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Collaboration

Health and Productivity Go Hand in Hand

You probably find it hard to motivate yourself when you’re feeling under the weather. But even if you’re not sick, low levels of motivation may still be related to health. It turns out that how fit you are can have an effect on your productivity levels. Read More »

I’ve found that some people can very easily get their back up when attempts are made to point out their grammar weaknesses. Maybe it feels like being reprimanded in school. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and the same sentiment applies with grammar, … Read More »

 
 

How Mel Gibson Can Help Your Content Strategy

I saw Mel Gibson on a talk show last night. The host asked him about his “Three E” approach to movie making. He responded that there are three things he tries to achieve with his movies: first entertain, then educate, and then, if possible, elevate. Read More »

The 5S Process for Getting Organized

Here I go again, writing about organization. This time, though, it’s not because I’ve found a great new app to help me. That’s my inbox, aka my “to-be-dealt-with” pile. And there are two more like it. If only there were an app that could help me! Read More »

Doing Super-sets: Applying Workout Logic to Web Work

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. Read More »

The 4 Pillars of a Solid Web Working Strategy

Web work can be an unstable ride. Since we are all independent, we have varying ways of dealing with challenges and opportunities that arise in our work. I don’t think there’s one strategy that fits us all, but there are four aspects of our careers … Read More »

How to Combat the Winter Work Lull

Before anyone says anything, I fully realize the irony in this being my first post here at WWD in quite a while. And that’s part of this story. If you’re reading this from southern Australia, you may not appreciate how mind-numbing the depths of a … Read More »

New Productivity Study Suggests Ditching Visual Alerts

Growl notifications, alert add-ons for Firefox and for the desktop, and other tools can all help you keep on top of goings-on in your digital world by displaying visual cues whenever new activity appears on your social networks, email, or other web apps. A Read More »

My New Year's Productivity Resolutions: A Work-in-progress

It’s a little early yet to be thinking about the new year (there’s still at least 75 percent of the holiday party season ahead of us, after all), but one of my New Year’s resolutions last year was to try and be more prepared, so … Read More »

The New Writer: Writing Advice from Your Past You Should Ignore

As I sit down each day to do my work, the vast majority of which involves writing (articles, web site content, tweets and blog posts), I can’t help but think about the writing rules drilled into me by past English teachers. In most cases, their advice … Read More »

3 Essential Web Working Tools — That Aren't Web Working Tools

Web apps, computers and smartphones are all key tools in my web working arsenal, but using only those things alone, I doubt I’d ever get anything done at all. Instead, to help boost my productivity, I supplement the obvious utilities and devices with some perhaps unexpected … Read More »

According to one poll conducted by About.com , over a third of respondents avoid going home because of the overwhelming mess Read More »

More Must Reads

I confess: I’m a terrible scatterbrain. It takes a lot for me to force my thoughts into a nice, orderly line and to keep them there — particularly in those busy times when I have a lot of competing priorities. In those times, I’ll often … Read More »

How do you know you’re, in fact, succeeding in your business? It may seem like you’ve had a steady flow of new customers, but are you tracking the numbers to be sure? It’s easy to lose track of time and get confused about when you signed … Read More »

I recently came across a video by Jon Larkowski entitled, “The Way I Get Things Done,” in which he outlines his personal productivity system. He offered several useful tips for increasing productivity, but the two phrases that really stuck out to me were that you … Read More »

Yesterday, I read the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web, and although I found a lot of useful information in it, one thing has stuck with me since reading it. Your blog is your mothership. Don’t neglect it for lesser tools. This is an important thing to … Read More »

In an earlier post, I mentioned using a virtual assistant (VA) to help with my work so that I could free myself to focus on more important tasks, including taking much-needed time off. Many readers asked who I used for virtual assistant services, and one … Read More »

Recently, I’ve been doing major cutbacks in my work day. It started with my lead generation. I’d been putting myself through the ringer for six or seven months in an attempt at kicking my results up a notch, only to have the opposite effect. I finally … Read More »

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me, but I think it’s fair to say that a widely-experienced byproduct of social media engagement is social media disengagement. I’ve encountered it in BBS’s, forums, message boards, with IM clients, on MySpace, Facebook, and now, most recently, on Twitter. … Read More »

I came across an idea about keeping a one-sentence journal to improve happiness, and thought they could be helpful for improving my business, too. I’m very intimidated by the thought of keeping a personal journal. I’ve tried to do it many times, but I can never … Read More »

How many times do we allow the sideshows to run our lives? What do I mean by “sideshows?” Well, sideshows can be many things: Your clients. Are you giving more time to clients who are completely wrong for you, rather than those who are ideal? Your goals … Read More »

