Tackle the Time-Crunch for Better Gift-Giving Success

There are many folks who purposefully wait until the last few days to complete their Christmas shopping, loving the energy that comes with running around on Christmas Eve or finding that these last-minute shopping sprees fill them with the Christmas spirit. I have vivid memories of running out with Dad on Christmas Eve to start his shopping, feeling the excitement from everyone's harried movements. However, many procrastinators who have shopping left did not plan to not be done and are truly feeling the crunch. 

If you would rather skip the mall madness, you have a few options:

One wonderful idea is to "shop small" and visit the locally-owned and -operated small businesses throughout your community. When you shop at a chain store, only $43 of every $100 spent benefits your neighbors locally; however, when you shop at a locally-owned business, $68 of every $100 spent stays right there in your local economy. When you look at the statistics, there's ample rationale for saving your sanity, enjoying greater service and shopping your locally-owned small businesses. If you are in the Lake Norman area, consider supporting my sisters' shop, Sweet Magnolia; if you are in the Raleigh area, consider supporting Stylefinder, DECO or The Green Monkey. Which locally-owned and -operated small business in your community is your favorite?

Another alternative is to subscribe your gift recipients to goodies that will be delivered directly to their front doors. The younger folks in your life might appreciate a delivery from Rockets of Awesome, where experts hand-pick a selection of stylish clothes, sending 8-12 outfit-ready items that are $12-$36 per item and can fit what size you select between sizes 2 and 14. The dog lovers in your life might appreciate a delivery from Barkbox, which includes a monthly box of goodies for dogs and their humans. If you have not already gotten them a Poole's: Recipes and Stories from a Modern Diner book by Ashley Christensen and Kaitlyn Goalen, the foodies in your life might appreciate a subscription to the Snack Smart, Do Good club from Love With Food, which delivers all-natural, organic or gluten-free snacks each month. Those folks in your life that lack a green thumb and want plants easy to keep alive might appreciate a delivery from The Desert Box, which includes a planter made from repurposed wood, 1-3 succulents and / or cacti, depending on size, soil and moss, pouch of white granite pebbles and a plant care card. Plus, anyone can benefit from a subscription to the Dollar Shave Club, which offers blades and associated shaving products as well as sulfate-free shower products that hydrate without stripping, hair styling products and skin protection products. Which subscription gifts have you loved giving or receiving?

Stop spinning your wheels; take advantage of these options to organize for success. What other tactics work best for you? Please share your strategies for time-crunched gift giving to better enjoy the holidays. Make every minute matter!™

Schedule Meetings More Easily With Better Tech Tools

There are many different commitments and responsibilities vying for our time… Clients, family and friends, business development, volunteering, personal growth, exercise, meditation, eating, sleep and more! When scheduling time with others, the back and forth communications can be overwhelming. What if there were tech tools to simplify and streamline this process? Well, you are in luck!

If you are scheduling a one-on-one appointment with someone, whether that's an individual or a team you are consulting, these tools will help:

- Acuity Scheduling --- automate client bookings, cancellations, reminders and payments as well as offer online sales of gift certificates

- Booking Bug --- multichannel bookings, event ticketing, customized booking journeys, appointment outcome analysis and CRM integration

- Calendly --- clean, simple, beautiful way to set your availability preferences and share a link to your calendar; then, after others pick desired times, they appear automatically on your calendar immediately

- Meetin.gs --- beyond simplifying scheduling, allows accessing meetings on-the-go to view details, respond to requests, receive notifications and connect via teleconferencing, Skype, Google+ Hangouts or Lync

- Pick --- compare calendars, regardless of email domain, and choose to share calendar link or use iOS app to schedule meetings on-the-go

- SchedFAST --- integrates receivables; provides email and text notifications for appointment confirmations, reminders and payments received; can import entire customer list and allows for multiple team member activity

- ScheduleOnce --- easily integrate booking page into your website, from which customers can book directly to your calendar from any device

- Setster --- include confirmations, reminders, cancellation and rescheduling options; allows requesting payment via PayPal; integrates with FreshBooks

- TimeBridge --- integrates with Outlook or Google, including maps; handles unlimited changes, rescheduling, cancelations, notifications, reminders, location details, conference calls, video conferencing and time zone sync

- Time Trade --- schedule appointments through any channel, like website, email, phone and social media; can include concierge and analytics

- Vcita --- much more than simply online scheduling with live portal to cull together inquiries, CRM, online payments, document sharing, widget with dynamic call-to-action for website, custom forms and tons of integrations

- Vyte.in --- see invitees' availability alongside your own; can suggest places directly from calendar inquiries; invitees don't need to have own account

- YouCanBook.me --- integrates with Google and iCloud calendars via your own personalized scheduling page; bookings go straight into your online calendar with reminders, payment options and rescheduling available

If you are pulling together a group of individuals for a meeting, team practice or volunteer session, there are plenty of tech tools that can help... In each of the following solutions, whoever will be hosting the event, meeting or gathering goes to the website, enters date and time options and gets a link for soliciting feedback from potential attendees; then, those being invited click through the link provided to indicate which of the options provided will work. I highly encourage anyone hosting to specify a deadline for providing feedback when sending out the indicated link, after which you can go with whichever option got the most votes. No back and forth. No email overload. It's a simple and direct way to save time and limit stress in scheduling.

- Doodle

- Meet-O-Matic 

- Need To Meet 

- WhenIsGood.net 

- When Should We 

Why waste time going back and forth with folks to simply set time for later? Why reserve time for something that will end up happening at some other date and time? Let technology aid your efforts so you can use your time for that which better aligns with your goals and needs, boosting your outputs and enhancing your peace of mind. Add these links to your email signature or website, and you'll move towards simplified scheduling immediately.

