Kanban: The Secret of High-Performing Teams at Microsoft

Kanban: The Secret of High-Performing Teams at Microsoft:
If you are a project manager or a program manager, or aspiring to be, one of the best project management tools you can add to your toolbox is the Kanban. In fact, if somebody were to ask me, what’s the single best way to exponentially improve project execution, I would probably say, the answer is Kanban. (Well, I might first say, get my book, Getting Results the Agile Way, and adopt Agile Results
A Kanban is a simple project management tool. It enables you to visualize your workflow, limit your work in progress, and optimize your “cycle time” (the time it takes to complete one item.) For software development projects, this is a big deal. It helps you find bottlenecks and push quality upstream. Ultimately, you shape your process to flow more value as efficiently and effectively as possible, “just in time.” Another way to think of it is, your users “pull” value through your development chain, while you streamline your process.
I first got introduced to Kanbans, several years ago, by one of the best and brightest in software engineering, Corey Ladas (author of Scrumban.) My introduction was a “learn by doing” exercise.

Identify State Changes in Your Workflow

We went to the whiteboard and Corey has me identify the main states of my project workflow. While it was iterative, and a lot of work was done in parallel, the main stages were:
Analysis, Design, Development, Test, and Release. It looked something like this:

Identify Work Items

Next, Corey asked me to identify the “things” or “items” that I would show on my Kanban. I had a hard time breaking things down into useful units until I used a simple test. What’s the smallest, most useful thing I could demo to users? For simplicity, let’s just say I broke things down into features and user stories. In this case, a user story was simply a persona-based scenario with a goal. In my case, I also needed some “system” stories. The bottom line was that each of these was a “chunk” of value that I would ship to users. Corey had me name some of these items and write them down on stickies. He then had me place them wherever they were currently at on my Kanban. It looked something like this:

What surprised me was that he didn’t ask me to change our team’s process. The goal was simply to reflect whatever process we were already using. The most important thing was really to identify the most meaningful state changes in our workflow, and to identify the work items that flow through it. He said the power of the Kanban is that we would tune our process over time, with real data and real results. It’s a living thing. And it’s a visual thing.

Set Limits for Work in Progress

The next thing Corey had me do was to set a limit for how many items should be actively in development at any given time. I struggled here at first because I was used to having a lot of work in flight. He pointed out the problem with a lot of work in flight is that there’s thrashing, and more time spent context switching than actually finishing the work. Worse, if we’re not closing things down, then we aren’t flowing value. He said, to keep it simple, as an experiment, set the limit at 3. Find out what your team can do. For example, with focus, how quickly can we close down an item? Where does the bottleneck happen? Which resources are idle? Could idle developers pair up with testers and unblock test, for example? He got me thinking.

Push Quality Upstream

This is where the magic happened. Corey asked me to identify some of the most common issues found during Test. I rattled off a few common problems. He then asked me what I could check for before entering test. We then repeated this process a few times until we had a few simple checks before we leave Analysis, and before we leave Design, and before we leave Development.
It sounds so simple, and it is,   But the big deal was having it all at a glance, on the whiteboard.  We could now easily get the right people at the board, having the right conversations.

A Living Process

The beauty is that we ended up with a unique process for our team -- built by us, built for us, and optimized by us. As a team, we could now all visualize our process. We could easily see our bottlenecks. We could easily add quality checks. We could easily add more states to our Kanban if we needed more fine-grained visibility. We basically achieved a highly-flexible, highly relevant process that struck a balance between self-organization and workflow specialization.

Kanban for Execution Excellence

That was the start of my Kanban adventures, long ago. In the years since, I’ve experimented with Kanbans, personal kanbans, Kanban tools, and various approaches. The Kanban has proven itself time and again for me as one of my most effective project management tools. It really is “just enough process” combined with a focus on flowing value and improving quality. It’s one of the best tools I’ve used for driving execution excellence across people and teams in an empowering and self-directed way.
When the question is, “How do we improve our execution?” … even if Kanban is not the answer, it’s very often as good place to start. After all, if you can show somebody your Kanban with current activity, chances are you can find the bottlenecks and optimization opportunities. At the minimum, you’ll have a shared frame of reference, the visualization of your process, which is a great way to dive deeper to troubleshoot any execution issues.

