Project Management and Collaboration applications are one of the staples of the typical web worker. And while we’ve covered our share of alternatives, the ubiquitous Basecamp is the one that I seem to run into most often.

With a healthy userbase and a robust API, it’s no surprise that a number of useful add-ons have been created to make our Basecamp lives just that much easier. One such add-on I’ve been testing lately is Periscope by Ten Seven, Interactive.

Periscope is an iGoogle gadget that lets you quickly and easily log activity and time towards your Basecamp projects. It also provides a nice updating snapshot into the activity on your projects, even across multiple accounts. Activity is easily filtered by account or by project.

A hover lets you get a quick glimpse of the detail of each activity and a click takes you directly to the corresponding Basecamp page.

In this initial beta release you are limited to the aforementioned time tracking and logging. For now you’ll still need to visit your project pages to comment or add and complete to-do items. Increased interactivity for to-dos and milestones is on the roadmap for future enhancement though. In true 37signals fashion, Periscope is updated frequently with new functionality.

Periscope is iPhone friendly for easy access on the go, and it also works like a charm on your Windows desktop as a Google Desktop Gadget.

After a successful private beta, Ivan and the Persicope team are ready to open things up a bit. If you’re interested in participating head over to Periscope Gadget and register for access to the public beta which is going live a bit later today.

Writer’s block. Creative constipation. Mental block. These phrases are just fancy ways of saying something simple: you’re stuck.

There’s nothing wrong with being stuck, since it happens to the best of us. But there are several reasons to get yourself moving again, especially if it’s unreasonable to do the usual routine of going for a long walk or bringing your laptop to the coffee shop. There are deadlines, paychecks, impatient clients, and, more importantly, the simple internal drive to do the work.

But how can you do it if you can’t get started?

Get inspired

Inspiration isn’t always something you wait for. Most of the time, it’s something you have to get. Just because the final product looks effortless, it doesn’t mean that’s what the process should be. If you take a look at your previous projects, you’ll find that most of them were accomplished through perseverance and discipline. It’s rare to find a project that was fueled by inspiration alone. Get inspiration from your environment, the creative process itself, or pre-work rituals.

In my experience, it also helps to look at the work of people I admire and respect. Among all of the web workers who have cleared the path before you, there must be someone whose work symbolizes what you’re striving for. Find these people and look at their work. Better yet, look at their process if they talk about it on their blogs. I often look for interviews of my favorite writers on YouTube when I’m having a hard time with my own work.

Take on other projects

One way I try to get out of a rut is by working on personal projects.  It could be a short story I’m working on, a non-profit blog, or simply my private journal.  You could also work on a passion project for a few minutes, just to stimulate your creativity for a bit.

The project you use to start your workday doesn’t have to be directly relevant to your work.  For example, I work on some carpentry projects when I can’t seem to finish an article.  This allows my mind to think in a completely different way, often leading to an epiphany relevant to my work.

Find your rhythm

Since you’re all rather smart, you’ve probably guessed that this very post came from my own recent experience of being stuck. To get myself to write this, one of the things I did was to simply start typing. Sometimes all it takes for me to begin is to grab the nearest book, copy a few paragraphs from it, and be lulled into the rhythm of my typing.

Can’t get started on that app you’re developing? Then make a slightly more advanced version of a “Hello World” program or retype your work from 3 months ago. Stuck with a design project? It might get your creativity flowing if you start by idly drawing your cat or a coffee mug. Breaking down your creative work into simpler forms can help you get into the rhythm of starting something more complex.

In summary, the best way to get started on your work is to get started on anything and work on it for 15 minutes or so.  This simple nudge is often enough to get your work moving again.

Do you often find yourself feeling blocked with your work?  In these cases, what do you do to get started?

Love it or hate it, iCal comes with the Mac OS X operating system, so I’m always on the lookout for how to use it better.

Once Google added synchronization support for iCal back in July, I did integrate the basic scheduler into my web work, but I always found it cumbersome to add events quickly. For a while, I actually found it easier to just create events in my Google Calendar since I already had my browser open. Then I stumbled onto FlexCal, a freeware utility that’s not glitzy, but does the trick.

Essentially, FlexCal appears on your Mac in the System Preferences as a preference pane. From here you configure a few items in the utility and then you forget it’s running; Until you need to add an event to your iCal, that is. To use it, you simply press a pre-configured hotkey of your choice and up pops a window to create a new event or task to your calendar. It’s that easy.

I use “cmd e” for my hotkey: “e” being for event. Tapping that allows me to enter the event name, choose the calendar I want the event assigned to, start / end time, location and an alarm if I so choose. After the information is entered, a quick hit of the Return key on the keyboard sends the info to iCal, and in my case, to my Google Calendar as well. You can also use FlexCal to add tasks to iCal, however I’m still a Remember The Milk fan. I’d never say that iCal is an end-all, be-all calendar solution, but with free add-ons like FlexCal, it’s getting better.