That’s not all I get from the experience, though. Dedicated gym-goers use some tried and tested methods to make their workouts more efficient and effective. As usual, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, and a lot of these same strategies can apply quite well to professional workflows, too. What is work, after all, besides a prolonged workout of your professional muscles?

Super-sets

It’s understood that after a set of one type of exercise, you’ll take a short break before doing another. But that’s time-consuming, and it’s almost always possible to do another kind of exercise that emphasizes different muscles in between sets in order to be more efficient with your workout. This also has the benefit of keeping your heart rate up, which will help your weight training provide some cardio advantages, too.

Applying the super-set principle to your web working routine will help you make the most out of your working hours, minimize downtime, and open up larger chunks of usable free time for you to really enjoy yourself. To do it, break up your work into smaller, more manageable chunks. Work out small units of tasks and plan ahead, interspersing different types of work together. Block tasks you dislike back-to-back with those you do enjoy in order to keep your motivation level high, and try to ensure that things that are placed next to each other are different enough that you won’t become bored by repetition.

Plan Your Pace

People who are very used to doing extended cardio workouts know what their limits are, and are very good at planning how to pace themselves to make it to their time or distance goal. Marathon runners are a perfect example of this kind of energy conservation. Likewise, if you have 30 minutes to do a weights session, you’ll probably do it differently than if you had a whole hour.

Work is the same. If you don’t take the time to accurately anticipate how long a project or project component will take to complete, you’ll be much more likely to burn yourself out early by working too hard and then becoming frustrated when it takes longer than you’d imagined. Get a better idea of how long things take by monitoring your experiences as you go and logging them, and then do comparisons with your past projects when you take on new ones so that you can then pace yourself accordingly.

Journaling

Many workout addicts are also obsessive record-keepers. They track their progress with every visit to the gym, carrying around notebooks or clipboards for the purpose, or just using an iPhone app to log things. It helps you make sure you’re moving forward instead of back, and you won’t be doing the same work on the same muscles over again by accident.

Keeping a detailed record of the work you do will have the same effect with your online professional activity. It’ll help you make sure you don’t ever redo any work you’ve already done, and it’ll make sure you learn from your mistakes and grow and improve as a web worker over time.

Just like working out your body will help you live a longer, happier life, so too will working out your professional side allow you to enjoy a much more fulfilling and long-lasting working life.

What tips from the gym can you apply to your professional life?

My usual workflow involves following sources of news in both Twitter and Google Reader, from where I might retweet links or bookmark them in Delicious. I know merging my RSS sources into my Twitter stream would be too noisy, though I’ve often thought an RSS feed of links from Twitter would be something I would benefit from in my reader.

Enter Readtwit, a simple, free service with a singular purpose: to roll all of the links shared by the people you follow on Twitter into a single RSS feed.

Using Readtwit is simple:

• Sign in with Twitter to register your account.
• Give the service 15-20 seconds to scan through your recent Twitter stream.
• Add the feed to your RSS reader (Google, Newsgator, Netvibes, Bloglines etc.)
• Set up filters to exclude certain users’ links or remove particular hashtags from your feed.
• Choose between summaries of articles or full stories, and set an update interval between 15 minutes and two hours.

Reedtwit helpfully expands shortened URLs to their original source, restoring some structural reliability to the real-time web.

I wasn’t sure if using something like Readtwit would simply duplicate information that was already readily available to me via other sources. However, I’m finding I like having a resilient RSS feed for what can sometimes be fleeting fragments of information that get lost in the noise of a Twitter stream.

Readtwit’s a great solution for those, like me, who are curating or following up on links from Twitter sources almost religiously. I’m not sure how sustainable Readtwit is without an obvious revenue stream — RSS ads in your stream, perhaps? — but for now I’m finding it to be a service I’m gaining value from every day.

How do you make sure you don’t miss any valuable links shared by your Twitter friends?

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

But as Paisano wrote recently, current conditions won’t last forever. Many sites will eventually become fee-based; others will shut down when their funding runs out, or when their owners decide to move in a different direction.