You Might Also Like

• Agile Methodology in Microsoft patterns & practices
• Idea to Done: How I Use a Personal Kanban for Getting Results
• Methodologies at a Glance

10 Free Leadership Tools for Work and Life

10 Free Leadership Tools for Work and Life:
As one of my wise mentors always said, “If it’s free, it’s for me.” (Tom, are you out there?)  Here is a quick list of free leadership tools you can use today, right now, to change your game.  These tools are battle-tested and have stood the test of time.  The beauty is you can take them wherever you go because they are leadership tools for your mind.
If you want the lion's share of impact, then you need tools for today's world.  It's an ever-changing landscape, and things can rapidly change under your feet.  It's the information age, so the right tools, accordingly are information tools.   They are tools for your mind, to help you organize, prioritize, and gain clarity and control over your actions and your thoughts.  They also help shape your feelings.  A great deal of your action is shaped by how you feel.  If you feel overwhelmed, that is not your power stance.  You achieve way more, with less effort and more impact, when you feel unstoppable.
That is the purpose of these tools – to bring out your best.
These tools help you unleash your capability and funnel your action and energy into more meaningful impact.  Through focus and clarity, you amplify your impact.  By using a system with pluggable parts, it's easy to swap tools in and out, to find the ones that work best for you.   Because it's a system, you can tune and prune it to get better results, and they keep getting better over time.
10 Free Leadership Tools for Making Things Happen Here are free tools that you can add to your leadership toolbox:

