More than Worthy: Create an online dashboard for your creative project

Today I begin another regular blog feature, More Than Worthy. I’ve blogged a bit about my concept of the “worthy project,” a creative task that is so compelling that it provides a huge boost to your creative momentum.

Some of these entries will feature a tool or technique related to worthy projects, and some will feature an inspiring story about an artist’s experience with his or her worthy project.

Today, we look at ways to keep your passion in front of you while you’re online. Michele Martin over at The Bamboo Project blogged recently about creating a job-hunt dashboard as the start page on one’s Web browser. I loved her post, and immediately realized it could be transferred to just about any project where information is available online, especially if it’s a project that requires a lot of research or information that is updated frequently.

The idea is simple: use the wonder of RSS feeds and widgets offered by Google or other providers and create a themed home page that encourages you to see what’s new related to your passion every time you fire up the ol’ Internet browser.

Let’s use an example. Let’s say that I’m going to write a book proposal.

I can go to iGoogle, set up a tab marked “Book Proposal,” then click on the link that says “Add Stuff.” iGoogle will try to suggest gadgets/widgets or feeds based on my tab’s theme. I can also search for Gadgets or RSS feeds using the search function on the right.

But I can also add RSS feeds by clicking on the familiar orange-square RSS icon along the left side of the page.

In the end, I added several feeds from blogs by book editors or literary agents, a dictionary widget, a Google Books search widget, and RSS feeds from the New York Times Review of Books.

If you have a lot of pages that you want on your dashboard, but they don’t have RSS feeds, you can sign up for a del.icio.us account and create a feed from your online bookmarks to your dashboard. This will remind you of your bookmark account, and will encourage you to add more resources as you find them online. (You can designate levels of privacy for your online bookmarks, too).
Readers, how have you organized your creative projects using online tools? Do you see any downsides from utilizing Web 2.0 tools to keep your passion for your project fresh?

UPDATE: (4.13.08) Just found this link on Edublogger about using RSS to streamline one’s life. The author mentions getting feeds from Flickr, and it struck me that this might be a great way to populate one’s dashboard and keep up-to-date on photo/visual related topics. The same could be done with YouTube for video projects.