In the minds of your team members time tracking probably is far down the list of what they think is important. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—they are more interested in getting their work done than in administrative processes. For them, tracking time is a chore at best, or at worst something dreadful and despised, especially if they need to fill in a backlog of days or weeks and have to guesstimate what they did on that afternoon two weeks ago.

Needless to say, lecturing people about “compliance” will rarely do anything but create resentment and while data might roll in quicker for a while it will probably be of worse quality. Plus, you don’t want to treat your team like school-children.

What to do? Here’s 3 tips to get your team to track time, on time!

1. Use a time tracking app that is optimized to get out of the way

There’s many reasons why people hate tracking time, but on the top of the list of time tracking hatred is “the application we use to track time is clunky, slow and generally horrible”.

Your time tracking apps’ number one priority, like all business software, is to make your business more money. Because time tracking by itself is not an activity that makes money, but something that’s administrative, the best way to help the goal of making money is actually to get out of the way as much as possible.

People want to get their work done—not wait forever for things to load, use complicated user interfaces or spend hours configuring things.

Business applications don’t have to be intimidating and boring. Freckle is optimized for extremely fast loading and offers to quickly track time on every single page in the app. Power-users don’t even have to take their hands of the keyboard (mouse-free entry!). Meanwhile the interface has friendly colors and is super-easy to pick up for time tracking newbies. If you’re on a Mac, the menubar app even provides a global keyboard shortcut to quickly log time.

2. Provide multiple ways to track time

As the old saying goes, if the team member doesn’t come to the time tracking app, the time tracking app must come to the team member.

People aren’t always in the office, on their computers. Maybe they’re in a meeting, visiting a customer, on a plane or having a great idea in the shower.

Freckle, in addition to the web app, provides multiple ways to track time, among them a Mac app, an iPhone app, a mobile web interface, integrations with hundreds of other applications, and for developers a full API and automatic tracking of time from Github and Beanstalk. (We’re still working on an app to install in your shower.)

3. Automatically remind people about what they tracked

Even the best-disciplined coworkers will forget to log their time here and then. That’s not a big deal as long as they go in and fill in the gaps. It’s good to do this periodically and on a schedule. Making a habit out of this takes the edge off something that’s a source of guilt and stress.

Of course you don’t want to have to manually remind everyone to do this, and send out lots of “Hey, can you fill in the time for last Friday?” emails. No one wants to start their week with the added stress of having done a bad job keeping track of their time.

Freckle provides a handy, individualized weekly report, sent to your team members’ inboxes automatically every Monday morning. Moreover, this automatic report is a judgment-free zone (there’s no comparisons with other team members, for example) and that works best to make filling those time tracking gaps stress-free.

In retrospect, you could say that in order to improve compliance and quality of data, your time tracking app has one job: treat your team with respect.

Ready to take the plunge to time tracking that makes your team happy? Start your free 14-day trial right now!

The post 3 Ways To Get Your Team To Track Time appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

Here’s my checklist for getting software projects done, in a way that they actually ship and actually work well:

To ship software, first learn how to design things for humans

It’s a skill like any other to learn: design things for humans. I don’t mean visual design (though that is part of it), I mean looking at a problem and figuring out how to create human-computer interactions that make people successful at solving the problems without having a hard time, instead of just defaulting to putting up yet another CRUD form with a few standard UI components that map to some database fields.

A good way to get started is to use other people’s software and take notes about tasks you’re trying to complete and what you actually need to do to complete them. In my email client, how many clicks do I have to make to reply to someone? How many labels do I need to read? How often do I need to switch between the mouse and keyboard? Does it help me in any way with common tasks (like “find all attachments from a specific person”)? (You’ll be surprised how hard it is to use software!).

To put it in other words—give people what they need, not what they want. No one will actively tell you: “I want fewer labels!” or write you an email that they “would like to only switch between the mouse and keyboard 1 time when using the ‘log time’ button”.