1. Agile Results System.  This is the pluggable system.  Agile Results is a personal results system for work and life.  You can think of it as a simple system for producing meaningful results.  It's works for individuals and it works for teams.  It's also a highly effective time management system that puts an emphasis on flowing value to yourself and others.  It also helps you make time for what's important.  I've used it to lead more than 30 projects at Microsoft.  Around the world, people are using it for everything from business transformation to re-energizing their teams and leaders.  It's free.  You can get it today at http://GettingResults.com  (BTW – if you didn’t notice the acronym, it’s how to kick-ARS in work and life.)
2. The Rule of Three.  This is your leadership tool to avoid information overload.  You can use The Rule of Three to chop problems down to size.  It's also a way to help keep your mind organized among the chaos.  You can use it any situation where you feel overwhelmed or have fallen into the trap of analysis paralysis.  Simply identify three actions to take.  Or, simply identify three take aways from any meeting.  If you are trying to get your priorities in order, start with the top three.  Bubble things up.  The Rule of Three makes it easy to manage your mind, and manage your actions. 
3. Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection.  This is a free leadership tool for driving results each week.  It works by focusing on three wins each week and three wins each day.  Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection is simple to use.  On Mondays, you identify three wins that you want for the week.  Each day, you identify three wins for that day.  On Fridays, you identify three things going well and three things to improve.  The power comes from clarity in terms of priorities.  Another benefit is that you are taking both a fresh look each day, as well as zooming out to your week.  Additionally, you create a powerful learning loop through Friday Reflection so each week you are testing, learning, and adapting, while flowing value.
4. Weekly Outcomes.  This is a free leadership tool to take Monday Vision to the next level.  The idea is to first dump out all the things that are top of mind, and then identify your top three wins for the week.  This is a powerful leadership tool for driving clarity across the team, and for showcasing progress.  It's also a powerful way to troubleshoot execution issues.  On Monday's, simply write down the list of the work to be done, and put it in A-Z order.   This forces you to name things well.  It also helps you clear you mind, by dumping it down onto paper.  It also gives you a simple place to look for the week's work.   After you have your list, which is ultimately a "brain dump", you next identify the three wins that you want for this week.  You simply bubble those to the top.   You now have a very simple list of your three wins, and then your A-Z list of top of mind issues and work to be done.   This puts you in the driver's seat to create clear and compelling goals, as well as drive priorities with precision.   The beauty is, you can also easily share this list with your team.  In fact, it's a great way to co-create the week together.  What I do is this ... each Monday (or Sunday night), I start a new email with the subject line:  Weekly Outcomes: 05/07/2012 (or whatever Monday's date is.).  I then do a fast dump of all the work I'd like to achieve with the team.  I then bubble up three wins.  I then send it out to the team and ask them to identify anything I've missed, or to reshape or re-prioritize the wins, based on their vantage point.  The beauty of this approach is that it works with distributed teams.   Throughout the week, you also have a handy list to refer to, and it can help keep your grounded while everything around you might be moving about.  See Weekly Outcomes: The Simple Weekly Planner.
5. Monthly Theme.  This is a very simple, but very powerful free leadership tool.  The idea here is to identify a driving theme or priority for the month.  Having a theme makes it easy for everybody to contribute to the initiative.  For example, you might choose a theme of "simplicity" or a theme of "fun."  Whatever theme you choose, it should be relevant to a top concern that you want to address, and this helps get some extra elbow grease on the problem.  Having the theme gives the team an overall sense of purpose, and a way to connect what they do back to a bigger picture.  It makes the month more meaningful and the little extra efforts across the team on a daily basis, add up very quickly to exponential results.  If you don't have a theme for this month, simply identify one and start to socialize it.  You can quickly build a coalition in your favor if you pick a theme that people care about.  For example, a theme that I'm focused on now is "friction free delivery" where I want to streamline our consultants for world-class delivery in a way that's simple, effective, and repeatable, that gets the friction out.  Friction is anything from looking for assets or templates they need to figuring out what the anatomy of a great engagement looks like.  It also includes simplifying any tools or content to better support a "grab and go" approach over having to wallow and absorb how to put things together.
6. Ten at Ten.   This is one of my favorite tools for reducing email and administration overhead and getting everybody on the same page fast.  It's simply a stand-up meeting.  I tend to have them at 10:00, and I set a limit of 10 minutes.  This way people look forward to the meeting as a way to very quickly catch up with each other, and to stay on top of what's going on, and what's important.  The way it works is I go around the (virtual) room, and each person identifies what they got done yesterday, what they're getting done today, and any help they need.  It's a fast process, although it can take practice in the beginning.  When I first started, I had to get in the habit of hanging up on people if it went past 10 minutes.  People very quickly realized that the ten minute meeting was serious.  Also, as issues came up, if they weren't fast to solve on the fly and felt like a distraction, then we had to learn to take them offline.  Eventually, this helped build a case for a recurring team meeting where we could drill deeper into recurring issues or patterns, and focus on improving overall team effectiveness.
7. Show and Tells.   This is one of the best free leadership tools for helping enforce accountability.  The idea is this ... each week, have a recurring meeting where the point is to demo the work.  It gives people that have done great things, a great way to showcase their work.  For people that aren't delivering, it gives them a chance to feel some accountability to the team.  The most important problem it solves though, is that it helps people own demonstrating the value of their work.  It's one thing to do the work.  It's another to demo the work.  When you demo the work, it puts you in the mindset of the user, and you have to simplify your work so that it can be well-understood.  This process also helps the team air their dirty laundry among each other before going public.  That said, it's also a great way to showcase with customers, as long as the team has reached a level of maturity with their ideas, and is open to external feedback.  I made it a habit to include customers during our show and tells to really help spot problems early and make sure the pains and needs are being addressed.  The earlier the better, although there is such a thing as too early.  The is one of the most powerful leadership tools for really helping teams own improving their user experience.  It also is a powerful leadership tool in terms of helping people feel valued for the work they do.  The easier things are to demo, the easier it is to tell and sell the story.  It helps people practice their sticky messages and to feel a sense of progress.   It's also a way to build buzz and build momentum, while helping the team gain clarity across the team of what the different folks are bringing to the table.
8. 30 Day Improvement Sprints.   Simply pick a focus to work on and commit to improving it for a 30 day timebox.  Committing to 30 days of improvement in a focused area, is easier to swallow than changing for life.  However, improving an area for 30 days, is actually life changing.  With 30 days, persistence and time are on your side.  It's a big enough time box that you can try different techniques, while building proficiency.  Using 30 days makes working through hurdles easier too.  A lot of the hurdles you hit in you first week, are gone by week two.  Little improvements each day, add up quickly.  If you look back on how many things you tried for a week and stopped thinking you hadn't made progress, the reality might be that you didn’t get to week two to see your results.  This is a great approach for building muscle on the team when adopting new habits or practices.
9. Strong Week.  This is a powerful leadership tool for maximizing the impact of the overall team.   The idea is to have everybody spending more time in their strengths.  You can actually design a strong week by identifying the activities that make you strong, and reducing the activities that make you weak or drain you.  As you can imagine, this can dramatically amplify the results from each person on the team because you are deliberately having them spend more time in the things they do well and bring them to life.   This is one of the most effective tools I use to help anybody I mentor instantly start producing better, faster, more meaningful results.  For a step-by-step How To that walks through the process, see How To Have a Strong Week.
10. Guidelines for Focus.  When it comes to leadership tools, focus is your friend.   One of he best ways to rapidly improve your results is to narrow your focus.  When you narrow your focus, you gain clarity on outcomes, and you can both measure and feel your impact with more precision.  You can also build momentum more quickly and this will quickly turn into a snowball of success that rolls in your favor.  Here is a comprehensive set of focus guidelines that you can use to really hone your ability to focus.