So when I evaluate a product that I’d like to incorporate into my company’s workflow — especially a product that will be visible to clients — I try to consider the product’s feature set, along with the issues raised in Judi’s 2007 WWD post. I also ask the following questions:

• Is the product open? Like a lot of people, I prefer open source projects. But I will consider proprietary systems if I am comfortable with how my data is stored and backed up, and whether the product allows me to do my own backups.
• Does it use standard formats that are easy to import and export? If the product will interface with my existing data, I need to evaluate how much work it will be to prepare the data for use by the new product.
• Can I host the product or software myself? Because my company does web hosting, we have easy access to web servers, bandwidth and backup systems. Therefore, I tend to prefer software that we can host ourselves. Maintaining a web server isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, although most of the major hosting companies make it really easy, as long as you’re willing to keep up with security patches and so on.
• If I can’t host the software myself, how reliable and robust are the product’s servers? Of course, even major services (like Gmail) have occasional outages. Here in Seattle, a fire caused a significant outage for many web sites just a couple of weeks ago. So I need to decide how my company will deal with such outages if we adopt the software.
• How will using this product affect my bottom line? Managing any new product requires investing time and resources to install, set up, maintain and troubleshoot. Proprietary services are priced many different ways, and may require an up-front cost, plus continued license fees or service contracts. And while open source products don’t require license fees, many open source software companies offer service contracts. I need to decide whether I want to invest in such a contract, or whether I think I can rely on the user community. Whether open source or not, it’s always a good idea to look at the complexity and maturity of the product, how likely it is to need support, and how active the user base is.
• What is my exit strategy should the product no longer be available? I need to decide how I will get my data, and plan for alternatives, if the product goes away.
• How likely is it that the service provider will be available in the long run? This one’s tricky, since as a small businessperson, I’m hardly in a position to see, much less analyze, the business plans and financial statements of every producer I consider. But there is a fair amount of public information available, so I need to do what due diligence I can.

It’s never possible to plan for every contingency. I had to scramble to replace my Sunrocket VoIP service when that company ceased operation, and I still have some SyQuest backup disk cartridges somewhere for which no players are now available. But with a little common sense, it’s possible to avoid putting all of our technological eggs in one basket and becoming too dependent on any one service.

How do you evaluate what new services to include in your workflow?

Image by stock.xchng user CraigPJ

The project milestone sheet is an incredibly important document for freelancers and their clients. It defines all the most important tasks, who is assigned to them, and when they are due. In other words, it serves as the map for your entire work process. As Darrell noted in a previous post, even small projects need to have these milestones set.

So how can you create a milestone sheet that works?

Deliverables and dates. The most important items on the milestone sheet are the deliverable items that will come from both you and your client. From planning to development to project conclusion, every significant step should be noted.

Apart from the developmental stages of the project, here’s what you should include:

• Contract signing;
• Payment schedules;
• Submission of existing relevant documents from the client (previous marketing materials, business vision and objectives, etc.); and
• Ample time for the client to review your work and send feedback.

If you’re located in a different timezone from your client, identify the timezone that the schedule is based on. This isn’t such a big deal when there’s only a 2-3-hour difference — unless the project you’re working on has strict hour-by-hour deadlines. But for time differences of more than eight hours, I usually set the deadlines according to the client’s timezone by default. For my own schedule, I also have a personal copy based on my own timezone.

Identify the client’s area of responsibility. You can do this through color differentiation when there’s just you and the client (a trick I picked up from Justin Hartfield’s post on Freelance Switch). If you’re working with multiple people, it might be better to tabulate the schedule based on deadlines, the expected item, and the name of the person responsible.

Include consequences of deviating from the schedule. The end of the project milestone sheet should also clearly describe the consequences of failing to follow the set schedule. If delays in providing one deliverable will impact the rest of the scheduled items, make that clear. Don’t make this the “fine print” of your schedule. It should have the same font size as the rest of the text on the milestone sheet. After all, it’s equally important.

Make sure the client reads it. To increase the chances that my client reads the milestone sheet, I attach it to an email that doesn’t bring up any other issues. The email simply states something like “Attached is the schedule for the project. Please read it carefully and let me know if you want to make any adjustments. Is the time frame adequate for you?”

A short message like that works for the following reasons:

• You’re talking about one thing only so your clients won’t be distracted with other issues;
• You’re calling it a “schedule,” making it sound less intimidating to non-corporate clients or clients whose first language isn’t English; and
• The client can’t answer your parting question without looking at the schedule you sent.

Follow up. I might come off as repetitive, but for typically forgetful clients, I mention the milestone sheet every time I’ve completed something. I also tell them what comes next, whether it’s additional work I have to do or I’m waiting for something from their end. The frequency and phrasing of your follow-ups depends on the client. When you’re working with clients who are more attentive to schedule, sending out frequent and repetitive reminders won’t be necessary.

If there’s a deadline looming for something that your client is accountable for, such as comments on a draft or payments, it helps to send reminders a day or two before the due date. For tech-savvy clients you can do this through your project management software. In most situations, sending email reminders is enough.