It’s your job to figure out the many little things they need in order to successfully use your software and kick ass at what they want to achieve. You can’t outsource this by hiring a designer on oDesk or just asking your customers what they want.

Stick to a few languages. Master them.

If there’s a better solution in another language or environment only use it if gives you some really amazing advantage. It’s often not worth the extra effort to become proficient enough with yet another tool.

Don’t underestimate what it means for a production environments: things have to be provisioned, deployed, security-patched and monitored.

Don’t follow the hype

Use what works for you. If you’re productive in PHP, by all means, use PHP. Of course, sometimes technologies come along that actually measurably increase productivity or have other huge advantages, but it can’t be overstated how few and far between those are—perhaps one or two happen in a decade.

Don’t step into the trap of believing that because there’s many variations of a specific technology, that the underlying idea is a good one. It might actually be a sign of people trying in vain to find a technological solution for the wrong high-level approach.

For example, client-side MVC, for almost any type of web application functionality, will add programming overhead (because there’s more layers and those require interfaces between them), lessen productivity (more code to write and the layers make debugging harder) and likely not actually improve the experience for users.

User interface design is hard work and using client-side MVC will not magically do it for you. You’re a lot likelier to ship by sticking to “old-fashioned” technology.

Stick to a style

Just like languages, frameworks and libraries, the way you use a language seems to change like seasons. One month it’s put it all in closures and the next month your hear that closures are so passé. Reduce cognitive stress while coding and debugging so you have more time thinking about the actual problem you want to solve.

Implement that minimum viable solution

It can’t be said often enough: when writing code, don’t write anything that the code doesn’t absolutely need in order to work. Don’t anticipate how you may extend the code in the future. It never turns out that way anyway. Concentrate on code that works, and write tests instead of wasting time on too much abstraction.

Don’t forget: code is not written in stone. It’s easy to refactor or rewrite later when you do need to change or extend it and when you actually know the requirements.

Avoid complexity

For example, I don’t use CSS or HTML preprocessors like HAML or Sass (if they work for you, awesome, please use it and be productive!)—my style of coding and refining apps involves a lot of tinkering and I have an easier time if I can mess with these things on a low level (for example, just copying and pasting styles I messed with in browser development tools into a CSS file directly).

And while I like CoffeeScript a lot, I find it easier to just write JavaScript directly. The gains of slightly cleaner syntax and better language features are not enough for me to deal with extra compilation steps, more complicated development setups and debugging issues.

Coding > Configuration

An easy trap to step into is relying overly much on other people’s code. If they use it, and all these other people use it, it must be good. Right? Incidentally, that’s why most people run Windows. This is what’s called satisficing.

Your brain is optimized to find the easy way out. It will tell you to just throw a component or library at it, and most programmers will agree. Why reinvent the wheel? Suffer from NIH much?

Choosing an off-the-shelf component is almost always not the optimal way to solve a problem. You’ll suffer through having that pre-fabricated solution only solve your problem the first 80%. And then suddenly there’s no configuration option for that little thing that should be so easy to do. And then you have to start refacoring and fixing bugs in that library. And then you fork it. And you probably need to figure out how to run and adopt the tests. And then you find out there are no tests. And then…

You’re a programmer, not a configurator.

Try tracking your time doing various tasks while programming, including thinking about how to implement a specific feature, designing human-computer interfaces and interaction, writing outlines and todo-lists for the feature’s implementation, picking tools and libraries to help you, making prototypes, writing the actual code, coming up with tests and iterating over functionality and bugs.

You’d be surprised how little time you actually spend coding versus how much time can go into picking libraries and configuring them.

You might save a lot of time by just sitting down and writing code from scratch instead. I find that writing code often helps me understand the problem domain better, by forcing me to think about edge cases—often these would probably never have occurred to me if I’d just pick some off-the-shelf library to do the job.

You’d be surprised how little time you actually spend coding versus how much time can go into picking libraries. You might save a lot of time by just sitting down and writing code from scratch instead.

Never stop learning

Perhaps the best way to stay sharp is to occasionally do side projects. These are a great way to enjoy trying out new things without introducing technological clutter into your “real” projects.