Special Bonus Although you can do anything I’ve explained here on paper, on a whiteboard, or electronically, I do have a set of template you can use that might help with some things.  You can find the templates here:

• Free Templates for Agile Results

You Might Also Like

• 40 Hour Work Week at Microsoft
• Patterns and Practices for Distributed Teams
• Making 30 Day Improvement Sprints More Effective
• Scale Things Down so You Can Actually Do Them

30 Essential Tools and Web Apps for Freelancers

30 Essential Tools and Web Apps for Freelancers:





When it comes to freelancing, having the right tools for the job can make all the difference.
And we’re not talking exclusively on-job tools here either; freelancers have the difficult task of managing all of their activities, work expenditures, and productivity, as they have only themselves to account for.
While you certainly don’t want to get bogged down in excess tools (succumbing to signing up to every free tool ever), there are certainly a few free resources out there that will greatly aid in your endeavors as a successful freelancer. So, here are 30 tools and web apps for freelancers.

Freelancer Time Management Tools

1. Teux Deux
The Teux Deux “to-do” list app first starting picking up some traction when it was mentioned to be used by the likes of Seth Godin for making daily to-do lists. The premise behind Teux Deux was to make a very minimal but visually compelling (“designy”) app that is highly usable and intuitive.
If making lists is a key part of your organizational structure as a free lancer, than you should definitely check out Teux Deux, it is one of the best options out there for creating and managing task lists (and it’s free!) You can also take Teux Deux on the go with their iPhone app.
2. RescueTime
You may be familiar with RescueTime it due to it’s association with a few big names, such as Matt Mullenwag of Automattic and WordPress. What you may not be familiar with is how useful RescueTime really is.
RescueTime allows you to keep track of how you spend your time on your computer, and lets you analyze how this time was spent later. If you find that last week you spent over 10 hours on Reddit, you can know that it is time to start managing your time more wisely ;).
3. Focus Booster
For freelancers, getting things done in a timely manner is of utmost importance, and entirely on the self as freelancing typically comes with a very variable schedule. While  the Pomodoro Technique provide great results for some people, it’s hard to implement on a regular basis without the right tools, and who wants to walk around with a timer all day?
That’s where Focus Booster comes in, it is an online timer made just for freelancers (or anyone!) using the Pomodoro Technique to get things done. If you aren’t familiar, this method relies on having 25 minute periods of work followed by 5 minute periods of rest, which helps you segment tasks and get them done one at a time.
4. Toggl
Toggl is a time tracking app which aims to help you track time with a single click, and to switch easily between different tasks and create reports so that you can get things done and turn that precious time into productive time.It is also available as a Chrome extension, and can be easily installed in your browser for use as soon as you fire up the web.
It’s been featured on an favorably reviewed by sites like Lifehacker, where it is described as:

“Toggl starts tracking the time spent in a live second by second timer right in the web browser. Hit stop when you’re done. Toggl will put together reports – PDF or CSV – for invoicing your clients. More portable than a kitchen timer, Toggl looks like a helpful little tool for hourly freelancers who need to keep track of exactly how much time they spent on what task in another Firefox tab.”

