January 30, 2010

Most entrepreneurs stay extremely busy and wear multiple hats in a growing organization. That being said, I am a huge proponent of productivity and efficiency. I am always seeking new and innovative ways to work smarter. Often, I contemplate… how can I maximize my limited 24-hour day and gain more productive hours? That means – eliminating ‘total time sucks,’ focusing on results-oriented activities and running operations as lean and mean as possible. The way we manage our daily lives impact how we manage business.

As a newbie business owner gets started in business it is critical to develop processes and systems to manage daily business needs. My mantra is simple – Plan, Prioritize, Communicate, and Delegate. Everything that comes to fruition in business is birthed by a plan of action. Once I have a solid plan – I write it down. Once it’s on paper I begin to prioritize it from a big picture point-of-view – to determine it’s importance in the grand scheme of things. Lastly, communication and delegation are the final building blocks to free up your time to focus on your core strengths that will ultimately pave the way to success.

When I come across applications, innovations, and information that increase output per my units of input – I get supremely excited. Here are a few that I have run across lately that are worth checking out:

Get Scattrbrain: Scattrbrain is a lightweight desktop program for managing the little tasks and reminders we keep track of in our day-to-day lives. It sits quietly on your desktop and you can feed it new tasks from time to time. Say buh-bye to post its.

Get Peek.com: As if we need more gadgets. Peek is a simple gadget allowing you to send and receive email while you’re on-the-go. For as little as $15 a month I will never miss another email. This is bitter-sweet.

Dropbox.com: I am a huge fan – it is a great tool for sharing docs with virtual staff and clients. Dropbox is an easy way to store, sync, and, share files online. There’s no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date.

Mozilla Thunderbird: If you have more than one email account you can waste precious time reading through them all each day. It is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. I consolidated all of my email accounts into this easy to use, stylish interface. I am not a fan of Outlook so this software fit the bill.

Quickgifts.com: If you need to need a simple platform to motivate prospects, adopt new customers, improving customer retention or increasing survey response rates – this is a great option.

If you guys are familiar with others that have proved useful, please post them. No adverts please – just genuine experience and information about services and products that can help all of us busy entrepreneurs stay ahead of the curve.

Tweet