About

Cranking Widgets helps freelancers, startups and small businesses owners get more done in their business. The three main areas that we focus on are:

1. Personal Productivity. Getting more done, growing your business, reaching more people and making more money starts with you performing at your optimum level of effectiveness. We offer tons of articles, tips and inspiration to help you out.

2. The First Hire. This is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do once your business begins to thrive. To go from a freelancer who does everything to a freelnancer who does what they want and delegates the rest is difficult, necessary and rewarding when done right. We want to help you with that.

3. Managing Humans. We share effective ways of getting more done through others. Others could mean your employees, virtual assistants, spouse, etc. We want to show you ways that you can be more productive by being a more effective manager.

Our Writers

Andy Parkinson is the chief editor and sometimes contributor. Andy has been an entrepreneur since the age of 6. He spent his childhood selling lemonade on street corners, washing cars, managing 5 paper routes, and running his very own lawn maintenance company. At age 16 he started a software development company, which he still owns. When he’s not building businesses, he’s pontificating on investing in them through his essays and tumblog. Andy lives in Pacific Palisades, CA with his lovely new wife.

Aaron Mahnke is a weekly contributor and sometimes editor. Aaron is a graphic designer and branding consultant based in the Boston area. He spends much of his days helping businesses create effective and memorable brands while listening to loud music and drinking copious amounts of coffee. And when the day is done he finds nothing is more rewarding than catching up his wife and two beautiful daughters. Aaron also curates A Better Freelancer and his personal blog, AaronMahnke.com.

Susan Tatum is a business owner, marketer and writer who lives with her family in Southern California. She is the co-founder and president of Clicks ‘n Conversions marketing agency. She has spent the better part of three decades studying, practicing and continuing to learn about powerful marketing. When she’s not advising clients, writing marketing articles or thinking up new business ideas, she helps rescue and re-home boxer dogs. She also travels for fun as much as possible.

Brett Kelly is a software developer and writer from Southern California. He is the Technical Communications Manager for Evernote Corporation, author of the popular eBook Evernote Essentials, blogger at Bridging the Nerd Gap and cofounder of the LifeRemix blog network. You can visit his personal blog at brettkelly.org if you like reading poorly-considered rants on various topics or if you enjoy marginally funny pictures.

The Origins of Cranking Widgets:

Brett Kelly started The Cranking Widgets Blog in December of 2006 after reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. He has written most of our articles on personal productivity. In November 2008 he moved on to other project and he handed the reigns over to Andy. The blog eventually moved more towards Andy’s area of expertise, which is how to get more done through effective delegation. You can read more about Brett’s decision here.