Have you tried any of these tools before? What technology do YOU utilize for setting appointments and scheduling meetings? 

Show Your Computer a Little TLC to Combat Clutter

Whether evaluating emails, electronic documents, paper files or physical objects, it's important to remember that you do not need to hold onto whatever is no longer accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy. In this day and age, we face an information avalanche, particularly in the digital realm, which is why today's National Clean Out Your Computer Day is so very important.

Our technological devices are being manufactured with a growing capacity for storage; further, online file repositories are offering more and more storage space for free or really low pricing. For example, by referring your friends to Dropbox, you can get up to 18 GB of free storage space; alternatively, for just $99/year, you can get an incredible 1 TB of storage space... Wow! Options like those make it all too easy to keep an excess of electronic documents, making the situation such that most folks have to dig through a great deal of clutter to quickly find what's needed.

Take steps now to combat electronic clutter:

- Review your files and programs for what is still accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy.

- Get rid of what doesn't fit that criteria; delete junk files, duplicate files, temporary files and cookies.

- Then, group like with like for what remains. Be sure the placement of your remaining files and programs will make sense to you when you are looking for something.

- Particularly for PC users, make sure you have your computer set-up to automatically run maintenance actions, like a disk cleanup and disk defragmentation.

Originally sponsored by the Institute for Business Technology back in 2000, this National Clean Out Your Computer Day is an excellent time to show your computer a little TLC.

What steps will you take now to clean out your computer?

Is It Time to Re-Start Your New Year's Resolutions?

Every January, we flip the page to a new calendar year, and many of us attempt to write a new story on the blank pages of a new year. We set goals and make resolutions, like "spend less, save more", "quit smoking", "get fit and stay healthy", "lose weight", "enjoy life to the fullest", "workout more", "work less" and "get organized". As National Get Organized Month, each January is the perfect time to GO and get started on these endeavors; however, if you get sidetracked or fall short of sticking with your resolutions, it's okay.

Have you had a bit of backsliding as related to your 2015 resolutions? Did you miss a scheduled workout as you are working to get in better shape? Did you forget to sort last week's stack of mail as you are working to get more organized? Don't fret! Instead, just start your efforts back up again.

If you were driving from Florida to Maine and got lost in North Carolina, would you simply turn around and return to Florida? Not likely. Instead, you'd probably just find your way and continue traveling to your destination. Achieving goals, meeting objectives and keeping resolutions can be exactly the same.

Be easy on yourself, don't feel guilty if you have setbacks, and, above all, do not give up. Your best bet for success is to break your goal into small, realistic steps and grow into your transformation. If you slide a bit, keep trying. I know you will eventually get there.

Top 10 Ways To Make Email a Better Productivity Tool

Did you know that the average business professional gets at least 150 new emails each workday? I have clients that can easily reach 300 or 400 new emails on any given day, and many of them feel strongly that handling email is a very time-consuming aspect of the workday... Wow! It can make you wonder how any real work gets done amidst simply reading all those messages.

While there are countless tools and techniques that'll help you use email to organize for success while getting more done in less time and quickly finding what you need, here are a few solutions I have found to offer the greatest results:

1. Shift your mentality from "checking" to "processing" your email so your email inbox is no longer a holding zone:

• Tasks taking less than 5 minutes should be done when the message is received while tasks taking longer should be added to your running to-do list
• Appointment requests should be moved to your calendar
• Reference emails should be quickly moved to personal folders
• Trash is not really junk and should be moved to the trash

2. If the average person needs anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes or more to really refocus after any distraction, don't make email a distraction; think of OHIO and "only handle it once" for each message, including reading and processing each email.

3. It is easier to quickly find what you need when you need it if you aren't searching through electronic clutter; therefore, there is no need to hold onto whatever is no longer accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy. Further, when determining what to save or delete, consider what can be easily located online later... There's no need to take up valuable space on your computer when you can easily find that information online whenever it is needed.

4. Send fewer emails to get fewer emails back. Although it sounds simple when stated like that, we are in a society trained to quickly shoot out an email when we need to tell or ask someone something. This can be excellent for having documentation of your communications; however, one simple phone call can element quite a bit of back-and-forth when the topic is more complex or when you need an answer to included questions.

5. Unsubscribe from eNewsletters you aren't reading; otherwise, consider culling subscriptions you maintain and stay up-to-date reading in a daily "roll-up" or "bundle" via Unroll.me.

6. Master the art of creating reference folders by having enough that each email to be kept has a home while limiting the number of folders so no one email could appropriately fit in multiple. If you struggle with where to file a message upon its receipt, how will you ever be able to locate it again later?

7. Utilize automated rules to sort email into folders... Highlight what needs time-sensitive attention by directing it into a folder designated to that particular sender or subject line topic. Cull together what can be attended to more conveniently on a later date and time, setting messages from that sender to bypass the inbox and go to a separate Personal Folder all their own.

8. Better employ all the features offered by your email management tool, like Delay Send, Send Again, Meeting Requests and renaming your received emails' subject lines.

9. If you have been emailing someone back and forth, each subsequent email contains all the content of the prior emails so keep only the most recent message in a conversation; in newer versions of Outlook, clear such clutter with the "clean-up" button on Outlook's home ribbon.

10. If an out-of-date email address keeps populating when you are trying to send a message, there are options for removing an erroneous email address. As you start typing in Outlook's "to" field, press the down arrow to highlight the erroneous address and, then, hit DELETE; in Mac Mail, populate the erroneous address in an new email message and, then, click the arrow on the far right to select "Remove from Previous Recipients". Problem solved!