Okay, I don’t really like that phrase, “mental health day,” but the idea behind it is very important and relevant to every web worker. We all need time away from our work and businesses, time to collect our thoughts, get some breathing room, and get away … Read More »

We try to work 100% virtually – no pens, no paper, a laptop, and web-based tools and applications, but even for the web worker, clutter seems inevitable. I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten completely away from paper (is that possible?), and while my clutter in no way … Read More »

Being a web worker can mean learning to handle many facets of running a small business, including dealing with difficult clients, which can often be one of the biggest frustrations that come with the territory. But how do you know if your clients are abusing you? … Read More »

How do you sell yourself and your services online, when you work in two or more fields? Won’t a potential client’s first impression be that you lack focus, and perhaps don’t excel at any of the things you do? Freelancers don’t always have the luxury of … Read More »

It’s a strange thing, but in times like these, when prospective clients have fewer dollars to spend and when there’s more competition in the marketplace due to higher unemployment rates, instinctive responses have a tendency to take over our business decisions. It’s easy to get trapped in … Read More »

I like Twitter, and I embrace it for both personal and private use. Until recently, though, I’ve been hesitant to take the next logical step and attend a tweetup, despite their popularity here in Toronto. (A tweetup is a gathering of Twitter users, and is something … Read More »

I use a lot of Google’s applications to stay organized and productive, but I’m especially fond of Gmail. In its standard form, it’s a fine email client that makes it easy to stay on top of that mountain of email, but with a little customization you … Read More »

Recently, I switched to a dual-monitor setup for working each day, and I’ll never go back. The productivity benefits were immediately apparent, and we’ve written before about how easy it is to switch to this type of setup. Both the Mac OS and Windows have support … Read More »

Recently, I attended a Barcamp for web workers, where I popped in and out of two groups discussing Getting Things Done (GTD). There was a beginners’ group, and one they called “Kung Fu GTD,” for the hardcore efficiency crowd. Despite not being a GTD … Read More »

Much as we wish it wasn’t true, on occasion we take on a contract that gets us in over our heads. Especially when just starting out, and/or we’re unfamiliar with the field or industry we’re working in. Obviously, realizing that you can’t deliver what the client … Read More »

It’s Friday! It’s 4:50 p.m.! You’re about to kick back and breathe a sigh of relief, happy to forget about work for the next 48 hours… Wait a second. Before you escape into the blissful freedom of the weekend, take a few minutes to prep things for … Read More »

Recently, I was commiserating with a friend looking for a new job about the unpleasantness of that task. I remembered the hours of fruitless toiling, sending countless resumes off into the void, along with unique, individually tailored cover letters for hundreds of positions. Days that first … Read More »

Web workers are often hired on on a contract basis. The benefit, and the failing, of contract work is that it is not permanent, and almost always ends. Sometimes you may have ample warning of a contract’s end date if you’ve established a set term beforehand, … Read More »

A lot of people are getting into coworking in a big way, the team at WebWorkerDaily included. It’s a very nice idea, and a welcome escape from the solitude of working from home, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone wants to go out and join … Read More »

As web workers, we probably have to endure meetings less often than our cube-dwelling counterparts. When you do hold a meeting with a client or with your teammates, either face-to-face or as a teleconference, you want to make it as effective as possible so you get … Read More »

One of the dangers of web working is that of getting stuck in a rut. Not that people working in traditional settings aren’t also affected by this professional pitfall. In fact, web workers are probably better off than most because more decisions about how and where … Read More »

In this post, I’m going to get back to basics. The key to successful web work, and getting paid to do it, is knowing exactly what it is you want to do, and how you’re going to go about doing it. In other words, you have … Read More »

How to avoid your quest for the best tools becoming an excuse to indulge that most dangerous of professional vices: procrastination. Read More »

It’s hard to know what you’re going to need of your office when you’re first starting out, so I asked some fellow WWD bloggers and my Twitter followers what tips they might give to people setting up a home office. Here’s what I learned. Read More »

An introductory look at two of the key tools of the trade. Read More »

One of the things that I struggle with most when I’m working from home is wrapping up and finishing for the day. Quite often, I’ll mean to finish at, say, 6:30 pm, but then another email drops into the old inbox, or I’ll move onto “just … Read More »

Targeting your professional development in a preemptive rather than reactive way, is not always easy. Usually freelancers and consultants just roll with the punches and learn what they have to depending on client requirements. A little forethought, though, can go a long way to making you … Read More »

I didn’t make many New Year’s resolutions this year. I cut out all those destined to fail, and instead focused on some that I have at least a little hope of achieving. A lot were work related, and one in particular applies primarily to web work. … Read More »

You may be interested and motivated to become a freelance writer, but it’s hard to know where to start. First, you should write, but that goes without saying. How do you turn your passion into paid work? It’s not a simple process, and it involves a … Read More »

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