Joy Duling is a business strategist who helps time-pressed small business owners do practically anything faster. Get FREE business advice and sign up for Power Hour sessions that will "refresh your brain" and get you back on the path to productivity at www.a25hourday.com.
Looking for an easy way to track if you have or haven't accomplished a particular daily or weekly goal? Joe's Goals offers an easy, online goal tracker.
It is 100% free with no download required. You can share your goals with friends, so it's great for buddy projects or providing your business or life coach with instant access to your project.
Have as many goals as you want.
Place multiple checks on the same goal for those extra-productive days.
Share your progress with your friends.
Use negative goals to track your vices.
Keep track of your progress by watching your daily score.
You can even add notes via Joe's Logbook to track your successes and failures
One of the products that I have recommended to a number of my clients is a tool called Smart Draw.
It is framed as business graphics software, but I love it for its Gantt charting capabilities. It's the most usable tool that I've found... cuts out all the bells and whistles from the big-price-tag software that most small biz owners will never use.
Instead, it provides the ability to draw a chart... with tasks depicted visually along a timeline. You can easily see the sequencing, who needs to be involved and where potential timing conflicts may arise.
If you often have to juggle big projects - and sometimes even have more than one big project going at the same time - Gantt charting is an essential skill to possess.
Drop me an email today. In one quick session, I can teach you everything you need to know about this tool.
In short, the OPBP simply gets straight to the point. By answering 5 core questions about your business, you'll gain perspective and focus that will keep you on track all year long.
There are now several editions of the book available:
1) The OPBP for Creative Entrepreneurs, 2) The OPBP for Nonprofits, 3) The OPBP for Professional Consultants, and 4) The OPBP for Financial Advisors
Drop me a line if you're curious about this particular tool. I'd love to share it with you.
This is the coolest tool I've run across in a while.
Xobni (inbox spelled backwards) http://www.xobni.com/ - is a plug-in for Outlook that saves you time by organizing your email conversations, contacts and attachments.
All you have to do is download the software... it's free. When you start it up, it'll index everything in your current in-box right away. After that, it just runs in the background.
Every time a new email arrives, you'll see a whole bunch of information appear in a Xobni sidebar.
As an example, after downloading the software, I received an email from one of my clients.
Unbelievably, since the end of September, she and I have had more than 700 email conversations and have exchanged 20 different documents. Now, instead of having to wade back through all those strings of emails to find something, I can access any email or document that has been exchanged in a single click.
She and I also share some clients in common. Xobni automatically "knows" this because those individuals have been cc'd on various emails over the months. All of those relationships are listed right in the sidebar, so again... I can access any of those people in a single click.
This is one of those things that you have to try before you'll believe that it actually works.
They do have some great videos on the site. Check them out and let me know what you think!
Did you know that you can send a text message via email? It's easy as long as you know which carrier someone has and the best part is that you're not using your cell phone, so no outgoing text charges apply.
Just send an email, using the addresses listed below. You simply substitute a 10-digit cell number for ‘number’ for each carrier below:
AT&T: number@txt.att.net
Qwest: number@qwestmp.com
T-Mobile: number@tmomail.net
Verizon: number@vtext.com
Sprint: number@messaging.sprintpcs.com or number@pm.sprint.com
Don't forget that most cell phones / text readers are VERY limited in the number of characters that can be read. If you stay under 140 characters, you should be fine.
Do you have a relevant productivity tip that you'd like to share? Just leave a comment.
It's a great tool to check out if you like on-line task lists. It lets you track your to-do's exactly the way I recommend to my clients... using categories and next action thinking.
Planware offers a number of different business planning products. Click here for a page full of great business planning tips. You won't want to miss it.
