Spend any time online — especially as a blogger — and something is bound to go wrong. Whether you're installing a new plugin, tweaking your design or adding new features, at some point you will inevitably encounter the infamous,"Ah!-What-have-I-done-?" or, "Ah!-Look-what-this-dumb-computer-has-done!" (depending on your personality) error or warning message.
When it happens, here's what to do:
1. Don't panic.
As I like to say, most things in life are fixable. It might be costly (in time or money or both), but hey, lots of times most of the time it's not. A cool head is key.
2. Step away from your keyboard and mouse. I repeat, step away…
In other words, don't start madly pressing buttons and clicking links because you are in freak-out "NO! NO! NO! NO! DON'T BREAK ON ME!" mode. (You know who you are! LOL!) Just stop and take a deep breath.
3. Undo the last thing you did.
Think of the last thing you did before things went haywire. Now, retracing your steps and working backwards, undo it all. Installed a plugin? Delete it. Took something out of your stylesheet? Put it back in. Tweaked your theme? Untweak it. And so on. This will often take care of the problem.
4. Take note of the error or warning message.
If the warning or error message is still assaulting you (it feels like that right?), copy it. Someone, somewhere down the line will most likely want to know exactly what it said.
5. Google it.
Even though every I-have-such-bad-luck bone in your body is certain this has happened to no one else in the entire world, I guarantee you, you are not the first one. 
This is where copying the error message and then pasting it into a Google search can be really handy.
- Open a new browser window or tab. (That is, don't close out the window your error message is in…just in case you need it again later.)
- Go to Google.com.
- Enter your search query like this: "Error: Great job Einstein, you just broke your site." (Notice I put quotes around the error/warning message. This is important as it tells Google to return results with that exact wording only.)
Once you get a list of results, browse through to see if you can't find a solution to your problem. It's likely someone else has asked how to fix said problem in a forum or another place online. It's also likely someone else has offered an easy answer.
6. Contact support.
(Feel free to bump this step up to the beginning and save yourself some time and stress.)
If the problem you encounter is directly related to a product for which you have paid cold, hard cash (i.e. hosting, a paid-for theme, a premium application, etc.), contact support. Hopefully the product in question comes with some decent help and they'll have it fixed for you in no time.
You might also try the Help page, FAQ page or User Forums.
7. Pay a professional.
If you've exhausted all your other options, this is probably a good time to bite the bullet and pay someone to help you. Of course, I probably don't have to tell you that all help is not equal.
The best way to find a reputable techy professional is via word-of-mouth. So, I suggest you send out a Facebook status update, a tweet or a short, kind (non-freak-out) email to another blogger you know and simply say something like, "Hey, I need some help with my design/WordPress/plugins/etc. Anyone you'd recommend?" Hopefully you'll get a response in short order and you'll be back on track in no time.
So fess us, are you the freak-out type, the paralyzed-with-fear type or the calm-cool-and-collected type?
Me? I'd definitely say calm and cool…I suspect my family would say freak out.
AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn FTP!! It will be your friend forever!! Get comfortable with it and if you have your files backed up, you can ALWAYS undo anything! Check out Amy's post on FTP!!
FTP really is a good thing to know.
Here's How to Use FTP and How to Install a Plugin or Theme Via FTP (which offers some insight into FTP too).
Truer words were never spoken!
I just recently forced myself to learn FTP and to learn the actual structure and backbone of my website.
I was kind of forced into it because I had some things I wanted to do and the world just wasn't lining up well for me to pay someone else to do it for me. (designers were either too busy, or they didn't know how to do it…OR they said they could do it and they didn't…)
I'm so glad though. Now it's actually fun to break my blog (well my test blog) because I get to take it all apart and put the pieces back together again!
Totally worth the time spent learning, isn't it?
I'm generally pretty calm and cool, but it stresses me out. However, I can say that I am MUCH better at dealing with site outages and broken code now that I understand a whole more about what's going on. I have an issue with overloading my server right now, but I think I actually know *WHY* which is much easier than grasping for straws.
I've been on the verge of paying for help several times, but that's one of the huge things I appreciate about the Thesis forums – if you ask good questions, you'll get good answers and the geeks there are great about helping.
Being in the computer business, I USUALLY stay pretty calm. (Last night was not one of those times {smiles}) You are so right about googling an error. And even better go to the designers site and search there. Microsoft is always a good place to go for errors in Windows. When all else fails call a professional! We don't mind the over-the-phone answers at all! That is my job most days! I am the support for our business. When I don't know, I turn to Brad who is a genius! Of course, I am biased on that but really he has been doing this for 20 years! So professionals are out there and they don't want to charge you for questions LOL. Well some do but we don't! And good computer companies will answer quick questions without much hassle. If they automatically say bring it in, hang up and go to the next one. Only stupid question is one not asked!
Great tips on what's bound to happen to all of us more often than we would like. I think another tip would be to let your readers know if it's a problem that will affect you posting a new article or contacting your readers. Somehow let your audience know. There is great sympathy with this issue and readers will forgive you and not abandon you, especially if the fix will take some time (hopefully not but who knows)!
Good suggestion — thanks Farnoosh!
In addition to agreeing with Lynn about learning ftp (it's a backdoor to delete a plugin that didn't work), I would also advise to work on one change at a time and to check your site regularly so you know when something breaks …
And .. in addition to Google, use Twitter to search for problems. When my blog was hacked recently I didn't know what had happened – just that the dashboard was weird. I searched on Twitter for "#Wordpress problems on #GoDaddy" and within a minute had found a blog posting about the problem complete with a screenshot of the weird dashboard.