When I entered the gym on the early Sunday afternoon of Jan. 2, it didn’t surprise me to see a mob at a time when the gym is usually empty. You know what will happen, don’t you?

• January 1: Resolutions begin.
• February 1: Resolutions waver.
• March 1: What resolutions?
• December 1: Time to make the same resolutions, starting January 1 instead of today.

The same things happen with work goals, whether it’s keeping your inbox empty or getting five new clients. The experts’ suggestions for goal setting and planning overwhelm and paralyze many folks, including me. Rather than commit myself to particular goals at the beginning of the year, I watch my business and professional lives, do a little temperature-taking throughout the year, then make decisions based on what’s actually happening.

Here are my three simple steps:

1. Figure out your passion.
2. Create rules to support these passions.
3. Make decisions based on the first two steps.

I love that the flexibility of working from home lets me be there when the kids need me. I also love having diverse clients and projects, sharing what I know, solving problems, and doing work that my clients appreciate.

My three rules (not goals) to support those things are:

• Keep current clients happy.
• Continue marketing, even in busy times.
• Take care of my body, mind and spirit.

That’s it. Yes, I want to add more clients, but that’s the strength of this approach. All three of my rules support that.

When I consider taking on something new, I compare it against my three rules. For example, I’ve thought about going to grad school, but if I do that, I’ll have less time to devote to my current clients, less time for marketing, and less family time. I won’t make as much money, accomplish as much, or have a degree on my resume anytime soon. I’m willing to give that up because it means that I’m supporting the life I truly want.

The key is that you need a snapshot of today to decide what to do tomorrow, then you can adapt and change as needed. The minute a crack appears in this goal-setting process, then hit the brakes hard and figure out what to do.

How do you set goals and stay on target to reach them?

Photo by sxc.hu user smJet

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1. Control your phone time. Web workers tend to have  an”open door” phone policy. For example, when a relative calls, my husband takes the call only to fall into the trap of the person going on and on. I suggested he find a nice way to end the call. Some fear sounding rude in cutting a call short, but you can do it politely. Pick a couple of friendly phrases to use to end a call when it has served its purpose. Try: “I hate to cut this short, but I need to prepare for a meeting. It was great catching up with you.”
2. Use the Internet with purpose. I’m guilty of surfing aimlessly on the Internet or not making the most of social media time. With practice and mindfulness, I’ve cut this wasteful time — not completely, but good enough. Accept that it’s OK to skip social media when you’re too busy, and read Celine’s methods to end compulsive Internet fiddling.
3. Manage your after-hours time. Stay in control of your schedule by being proactive with your after-hours time. There are some ideas in “How to Stop Clients from Invading Your After-Hours Time.”
4. Change direction when procrastinating or distracted. We all have moments when we can’t complete tasks because we just can’t get into it. The reason could be tiredness, distractions or something else. Rather than dwell on the task, go do something else. Here are tips for fending off procrastination.
5. Review your meetings. Have you been attending the same weekly meetings for months or even years? Are these meetings really needed? Regularly scheduled meetings can lose value. Ask for an agenda when people request your attendance. This gently reminds them to create an agenda, if they don’t have one. If they still don’t provide one, explain that you need to prepare yourself for the meeting and an agenda helps. Check out Imran’s tips on running effective meetings.
6. Hold conversations at a better time. Having a conversations that’s going in a circle with no new information? That’s the time to put the brakes on the conversation and follow up later.
7. Save time in your calendar. If you need to work on a project uninterrupted, put it in your calendar. This way you can easily say, “I’ve already got something scheduled at that time.” It makes it easier to say no. If you need to spend time with the family, add that, too.
8. Outsource or delegate. Can you delegate some of your work? Outsource personal chores and errands? Amber provides delegation tips.
9. End commitments. I used to join Twitter chats three nights a week on a regular basis, but stopped when my eyes ached. I also switched from being a regular player in time-consuming tennis matches away from home to substituting. Maybe it’s time to step down from a nonprofit board position, or to ditch some bad clients.
10. Be mindful about television time. Like surfing the Internet, it’s easy to waste away time flipping through channels during work breaks and after-hours. For years, I’ve recorded select TV programs and watched them at a convenient time such as while folding laundry, exercising and on a lunch break. Also, when a show bores me for too many episodes, I quit watching it.
11. Carry a book with you. I always have a book in my car or bag to prepare for unexpected idle time. Having a book with me at all times ensures I don’t waste free time by grabbing some reading time.
12. Manage in-person interruptions. This might not be so much or a problem for some web workers. However, those working in coworking centers, and those working from offices in family homes, might find their time invaded by people desiring a friendly chat. Have some phrases ready to rescue you from unexpected visitors. Try: “I hate to cut our visit short, but I am about to enter an online webinar. Thanks for stopping by.” Home office workers’ interruptions might include significant others, children and others living in their home. Check out my tips for meeting deadlines while keeping your kids happy.