I'm working on an eBook about how to "Use Email to Organize for Success and Get More Done in Less Time" and could use your input... What techniques have made it easier for you to management your email?

Hold Your Team Accountable For Greater Success

According to Dictionary.com, accountability is the state of being liable, answerable or subject to the obligation of reporting, explaining or justifying something. Basically, accountability means having to answer for one's actions. In business, leaders who hold their employees accountable are telling their teams "behave knowing in advance you will have to explain yourself and that your actions will have consequences". If team members know that they will have to explain actions taken to the leader or other team members, typically, those employees will make better decisions, better carry their portions of the workload and be better team members, leading to greater success for the team overall.

As a leader, you have big, hairy, audacious goals for your team; however, it is much more difficult (if not impossible) to meet those goals when your team members are not on the same page, not working towards the same objectives and not carrying their respective shares of the workload. Instead of success, the results are more like a rowing team with members not rowing in tandem or in the same direction at the same time: you start spinning in circles, not moving at all or moving backwards. Sadness!

Ensure folks are on the same page, working towards the same objectives and carrying their respective shares of the workload by holding each member of your team accountable, both for the elements in their job descriptions as well as the core values to be exhibited by members of your team. To facilitate that accountability, you must do the following:

• determine when each team member will need to report back to you and explain his or her actions
• determine what consequences will occur when completed actions fulfill versus do not fulfill the leader's and team's necessary functions
• inform team members of what you have determined
• follow through on getting those explanations when deemed appropriate and carrying out the subsequent consequences, whether rewards or punishments

Beyond those initial steps, for a system of accountability to truly succeed, I've found that your employees must trust and believe there is a fair and accurate process for keeping track of their actions as well as tying their behavior to real consequences. I believe such a scenario can be created with regular checkins of the leader directly connecting with each team member, ongoing open communication and a concerted emphasis on feedback from employees leading to action on your part.

As you develop a culture of accountability and the habits of holding team members accountable, remember the following key points:

• Employees will assume their behavior is correct unless it is corrected... Set expectations clearly.
• Holding people accountable is only 90% communication and problem-solving; the other 10% is the discipline to keep at it and follow through. No, this aspect of discipline and follow through is certainly not easy; however, it is vital.
• You as the leader may never feel truly comfortable holding your team members accountable; there may always be a point of hesitation right before you hold someone accountable for their actions where a voice inside your head says "Maybe I should let this slide..." However, your responsibility as a leader is to forge ahead for the greater good of the team's success.

As leaders and managers, often, our main fear in holding people accountable is that our interaction with that person will turn emotional, whether angry, sad or something else. To move beyond that hesitation, understand that emotion can be a good thing as it will drive change to take place.

Take steps TODAY to start laying the groundwork for your team's greater success:

• Clearly spell out expectations in advance.
• Track employee performance every step of the way.
• Follow through with real consequences based on whether or not your employee's actual performance meets your conveyed expectations.
• Focus hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually on actions the team member can truly control.

Bottom line, just get started... Sometimes, simply asking team members to explain their actions each day is a great foundation on which to build and will develop habits needed for meeting higher goals. You need information in order to hold your team members accountable so start asking questions... What have you been working on today? What successes can we celebrate? What hurdles have you faced so we can overcome them? What do you see as our team's immediate needs, short-term goals and long-term vision? What role do you see yourself playing in our group's successes? How can I help you be a bigger part of the group's successes? With more information, movement can be made, but the key is to get started.

How do you utilize accountability now? Have you seen greater success by holding team members accountable? How can you implement greater accountability?

Boost Your Credibility and Productivity By Celebrating National Clean Off Your Desk Day

Happy National Clean Off Your Desk Day! Addressing the top of your desk can be important for several reasons, but I highlight the two I find most important and that pop-up most frequently in today's workspaces... First, now that more offices are open, collaborative spaces, fellow team members and office visitors can more easily see exactly how clean you keep your space; from that visual, people make assessments, and your credibility can be put into question. Second, your productivity depends on efficiently finding what you need when you need it; unfortunately, when your desk is covered with active and archive files, it can be more difficult to quickly put your hands on what you or your colleagues might need from amidst the chaos. Have no fear! There are steps you can take today to celebrate National Clean Off Your Desk Day which will positively impact your credibility and productivity, leading to more success in the near future.

1. Consider the available space in your office as you would a real estate investment, where "location, location, location" matters. Keep only those items used daily on your desktop; then, position items further and further away based on being used less and less frequently.

2. Often, the clutter atop your desk represents lingering decisions and unaddressed to-do items; therefore, assign homes to what active and archive items are in your space so they can always be put back in their homes when you are not currently using them. Work happens on your desk so you'll need to bring out the files being used for that work when it's happening; yet, when you know in what homes those items belong, you can more easily put them back away when not in use. Then, take the last 15 or so minutes in each day as a "check-up from the neck up" to wrap up your day, returning anything atop your desk to where it belongs and setting out whatever, items will be needed first-thing the next day. Knowing in what "homes" your items below helps to tie up all loose ends, adding resolution to the end of your day, and prepares you for the next day's priorities.

3. The more you keep then the more you have to peruse through in order to find what you need at any moment in time. Therefore, edit out any unnecessary items. Keep only what is accurate, applicable, useful and bringing you joy. Also, consider eliminating anything that can easily be found again online.

