Anyone need a few extra hours in your day? Me too. We could all use more time for work or personal projects. Sometimes we blame technology for sucking up too much of our day, but with the right tech tools, we actually become more efficient and productive.
I’ve discovered five tools that allow me to work more efficiently. Saving 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there really adds up over the course of a day.
Here are my can’t-live-without tools for boosting productivity:
- Slack is essentially a group chat room. It works really well for teams, membership organizations or just groups of people who want to keep in touch and share ideas. You can set up “channels” for certain topics or projects. You can send direct messages, tag people and search for past messages. I’m in a group for designers and it’s a great way to stay up on trends and ideas for running my business better.
- Dropbox is one tool I can’t live without. The cloud-based storage allows me to easily share large files with clients and stay organized. Plus, I don’t have to eat up precious storage space on my computer.
- LastPass is a life saver for anyone who lives online (oh wait, that’s all of us). We know we’re not supposed to use obvious passwords (like password123) but how in the heck can we remember a zillion complex passwords. Thank goodness for LastPass, a super secure password manager. It saves us all from hunting in a desk drawer for an important password written on a sticky note.
- Toggl is my go-to tool for time tracking. If you bill on an hourly rate, it’s perfect for tracking the time you spent on specific clients or projects. Or if you just want to get a more accurate estimate of how long it takes you to do certain tasks (probably longer than you thought), track your time with Toggl. At the end of the week or month, simply run a report based on the client or project to receive a snapshot of the work you’ve completed.
- Grammarly helps me write better and faster. If you tend to get bogged down in grammar rules, sentence structure or word choice, this is a great tool. Or if you’re not a super confident writer, consider Grammarly your personal writing assistant. Get that blog post done faster, send a better proposal or craft a more compelling email.
Bonus: All of these tools have pretty robust free options. Or you can upgrade to a paid account to access additional features.
A large part of being more productive is creating efficiencies in your business. That might include setting up templates or documenting processes. Part of it is taking some tech tools for a test drive. Don’t be afraid to try apps or software until you find the ones that work for you. Soon you’ll have a toolkit that works perfectly for you and your business.
Have a great week,