By applying these tips, you can make large projects more manageable, and tasks easier to track. Also, with a good project milestone sheet, even the most difficult clients become easier to work with.

Do you use a milestone sheet for your online freelancing practice? What tactics have worked for you so far?

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

To avoid this problem in the future, I’m reevaluating the way I work with clients. How do I include them in my work process? Can I improve on my current methodology?

So far, here are some points I’ve come up with:

Include your process on your web site. The first thing I noticed was that I failed to set expectations at the earliest stage possible — on my web site. There was nothing on my site about how I performed a needs analysis, did research and reworked drafts based on client comments. I’m going to create a page about my work process as soon as possible. Some good examples include one from Mount Evans Designs and another from Recopy Studio.

Have a milestone sheet and refer to it often. The milestone sheet includes a table that lists all the deliverables required, along with a corresponding deadline for each item. Since you’ll be needing input from the client, whether it’s comments on your work or additional documents, you should include these in the milestone sheet as well. For emphasis, I use a dark red font color for the deliverables that the client is responsible for. I let her know that these items will be coming from her, and that if there’s a delay in sending out those items, the project will be delayed as well.

When I first sent out a milestone sheet some years ago, I didn’t realize that the client didn’t even read it. Be sure to refer to it often, at every stage of the project, so that your client knows what it is for and how to use it. Choose only the simplest tools. For less technically-savvy clients, I stick to email and instant messaging as our main communication/collaboration tools. I find that if I’m teaching my client too many things at once — from how to use a fancy collaboration app to how to improve their web site copy — they become easily confused and frustrated. Which is more important: (a) getting them to use that new app or (b) that they properly utilize your expertise to better their business?

If use of a specific tool will make a big difference in the quality of your service, then go ahead and teach your client. It’s usually much better if you can find existing video tutorials so that she can learn how to use those tools on her own time, isolated from her consultation with you.

Let them know the consequences of deviating from the process. The first time a client doesn’t follow your process, be clear about what consequences this had on the project. They have to know that if they insist on doing things their way, you won’t be able to meet your deadlines or give them your best work.

End with the important stuff. Whether you’re talking to a client on the phone or sending her an email, always finish with a list of the important things. Let them know what you’ll be submitting next and when they can expect to receive it. You should also go over what you require from the client, and when. Don’t let important details get lost in the middle of a phone call or email.

With that said, it’s always important to keep your cool and remain polite. Don’t sounding bossy or get angry; it will just irritate your client. Remember that your process is about giving the best customer service possible. It’s not just about following a flowchart. Do your clients respect your work process? Are there any apps, tools or techniques you use to make your work process clear?

Image by Marcel Hol from sxc.hu

For me, my routine initially acts as a boon to productivity, allowing me to work even when I feel less motivated simply because I’ve established the habit of doing so. This works very well, until the system itself becomes oppressive and counter-productive. There is a fine line between routine and drudgery.

When the oppression descends and my productivity starts to suffer, I have to find a way to change things up, and usually that means a wholesale shift across my entire workflow. I recommend this kind of extreme action because it  seems to re-energize me, and not only result in a boost in productivity, but also in more innovative and creative solutions for my projects.

My latest shift has taken me out into the community, not for a coworking solution (which I’ve tried before, and thoroughly enjoyed), but for a sort of rediscovery of the place in which I live, with my professional life along for the ride. To accomplish this, I picked up a 3G wireless internet USB stick from my cell phone provider, and an Asus Eee PC 1000HE, which boasts 9.5 hours of battery life (and actually delivers more like 7 or 8, which is still plenty).

I also got a couple of inexpensive memberships to local museums, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. It’s a lot cheaper than renting office space or splitting on a coworking venue, a lot more interesting than Starbucks, and I’m free to loiter without shame for as long as I want.

I find that I can work at one location in the morning, then hop on the subway for a short commute, and work at the other for the remainder of the day. Of course, I also have the freedom to wander as much as I want, but having those memberships ensures that I have a comfortable base to operate out of for less than $200 a year that’s not my home office.

It may not be as exciting as web working while traveling to far-flung international destinations, but it is a cost-effective way of injecting some life into your routine if it starts to threaten your productivity. I only wish I lived in Chicago instead of Toronto so I could get a Shedd aquarium membership. Talk about an ideal office!

What do you do to stop your routine getting stagnant?

Those are the feelings I got when I first saw Gridiron Software’s new product, Flow. The Mac version of the software was made available to download for free, as a public beta, yesterday.