4. Be strategic in where you store what items you choose to keep. If you have a running list of all unfinished tasks, there's no need to keep their related files atop your desk; however, if they are active projects, you'll want to keep their files handy for easy access. When items are related, it's important to keep those items together, focusing on "like with like" for quick recovery when working on that to which they are related. Remember that "horizontal is hidden while vertical is visible", and utilize walls or the back of your door whenever possible; those areas can be valuable real estate, particularly as you are assigning homes to items in your workspace. Finally, utilize containers to limit the amount of any item to be retained; once the container is full, it's time to edit out unnecessary contents.

5. Since people, priorities and current projects continually evolve, no organizational system is ever completely finished. Therefore, continually evaluate how your office organization is working and adjust to meet evolving needs. As your situation changes, adjust accordingly.

Take a moment to look around right now. Does your desktop need a little TLC? If so, what steps can you take right now to celebrate National Clean Off Your Desk Day? Please share your success stories below... or read others' to get motivated for your own.

Get Clear For The New Year Week #5: Clean Out And Organize Your Workspace

Now that we are just a few days away from 2015, by following the assignments in this series, you’ve laid an excellent foundation for success in the new year; however, in order to achieve your optimum success, it is important to establish a work environment that’s yet another tool in your productivity toolbox. If your paper and electronic files are unorganized and filled with unnecessary contents, they can be overwhelming and unhelpful. This week is an ideal time to “get clear for the new year” by proactively addressing your filing as well as where items are kept in your workspace.

First, take time to edit the contents of your workspace. When files are overstuffed with outdated information, it is difficult to locate what you need when you need it; therefore, it is vital to address your files before the new year, clearing out what no longer needs to be there.

• Will the documents be relevant to work in the coming year? If you’ve completed the related project or the file contains last year’s receipts, move the content into storage with your archived files, rather than keeping it with your active files.
• Do you need this piece of paper? What’s the worst that can happen if you throw it away?
• Is the info on file somewhere else or easily accessible online?

If any file's contents are no longer (1) accurate, (2) applicable, (3) useful or (4) bringing you joy, consider getting rid of those contents. Can the discarded papers be recycled or do they need to be shredded? Further, if you are keeping something that would be easy to find again online, is it something you will reference frequently enough to justify the space it is taking to retain? Consider keeping only items that would be difficult to relocate or recreate.

Likewise, as you are purging the accumulated excess from your paper and electronic files, evaluate whether you can resell or recycle any technology that is no longer being used. Those devices, cords and accessories are taking up valuable real estate in your workspace, which could be devoted to items actually being used instead. Still, if you do utilize all the technological tools in your space, are there any that can be consolidated so you retain functionality while lowering the number of devices maintained? Keep in mind efficient use of what space you have.

Then, address the onslaught of emails received daily. Unsubscribe from eNewsletters you are not reading, consider bundling subscriptions that you do read via The Swizzle or Unroll.me and create a system for diligently keeping up on reading.

Take time to verify everything in your workspace has a home as well as that each item is in its assigned home. When folks are looking to buy real estate, you often hear “location, location, location”, and I challenge you to consider your workspace in the same light as buying real estate where location really does matter. The space closest to where you will be working is considered the most valuable real estate location; therefore, that area should be filled with what items you use most frequently. Then, the placement of items moving out from there should be based on how often the item is needed, placing items used least frequently the farthest away.

• Make certain there is a 2014 tax folder to hold incoming documentation for the year ending; then, create a 2015 tax folder to be prepared for the upcoming new year’s tax records. 
• Get accounting records up to snuff by writing off uncollectable accounts receivable; while accounts receivable write-offs are tax deductions this year, they become a bonus if collected in the new year.
• Make sure your tech tools are housed near where they will be used, that all accessories are still easily accessible and that any upgrades needed are completed before the new year starts.
• Simplify your office supplies and plan space for what new supplies will be needed in the new year.

By focusing on editing out what is no longer needed and, then, strategically assigning homes to what you will be keeping, your workspace will be a useful tool in your productivity toolbox, driving your optimum success.

ASSIGNMENT: Visit here to see a video related to this blog post; then, this week, take time to edit the contents of your workspace, removing contents that are no longer accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy, and verify everything to remain has a home as well as that each item is in its assigned home. What needs to be added or removed in order to simplify your work for better achieving your desired results? Be strategic, aligning the set-up in your workspace with the goals you’ve set, making sure the workspace is another tool in your productivity toolbox.

Leave a comment below about your ongoing system for editing the contents of your workspace. What tends to build up most quickly? How will you maintain the productive workspace that you’ll be creating this week?

Get Clear For The New Year Week #3: Organize Your Calendar and Contact Systems

As we talk about steps you can take now to make the new year your best thus far, we are empowering you with the optimal tools to drive your desired workflow results, which must include your calendar and contacts’ list. While many might contend that “one is a lonely number”, when it comes to your productivity, I say that one is a very powerful number. With that in mind, I highly recommend you address your productivity toolbox like you are one human-being, not a personal you versus a professional you, which means...

One Calendar: A single planner enables tracking all commitments in one place, making it less likely to forget anything. Having business and personal showing at once will allow scheduling for you as one full entity and better ensure that nothing falls through the cracks while you avoid any double-booking.

One Place for All Your To-Do Items: Keeping all action items that need your attention in one running list allows you to easily pull 3 - 5 items for each day’s must-do list, making it more likely all will get done, aiding in prioritizing and empowering you to assign each “what” a “when” so time is scheduled for its completion.

One “Data Dump”: Our brains are designed to think, not remember, but we fill them with more and more each day; keeping all that we’d like to remember in one place (such as in your Evernote database) ensures meeting notes, ideas, phone messages, inspirations and the like are easily accessible from anywhere.