Maybe write an open-source micro-library or two and use it to share things that you have learned to work well with others.

Experiment and tinker, so you don’t lose the joy of programming — creating things out of nothing.

tl;dr To successfully ship software, you need to understand humans better. Design a simple solution. Enable people to be awesome at solving whatever problem it is your software promises to “make easy”. Oh, and don’t over-engineer.

The post How to ship software, the easy way appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

I’m not sure if the philosophers of antiquity included copy and pasting of code snippets in this dream, but hey, it’s a fact of daily developer life.

Copy and pasting is awesome, and so very convenient.

But this is not how you learn and become great at thinking for yourself, finding solutions for solving programming problems and most importantly to be creative.

Over-using sites like Stack Overflow will not make you a better developer. It will only make you very good at clicking up-vote buttons and copy & pasting.

You owe it to your brain and future self that you try to find a solution first, and not give up just because something doesn’t work the first time you try it.

Especially when you don’t feel comfortable or knowledgeable, because you’re working on a new project, with a new programming language or different development environment.

Humans are built for exploration. For understanding by doing.

Your brain will reward you for discovering things. And the rewards are higher as the problem is harder for you to solve.

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”—Aristotle

That doesn’t mean to ban forums and question & answer sites from your bookmarks. You can and should share your discoveries and see how others solved similar problems. You’ll probably find that there’s—hope my cats won’t hear this—more than one way to skin a cat. Sharing will likely lead to new, better ways to tackle a specific problem, potentially benefiting lots of people.

And all that because you spent 10 minutes thinking about a problem and not just copy & pasting the first answer that appears to work. Try it!

P.S. Don’t think you have enough time do to this? Use Freckle to track where your time really goes. You’ll be surprised how much of a typical workday is spent on non-productive work. Trade in some of those meetings that you don’t really have to attend for some brain-exercising time!

The post Stack Overflow is down. What now? appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

Step 1. Tie bowtie
Step 2. Look snazzy
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit!!

The other day, one of our two amazing developers Thomas “Tagging It” Cannon wrote an advice email. As much as I wanted the email to be about men’s fashion (he’s a sharp dresser), alas it was a solid bit of guidance for an IT team to get the most out of Freckle. In his defence, the email was a lot more useful (at least for Freckle users!) than a step by step bow-tie guide…

With this post we want to share the pearls of Cannon’s organizational wisdom with all the IT Professionals using Freckle. His truth nuggets are on point whether your team is completely new to time tracking software or if your crew has been sailing the Freckle ship across the waters of time for many a moon.

We hope this post will give you inspiration to get the team’s Freckle account more organized. Thus everyone can be better at what they do!

#TAGS #TAGS #TAGS!

The BIGGEST thing that aids Mr. Bowtie in getting the most out of Freckle is using Tags strategically. The goal is to intentionally use tags that you can easily chain together when logging time and running reports.

Imagine your time entries as being points on a map—the tag chains are like directions to these areas.

For instance, Cannon’s account has three major types of tags:

1. What feature/code/software is being worked on
2. What kind of work is being done
3. Where the work is being done

Feature/code/software tags let you see what your team is making progress on and what tools are slowing you down. This helps figure out which projects are eating up a lot of time. From there, you can start finding out why these projects are time sinks.

What kind of work tags are-as Cannon puts it- “…essential for pulling back the curtain on work and figuring out how you can do it better.” These should generally be action verbs like #debugging, #planning, #coding.

This works for many customers, but sometimes it helps to get more detailed. Here are a few ideas for getting detailed from Cannon’s personal Freckle tag vault:

Mr. Bowtie has two separate tag systems for similar activities such as, #tests and #manual-testing. The tag #tests is for when he’s working on Freckle’s automated test suite. The tag #manual-testing is for when Cannon has to manually poke and click things to make sure they work. If there is a lot of #manual-testing time, then he can look into ways of automating that type of testing.