The company calls Flow a “Visual Workflow Manager.” I call it a miracle. If you know me, I’m usually the Queen of Understatement so let me elaborate on this lofty claim.

In as concise a nutshell as I can muster, Flow follows a project’s workflow by tracking and mapping out the revisions a file has gone through during your work process. It manages your project files, how they’re related to each other, and where they’re located.

How It Works

Say that you have a final document for a client. It’s a PDF file that includes particular fonts and several images. Drop that PDF file onto Flow, and the application maps out the assets and the iterations of those assets for you. Double-click on a previous revision of an asset, such as one of the images, and Flow finds it on your computer instantly. Flow will let you know if you are missing any of the fonts in a project file.

Flow doesn’t care what the names of the files are; it identifies them through an ID number so even if you can’t remember what you named a file, Flow will find it for you and map it.

If you make alterations to any asset within the workflow mapped out by Flow, it can add that iteration into your Workflow Map. The company calls this “Real-time Asset Tracking” and it happens behind the scenes even when Flow is not running.

Flow not only gives you a history of a file and its iterations but allows you to revert to any version as needed. They call this “Visual Versioning.” You can also perform a “Visual Search” to locate any file and to see a visual diagram of how it fits into the project you’re working on.

One challenge for any web worker sharing files on a project is to get all the right files, and particularly the correct versions of each file, to a team member or client. Flow offers what they refer to as “Foolproof Packaging” which means that Flow will automatically gather the correct versions of all the required files related to a project and package them together to send via email or to upload onto a shared workspace.

Flow is application-agnostic so can work with Illustrator files, Microsoft Office files, fonts, PDFs and more. Also, your virtual team members don’t need to have Flow on their computers. Flow will still be able to identify the workflow when you get the files back. If they do have Flow, they see the exact same map that you saw before you sent them the files.

And If That Isn’t Enough, They Throw In…

Another challenge I’m finding in my web work is tracking the time spent on particular projects. Not everyone on the team – myself included – is diligent about marking time into our handy little Progress Notes in the 5pm project management space. Flow automatically records the time spent on each file involved in the workflow of a project so you can get a calculation of time taken creating assets for the project. I can then compare this calculated time to the manual entries by team members to check for discrepancies.

Another nice feature in Flow is the ability to analyze the impacts that client changes have on workflow and work processes. There’s a “ripple effect” as one change can affect multiple files. Flow helps you understand and better communicate the ramifications of changes to the workflow so you can manage client expectations and more accurately price out change requests.

One final feature that may just save some headaches: how many times do you have a number of versions of a file, think you know which one is the most current so start to trash some older versions? Flow will notify you when not to delete something, illustrate where that file is currently in use and show you what will be affected if you empty the trash.

Since Flow doesn’t rely on file names or even drive names, you could be using images from a number of different external drives, network drives or even SD cards. Flow can identify the drive or card that contains a “missing” file or image without you having to search manually or even guess at what you called that file or image in question.

When you first download Flow, you can have it map out all the assets on your computer by scanning your files to draw out their relationships. Old projects “pre-Flow” can still be more easily managed with the basic data Flow gathers.

Flow is currently free and the first version is for Mac but a Windows version is coming soon. You can purchase flow before May 1st for the promotional price of $249. After that, the price will be $299.

I don’t know about you, but even if Flow had half of its capabilities and just found lost files for me on my computer, I’d be grateful. The fact that it manages asset revisions throughout the life of a project, tracks time, and then illustrates it all on an easy-to-follow map just feels like a miracle to me.

How are you currently tracking the life of a project file and all multitude of assets and iterations?

I’ve done a lot of this type of work for a range of clients, and over the course of those efforts, I’ve arrived at a number of conclusions regarding how best to go about it. These tips won’t tell you exactly how you should manage your own workflow, but it will help you avoid some of the more common problems.

Determine Scope and Materials Up Front, in Detail

There’s nothing a client likes worse than switching horses halfway through the race. That means you should pick your applications, end products, etc. with them at the project outset. Make sure both of you know exactly what they want to get out of the project at the end. Details like whether or not they want the document to be editable, the expected shelf life of the document, whether it’s a living document or not will all be crucial in helping you decide not only what, but how you’ll be producing.

Set Up Project Milestones, Even For Smaller Projects

No matter how clearly you think you’ve determined your client’s desires at project outset, the chances that you will deliver exactly what they’re looking for, sight unseen, when it comes time to pony up at close. That’s why project milestones are important. It seems easy enough, but make sure there are check-in points, with percentage completion targets, or specific draft numbers or iterations of the document.

Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth

Revisions are necessary, and to be expected any time you’re producing something, be it for yourself or others. What’s not necessary is an endless series of revisions and rework, which can easily happen if you don’t establish a clearly defined production process at the beginning, with specific roles assigned to specific people.

The hardest part of accomplishing this might be convincing your client to go along with it, but you need to make sure that only one or two quality assurance points exist. Those stakeholders involved should look at the work at predetermined points, and provide feedback according to predetermined procedure. Every new set of eyes that sees the work will want to add their own input, regardless of the product’s quality, just to feel as though they’ve contributed, which is why you need to set limits.

These guidelines are broad, and shouldn’t be too hard to work into your existing project management practices. Probably the most important thing to take away from this article is that communication is the key to succesful delivery. Never hide anything from the client, and make sure both you, and they, are never in a position to be surprised.

As a Canadian I have been in the fortunate position of having experienced a BlackBerry Bold since its launch on Rogers in late August.

It’s not simply a new smartphone or “replacement” for an older BlackBerry. The Bold, finally available at AT&T, is a game changer when it comes to not only exchanging information but also its role in both your personal and business life.

So what drives this new mobile life?

The BlackBerry Bold’s screen must be seen to truly appreciate how stunning it is. As I worked with emails, web pages, Google Maps, Twitter and other applications, the screen’s text fonts and photo and video renderings “grow” on you. For example, Wall Street Journal for Mobile and New York Times have a quality that extends their renowned website visual branding as a quality publication to the BlackBerry. Crisp, often small, fonts and vibrant colors make the reading experience just as good as, if not easier than, a newspaper. Google Maps satellite views distinguish buildings while showing street names in small, yet sharp, fonts.

The most important game changing feature of the display is the half-VGA display resolution.

It means you can follow most web pages without horizontal scrolling. It eliminates the constant urge to boot up a laptop while on the road to keep current with not only email but also time sensitive documents, Skype chat sessions via iSkoot and Twitter message streams as well as blog activity and news.

Combining the enhanced keyboard with BlackBerry’s reputation for robust, secure and reliable email is just the start. Entries for Twitter feeds, document editing, instant messaging, website URLs and application purchases at the CrackBerry.com application store all benefit from the speed and accuracy associated with having a keyboard. The trackball pointer is a valuable assistant for precisely accessing text insertion points; a magnifier icon assists zooming.

But two way communications is more that text and media exchange. During recent neighborhood cable outages, I was able to access a daily one hour Calliflower conference call via iSkoot and its support for Skype-based calling with the only cost being local wireless minutes. I quickly realized that it was actually more convenient to have the device mobility when interrupted by activities that took me away from my desk.

The Bold’s 3G mobile connectivity is complemented by its support for WiFi when in an accessible WiFi zone. It means faster download of web pages and multimedia, eliminating or reducing buffering of streaming video, such as available on YouTube.

One example demonstrates the power of the combination of display quality, connection speed and processor performance. Previously I mentioned the quality of Google Maps satellite views; however, recently Google Maps Street View became available for the BlackBerry (for U.S. locations only). Stroll down a street or rotate about an address, the Bold’s connectivity and processor come into play for downloading and rendering the resulting images. The result is not only high quality images of the surrounding buildings and scenery but also rapid image updating with minimum pixelating as you move about.

The Bold also includes a media player supporting both stereo audio and video; its support of microSD memory cards allows easy memory upgrades as your media collection builds. Music can be synchronized from iTunes via BlackBerry MediaSync. During a recent flight I was able to transcribe an interview, recorded from a Skype call as an MP3 file via Pamela (and added to iTunes), where the Bold’s trackball pointer provided the required precision to easily access and replay segments of the interview with an accuracy no touch screen can approach.

So what’s the downside?

While the display provides the ability to keep up with much more information than via email exchanges, the browser still needs some work to come up to the quality of the iPhone browsing experience. But it never prevented me from executing time sensitive work activity. While the Bold readily switches between WiFi and 3G when entering and leaving registered WiFi access points, registering those WiFi access points is not quite the single step stress-free iPhone process.

There are many features left to try out; I am constantly downloading applications and shortcuts. But the overall experience is best summed up by a business professional aquaintance who, after six weeks with the Bold, reported that “I’m beginning to think my Bold is more powerful than my notebook.” A sentiment I started to feel during a recent trip to California where all these factors came into play and I found I was ignoring my laptop, yet keeping fully current. But BlackBerry Bold is a device you have to see to truly appreciate its full potential.