While I don’t generally do more than one freelance project at a time, that doesn’t mean that I don’t need a little help keeping on top of things.

I’m working a small freelance site for a sales rep that is due to launch this month. This time around, I believe that I have discovered the holy trinity of project management: Blinksale, Basecamp, and Harvest.

Your mileage may vary, but I believe this solution is perfect.

Blinksale

I signed up for Blinksale the day it launched because I’m a firewheel fanboy and Josh is a local.

Prior to Blinksale I was using PayPal for everything. While it does ok for invoicing, I got tired of them taking my money. Even though I can still use PayPal with blinksale, I reverted to back to accepting old fashioned checks.

Blinksale is dead simple, not to mention sexy. My only wishlist is that they add auto-increment invoice numbers. I hate making up a number every time.

Basecamp

Wow, how did I manage before Basecamp?

Basecamp is not a replacement for real interaction with your client, nor is it a crutch for having a poor project scope.

However, it is a marvelous tool for clearly keeping your clients informed of the project’s status and what is expected from them. It allows me to do collaborative design with my client. We work together on page copy using writeboards, they review my mockups using messages, and we all get things done with milestones and task.

Harvest

Harvest was the missing link. I had the invoicing and the project management, but I was still recording my time with excel spreadsheets.

The harvest widget is the icing on the cake. It only takes a click to stop and start recording and switch tasks.

Putting it all together

Basecamp really the hub of the entire workflow. Both Blinksale and Harvest support the Basecamp API making it easy to import projects.

1. I set up a new project/client in Basecamp
2. Enter tasks
3. Import project/client into Harvest
4. Perform tasks and record time with Harvest
5. Import project/client into Blinksale
6. Invoice
7. $$$$

Wondering what other designers are up to? Do your part and fill out the http://alistapart.com/articles/webdesignsurvey Design Survey.

At this year’s SXSW, Jason and Rob led a great panel on finding and maintaining inspiration in everyday life.

Citing Kevin Cornell, they suggested becoming a design vigilante - “If you love design, take it back!”

This idea really resonated with me. I’ve always believed that design should be used for good in everyday life. And the best way to stay inspired and keep learning is practice. Find a design problem and solve it.

I’ve got a few blog posts in the queue of some quick before & after websites that I made over for the sheer fun of it. After realizing the power of this exercise, I ran home and bought designvigilante.com!

I must admit, I’m very shocked this was available. Look for something soon.

I just received my panelist information for MultiVisions.

New Media: Interactive Design for a Digital Era

• Travis Isaacs- Tel ’02, Senior. Web Designer, Sabre Holdings, Grapevine, TX
• Brian Bird- Tel/Span ’04, Freelance Interactive Producer/New Media Developer, New York City
• Christina Anderson- Tel MS’05, Director of Web Strategy, National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Washington DC
• Kortni Lee- Tel ’99, Account Executive/Consumer Sales, IGN Entertainment, Chicago
• Amanda Grasham- Tel ’00, Associate Media Director, Starcom IP, Chicago

It’s shaping up to be a great panel for the students this year!