5. TextExpander
As a freelancer, you are likely sending a lot of emails. Worse yet, many of these emails are likely to contain similar (if not duplicate) information. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a free app that could cut down the time of sending these emails?
That’s where TextExpander comes in, allowing you to pre-program short abbreviations that an automatically insert all types of information and even images, CSS, and other longer forms of information, all from a few easy keystrokes. You can also pre-program to fix typos you often make, use different signatures for different clients, and auto-insert forms and other info on a per project basis.

Freelance Writing Tools

6. OpenOffice
All freelancers (but especially writers) need a full suite of office tools for their personal computer. While Google Docs offers a web based alternative, many folks like storing documents on their hard drive or external memory device. Instead of paying the cost of Microsoft Office, why not try the excellent and free OpenOffice alternative?
While OpenOffice comes with full suite of tools that are comparable to Microsoft Office, the OpenOffice writer is the biggest benefit here: it’s a fully featured writing platform that allows easy exporting to PDF, making it perfect for e-Books, guides, pamphlets, and other necessary documents to be easily shared on the PDF format. It comes fully featured with a similar selection of fonts and other tools (charts, formatting, etc.) that Microsoft Office has, all while being
7. WriteRoom (Mac)
When it comes to getting big writing projects done, focus is key. Nothing will give you more focus than a full-screen writing tool, and WriteRoom is the original offering that is available for Mac.
Featuring a totally black background and no menu options (as well as blocking out all toolbars, even the start menu), WriteRoom will keep your writing between you and the page, taking away all outside things to click so that you can focus you’re writing efforts.
8. DarkRoom (PC)
If you were reading the above and thinking “Oh great, another awesome free tool only available for Mac…”, worry not! There is another program designed to perfectly replicate WriteRoom, only for Windows. It is called DarkRoom and it is similarly free.
Want to really get rid of disctractions? Use either one of these programs and then do the unthinkable: turn off your Internet! That’s right, disabling the web with a full-screen writer will leave you with not many options but to get some writing done!
9. Zen Writer
While the above two options are great for most people, for some, the dark background and the “Matrix style” feel of the programs will be off putting and will not help them maintain focus when writing.
The solution? ZenWriter, a full-screen writing app that takes aesthetics into account. With a serene light and dark background and adjustable fonts, this is the best looking full-screen writer available. The catch? It costs $9 to use all of its features full-time, although you can download the program for free and try it for yourself.
10. Logline App
Logline is an interesting app to feature because it is marketed as being the perfect solution for writing screenplays, but I’ve found it to be a great tool for writing a far more common type of web writing: long, comprehensive e-Books. Simply put, a huge part of freelance writing and anyone using content marketing to grow their business.
With Logline, organizing your ideas and sections/chapters is as simple as a few clicks, you can write notes and organize sections painlessly, no need for immense .doc or .pdf files until the book is fully complete.