How can you find more time in your day for things that matter?

Photo by stock.xchng user Kristian Stokholm

What’s nice is that each member of the team doesn’t need to register for a Donut account to use it. Just one team member registers and becomes the administrator of the account. Everyone else can sign into Donut with existing OpenID, Twitter or Facebook credentials. If you want to open your chat room to the public, you can allow guests to sign in without a password.

Donut Chat Options

Like most apps. chatters can send private messages to each other. Users can share files; videos from YouTube, Vimeo and MetaFilter and photos from Flickr.

Administrator options for managing a user

For the most part, it takes little work to dive into Donut. Enter the chat room and it’s all straightforward. Nonetheless, the administrator faces a couple of user interface challenges and confusing features. For example, I banned one of my IDs and then couldn’t figure out how to remove the ban. Each room comes with its own settings, which I overlooked because the interface is different for administrators and users. Managing bans is accomplished under the room settings, which also allow the administrator to password protect the room, rename the room and change the topic. Other administrator options include “kick” (temporary removal from the room), “ban” (permanent removal) and “make moderator.”

Donut Chat Room Settings

The other confusing feature is “Login Access.” Donut has three login access options available. “New registrations” allows a user to sign up as a member of the chat; no one else can use that person’s member name. “Guest logins” lets anyone sign in without a password. “Allow member logins” lets members with a reserved name sign in.

To set up Donut in Facebook, first sign up at Donut and then go to Donut’s Facebook page to grab the app. I set up a Facebook page and added a tab for the chat, so you’re welcome to try Donut Chat’s Facebook feature (note: the chat can only hold up to 10 people, in case you can’t get in). Here’s a quick screencast that shows you how to add Donut Chat to your Facebook page and assign moderator rights:

Donut has a free Starter plan that allows for two chat rooms, room for 10 chatters and sharing of files up to 10 MB. The free plan is enough for a small team or a one-person business that wants to keep the door open for clients and colleagues. Other plans range from $12 per month up to $99 per month. The paid plans offer the ability to use the iPhone / iPod touch with Donut Chat, add password protection and integrate the chat with third-party apps.

What do you think of Donut Chat and its Facebook feature?

The best time to deal with this situation is at the start of a relationship. “I treat my consultant/contractor work like a regular job, and set expectations when I first speak with a prospective client. I explain what my work hours are and that I’m not available in the evenings or weekends,” says Deborah Edwards-Onoro.

Like most web workers, you may be flexible and accept occasional out-of-hours work. Still, it could snowball into a regular thing. “Frankly, if you don’t set the parameters ahead of time, you’re setting yourself up for expectations that aren’t going to be acceptable,” says Michele Wilcox.

What if you have multiple clients and they all decide to call on you at the same time, or you bite off more than you can chew? Draw a line under your time by being proactive with these tips.

• Discuss work hours at the start of a relationship. Specify your hours of availability and your flexibility. Set guidelines for special projects and emergencies that require out-of-hours work. These guidelines could include number of days or hours of advance notice for after hours work, list higher rates and how to handle emergencies. Get all of this down in a simple contract template that you can re-use.
• Keep separate phone lines. Web workers should have separate phone numbers for home and business. It’s not professional to use one line for both, especially as there are plenty of telephony options available that can make it possible without a big expense.
• Find a voicemail tool with features you need. Some voicemail providers offer features that give you more control over how the service handles your calls.
• Let calls go to voicemail. Your client may be calling to share a thought without expecting you to answer. Let voicemail take the message and then check to see what the client has to say. Answering every time gives the impression you’re “always on.”
• Turn off the phone. The phone should be there for your convenience. Despite this, some people struggle to ignore a ringing phone.
• Set email guidelines. Tell your clients when they can expect an email response. You can set a rule that you reply within two hours during working hours and then a different rule for after hours and weekends.
• Post your business hours. List your hours on your web site and in your voice mail, or indicate the best time to reach you. Prospective clients will respect your hours if they see your schedule before hiring you.
• Turn off instant messaging, Facebook chat and similar tools. If clients contact you by instant messaging (IM) or on other platforms such as Skype, remember to switch your status to “away” as needed — or turn off the service.
• Be proactive and present. Some clients don’t think to ask if you’re available for after-hours work. Rather than waiting for it to happen, tell the client that you’re flexible and would appreciate advance notice if something comes up. “If a client feels taken care of, he or she may hesitate before picking up the phone on weekends or after hours,” says Michelle I. Zavala.

