Three tech tools to boost your productivity

Wasted time is annoying

Needless to say, there are some aspects of your day-to-day activities that are somewhat annoying and feel like a waste of time. These tasks include:

• Sending the same emails, memos, and proposals over and over again.
• Having to log on to Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn every single time you want to post something to your profile.
• Keeping track of all your projects and everything that you have going on right now.

Regardless of your industry, these are all elements of your business that are necessary but can seem tedious to deal with day to day. When more pressing and urgent things come up, you don’t want to have to keep these things on the back burner and worry about responding to emails or updating your Facebook page. Another time-waster can be trying to find the file folder or emails regarding a specific project you’re working on. If all of these things were in one place, wouldn’t it be a bit easier? The short answer is yes, but there’s another word that can prove to be a solution to this ever-present problem of wasting time on menial tasks, and that is technology.

All of us have more or less embraced technology. We all buy iPads or tech tablets, have joined a social media site and have more or less become addicted to our smart phones. What many haven’t been doing, however, is using the technology tools available to actually boost productivity in their business. That’s where some of these services will come in handy.

Problem #1: Redundant Emails

Solution: Yesware. This Chrome extension allows you to save email templates, and it will also track the open rates of each email you send. Think of how much time you’ll save: instead of having to type out the same, redundant email you’re already typing out five times a day, you can go to the template and have it ready to send instantly. The tracking feature is also great for promotional emails or campaigns. You can see which emails are getting opened and which aren’t and tweak your marketing efforts accordingly.

Problem #2: Logging in to each social networking site in order to post

Solution: A social media dashboard. Have you heard of HootSuite? How about Tweetdeck? These are social media dashboards that are free to install. Essentially, all you have to do is set up your dashboard by linking it up to all of your social media profiles, and from there you can maintain every profile in one place. You can schedule tweets or Facebook posts or LinkedIn updates to go out throughout the day, making it look like you are active online. You can also monitor mentions, wall posts, new fans and followers and direct messaging. Essentially, you can spend 30-45 minutes per day scheduling posts to go out and maintaining your online presence without logging in to each site individually. It’ll save time, and you can pick and choose when you want to spend time on maintenance.

Problem #3: Keeping track of too many projects at one time.

Solution: Trello. This project management system is perfect for those who have a marketing team or have outsourced various marketing tasks and projects. Essentially, this a free service that you can use in which you create a variety of project cards on one dashboard. You can add notes to each card per project, to keep up with the status of it and add reminders and to-do’s to each card. You can even break down each card by process and keep track of who is working on what.

Each account can have several team members access it, meaning that anyone on the team can add updates and notes to each project at any time. It’s a great way to see where you are with multiple, ongoing projects all at once. Organization is the huge benefit here. Instead of looking through a bunch of files for the information you need, you can simply log in to Trello and take a peek at the notes. It will save you tons of time AND boost your productivity.

These tech tips are just the beginning of how you can use technology to boost your business’s productivity, become more organized, and save time on some of those menial, day-to-day tasks and responsibilities. This will free up your time to focus on the important and urgent elements of your company. In today’s business landscape, technology is your friend. Embrace it and use it to take your business to the next level.