These are the web apps I use on a daily basis to manage my web design projects and further my design knowledge.

Instapaper

Instapaper is listed first because I do a lot of reading, and much of it isn’t from books. Keeping up to date with web standards requires almost constant reading and Instapaper makes that much easier to manage. Whenever I visit an article I want to read, I click the “Read later” bookmarklet and it goes to my Instapaper account. I’ll read the articles from there in bursts every couple days. Recently, I’ve been reading the articles (and saving notes on them) on my Kindle and Marco’s new Kindle formatting is a life saver. If I had to choose one web app to take with me to a deserted island, it would be Instapaper.

Gmail

I’ve actually gone so far as to completely replace my desktop application with Gmail. When I used Mail, I found myself checking my email too often. Moving to a web app has helped this because typing in “gmail.com” in a new browser tab is enough of a barrier to stop me from checking it obsessively. Three years I’ve been using Gmail and I’ve never once had an “emergency email” (despite the numerous emails with that in the subject). It took that simple step to make me realize that.

Notable

Notable is an app for getting feedback from my clients on designs I do. Instead of using email to try to describe what needs changed, the client can make corrections and leave feedback right on the design. To see it in action, check out ZURB’s CNN redesign.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks handles all my billing and invoicing. I don’t particularly enjoy that part of my business and FreshBooks makes it super easy to put out of my mind. It does its job well and doesn’t take up too much of my brain’s CPU power. Also FreshBooks has the best customer service I’ve ever seen. They gave their blog readers a chance to get a copy of Entrepreneur magazine when they were the cover story. Inside was a Post It note as a thank you handwritten by the CEO of the company. That simple gesture still amazes me to this day.

Those are the four I use every single day. Notoriously absent from this list is Basecamp because I’ve never had a need for it before, despite following what 37signals does for the past five years. Recently, I’ve been using it for bigger projects with more group work. I expect to start using it on personal and client projects soon.

Try these:

1. Hold the door for someone, even if they are 15 seconds from getting to the door. The awkward eye contact and shy smiles will put you both in a good mood.
2. Let someone go ahead of you in traffic. People merging onto a crowded highway tend to think they have the right of way. They don’t, but why not be nice and let them go. Traffic is stressful enough.
3. Thank people. Always, thank people. I find it rude if you hold the door or elevator for someone and they do not thank me. The phrase is two words, but it weighs more than the 8 letters that make it up.
4. Buy your romantic partner flowers on the way home from work. Or chocolate. Or a DVD. Or a book they’ve been eyeing.
5. Compliment someone. Guys: You’d be surprised how far a small compliment goes to improve the mood of the women around you. Try “I like how you did your hair today” or “Your eyes look very blue today.”
6. Start a conversation while waiting in line (queue as they say in Europe).
7. Pick up a piece of trash rolling along the sidewalk.
8. Let the mother behind you with three fidgety kids go ahead of you in the grocery line. You can wait another 5 minutes and her being 5 minutes closer to wrangling her kids into the car would mean the world.
9. Randomly buy your friends something little. My friend bought me a CD a couple years ago and gave it to me straight from the Amazon package while we were checking our mail together. The CD was awesome and the gesture makes me crack a smile to this day.

Imagine the power to improve the world if everyone did one of these each day.

What would you add to this list?

Update: Unit Interactive released a site where people post something that made their day. I’m surprised how many of those things are little things that would take less than five minutes to do. Five minutes for 24 hours of happiness. Sounds like good ROI to me.