One Address Book / Contact Relationship Management (CRM) Tool: For contacts’ names, phone numbers, emails and snail mail addresses as well as any related notes, keeping everyone’s information centralized better ensures contacts’ data is kept up-to-date and accessible. When updates must be made in numerous places, they’re less likely to get done.

One “Weekly Strategy Session”: As we discussed last week, dedicating time each week to creating a game plan for the upcoming week means more gets done and keeps you on the right track, especially pared with a morning jumpstart and end-of-day wrap-up. With this trio of tools, you stay in control of your actions.

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To elaborate on steps you can take right now to prepare for your greatest successes in the new year, here are a few calendar-related items to consider and incorporate in your actions:

- Whether paper or electronic, make sure your one calendar solution for 2015 is equipped with the holidays, birthdays, important events and reminders that are most important for you. If any are missing, add them now; plus, if your solution is electronic, add alerts as appropriate to keep you on track.

- Get in the habit of documenting all activities; rather than depending on your brain or a running list of events, let your calendar do the heavy-lifting for all date-specific commitments.

- As you become more comfortable with your weekly strategy session, morning jumpstart and end-of-day wrap-up, you’ll view your calendar solution as a bigger and bigger part of your productivity toolbox; with all the options available, there is guaranteed to be a good fit for your specific needs. Test out what options exist until you find a good fit for your needs, whether paper or electronic, daily or weekly or monthly view.

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Likewise, to further elaborate on steps you can take right now to prepare for your greatest successes in the new year, here are a few contacts-related items to consider and incorporate in your actions:

- Whether paper or electronic, make sure your one address book or CRM tool is filled with all your contacts, whether personal or professional, including clients, team members, vendor partners, friends, family members, neighbors, industry contacts, networking connections or referrals. 

- Double-check that each person’s record includes the most up-to-date information for contacting that particular individual, including that person’s current phone number, email address, job title, place of employment and pertinent notes. If you are looking for a technological tool to shortcut this process, consider apps like EasilyDo, Humin, Sync.ME, Brewster, EverContact and FullContact.

- Determine what will be your system for continually inputting updated or additional information as it is brought to your attention. While this may be resolved via one of the aforementioned apps, if someone mentions her new job to you when you’re meeting face-to-face, you’ll need a specific process to document the associated updates and, then, add them to your contacts’ solution. You might want to document them in your “data dump” and schedule one block of time weekly to transfer the updates.

- If you would like a solution that does more than any address book can complete, consider a Contact Relationship Management (or CRM) Tool. With a CRM tool, you remember everything about each individual with whom you’ve connected and you make sure no opportunities fall through the cracks. As you are searching for your best option for a CRM solution, determine whether its ease of use, accessibility, customization and integration with other tools all meet your specific needs; then, make sure you test drive the product before making any short- or long-term commitment. Options that deserve some consideration are ACT!, Infusionsoft, Insightly, Nimble, OntraPort and Zoho CRM.

Speaking of CRMs, as these provide structure for walking prospects through a sales process, they empower leaders to hold team members accountable, measuring each team member’s success rate as they move prospects from step to step of the sales process. Be sure that each team member is aware of what consequences exist for not utilizing the designated sales process, provide resources for improving conversion rates and hold each team member accountable for trying to improve. Via structure, customer relationship management boosts success.

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ASSIGNMENT: Visit here to see a video related to this blog post; then, this week, clarify what you’ll use as your one calendar solution, one place for all your to-do items, one “data dump”, one contact management solution and one weekly strategy session. Then, make sure your calendar solution includes alerts for any applicable holidays, birthdays and important events, starting to develop the habit of documenting all activities in this one calendar solution. Finally, verify you have the most up-to-date contact information for everyone in your database and choose a tool and / or process for ongoing maintenance of contacts’ data.

Where has “the power of one” proven most helpful for your productivity? Do you prefer a paper or an electronic solution for your calendaring tool? Alternatively, do you utilize any apps to help maintain your contacts’ information? Further, are you using a paper or electronic address book or do you prefer a CRM tool instead? What do you find as strengths and weaknesses of paper versus electronic for any of your current productivity tools?

Utilize Automation to Do More With What Time You Have

While each day offers us only 1,440 minutes, beyond sheer strategy and proactivity, there are plenty of ways to make the most of what limited time we have. According to Dictionary.com, automation is "the technique, method or system of operating or controlling a process by... electronic devices, reducing human intervention to a minimum", which conveys the value of automation in that less of your direct human intervention opens up your time for addressing other functionality that cannot be done otherwise. Here are a few ways automation allows you to do more with your limited resource of time:

- Use cloud-based back-up for saving your files that matter. Computers crash. Fires can destroy all your devices. Emergencies happen, but you can be prepared with automated remote storage, saving you the time it takes to plug in a back-up device and safeguarding you from accidentally forgetting to do the back-up yourself. Simply "set it and forget it" with one of these options: Carbonite, Crash Plan or Mozy.

- Use a social media manager to share the right info at the right time. Whether you depend on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, you must post the best message for your audience at the best time for that audience to receive it. While timing and messaging varies by platform, you still have other things to be doing; you can't stay planted by your computer all the time. Although there is controversy about their SEO impact, there are tools to help with the aforementioned issue as well as monitoring your business' social media results. Schedule messages to be posted on each social media outlet when you want via one of these options: Buffer, Hootsuite, Postling, SocialOomph or Sprout Social.

