I almost never work on the weekends. And I rarely work in the evening. So, then, how do I manage to remain a thriving solopreneur? How do I get my work done on time and under budget? Simple (mostly) through good productivity practices.

I have a number of processes that help me keep a stable and productive workflow. Yet I’m always looking for better and more efficient ways to run my business.

So is Ben Yoskovitz. But he wants to help all of us with our productivity. That’s why he’s instigated (sorry Ben, couldn’t resist) the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project Meme.

Ben kicked it off by tagging Alister Cameron, Adam Kayce, Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Wee, David Armano, Tony Clark, Mike Sansone and Chris Cree. As of tonight, Adam and Andrew have responded with some solid tips. I’d love to hear from everyone else Ben’s tagged.

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As bloggers, what do we want? Well, we want traffic and readership. We want readers to engage in conversation through commenting. And we want links back to our blogs.

When I began blogging, I knew commenting on other blogs was important. My comments created interest in my blog, which led to increased traffic, which led to more readers.

I also thought it would lead to more links to my blog. Every day I’d visit and leave comments on anywhere from 12-20 blogs. And each day I’d check for link backs in Technorati and Google Blog Search. But I wasn’t getting any. I didn’t know why. I thought I might be doing something wrong.

It was only later that I learned that almost all blogs don’t reward commenters with link backs. That ticked me off a little bit so I looked into why.

It seems that all blogware – WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Movable Type, etc – inserts a little piece of code in all outgoing links that come from comments. In an attempt to stop comment spam, this little piece of code tells search engines not to follow and record any outgoing links placed in comments. Essentially it neuters your comments. And, what’s worse, it doesn’t stop comment spam.

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I was reading Wendy Piersall’s post this morning on Easton Ellsworth’s Scratch One Another Program (SOAP). I was thoroughly intrigued. So much so that I’ve already filled out the one-minute questionnaire.

SOAP is a free blogging tips exchange program. Easton wants to get 100 bloggers who can SOAP each other up and scratch each other’s backs by March 31, 2007. It’s free and all you have to do to get free blogging advice is give some free advice to another blogger that he will assign to you.

This sounds like a great opportunity to both share and learn, as well as meet other bloggers. Easton has more details at Pass The SOAP: Improve Blogs With The Scratch One Another Program.

And if you already know you’re interested, then head on over and fill-in the SOAP questionnaire.

One note, photo borrowed from Business Blogwire’s site.

Lucia from The Blog Studio posted a simple, easy-to-understand glossary of popular blog terms. It’s not the most comprehensive list I’ve seen, but it’s a pretty good start. And it’s written in a way that I think can benefit newbie bloggers.

As a matter of fact, their Beginner Blog Basics posts have been really good for beginning bloggers. To all newbie bloggers, I recommend getting their feed so you can keep up with their Beginner Blog Basics series.

How many times have you left a comment on someone’s blog because you really wanted to engage in a conversation?

I’ve done this plenty. But to keep in the conversation, I’ve had to do one of three things: Either I grab a comment rss feed – but those are rare; bookmark the page – easy to forget about; or send a link to myself by email – not efficient.

So engaging in conversations in comments has been quite a pain in the rear – until now.

A few weeks ago I got tired of trying to track the comments I had left on other blogs myself. So I poked around the web and found a few services that would help me track comments. I ended up choosing coComment (though I was really close to choosing co.mments).
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Comment spam. Don’t you love it?

I’ve been officially blogging since January 8th and I’ve already collected and deleted more than 600 spam comments. In the same amount of time I’ve recorded more than 200 legitimate comments Akismet (thank you to all of you, by the way). If it wasn’t for , I can’t imagine how much more work blogging would be.

So far Akismet has caught every piece of comment spam while only catching three legitimate comments. So I want to send a shout out to Matt Mullenweg of WordPress for it’s development. As of 6:40am this morning, here’s the amount of spam Akismet has caught. I refreshed the page a few times and the numbers jump quite a bit in only seconds between refreshes. And look at this number – 94% of all comments Akismet catches is spam. WOW!

Steve Rubel reports that eBuilt Group tracked 8.8 million pings on weblogs.com between January 23rd and January 26th and found that 53% of all pings is spam, 64% of all pings from blogs in English is spam and 56% of all pinging blogs are spam. Amazing, huh?
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I’m finding it’s often good to take Mike Arrington’s lead. Early last month, he ran a spot called, 2007: Web 2.0 Companies I Can’t Live Without. I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I read his post, but haven’t found the time. So today’s the day.

Lots of folks followed up. I found it on through Obviousness & Tell Ten Friends.

• WordPress – in opinion, the blogger’s blogware. Easy install, themes, plugins gallore, easy-to-use interface and great development community. Best of all – free. I’ve not used MoveableType, but with WordPress I don’t fee like I’ll ever need too.
• FeedBurner – everything I want to know about my feeds. Who, what, where, when. And now, new and improved with site stats.
• Google Analytics – I’ve looked at a lot of stats packages. Google Analytics, for me, is the best of the free options. Lots and lots of stats, easy-to-read charts and graphs, Adwords integration, keyword tracking, e-commerce and marketing funnel tools. Great solution. Just glad it’s free.

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The blogosphere is full of great blog plugins. But great doesn’t necessarily equate to usable. And I find Snap Preview Anywhere to be one of the not so usable.

Yeah, like you, I thought it was one of the coolest things I’d seen when I first saw it in action. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t like an attractive, live popup window that gave you a preview of the site page you’re about to click on.

But soon the novelty wore off. Soon I saw Snap as a pain the rear-end. I began to dread mousing over links on blogs for fear that Snap would lurking. It really got in the way of me enjoying my blog reading experience. I found myself not wanting to click links on blogs that I knew used it.
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All of us (okay, the great majority of us) in the blogosphere get how to subscribe to a blog feed. Though it’s amazing how few people outside our world understand how to get feeds. Many have no idea what a feed really is or how it can benefit them and their businesses.

My friend Rich Brooks from Flyte has tried to help with his post a few day back, How to Subscribe to a Blog Feed. Mike, from Converstations, the folks over at Business Blog Consulting, and I have tried to get the word out.

You may wonder how people can regularly read dozens or even hundreds of blogs . Do these people visit dozens or hundreds of blogs a day, on the hope that each one has a new post worth reading and reviewing? How do they get any work done? Don’t they have lives?!?
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I’ve already written about how much I’m Digging MyBlogLog. My community is growing and I’m meeting some really great people with some interesting blogs.

As of today, MyBlogLog community has only 12 members. Yet, I’m so pleased that they’ve joined my community that I’d like to acknowledge them right here:

• Micah Schaeffer from Blogging on Blogging (MyBlogLog link)
• Mike Sansone from Converstations (MyBlogLog link)
• Catherine (cat) Morley from Designers who Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Gary Conn from Google SEO, Successful Blogging, Online Marketing (MyBlogLog link)
• Chris Brown from Branding & Marketing (MyBlogLog link)
• Internet Strategy Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Daily Domainer News (MyBlogLog link)
• Debojit Chowdbury from Free Life Coaching (MyBlogLog link)
• PayPerPost (MyBlogLog link)
• Tim Kevan from The Barrister Blog (MyBlogLog link)
• Laura from My Journey to One Million Dollars (MyBlogLog link)
• The SEO Fox Blog (MyBlogLog link)

So check out these blogs and their communities on MyBlogLog. And while you there, stop by my community and tell me about yourself.