Some people believe “always on” is the way to stay ahead of competitors, but it can harm your health and work quality. “How can you give your best to a client if they’re calling you, say, in the middle of the night and you’re asleep?” asks Teresa Nolan Barensfeld. “Another point is that your clients won’t see you as a professional if you don’t set any boundaries about your availability.”

Some freelancers say they compromise with after-hours work by taking time off during the day. You may run into clients who need 24/7 support. Steer away from such a set-up by asking questions and understanding their expectations. “Not everyone needs to set these boundaries for themselves and not every business model allows them. However, I have found that I am far more productive if I have a clear distinction between my office hours and the time I spend with my family,” says Laura Sultan.

How do you manage after-hours work?

Photo by stock.xchng user Hans Thoursie.

A great conference leaves you feeling empowered, inspired and ready to take on whatever comes your way. And then you arrive home feeling overwhelmed as you unpack, do laundry, open snail mail and handle all the mundane stuff that needs doing. Not only that, but also you have so much information that you hardly know where to begin to put it to use.

Profit from a Conference in Five Easy Steps

Recovered? Rested? Don’t proceed until you are. For a day or two, focus on recovering and getting through the mundane stuff. You have notes, business cards, programs and handouts to help you remember what you need to know. Then start making your conference pay off with these five steps.

1. Review your content. This includes notes, business cards, handouts, people to follow up with and anything else that came back with you. Don’t use this time to read it all. Instead, sort the content into three piles:
   • Now: The information most important to you, and items with deadlines.
   • Next: The things to look after you finish working through the “Now” pile.
   • Never: Useless stuff you received and items with the least value. Be ruthless: Toss them in the trash. Let them go, otherwise you risk doing nothing with any of the things you brought home. Tip: Next time you go to a conference, do a review to toss the bad stuff before you leave, as it will leave less to pack and less to contend with when you get home.
2. Act on the quick “Now” items. Read the notes, enter business cards into your address book, drop a quick note to contacts, link up with contacts in social networks and make a list of action items that will take more time.
3. Schedule “Now” items that take more time. If you want to, say, write an article based in information received or study notes in depth, put them on your tasks list with due dates to ensure they get done.
4. Check for information posted online. You may skip this if you have all you need. Sometimes you find a gap in the information you have or wish you had notes from a session you couldn’t attend. Find out if the sessions were recorded or the speaker’s slides have been posted online, and see if the conference had a Twitter hashtag or web site where everyone shared notes.
5. Complete your tasks. Make sure to follow up on the items scheduled in step 3.

Go Deeper With Your Conference Knowledge

Everyone absorbs and uses information differently. Here are things you can do to make the most of your conference content. Just watch out that you don’t get overwhelmed;  it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to contact too many people, select too much to study or write too many articles.

• Follow up with people. Did you make any promises to contacts you made at the event? Do those first before pursuing the rest of your “Now” items. Only move onto the “Next” group after you have comfortably followed up and stayed in touch with the higher-priority contacts.
• Study the materials. Since you sorted out the more important content, study it. How you study depends on your learning style. Looking over it one time isn’t enough for most people to remember and apply the concept. As you learn the material, you’ll find opportunities to put it to work. After you feel you got what you needed from the material,  move on to the “Next” pile.
• Write blog posts or articles. For some, one of the best ways to learn the material and let it sink in is by writing an article or blog. Make a list of article ideas and then prioritize them. Write articles on the most important topics. Put away remaining ideas for safekeeping.

Next time you prepare for another conference or trade show, check out Judi’s “A Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker.”

How do you make the most of a conference after returning home?

Photo by stock.xchng user Vicky 5.

You don’t need to work hard to figure out the simple interface, either. A calendar sits on the left side of the screen that lets you go back and review any day, week, month or selected timeframe to see how you spend your time. Categories appear below the calendar. The rest of the interface splits into two sections: Active Time and Away Time. That’s it.

