A big part of automating your business means being tech savvy. Name an administrative business function and you’ll probably find a free, or inexpensive, online tool to get it done. Google alone has dozens of apps you can use to organize, create, promote and network.

A few of my favorite tech tools for business include:

GTDMail

This email service provides simple workflow that transforms emails into tasks, enabling you to process them much more efficiently. Create categories like Follow Up, Read and Action for various types of responses. Create a Snooze folder so you can have the email re-delivered to you when it’s convenient.

Jott

Imagine having a private secretary following you around 24/7, transcribing all your thoughts so you can retrieve your ideas at any time. With Jott, you can record messages on your cellphone and have the messages sent to Outlook as sound files or transcribed and sent to your email.

Sticky Notes

Lots of people still use the paper sticky notes to help remind them of important tasks. Digital sticky notes fulfill the same purpose on your computer, without adding to your clutter. You can insert hyperlinks into them to make them more useful.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

Aaahhh- summer!  Those warm, lazy days where you can kick back, enjoy the sun, rest and recharge.  NOT for most entrepreneurs.  I’ve lost track this month of the number of business owners who have told me that getting ready to go on vacation is so stressful, they would rather not do it.  Pulling all-nighters to get caught up before they leave, dreading coming back to tons of email.  Sound familiar?

How do you free yourself from these chains?

Leave your technology at home!  Get yourself an assistant – even if only for a few hours a week.  Have them do the stuff that is not making you any money.  Organizing receipts, bookkeeping, handling standard inquiries, dealing with most of your email.  Tim Ferris in Four Hour Work Week had a good point when he said that most email just sucks up our time and provides very little value.  Most of it is not time urgent – it can wait while you have a vacation.

Set up an auto message telling everyone that emails you that you are away.  While on vacation, have your assistant (mine is virtual) scan your email daily and get rid of all the newsletters and junk mail immediately.  Then have them handle any standard inquiries (using templates you have set up).  Anything requiring your attention can be moved to a file labeled – Handle on Return.

Then before you leave, make sure you book off the first morning of your return in your calendar to deal with all that email.  Now you can go on vacation and not sneak off to check email or worry about stuff falling through the cracks!

Fiona Walsh, CEO, FM Walsh & Associates Inc. www.fmwalsh.com