Freelance Organizational Tools

11. Dropbox
Most of us freelancers have heard of Dropbox before, and let me tell you any “hype” tied to the product is totally accurate: Dropbox is awesome, allowing you to sync all files on all of your devices with a simple drag-n-drop system.
Never again will you have to sit with downtime when you could be working on a project, or get stuck not having an essential file that you need: sync all of your files with Dropbox and you’re business files will be “in the cloud”, accessible from any of the devices that you own and have on you.
12. Shoeboxed
Shoeboxed allows you to turn piles of receipts and business cards into expense reports, accounting entries and contact lists, save time and cut admin costs by scanning and extract the data from your paper clutter. Shoebox is also accepted by the IRS, so you can use it for your business without worry.
The only downside? The free plan won’t be enough for most people, so if you want to take advantage of the full suite of Shoebox features multiple times a month, you are going to have to upgrade to a premium plan.
13. Now Do This
Now Do This is about the most simple a task management tool can be: it only allows you to make a simple text list which you then click “done” after you’ve… well, done the task.
The upside? No fancy features ensure that this is a true “Getting Things Done” tool, there is nothing to play around with and adjust, you just put up your things to do, and get to it.
14. Oh Don’t Forget…
If you are like me, emails can get passed over, voicemails unlistened to… but text messages? Opened every time. The Oh Don’t Forget team thinks like this as well, as they’ve made the best tool to get reminders via text.
With a ODF account you can text yourself reminders at any time of the day, and since they will be coming through your phone, you know you will be more likely to check and thus remember them.
15. Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk has definitely created some buzz recently, and with it’s Gmail addon, you can now access it through your email, which you are probably spending too much time in… ;)
RTM is simply one of the best task managers out there, with tools that can remind you from almost any device, set up specific location reminders, plan your time in advanced, and work together with others to get things done. An overall must have tool in my opinion.
16. BetterBuzzer
Did you think that text message reminders might be annoying? Well than stay far away from BetterBuzzer, the company that promises to “Not stop calling you until you pick up. We’re annoying like that, and you’ll love it!” :)
BetterBuzzer does as promised, if you set an important reminder via their calendar tool, you will get called at that time and your phone will not stop ringing until you pick up, useful for absolutely critical things that you cannot miss or forget.

Freelance Project Management Tools

17. MindMeister
Mind-mapping is all of the rage these days, although it is no different from the old school pen-and-paper method, with tools like MindMeister, you can create mind-maps on your electronic devices, which serve as much better storage than sheets of looseleaf.
Of all my trials with mind-mapping tools, MindMesiter is definitely the best, and it’s free plan will be enough for most people, although if you create a ton of mind-maps, the premium plans are very reasonable.
18. FreedCamp
FreedCamp promises to be the best viable (and free!) alternative to BaseCamp, which so far has not has any major competitors (especially ones that are free).
I’ve used FreedCamp myself and this tool gets better by the day, including all sorts of options which seem like steal to have on a free tool. Better yet, it comes with awesome features like project templates so that you can get up and running as soon as you start using the service, making it an absolute must try: if you’ve been thinking about using a platform like this, I’d advise checking out FreedCamp first.
19. Google Apps
A lot of these apps you are most likely familiar with if you use a Google Account. From messaging & task apps such as Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar to collaboration apps such as Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Reader and many more, Google Apps is an absolute must for any freelancer in my humble opinion.
If you want to include the recent Google+ into the mix, then you also have incentive to have a Google account in order to network on this new social networking platform. While you have to watch that it doesn’t turn into a time-sink, Google+ offers a way to connect with technologically savy users (it’s main adopters, at least for now) and as a way to further promote yourself on a platform run by the world’s biggest search engine.
20. Evernote
When creativity and good ideas strike, will you leave it up to memory to keep track of them? The scary truth is your brain is not as dependable as you’d like to think, but cut the poor guy some slack: in today’s world, we are forced to recall tons of information and are constantly being stimulated by new information.
The benefits of technology help to ease it’s woes, however, with tools like Evernote. Evernote allows you to capture any good ideas, images, or audio clips from your PC or phone, and then lets you sync them all for easy retrieval and edits no matter where you are. Don’t let a good idea slip away due to being too busy: let Evernote keep track of your spontaneous moments of creativity/inspiration and store them so you can come back and work on them later.
21. Helium
Helium is a super simple task management system to aid you in clearing out your inbox, assigning and delegating tasks easily, and to take action in order to get things done. Easily connected to your corporate email and Evernote account, Helium also does not need to be connected to the web to work: you can download it for your PC or Mac and it is ready to go.
Even better: you can use Helium to assign tasks whether or not other users use Helium or not, it is not dependent on others to have an account with the platform in order to use it’s benefits. Lastly, Helium features a clean interface and a drag-n-drop dashboard for easy management.