Chrometa's Main Screen

Initially, all activities appear under “Uncategorized.” You can leave it like that, if you’d like. Or you can create new categories by project, client or others. If you want an application to always appear under an assigned category, Chrometa can do that. For example, you could tag Hootsuite and Tweetdeck so those entries always go into the “social media” category, or tag Thunderbird and Outlook  entries for the “email” category (note that if you use a web-based email app like Gmail, this won’t work unless you use a unique browser for Gmail only). Chrometa not only shows how much time you spend in email, but also it gives you an idea of what emails you worked on based on the subject of the email. Web browser activities work similarly, relying on the web site’s title.

Sometimes it’s hard to identify an activity. That’s not Chrometa’s fault. For example, say you start a new Word document that you have not yet saved. Unsaved documents show up in Chrometa as “Document1,” Word’s default name for an unnamed document. Confusing web site items are also out of Chrometa’s control. Furthermore, you can’t edit Active Time descriptions. This is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because clients who need to see where you spend your time know that they can trust the information. It’s bad because not everyone needs to share data with others.

Chrometa runs minimized, sitting in your system tray out of your way. When you step away, you don’t need to do anything to track your non-PC time. Chrometa knows you’re idle when you stop using the computer for a set time. Upon your return, an alert box appears so you can enter how you want to record the non-PC time or ignore it. This is the only time the app pops up without your involvement.

You can easily block applications that you don’t want to track. Additionally, we all visit web pages or look at an email for a few seconds. This can add up to a lot of activities, but you can hide activities that are shorter than one minute, five minutes and 10 minutes. Like blocked applications, this cuts the noise and concentrates on the real activities.

Other features include the ability to export data to an Excel spreadsheet, and Timestamps for showing a chronological record of your daily activities in one-hour blocks.

Chrometa's Timestamps Screen

You may pause the app when you use the computer for activities not related to work that you don’t want to record. But be warned that it won’t remind you that you’ve paused the time in case you forget to turn it back on. A future release will need to address this.

The program has only a couple of niggles. The Active Time data sometimes disappears, and the only way to get it back is to close and open the application. The app could also stand some usability improvements to make it easier to change categories, or to move things around. However, the time management application is ahead of many others in its ease of use and effectiveness. The impressive thing about Chrometa is that you can benefit from the collected data without doing anything.

You can download Chrometa for free. The free version has all of the features of the paid version, and works for 30 days. After 30 days, you’ll need a license key to continue using the app either by purchasing Chrometa for a one-time fee of $99 or qualifying for a free license.

What do you think of Chrometa?

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A broad book, its contents revolve around how to get prospects to find you through blogs, search engines and social media. Halligan and Shah also discuss converting customers and how to apply that to your business and web site.

The short first chapter explains what has changed in marketing, and how online technologies effected the change. The first part of the book provides little value with its brief coverage of your web site as a marketing hub and creating a remarkable strategy. Really, these first chapters set the tone for the rest of the book in that its contents are wide and shallow.

The bulk of the book rightfully focuses on “Getting Found,” with 100 pages devoted to the topic out of the book’s roughly 200. Despite that much coverage, it’s still elementary stuff. The section on converting customers only lasts for three chapters, and it needs more material than the five chapters of “Make Better Decisions.”

The “Make Better Decisions” section included a whole chapter devoted to picking a PR agency and another on how to hire the right people for your marketing team. The advice given on how to find marketers who are digital citizens, however, is outdated. For example, the suggestion to hire people based on their web reach recommends looking at how many followers they have in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Most of us know that raw follower numbers have little value, with so many low quality users who know how to rack up the numbers.

The authors are also behind the Website Grader and Twitter Grader web sites, which they mention so frequently that at times it reads like a promotion. This book really is just a primer: You won’t glean anything new if you know the basics of search engine optimization, such as the difference between organic and paid listings, and you already know how to use social media tools and connect those tools with your business and web site. ”Inbound Marketing” does a good job for those who don’t have a clue about how to use social media for business and want to understand the bigger picture.

Have you read “Inbound Marketing?” Please share what you think in the comments.

For several weeks, I tweeted the same type of content I always have — just more often. On average, I tweet about once an hour, for seven to ten hours each week day. I noticed that the active, high quality Twitter users that I follow tend to tweet at least three times per hour, so I decided to emulate their process and also tweet two or three times per hour.

The result? I saw no noticeable change in the number of mentions, @replies or retweets (RT) of my posts during and after the experiment. I normally receive an average of five to eight mentions per day and that’s how much I saw during the experiment, too, even when I doubled or tripled my tweets.

Since the experiment, I’ve returned to my pre-experiment tweet average. Since upping my tweet quantity didn’t appear to have any value, there’s no reason to bombard my followers with more tweets.

