Productivity

Apps and tools to help small businesses be more productive.

The 5 day Microsoft detox

Posted on February 16, 2012 by in Productivity

In my first few years of running a small business I made a few mistakes. One of them looking back was investing too much in physical hardware and software – particularly Microsoft.

I was too used to the corporate world where everyone had Exchange (Outlook shared calendars and contacts etc) and Word / Excel etc. Not to mention my years being brought up on Windows computers.

The low point was spending $5,000 on a microsoft server the year before last.

The situation was critical. My friends got involved. I needed an intervention – I needed a detox.

So let my mistakes help you by introducing the 5 day Microsoft detox – a 5 day, step by step process for helping small businesses ditch the Microsoft mindset. Read More…

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Replace your brain with Evernote

Posted on January 23, 2012 by in Productivity

Evernote has a very fitting logo. An Elephant never forgets

In my last article in this productivity series I talked about DropBox and how some of these new cloud technologies not only solve the problem that traditional software solves but also 1 or 2 more things at the same time.

This week we are looking at Evernote, which is very much in the same boat in terms of it being a great tool for taking notes but also a lot more.

Taking notes is part of every business person’s daily routine. Some people use hardcopy, some use software. Some rely on their memories.

In the past when you used software you might have used Notepad for general notes, you might have used Microsoft Word for more detailed notes and perhaps Outlook or similar to noting down tasks that you have to complete. And in all cases you might rely on just remembering some things or parts of notes particularly when you are in a different location. i.e. you are at the coffee shop and you think ‘ this would be a great idea for my business’ then when you get back to the office you save the note in Word to action at some time.

Read More…

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Why you need dropbox

Posted on January 19, 2012 by in Productivity

website design - dan Hi guys welcome to a new category on the blog called ‘Productivity’ where I’m going to introducing you to some of my favourite small business productivity tools. If you have any ideas for posts in this category feel free to comment below and let me know. 

We are in very exciting times for technology right now. Technology always used to be a pain in the arse really didn’t it?

It wasn’t about ‘yay I can insert this USB drive and back up all of my stuff’ it was ‘bugger, I forgot to back up my stuff now it’s lost’.

The cloud movement has ushered in a new level of expectation when it comes to technology. People don’t just expect things to work. They expect them to work without thinking about them. They expect IT tools to perform functions that they aren’t primarily using them for! This is a big expectation but a lot of the examples that I am looking at in this new productivity series manage to do just that. They manage to replaces old software by performing functions more effectively while at the same time doing a lot more things – things you don’t have to or want to think about but things that are just as important.

To me DropBox (affiliate link) is one of the best examples of this and is one of my favourite cloud based productivity tools for small business. Read More…

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