Likewise, use separate tags for things like #customer-support or when dealing with #vendor-support. When it comes to time, vendors and customers have different needs. Getting those differences accounted for is good practice for your team.

Where the work is being done tags allow you to pinpoint your location on the map further.

Having this information can help you make good decisions about where to spend time on optimizing your processes. For example: “If a lot of time is being spent on configuring the #staging-server for a new feature,” Cannon explains, “then you will definitely want to write internal guidelines so you’ll be faster next time you do it.” Marking locations allows for map-making when it comes to building new features.

This way your team knows how to get to the next stages in a project without having to redo work already done.

Clear, specific tags make Freckle an even more powerful tool when it comes to tracking work time. With good tag use it’s a breeze to figure out how much time is being spent on specific tasks in relation to project goals.

Naming Projects

As for projects, being specific and differentiating is an awesome way to keep track of work. As Cannon puts it, “Project-wise, we use project names to designate what parts of the business we’re working on. Freckle is for when we’re building new features or working on the app itself, Freckle Support is for all the time we spend helping our customers, and Internal is for things like answering miscellaneous emails.” Such as, when I ask Cannon to send me images of him in a bow tie, #internal #email.

Freckle’s support team is always happy to hear from you

Fantastic API

Oh, and last but not least, we also have a fantastic API that Cannon develops and maintains. This means that you can integrate Freckle with all the other tools you use to run your business!!! We ain’t kidding.  You could use API to automatically keep projects in sync, generate custom reports, or even automatically log time!

If you would like to know more about API integration, Cannon loves talking about it. Send us an email at support@letsfreckle.com and we will get you the tools and guidance you need.

The post To #tag or not to #tag appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

photo cc alli

It’s the holidays, so you’ll give them a break; they just need one more thing done; it’s a friend of a friend.  Whatever the excuse is for basically bartering for work, the holiday season can be tough on a freelancer.

If you’re feeling a bit over-worked and over-booked this year, know that you’re not alone.  Your fellow freelancers can easily be spotted mid way through December shaking their fists at the sky yelling, “why am I doing this again?!“.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  This New Year, resolve to raise your rates and beat the holiday blues.

Wondering if you should be charging more this Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa-Non Denominational Holiday Season?

Even though it’s better for you and your clients, we can tell from here that you’re not charging enough. Almost nobody ever does!

There’s a little joke that most stand up comedians don’t know but tons of freelancers have heard.

“Slap your clients in the face and then tell him your hourly rate.  If he’s more shocked by the slap than by your rate, you’re not charging enough.”

Okay, now back to the serious stuff.

How do you know if you’ve been selling your awesomely talented self short and under-charging for your work?

Don’t worry, we’re here to help!

photo cc kennymatic

We’ve got years of freelancing and consulting gigs under our belts, and we know that as a freelancer, even thinking about raising your rates feels a bit dirty.

That’s why we put together this list of the Top 10 Signs You Should Raise Your Rates.  (If one or more of these applies to you, it’s time to raise ’em up!)

1. It feels like you clients treat you like a warm body who’ll do their bidding, not an expert to be trusted.
2. You’re always working…but never seem to get anywhere
3. You find yourself prioritizing your day based on which client is the most angry, the most urgent and will pay the fastest.
4. You make dark cynical jokes about living off coffee and the 30-day grace period on your credit cards.
5. You find yourself working for clients you’d never hire for anything.
6. Whoops! You forgot to include marketing, networking, sales calls, administrative work, writing contracts, and “just one quick change” work in your hourly rate.
7. Health insurance? Vacation? Sick days? Retirement fund? Evenings spent relaxing with friends? Ha!
8. You feel under immense pressure to take gigs that don’t make sense, that you don’t want to do, because you need money.
9. You can’t find enough time or energy to do your best work. (And your clients? They can’t even tell the difference.)
10. You miss having a job.

When you under-charge, everybody loses. Sure, the occasional seasick crocodile, Grinch type makes off with a great deal. But, really, you can’t do great work when you’re so stressed you’re about to pop.