Entrepreneurial & Legal Tools

22. Mint
Mint has been a really popular tool for people looking to manage their money, and it’s no wonder: the interface is beautiful, the tools are excellent, and the service is free. I really cannot recommend another free money management tool over Mint, it has all of the essentials a freelancer could need to start managing their spending and saving more wisely.
Not only that, but the Mint blog is always full of excellent information in the form of detailed posts, infographics, and case studies. You will not find a better designed and made product for money management for free.
23. StreamerApp
The Streamer App is a really great tool that allows you to create custom dashboards for your business’s vital aspects. These include integrations with popular Web Analytics, CRM support, infrastructure, project management and sales tools… all in one place.
The amount of services that integrate with Streamer are impressive thus far and improving by the day, and include the likes of Basecamp, Twitter, MailChimp, Gmail, Google Analytics, Pingdom, Shopify, UserVoice and many more.
24. ContactMe
ContactMe touts itself as being the essential, all-in-one tool to allow you to consolidate all of your contacts—and the business information that relates to each one—into one convenient, online system.
Utilizing ContactMe to keep this type of information in order will allow you to stay updated and continually on top of your correspondences, tasks, details, deadlines and appointments. Definitely a major time savor that allows you to conduct your business more professionally.
25. DeskTime
DeskTime is an awesome tool that is perfect for business owners, designers, developers, accountants and many others types of freelancers and entrepreneurs. What does it allow you to do?
It allows you to keep track of people that you are employing, including the ability to automatically create timesheets (no more Excel!) lowering your payroll processing costs, and allowing you to see who is working, for how long, and at what hours. A must have for freelancers and business owners employing others.
26. DocStoc
Docstoc is the best online source for high quality (and a wide variety) of professional and legal documents that you can use to start, grow, and manage your budding new business, entrepreneurial endeavor, or freelance activities.
Docstoc provides the platform to upload and share documents with the world, and serves as a vast repository of free and for purchase legal, business, financial, technical, and educational documents that can be easily searched, previewed and downloaded.

Freelancer Social Media Tools

27. Tweriod
When it comes to social media (especially on Twitter), timing can be everything. Not only on the time you spend on it (get back to work!) but also on the timing of your updates, which can have big consequences on their reach and effectiveness.
Fortunately, there is a one-two knockout combo for Twitter that will make sure your updates go out at the perfect time, every time. The first part of this process is analyzing your followers over on Tweriod, which will give you a comprehensive (and good looking!) chart displaying the most popular hours on Twitter for your followers (when they are online the most).
With this information, you can then use…
28. BufferApp
…the BufferApp, the second part in our awesome Twitter combo. After you’ve gotten your free report of when your Twitter followers are online, use Buffer to set up time periods in which your tweets will post every day, making sure they align with when your Twitter followers are online the most.
You can schedule tweets from the very beginnings of the day, and can set them to go out at very specific times, hitting the hot spots throughout the day, making sure your tweets are getting read by as large an audience as possible. This will maximize each tweet’s impact and you can rest assured that your important tweets won’t get buried. Buffer also now works with Facebook as well.
29. Ping.fm
Ping.fm is one of the best ways to cut through the 20 different logins that you might have for social media profiles: update once and done, and Ping will even shorten the links automatically for sites like Twitter.
I like Ping because I’m able to updates social media accounts, microblogs (such as Posterous and Tumblr) and that the Ping team is adding new accounts all of the time, assuring me that it will be a service that stays updated with the latest useful profiles for all types of sites.
30. SocialOomph
Social Oomph has some really great social networking tools in it’s arsenal, but it really shines when it comes to Twitter tools. The reason that so many of these web apps for freelancer tools focus on Twitter is because I’ve found it to be one of the best networking tools, with LinkedIn being a close second (and Google+ being a distant 3rd).
One awesome feature that I love to use (properly!) is the auto-DM tool. While this tool can be extremely obnoxious when used incorrectly, it can be a great asset done the right way. What’s the right way? Entice people to follow you by promising them a freebie (Follow me for a free video/e-book/whatever!), you will gain more potential followers and you also get to spread some content that you’ve made, making it a win-win.
(Photo credit: Glasses on Keyboard via sxc.hu)