- Use a password manager for safekeeping your many different logins. As more of our work and play is conducted online, it becomes increasingly important to use a diverse set of strong passwords; however, as the list of passwords grows, the harder it is to remember them all. Further, the dangers associated with a printed list are frightening, whether it is losing that list, damaging that list or having that list fall into the wrong person's hands. Allow your brain to focus on thinking, rather than remembering, and rest assured that your passwords are safely secured in the cloud, instead of just a piece of paper. Employ one of these options for your password management: 1Password, Dashlane, LastPass, Roboform or SplashID.

- Use tools to manage your email, rather than letting email manage you. The average busy professional receives over 150 email messages each day. While "processing" emails is much more efficient than repeatedly "checking" emails, it still takes a good chunk of time to go through that many messages daily, let alone should you get behind at all. While there are plenty of technological tools designed to help, there are a few that rise above the competition. If you use Gmail, Boomerang allows you to send an email later, take messages out of your inbox until you actually need them, be nudged into following up at a specified time when there's no reply to a message you've sent and utilize email to remind yourself of what you think about needing to do while on-the-go. Alternatively, Mailbox lets you quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash, scan entire conversations in a chat-like view to more rapidly work through what messages have been received and bring messages back to your inbox when more appropriate for you to focus on what's important now. Finally, Mailstrom identifies which of your emails are related, groups them together for you to more easily process them quickly and empowers you to more succinctly unsubscribe from mailing lists you no longer desire.

- Put the Internet to work for you. It is very valuable to use all available options for helping business processes occur without your involvement, and there are several shining stars operating in this space. If This Then That integrates 152 different channels (or applications), each of which has its own options, allowing you to create "recipes" for a trigger action to lead to a resulting action. For example, you could use the trigger of "when I receive an email that has an attachment to my Gmail account" for the resulting action of "that attachment is added to my Evernote database" as a recipe. Plus, If This Then That is currently totally free... Happiness! Browse all the recipes currently being utilized by clicking here. Likewise, Podbox and Zapier expand the options for various channels or applications that can be integrated, but they can have fees.

How do you currently utilize automation? What benefits do you perceive could come from greater automation? Are there tools mentioned here that you will start to use?

Get Clear For The New Year Week #2: Weekly Strategy Session, Morning Jumpstart and End-of-Day Wrap-up

Last week, we discussed determining and, then, focusing your actions on your personal and professional priorities, goals and objectives. To do this successfully, it is imperative to be proactive. 

If you wait until your week unfolds, you are often at the whim of others’ priorities; if you take time to plan your approach beforehand, checking your progress throughout, you are more likely to build a structure for focusing on what’s most important to you. Here are tools I recommend building into your regular habits for ensuring the greatest success in marrying your actions to your priorities:

I. Weekly Strategy Session: Whether you accomplish this at the end of your Friday, sometime over the weekend or first-thing on Monday morning, it is imperative to create a game plan for the upcoming week. Just like football teams wouldn’t go into a game with out a plan, you need a game for accomplishing all you intend for your week. In each weekly strategy session, focus on these items…

- Evaluate which of the prior week’s tasks were completed, determining what’s left undone and must be carried into the new week; then, reschedule each undone “what” to a new “when” so you have a clear timeline for winning.

- Clarify any changes to your priorities so those people and activities most important to you get scheduled accordingly; start your weekly game plan by allocating time for what’s most important before anything else.

- Review the upcoming week’s commitments to ensure you’ve prepared for the related tasks and appointments; as appropriate, include when you’ll sleep, when you’ll workout and what you’ll eat.

- Determine additional opportunities for personal and professional growth; what actions or connections will move you towards accomplishing more of your goals?

- Map out a game plan for the upcoming week’s activities, remembering that every “what” assigned a specific “when” is more likely to get done but that you have only so many minutes allocated to your week.

II. Morning Jumpstart: While we all believe we are superheroes who can accomplish a never-ending list of tasks and appointments, each of us is only one human-being; therefore, it is important to start the day on the right foot to accomplish all that is realistically possible. Jumpstart your morning in these ways...

- Enter each day of your life with 3 - 5 items that are “must do” for that day, whether those are appointments or tasks, as that is a realistic goal. If you complete more, that is a bonus.

- Follow the philosophy of “swallow the frog” such that you complete the most difficult and vital task or item you’ve been avoiding before moving to others.

- Keep in mind the saying that an elephant is eaten one bite at a time, and break projects into smaller, more manageable action items, starting each of these on your list with a specific verb.

III. End-of-Day Wrap-Up: I like to think of the last 15 minutes or so of each workday as my “check-up from the neck up”, and I always aim to accomplish the following activities…

- Review the day’s tasks, preparing the next day’s “must do” list based off what was left undone from today as well as what must be done for tomorrow.

- Evaluate your schedule for the next day and verify that you are prepared for everything coming up.

- Get end-of-day updates from each of your team members.

- Tidy up your workspace, filing newly arrived items while putting the day’s work back into each item’s assigned home.

- Reflect on your greatest success from that day, and make note of that for which you are grateful.

If you’re having trouble completing any one of these processes or think they are taking too long, you can use a timer to move things along… Here are a few benefits from using this productivity tool:

- Once you get rolling, you might not stop as activity breeds activity, ending procrastination.

- You can do anything for 15 minutes or so, better keeping yourself focused over a shorter duration.

- Shorter times allowed for specific activities lead to an extra burst of energy, driving greater output.

