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the cure for summer slacking

With the arrival of summer weather, it’s natural for workers’ minds to turn to enjoying the sunshine and to drift a bit from spreadsheets, sales targets and the like. So what’s the cure for this summer slacking? The Chicago Tribune says an increase in web work. Read more »

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When you work online, it’s easy to feel relaxed about legal issues, but there are many laws that can potentially impact you. Benjamin Wright is an attorney specializing in the issues surrounding working online. He points to six questions that web-based workers must keep in mind: Read more »

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Jay Mulki, a professor at Northeastern University, has been studying the issue of web work and workaholism, and is currently analyzing the results. In advance of the release of the research, Mulki gave a sneak peak of his developing findings to the University’s website. Read more »

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web worker insecurity

Issues like time management and work-life balance challenges have been covered on WebWorkerDaily before, but one difficult aspect of solo work studied by Susan J. Ashford, professor at the University of Michigan, is less often discussed: the challenges to ego and self-worth that solo work presents. Read more »

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Web work has many benefits, but less discussed are the downsides. Several experts feel that there is at least one serious one: increased workaholism. Does being on the cutting edge of connectivity and evolving workstyles make web workers more vulnerable to becoming workaholics? Read more »

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The down economy is making many workers realize that it is no longer safe to have just one source of income. On the flip side, employers are also making smaller jobs available to outside contractors, opening up more opportunities for people to have side projects outside […] Read more »

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Last week I woke up to find that my partner had rearranged my home office. She spent the better part of the morning turning it into our home office. I shouldn’t have been surprised — I’d told her earlier in the week that we might become […] Read more »

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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? Here are a few telltale signs and tips for how to fix and avoid these situations.

The work keeps creeping in. You start with one description of what is to be done and end up doing something entirely different or something that’s way more involved than the original task.

How to Fix/Avoid It: Have a contract and a clear and agreed-upon scope and schedule for each and every phase or project. Outline exactly what is to be done and when it’s due.

The client expects immediate responses or complete availability. Occasionally, you’ll come across clients who want 100% of your undivided attention. They expect emails to be responded to within an hour and work to be completed at an unrealistic pace.

How to Fix/Avoid It: Set expectations from the start. Explain when you’re available to clients, how quickly you tend to reply to communications, and how you prefer to communicate. You may also wish to explain how you work. For example, do you generally devote a set amount of time to each project or client per day? If so, explain this to clients on the front side so that they know what to expect. Read more »

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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 a cycle of instinctive “fight or flight” response, so how do we break that cycle? Read more »

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nim·ble : quick and light in motion; marked by quick, alert, clever conception, comprehension, or resourcefulness.

Being a web worker has its advantages, and one of the biggest is that you can build a very adaptable and nimble business. Here are a few of the ways we stay flexible. Read more »

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Starting a business can be a huge undertaking, but fortunately for the aspiring web worker, it doesn’t have to be. The really great thing about starting a web working business is that it getting set up can be easy and low cost. Read more »

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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 »

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I’m not a big fan of moving, but I tend to do it a lot. Once a year is a rare treat, and generally it’s much more frequent than that.

Since I’m preparing for a move once again, and I’ve actually become much more aware of what it is I do and do not like about the places I’ve called my home office in the past, I thought I’d share a few tips for what to look for if you’re searching for a better space to work. Read more »

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While some people have the luxury of working solely online, with clients dispersed throughout the world, the reality is that most freelancers need to cultivate local clients — those that they can meet in real life — in order to pay the bills.  Freelance web developer […] Read more »

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In an effort to give you a slightly different perspective from what you normally get on WebWorkerDaily, we decided to talk with folks whom we feel are doing especially interesting web working jobs. We’re kicking off the first installment of this series of web worker interviews […] Read more »

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I called one of my friends earlier this week and asked her if we could have lunch on Sunday. I was surprised that she said she couldn’t make it, since she had to work. “What kind of evil forces are making you do this?” I asked […] Read more »

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Let’s face it – we are not web working machines. There are several forces that are going against our productivity. So what do we do if we can’t afford to fall into an unproductive day? Here are four techniques to turn productivity into a habit. Read more »

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My recent look at Appigo Notebook for the iPhone and iPod touch had me reevaluating my choice of task management app for the platform. Conveniently, Appigo also offers Todo ($9.99, App Store), one of the leading task management apps in the App Store. While the “integration” […] Read more »

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During the rest of the year, my life is filled mostly with other technology workers and freelancers who easily understand what I do for a living. However, the holidays can be a different story when I’m faced with people who know little about what it means to be a web worker. Read more »

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When I was a freshman art student, there came a day when I realized that my favorite paint colors were running out.  The problem was that I didn’t have the money to replace them.  No ultramarine blue, cadmium yellows, or alizarin crimson.  I was stuck with […] Read more »

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During my creative writing classes in college, many of my classmates dreaded the workshops.  These workshops required us to send each other a copy of our work, then, the following week, we’d tear each other apart.  We used to spend hours spotting mixed metaphors, grammatical errors, […] Read more »

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One of the downsides of web working is that you’re prone to distractions at home, whether it’s the snacks calling to you from the fridge or a toddler throwing tantrums. I experience these distractions everyday and have found ways around most of them. My most important “weapon against mass distractions”, so to speak, was to wake up at 2:00am and work while the rest of the neighborhood sleeps.

Except for my new neighbors, of course. They moved in last week and, since then, it’s been one loud evening after another. Read more »

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It’s hard work to set up and supervise a teleworking team for some projects.  In the web content service I run, I need to gather work-from-home writers together and help them work as a team.  This is especially important for projects that require group cooperation and […] Read more »

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If you’re really determined, you can survive as a freelancing web worker. It takes a few months of trial and error, learning all you can, and finding the tools and processes that work for you. After that, most people are glad to find that they’ve survived […] Read more »

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Ah, the age old business question: “Do I want more work?” The question, of course, is actually “Can I handle more work?” or even  “How much more work can I handle?” Do you know how much more work you can handle? Are you at that tipping/breaking […] Read more »

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The set-top box wars are heating as HP goes from just talking about its MediaSmart Connect to actually putting it on the market. We already know a bit about the device: It plugs into your HD TV and allows you to wirelessly access your digital media […] Read more »

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From pre-packaged California rolls at supermarkets to high-end sushi restaurants where you can easily spend a week’s pay, the Japanese speciality has become popular worldwide and nearly ubiquitous in urban America. You can even get decent (if overpriced) sushi at many American ballparks! Many feel that […] Read more »

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HTC is making some of the coolest mobile devices around, from the Advantage, a Windows Mobile device to the Shift UMPC.  Today they are announcing the launch of the Touch, a Windows Mobile 6 Pro (Phone Edition) phone that uses a very iPhone-like touch interface.  The […] Read more »

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Remember that HSDPA-capable USB modem we mentioned yesterday? We knew it was a T-Mobile rebadge of a Vodafone device but what we didn’t know is that you can connect it to an iLiad eBook reader! MobileRead forum member, drazvan, provides the how-to on getting connected complete […] Read more »

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Jobs tells WSJ that he has doubts that Yahoo’s $60-per-year music subscription plan would work forever, and pointed out that Apple insiders had a “betting pool on when Yahoo would raise the $5-a-month rate, with Mr. Jobs putting his money on five months.”… Not to be […] Read more »

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“If New York City is to maintain its role as a world center of finance, communications, and culture, we have to extend access to broadband communications to all, as well as continuously improve the reliability of our telecommunications networks and take advantage of emerging technologies,” says […] Read more »

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