Looking for a scheduling solution that integrates with Google Calendar? Check out ScheduleOnce (link to Web Worker Daily). While Doodle.com helps you find the best time for a meeting, ScheduleOnce lets you actually integrate it into a calendar that you’re already using. It works a lot like Outlook’s Free/Busy calendaring, and seems to be pretty solid.

Over at Lifehacker, there’s a new post about how to strip down the Word 07 interface for more distraction-free writing/editing. This can be handy when you’re mostly just pounding out some text (and really great if you already know keyboard shortcuts for common features) and don’t need a ton of ribbon UI in your face. It’s basically showing you how to recreate the beloved Mac writing app, Darkroom, but since you’re in Word, you keep access (just hidden) to all of its features.

http://lifehacker.com/5164526/turn-microsoft-word-into-a-distraction+free-editor

Inc Magazine has a great two-part story up on how to stop multitasking and become more productive in doing so.

Here’s the link -

http://tinyurl.com/bhzber

Both kids were home from school today, and I had work to do. My solution? Bring ‘em to the coffee shop, which, thankfully, has a play area and lots of toys.

The remote office

Over at Mashable today, Josh Peters has an interesting write-up on 30 apps you can use to run your business almost completely (well, maybe not completely) via Facebook. This isn’t about promoting client products or that sort of thing, it’s actually tools you’d use around the office every day. LinkedIn, Xing and even VOIP tools are covered.

Have a look over at Mashable…

Today over at Web Worker Daily, there’s an excellent post about how, when launching a project with a new client, there’s a simple set of documents you should always provide. This set of five documents serves as a sort of “kick start” to help everyone get on the same page when it comes to how you work, hour your business works, and how the job gets done in general (and how you get paid).  It’s definitely an idea worth taking to heart, and it’s a post well worth reading.

Read More…

Looking to get some work done with your iPhone? Mashable’s put up a great list of 30 productivity apps today, and it’s well worth a look. Check it out here -

http://mashable.com/2008/12/30/organization-iphone-apps/

I’m a big fan of Reqall, though I wasn’t big on Remember the Milk. But check out the list and try some for yourself.

Ever wonder how you’d make a living if you didn’t have clients to work with? What sort of business plan survives when you’re not doing something for someone else? Well, the folks at Common Craft (makers of the “In Plain English” video series) did just that - they went from doing client videos, to just doing their own videos and licensing them out.

Over ar ReadWriteWeb (http://tinyurl.com/7vsuxw)you can read all the details about their interesting take on client-less work.

Recently, I took on a new iPhone client and discovered the world of incredibly low-budget product (darn near nil-budget) promotion. With the iTunes App Store’s way of doing things, you have to become incredibly creative about how to promote an app or game, especially a game, as App Store consumers are very price-sensitive (successful games tend to hit the sweet spot at 99cents). This meant taking a long and hard look at how games are normally promoted, and throwing that all out the window. It’s been a lot of fun, and forced me to look into the dark recesses of my mind for “bigger, stronger and faster” ideas that are unconventional, and not reliant upon big, or even medium, -sized budgets. But more on all that later…

Right now, I wanted to introduce everyone to another favorite blog of mine — Shoestring Branding, which looks at how to market yourself, your company and your products when there’s not a lot of cash to go around. As it looks like this economic slump is going to continue into the new year, it’s definitely a good site to keep an eye on, especially a recent post called “Doing More with Less.” It’s certainly worth any business person’s time to give it a read.

Here’s a sampling -

Before doing anything, spending any resources, or hiring anybody, stop and ask yourself these questions:

• It this action or expense directly tied to my business mission?
• Is it consistent with my business strategy and brand positioning?
• Will it help me achieve my goals for the year?
• Have I strengthened my business systems? Have I automated everything that can be automated? Am I building a scalable business?

Here’s an iphone quickie for the weekend - Mint.com, the personal finance site (that’s awesome) has launched an iPhone app today. Technically, it went up yesterday, but for some reason, you couldn’t find it in the app store until today. Anyhow, it’s on the store, and is very handy for checking your account balances and investments on the fly. I had some issues with the data being 2-3 hours old, even when I told it to refresh the data (and could see the latest data right there on the Web site), but as a whole, it’s a very nice tool to keep handy. Just remember - it’s a good bet to password protect your iPhone if you’re going to have any personal finance info on it.