You can’t give your clients the support and guidance they need. And it doesn’t do anyone any good when you work for people you can’t connect with… or respect.

Charge more, though, and you’ll actually attract a better type of client. The ones who are happy to pay for your expertise, who’ll pay up front deposits. The kind who want a partner, not a slave.

And… you’ll be able to work fewer hours, meaning you can relax, and learn, and grow. Which means you’ll be able to do better work.

Undercharging hurts everyone. Charging for value helps everyone.

That’s what we call a happy ending!

The post Top 10 Signs You Should Raise Your Rates appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

Happy Friday!

**We hand-picked these 3 action-packed essays full of great ideas for your consulting biz.** Enjoy!

## Passing the Holy Milestone: How to Meet Deadlines
Deadlines: they’re hard to love.

> “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

— *Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*

And yet they’re essential.

[This guide from Smashing Magazine](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/28/passing-the-holy-milestone-how-to-meet-deadlines/) (we hearts them!) is everything you could want in an essay about deadlines:

* no nonsense
* full of graphs
* full of concrete, actionable advice
* *completely devoid* of useless feel-better fluff

While you’re at it, [click here to learn how to set up project budgets](http://letsfreckle.com/blog/2011/09/setting-project-budgets-in-freckle-in-30-seconds-flat/) in Freckle so you can be on time *and* on budget. (It takes about 30 seconds!)

## The Dark Art of Pricing
You may know Jessica Hische for her beautiful hand-lettering work, her illustration work, or her Dropcap a Day work.

But she’s also a biz smartie.

Check out her advice on [The Dark Art of Pricing](http://www.jessicahische.is/obsessedwiththeinternet/andhelpingyougetpaid/the-dark-art-of-pricing) and stretch your financial muscles.

Aaaaand click [here](http://letsfreckle.com/blog/2010/08/avoid-the-sales-funnel-swirly/) to [learn how to calculate your true hourly rate](http://letsfreckle.com/blog/2010/08/avoid-the-sales-funnel-swirly/). Because you’re missing out on money you should be earning.

*(Hint: the trick is that you have to track **all** your time, including time you can’t bill for. Like prospecting, sales time, contract prep, and all those little changes you don’t bother to track. Cuz the money is just slipping through your fingers.)*

## 101 Ideas to Get More Work & Generate Leads

Well, the title of [this blog post on 101 Ideas to Get More Work & Generate Leads](http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/101-ideas-to-get-more-freelance-work-and-generate-new-client-leads/) is pretty self-explanatory.

Once you’ve read that list, download & print out these handy dandy *actionable* self-promo checklists tailored just for you, you rogue agent you:

* [Weekly Self-Promo ACTION SHEET for Indies](http://letsfreckle.com/institute-of-awesome/downloads/InstituteOfAwesomeDay10.pdf)
* [Monthly Self-Promo ACTION SHEET for Indies](http://letsfreckle.com/institute-of-awesome/downloads/InstituteOfAwesomeDay11.pdf)
* [Yearly Self-Promo ACTION SHEET for Indies](http://letsfreckle.com/institute-of-awesome/downloads/InstituteOfAwesomeDay12.pdf)

## What Are YOUR Favorite Reads?

Let us know in the comments!

*Photo CC [redwood1](http://www.flickr.com/photos/29838086@N06/3557952994/) – thanks!*

The post 3 Great Reads to Help You Price Betta, Hunt Down Clients, & Work Those Deadlines! appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

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If you’re [using Freckle](http://letsfreckle.com), you already have it easy accounting for your time and productivity and invoices… but what about your taxes?

The tax year is wrapping up, which means it’s time to sit down over some contraband wine coolers and talk about **Getting Our Tax #@(! Together for 2011**.



But first things first: I, too, am a co-ed in the school of small business tax #@(!. I have a method that works best for me, which is what I’m about to share with you. But please remember, this is a case of collegial sharing of what works for me! Standard disclaimer: I Am Not a Tax Lawyer.

