a time instead of one. All fee-based levels for Basecamp come with a 30-day free trial.

My challenges with project management aren’t atypical but weren’t being addressed by my current “system” such as needing to keep all email correspondence organized and easily accessible and being able to collaborate on documents, manage large files, track project progress and keep an ongoing group To-Do list without having to juggle a different application for each task.

So far, I love how all the conversations between all the participants in a project is in one place on Basecamp and how everything is accessible by only the people who need to see it. The Writeboard (whiteboard) feature is working out well so far and the fact that it is only a click away from all other project management features is a plus.

I find the Basecamp Overview page to be an easy-to-understand capsule of all recent project activity and having a record and archive of everything could really save my bacon in the long run.

Less than a week into using both apps, I’m still puzzled by why it took me so long to try them out–especially since they both offer free versions. Here is what I’ve learned from this experience:

1. Don’t be shy. If a Web app has a free version, try it. You have nothing – other than a little bit of time – to lose, and if the app ends up working out for you, you have everything to gain.

2. Don’t rely on your memory. If you have to enter your credit card number before you can use a free trial, mark your calendar or set an alarm several days before your free trial expires to remind you to cancel the subscription if the app isn’t working for you.

3. Query the masses. Here is one more place where your social networks can really help you in your Web work: ask them for recommendations for tech and Web-based solutions to your business challenges. Or ask their opinions on Web apps you’re exploring.

4. Bite a smaller bullet. Opt to pay for 6 months in advance but unless you are 100% certain you’ll be happy with the app, don’t splurge on the 1-year subscription. Get the discount without overcommitting.

5. Don’t snooze it. Use it! I find that once I pay for a Web app, I am more likely to use it. It is like the same theory I have that if I pay for a health club membership, I’ll work out. You know what? I’m working out several times a week. And I’m using Freshbooks and Basecamp several times a day.

Will it last? Ask me in a few months.

Until then, tell me what apps you’ve been eyeing but are afraid to embrace. What is holding you back? Come on now, confess!

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.

1. Carve out a block of time. Estimate how long it will take you to finish the project if you do it all at once. Most people underestimate how long it will take. To prevent that, do one of two things: 1) multiply your estimate by 1.5 or 2) break down the project into smaller action steps, estimate how long each one will take, and put a little time padding into each step … and then add up the steps to get a total.

Once you’ve got a reasonable estimate, you’ll need to find a chunk of time to complete the project. Block out a few hours, half a day, an entire day, or even a couple of days if possible … however long it’ll take. You may have to reschedule appointments or meetings. Let others know you’ll be unavailable during that time. Don’t let anything infringe on that block of time.

2. Get set up. If possible, get everything you need to complete the project ready ahead of time. So instead of starting your chunk of time dedicated to the project by doing research, or getting materials ready, or emailing people for information, do that beforehand. For example, I like to get all my research material bookmarked or saved, so that when it’s time to do the actual work, I’m ready to go.

This preparation, which shouldn’t take that much time, will make completing the project in one go actually doable. It’s worth the time.

3. Info from others. Often what holds a project up is waiting on information from others, or tasks to be completed by other people. If that’s the case, you may not be able to complete the task all at once. But you might consider two approaches:

• Break off your chunks. Sometimes it’s possible to break off chunks of a project that you can complete on your own. Divide the responsibility for parts of a project so that you are responsible for one part, and others are responsible for their parts. Don’t allow them to interlock if possible, so that you can do your chunk without waiting on others.
• Work around them. Sometimes it’s just not worth waiting for other people. They might have too much on their plate. So instead, see if you can do without them, or if you can do it yourself. For example, sometimes when I’m waiting on info from somebody, if they are taking too long, I’ll see if I can get that info myself. Sure, I’m doing work for them, but sometimes it’s worth it because then I can complete the project.

4. Make a project modular. Similarly, sometimes there’s a project where it would be impossible to do all in one go. It might be too large, or sometimes you have to wait for certain things to happen before moving to the next phase of the project. In those cases, see how you can make the project modular, so that you can complete one module of the project all at once, and then worry about the rest of the project later.

For example, if it would be impossible to complete a project because I have to wait for a certain report to come out before completing certain actions, there might be a chunk of the project (a module) that I can break off and complete before the report comes out. In that case, I would make that module a separate project all in itself, and celebrate its success just as much as I would the completion of any other project.

Don’t think of this module as just an action step in a larger project … think of it as a project in an of itself. You can work on the other modules of the larger project at a later date, but for now, focus on the project you can complete now.

5. Commit yourself to someone. If you don’t tell anyone that you’re going to finish this project all at once, it’s too easy to let yourself slide. You have to commit to someone … your boss, a colleague, a client, someone. Tell them you’re going to finish it all at once, and when you’ll be done. Then email them the completed project (or call them, or whatever). Be accountable, and it will motivate you to finish.

6. Crank it out. OK, you’ve set aside your chunk of time, you’ve done all the preparation, you’ve told others you’re not available. Now it’s time to get the actual work done.

Well, this step is self-explanatory (just do the project!) … but it’s worth noting a few tips for actually getting the project done:

• Don’t get sidetracked. If you’ve taken the trouble of setting aside a block of time for this project, don’t waste that block of time by fiddling around with email or IM, or any of the million other distractions you love to do. It’s easy to put off the project and work on smaller (but still important) tasks, but you have to keep your focus here. You want to get this project done, at all costs.
• Work in bursts. If you’ve set aside an entire day to work on a project (for example), it can be a bit intimidating to have an entire day staring at you and an entire unfinished project just waiting to be done. Instead, focus on the first step needed to move the project forward, set a short time limit (say, 20 or 30 minutes), set a timer, and get to work. When you’ve completed that step, celebrate with 5-10 minutes of goofing around, or take a short walk, or get a glass of water. Then focus on the next task, and so on. You’ll make a lot of progress this way.

7. Wrap up or schedule more time. Once you’re done with the project, you’ll want to wrap it up. Go over it for quality control, email the finished product to whoever you committed yourself to, check it off your project list, clean up the materials, etc. And celebrate! Feel good about getting this off your list.

If, for some reason, you weren’t able to complete the project, you’ll want to schedule another block of time to finish it. Don’t let it linger on your list any longer. Schedule the time, make the commitment, prepare yourself, and then get it done.