ASSIGNMENT: Visit http://youtu.be/Kt0UAyzyvpQ to see a video related to this blog post; then, this week, start developing the habits of a weekly strategy session, morning jumpstart and end-of-day wrap-up. Find an existing habit with which you can connect each of these new processes so you are more likely to get them all completed; then, set a timer to see how quickly you can accomplish each one. Reward yourself for successfully doing each of the three, celebrating every step towards developing them into habits.

Do you currently complete a weekly strategy session, morning jumpstart and / or end-of-day wrap-up? If you do, how have these boosted your productivity? If you don’t do them already, how can you incorporate these into your existing workflows to better boost your output?

Top 10 Tips for Getting from "To-Do" to "Done"

Tips To Mark Tasks Off Your List

Whether for our occupations, running our homes, volunteer work or helping take care of those we love most in our lives, most of us have an endless list of tasks that must be completed… Yet, how can we best move those actions from “to-to” to “done” status? Here are a few useful tools and tactics to make that process a little easier.

1. When faced with a task, decide if you should "discard", "delegate", "delay" or "do" the action... Not everything must be done, and those that truly must be done don't always have to be completed by you.

2. Consider options like eLance, Fancy Hands, Fiverr, Task Rabbit and Thumbtack to outsource what others can complete more quickly than you can or to open time in your schedule for attacking other to-do items.

3. Strategize on what tasks can be automated via If This Then That, Podbox or Zapier; program them into the selected solution so you can move on to something else that needs your attention.

4. Be realistic about what can be accomplished on any given day... Narrow your running to-do list into three to five tasks per day of your week; then, start each of those priorities with a verb to drive action.

5. Remember that every “what” assigned a “when” is more likely to get done. Since I've yet to find a calendar that includes “someday”, be specific about when each action will be completed and schedule enough time to make progress.

6. Complete a weekly strategy session before each week to create a game plan for (a) what carries over from the prior week, (b) what upcoming appointments require preparation and (c) what tasks must be done when. Keep in mind the importance of scheduling what’s important but not urgent related to your goals.

7. Consider an electronic task manager app because it will offer reminders, allows undone tasks to more easily carry over to later dates and can have recurrences scheduled, like Any.Do, Carrot, Remember The Milk, Pocket Informant or Wunderlist; however, know that paper lists can work if that is more in line with your personality and your workflow, particularly for those that are not mobile workers. While the options are endless, the priority is that you get things done.

8. Break larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks to be done individually, eliminating procrastination from overwhelm or not knowing where to start. When handling many large projects, try adopting a project management tool, like Asana, Azendoo or Mavenlink.

9. If you’re having trouble getting tasks done, utilize a timer… Once you get rolling, you might not stop, you can do anything for 15 minutes or so, and shorter times can lead to an extra burst of energy.

10. Always keep in mind that your overall well-being is very instrumental for your productivity: be sure to exercise, eat well (starting with a good breakfast), get enough sleep for your needs, take time for massages and incorporate positive music in your workspace.

What have you found most helpful in your attempts to mark things off your to-do list? What tactics do you utilize for finishing tasks?

Evernote Announces New Ways to Boost Productivity

Evernote is a secure suite of apps that allow users to capture all sorts of content. Plus, all elements of the database are easy to sort, edit, search, share, present and fuel collaboration. Evernote’s ubiquity allows me to access the same information everywhere at the same time as it syncs all uploaded content “real time” between devices. Evernote’s mind-boggling search capabilities allow me to quickly access whatever content I’m seeking, and its sharing allows me to provide others access to various elements of my database as well as collaborate with committees, teams, clients, vendors and partners alike. Yet, what Evernote offers is getting better as I type.

CEO Phil Libin with EBCCs

On October 2-3, 2014, Evernote held its 4th annual conference in San Francisco, CA, entitled “From Inspiration to Achievement”, and CEO Phil Libin (wearing the black t-shirt and gray sports coat in the photo to the left with all of us Evernote Business Certified Consultants in attendance) demonstrated how Microsoft’s tools are outdated while Evernote is revitalizing the world of business tools, providing collaborative, productivity tools so everyone can complete “your life’s work” in this one workspace. As Libin explained, with the four key elements of work being write, collect, find and present, “we’ve gotten past typewriters, filing cabinets and desktops”. Now, Libin is positioning Evernote as each individual’s and each team’s workspace, in which folks will be able to more easily write, collect, find and present with the additions of the Scannable app, enhanced Presentation mode, Context and Work Chat as well as an amazingly advanced Web Client version that allows for incredibly enhanced focus as one is working in Evernote online. Here’s what’s out now or coming next month:

- The Scannable App is a companion to the Fujitsu ScanSnap Evernote Edition Desktop Scanner, which will allow for feeding data into various folks’ mobile devices and will greatly assist in “moving paper forward”.

- The enhanced Presentation mode is adding headers and footers in the layout editor, allows the presenter to make edits simultaneously as sharing the content, will make it easier to create a table of contents, automatically sets page breaks that can be changed by the presenter and makes meetings less terrible by boosting collaboration, enhancing information sharing and driving discussions.

- Context understands that people don’t write, collect, find or present in a vacuum so Evernote will use augmented intelligence to provide Premium and Business users what’s needed for being more productive, showing as needed other notes, people’s LinkedIn profiles and relevant new articles from CrunchBase, Factiva, Fast Company, Inc, LinkedIn, Pando, TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal.

- Work Chat aims to refine the connection between working and communicating, allowing you to see who’s viewing the same note at the same time and empowering you to start a chat with team members, sharing notes within that particular chat; users will have real-time collaboration and rely less on email for doing today's work.

- The overhauled Web Client addresses what issues have always plagued accessing Evernote online, offering a simple, elegant and powerful platform to eliminate distractions while working; users will get formatting only as needed and includes beautiful search functionality.