*(Oh, and some of this advice only applies to Americans or people who do business (legally) in the United States!)*

Without further ado, let’s Get Our Tax #@(! Together for 2011! I’ve broken down my first round of advice into four steps:

1. Are you having an identity crisis?
2. Say “yes” to bookkeeping without rats’ nests
3. Get your tax advice in meatspace or on the intarwebs
4. Speaking of estimated taxes…

Let’s get crackin’.

## Step 1: 

Are you having an identity crisis?

Did you file the paperwork last year with the IRS to receive your EIN? Do you have to? Do you know what an EIN is?

If you do need it, and you know it, you’ve probably already secured your [Employer Identification Number (EIN)](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=97872,00.html). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, now’s the time to find out:

* If you’re a sole proprietor, you don’t need an EIN. Your EIN is, in effect, your SSN.
* In other situations, though, like an LLC or bonafide corporation, you do need an EIN. That’s because your business is considered a separate tax entity from your own bad self.

**Bottom line: Not sure where you fall? Check out [this handy dandy guide from the IRS](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=97872,00.html).** And if it turns out you do need to file for an EIN, [here’s how](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=97860,00.html). You can even apply online. Not too shabby!

## Step 2: Say “yes” to bookkeeping without rats’ nests



Bookkeeping: every freelancer’s Kryptonite.

Laws vary from country to country, but in the good ol’ US of A, you have a choice between paper receipts and digital copies. Either way, you definitely need a method of making sure every business-related expense is captured, collated, and collected for later retrieval.

And no, towering piles where “you know where everything is” don’t count. Sorry. You know you’ll just have to leaf through them come tax season, wasting hours better served actually making money (or reading [The Oatmeal](http://theoatmeal.com/)).

**Good news: there are easier, less stressful, cleaner ways.**

Got lots of paper? Try apps like as [Shoeboxed](http://www.shoeboxed.com/) and [Neat](http://www.neatco.com/) — they’ll help you capture your paperwork with smart phones & scanners, then store digital representations of your paperwork in a virtual storage facility.

Other web apps like [Xero](http://www.xero.com/) and [Indinero](http://indinero.com) will work with your bank and credit card accounts directly to grab your whole statements in one go, and even automatically categorize them with shiny reports for your pleasure.

A small business credit or debit card is also a fine way to track expenses, if you use that card exclusively for business-related purchases. (And don’t forget cash expenses.) Be sure to download your digital statements regularly for backup, if your bank offers them.

**Bottom line: There’s no reason to have crows nesting in your filing cabinet.** (Or, as it may be, filing pile. Yeah, I know how it is.) Set up a system today and reap the rewards of relaxation this time next year.


## Step 3: Get your tax advice in meatspace or on the intarwebs

One is *definitely* the loneliest number when it comes to filing your taxes. As a freelancer or small biz owner, your taxes are pretty complicated. You should call in professional help. Even if that professional help is a tool. (Software tool, that is.)

The first step towards practicing safe tax is to choose between a real live human [Certified Public Accountant](http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/md_baltimore/md_guide_to_cpa_services.pdf) (CPA) or an online accounting & tax prep service.

Should you decide on a CPA, finding one through word of mouth is your best bet. Trust who your friends trust. When in doubt, call your local [Small Business Administration](http://www.sba.gov/) office for recommendations.

**[Tax software](http://reviews.cnet.com/1990-6405_7-6264622-1.html)** (reviews) for the business owner abounds and can set you back up to a few hundred bucks a year, depending on how fancy you get. (But think of the hours it’ll save you freakin’ out.)

**Online accounting services** are great for tracking incoming and outgoing funds, and some will even file your taxes for you. If you’re already using QuickBooks or Quicken, you can switch to an online version. Other great, modern alternatives are [Xero](http://xero.com) and [Indinero](http://indinero.com). A new tool called [Outright](http://outright.com) even helps you with your estimated taxes.

**Bottomline: If you are at all shaky about how to handle your taxes, I recommend you use a CPA.** Not only will you have someone to outsource your worries to, their numbers wizardry can help you save money with deductions and tricks you may have overlooked.