I asked people on Twitter why they thought the experiment hadn’t made an impact. Many people responded that it’s the quality of posts, rather than the quantity, that makes all the  difference, and there were also some responses that suggested I should have also tried changing when I posted, rather than sticking to my usual schedule.

For me, this provides some evidence that quantity doesn’t matter much in social media, although I still don’t believe there are any hard-and-fast rules.

Have you tried a similar experiment? Did you get different results?

Focusing only on traffic numbers, instead of the concentrating  on sharing content and building relationships will send you down the path to burnout. Here at WebWorkerDaily, we have multiple writers contributing  to help keep the content fresh. But for one-person blogs, blogging daily works for some and not for others.

If I had been blogging daily since the day I wrote my first blog entry back in 2000, I would have quit long ago. I know this because I’ve been burned out by blogging many times — and I’ve never blogged more than a few times a week.

It’s natural for bloggers to want many people to stop by, read and comment. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with pressuring yourself to churn out content daily like a machine for the sake of traffic when blogging is just one of many things you do. If you do that, you’ll sacrifice quality and your mental state.

So how do you decide how often to blog ? What’s the magic formula? There’s no definitive approach to figuring this out. Instead, take time to ponder these questions to help you find what will work for your blog.

• Review your business goals. Increasing blog readership is a worthy goal, but how does the blog support your business’ goals? If your web site itself is the income generator, then you’ll need frequent fresh content. If the blog is for promoting you as an expert in your field, which in turns supports your consulting business, then you probably don’t need to blog daily.
• Know your audience. What jobs do your readers have? How much of their time do they have for reading blogs? How active are they on blogs and social media? What industry do your readers come from? Are they reading during the workday or after hours?
• Identify your contributors. Is your publication a a one-person blog or a group blog? Group blogs cut the chances of burnout.
• Look at the length of your posts. Some people with large followings write 1,000+ word posts; these people tend to publish less often. Readers may better tolerate daily posts when they’re shorter: 200-400 words. Some bloggers mix it up with longer posts on a weekly basis, with shorter posts filling in the other days.
• Check web site stats. After adjusting your blogging frequency, check to see if the stats have changed. Remember that while a change could be associated just with the frequency or posting, it could also be because the content quality or level of blog promotion changed.

If social media teaches us one thing, it’s this: There are no rules. This doesn’t mean all those “golden rules” and “commandments” are off the mark; these give folks an idea of what works. But blogging endlessly blinded to your goals gets you nowhere. Stay on the path and steer clear of burnout by knowing your goals and audience.

What other factors help you decide how often to blog?

Photo by stock.xchng user Jorge Vicente.

Twitter for BlackBerry

Since I had been away from my home office for a few hours, I decided to check in with Twitter using the beta of RIM’s new Twitter for BlackBerry app. Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t as good as I would have hoped for.

The application works and feels like the similar Facebook for BlackBerry app; not necessarily a good thing, as working with it takes too much effort. Most BlackBerry Twitter applications require patience, but Twitter for BlackBerry is the worst. Much of the time, the screen remains blank while the data loads.

Like its Facebook equivalent, Twitter for BlackBerry comes with a menu of icons at the top of the screen. These include Home, @ Mentions, My Profile, DM, Find People, Search and Popular Topics (note that Twitter for BlackBerry has no Lists capabilities). But reaching these icons takes time, and then it takes even more time for the screens to load.

The application offers few options. It lets you include Twitter Messages in the BlackBerry Messages Applications, but who uses that? Other options include refresh rate, distance measurement and spell check. It has no options for changing the interface to make it faster and optimize the small screen; no ability  to turn off notifications; and no option to exit the application without logging out. UberTwitter (my BlackBerry Twitter application of choice) has more than double the number of options available and still works faster.

To ensure that Twitter for BlackBerry’s poor performance wasn’t a network issue, I used UberTwitter at the same time. UberTwitter still called for a little patience, typical of BlackBerry Twitter applications (I have yet to find a truly great BlackBerry Twitter app), but I accomplished tasks noticeably faster than I could using Twitter for BlackBerry.

Additionally, if you don’t want Twitter for BlackBerry using up your BlackBerry’s juice, you must log out of Twitter from within the application — not just close it. Closing the application still leaves the door open for it to notify you when you have new messages.

Twitter for BlackBerry isn’t yet available as a public download and is still in beta; I would hope that prior to being launched it receives some serious performance upgrades.

What mobile application do you use for your Twitter needs?

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