With concurrent sessions focused on “Using Evernote to Reduce Overhead, Build a Smarter Team and Get More Done”, “Creating a More Productive Workday with Evernote”, “Effortless Teamwork: Using Evernote for Seamless Workflows”, “Merging Your Paper and Digital Worlds” and “Building the Success Habit with Evernote”, this conference was clearly focused on empowering Evernote users with a tool to be their new workspace, better enabling everyone worldwide to more easily complete their life’s work.

About which of the new offerings are you most excited? 

Further, how do YOU use Evernote now?

Celebrate National Simplify Your Life Week

 As we're in national "Simplify Your Life Week", what do you think it means to SIMPLIFY? Think you'll need to give up all your worldly possessions to become a hermit and live in a cave somewhere?!? Not quite... Per Dictionary.com, simplify means “to make less complex or complicated; make plainer or easier"... Cutting back on physical clutter can be part of the picture, but the emphasis is on slowing down and focusing on your true priorities. For some, this may mean working fewer hours and taking a cut in pay to have more time with friends and family. For others, this may mean buying a smaller home that is closer to work so as to lessen the daily commute while cleaning out unused items throughout the home. Meanwhile, others may take this as the opportunity to simply say "no" to more of each day's endless requests from others, saying "yes" to only those requests that fulfill personal & professional goals.

Here are some actions you can take today, over the weekend or sometime soon to simplify your life:

1. Remember that less is more when it comes to email… Less email sent means fewer replies received. Less retention folders make it easier to find what you need when you need it. Less email lists to which you subscribe lead to you getting only what information you really want.

2. Outsource, delegate, ask for help… However you word it, utilize others to double your output. Great resources can be found at Fiverr and Task Rabbit so take some time to check out which options might be best for your needs.

3. Automate bill pay… While many folks pay each bill manually when the reminder arrives via snail mail or email, how much easier would it be to have payments sent automatically from your banking account each month? Such settings can be programmed online fairly quickly.

4. Automate many of the domino effects in your daily processes… There are plenty of cause and effect relationships you can set and forget, running without ongoing efforts on your part. Investigate options via IFTTT, Zapier and PodBox for the solution to best support your processes.

5. Plan to have the tools you need nearby when needed… Do you utilize a smartphone, tablet, laptop and / or desktop computer? If you depend on tech tools, you are well aware of all the accessories needed for each, including charging cords, flash drives, headphones or earbuds and the like. Rather than depending on whether you remember to bring all the necessary accessories whenever you are working on the go, keep multiple sets of those accessories (one for office, one for bag, one for vehicle), pulling each set of accessories together with a GRID-IT.

6. Be strategic about how you organize items… Make sure what you need is conveniently located close to where you will need to use it and by grouping like with like to have those items used together stored together. Further, so you can quickly retrieve what’s needed, make sure to assign everything a specific home and return each item to its home each time you finish using that item.

7. Don’t retain the printed manual that came with any item you’ve purchased… Printed manuals are difficult to efficiently store and take up valuable space. Instead, download the corresponding PDF from the ManualsOnline.com website and store electronically.

8. Save time with forms, templates, checklists and the like… If you regularly send the same email response, create a template for that reply, tweak it a bit for each time you send it, and avoid starting from scratch each time you need to send that response. Create a packing checklist so you don’t forget anything that’s needed on each trip, customizing it for personal versus business travel, whether traveling by plane, train or automobile and for how long you’ll be gone. Design a template for grocery lists with all items you normally use, listed in order of the aisles at your regular store.

9. Convert what files you can to a searchable, digital system… Since it’s easier to find documents in an electronic form than paper, transition what you can via a fast, portable scanner, like one of the options from Doxie, Neat or Fujitsu. Then, make those documents easy to access from anywhere as well as simple to share with others by storing them in an online file repository; options for your online file repository include Box, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, SpiderOak, Google Drive and SugarSync. Finally, if you choose to utilize the free options on more than one of these online file repositories, avoid fragmentation by keeping all your “clouds” together via Citrix ShareFile Quick Edit for iOS devices or CloudCube for Android devices.

10. Cut back on distractions by having fewer pings and dings… When you are distracted, on average, it takes about 16 minutes to refocus upon returning to the task at hand. Therefore, turn off your notifications for emails, social media updates and new text or voice mail messages whenever possible, choosing to schedule set times for checking each instead.

11. Consolidate social media platforms into one management tool... While many enjoy the benefits of the various different social media options, it can be overwhelming to stay on top of everything for LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and more. Instead of logging into each platform individually, group as many as possible together with one login to Hootsuite, Postling, SocialOomph, Buffer or Sprout Social.

12. Practice “the power of one”… While many claim that one is a lonely number, I find it to be extremely powerful in boosting productivity. So that you can quickly find what you need, easily remember all that needs to be done, avoid duplication or things falling through the cracks and keep it all together better, it’s important to have one calendar, one running data dump of all tasks to be done, one daily  to-do list, one source for others’ contact info, one system by which all your files are structured (whether paper or electronic and with as few categories as possible) and one place for all the information you must reference and remember, such as my all-time favorite tool of Evernote, a secure suite of apps that allow users to capture typed text, video and audio files, checklists, web clippings as well as photos, including photos of handwritten notes, in a database of content created by the user or culled in from other sources which is easy to sort, edit, search and share.

Did you celebrate this "Simplify Your Life Week" by making a change to simplify your life? If not, where do you see excess and complexity? What will you change soon based off the aforementioned suggestions or your own analysis?