## Step 4: Speaking of estimated taxes…
I’ll be writing about estimated taxes in detail in a later episode of **Get Your Tax #@(! Together for 2011** but hey, we’re already here, so here’s the scoop in short:

**If you’re even slightly successful, and you’ve been freelancing for at least a year, get your estimated taxes on your radar.** Estimated taxes are just what you’d think: tax payments based on what you estimate you’ll owe for the year, broken down in 4 payments per year.

The goal, of course, is that the IRS gets money on the regular — and you don’t end up owing a giant lump sum when tax time rolls around.

The rules are fairly simple on the face of it: If you owed taxes in 2009 (as a self-employed person) of $1,000 or more, then you ought to have sent the IRS 4 quarterly checks in 2010.

Are you thinking, **”OH, #)(!”**? Don’t. It’s really okay. This is not the end of the world, and the IRS penalties are pretty minor.

Here’s how you handle missed estimated tax payments, and prepare for the future:

* Be sure to tell your CPA that you didn’t know you had to do estimated taxes, and they’ll help you out. (They may even be able to file paperwork so you don’t pay any penalties.)
* And ask them how to set yourself up to pay estimated taxes properly for 2011.

You might find these resources helpful: the [IRS explains estimated taxes](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=110413,00.html), the [IRS guide](http://www.irs.gov/publications/p505/ch02.html) for estimated taxes in 2010, and [Do I need to pay estimated taxes](http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Small-Business-Taxes/Estimated-Taxes–How-to-Determine-What-to-Pay-and-When/INF12007.html)?

# Your action items!

Phew, that was a lot to get through. Well done. Consider this your to-do list:

* Figure out if you need an EIN
* File for your EIN, if necessary
* Turn your misshapen piles of paper receipts into digital scans, and/or…
* Sign up & set up an online bookkeeping tool
* Set yourself up with desktop or web-based tax accounting tools
* Find yourself a CPA and book an appointment
* Figure out if you should be paying estimated taxes
* Set yourself up with a system you can use to calculate & pay your estimated taxes for 2011, if necessary
* Kick back and relax!

And, if you haven’t tried Freckle yet, [give it a whirl for 30 days for free](http://letsfreckle.com/plans). It helps you do a lot more than just track time in and time out. Freckle is built from the ground up to help freelancers earn more, charge what they’re worth, and generally have more productive, enjoyable businesses.

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> BTW: This is part 1 in a series. Come back soon, or [follow us on Twitter](http://twitter.com/letsfreckle)! [@letsfreckle](http://twitter.com/letsfreckle)


Sarah Snyder Is a San Antonio-based freelance writer. She used a Certified Public Accountant her first year and now uses a free online bookkeeping service. She’ll probably go to a CPA again this year because he’s so damn cool. She uses a business debit card and online receipts/invoices to track her expenses, and brushes her teeth at least twice a day.

The post Get Your Tax #@(! Together for 2011, Part 1 appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

Mmmm, cookies with a side of bokeh.

Imagine you’re sitting comfortably at a table. In front of you is a plate of cookies. Delicious, warm, gooey, wafting cookies. You know how in the cartoons, delicious smells morph into fingers that snare you by the nostrils? Yeah. It’s like that.

Your saliva glands make their intentions known. Your hands itch to reach out and grab one.

What do you do?

# World’s Most Boring Example?

You made your choice, you cast your lot with the cookie-eaters… or you practiced righteous cookie abstinence. Now it’s time to reap what you sow.

Okay, okay, you got me. I’m guilty of dialing up the drama. They aren’t evil, poisonous Cookies of Doom. They’re not even especially high in calories!

It’s not about the cookie, it’s about what that nerve-wracking decision does to your brain.

# Dastardly Deliciousness Depletes your Brain!

Henry Ford once said,

> “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

##

He was (at least partly) right: thinking is hard work. Focusing, making decisions, and exerting self-control all draw on the mental capacity called **Executive Function**.

And, as it turns out, we’re not exactly equipped with an endless supply.

When you resist a plate of delicious cookies, **you’re burning your Executive Function allotment as fuel**. Same goes for tuning out distractions, focusing with intensity, or making any kind of choice at all.

Henry Ford: biting social commentary, and cognitive preservation!

## For every distraction, there is an equal and opposite reaction

And when you burn Executive Function as fuel, according to scientific research, the exhaust you create is… bad decisions.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re choosing between products, job offers, or studying and goofing off. It doesn’t matter if the initial temptation, distraction, or choice were Big & Serious or Chocolatey & Delicious. Or Blue & 140-character-y.

The laws of physics say:

1. Use your Executive Function
2. … become Executive Function-ally fatigued
3. …… make poorer decisions than before.

Yowza.

# OKAY! I’m sufficiently chastened! But what can I DO about it?

So, enough with the scare tactics… what are the coping strategies?

In a word: **Simplify.** Mercilessly rid yourself of decisions you can live happily without.

* Go ahead. Eat the damn cookie already. It’s good for your brain!
* **Choose a simpler wardrobe**, and fewer ingredients in the fridge, fewer potential routes to work, fewer types of shampoo in the bath, and so on. (Only sacrifice things you don’t love, naturally!)
* **Make your big decisions when you’re fresh** every day, not at 5 o’clock.
* When — not if! — important dilemmas strike you while you’re running low on EF, **do your best to postpone** your decision.
* At minimum, **take a sanity break!** Just relax. Better yet, sleep on it.
* **Avoid the cookies (tweets, or emails) in the first place**. Resisting them will only will-power yourself out. (Choosing in advance to avoid them is less taxing than actively ignoring them!)
* **Use and create tools that simplify your work**. **Checklists** for things you do often in your business are a great example — you don’t have to think hard to figure out what you should be doing.

Heck, you might even want to [try Freckle](http://letsfreckle.com/) to [track your time](http://letsfreckle.com), because it requires no up-front configuration at all, delaying those decisions until you absolutely need them.

*(Yep, I had to bring it back around to Freckle somehow! Or the marketing dominatrices would whip me but good.)*

# Distraction Death Dive Got You Down?

And, finally, recognize when you’re out of fuel and spiraling into a **Distraction Death Dive**. You know what I’m talkin ’bout: like you’re not just procrastinating, but you’re actively twitching for anything, anything at all, that will fill the empty hole in your brain.

Once you recognize what’s happening, and why, it will be easier to overcome…

… *and* to enjoy your little indulgences, guilt-free — *after* you’ve made those big, bad decisions.

> Hi, I’m [Amy](http://unicornfree.com/). I’m the interaction designer, whip-cracker and general Pirate Queen behind [Freckle Time Tracking](http://letsfreckle.com). I believe in [cheerful software](http://letsfreckle.com/manifesto/). And if I had known that being a scientist meant that I got to torture people with forbidden plates of delicious cookies, I would have come out of the womb wrapped in a lab coat and gripping a Bunsen burner.

#

> PS – I borrowed the cookie metaphor from [this excellent article](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tough-choices-how-making) at Scientific American. If you’re interested in learning more, that’s a great place to start!

#

> PPS – If you love simplicity, cheerfulness, and earning more than you are now without doing any more work… you really should [give Freckle a try!](http://letsfreckle.com). There’s a free trial so it’s no big deal if it ain’t your bag.

The post Eat the Damn Cookie – Unthink Your Way to Productivity appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

The post We’re refactoring, thanks! appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.

Download PDF (260k)

This is just version 1, and we have some other pocketable ideas.

You’re so quiet. Whatcha thinkin’?

This is not a one-off for us. We’d like to evolve & improve the state of printable time tracking tools (damn, that’s a lot of t’s!).

So please, don’t leave that poor little comment box all by its lonesome self.

The post Hipster Time Tracker, v1: Download & Print appeared first on Freckle Time Tracking.