Whether you’re an established company with decades of smooth operation under your belt, or a fresh-faced startup, chances are you could benefit from having a good hard look at your productivity. In the digital workplace where time is money and every second wasted is a drain on your profits, especially if you’re a sole trader and you live and breathe by your own productivity.
It doesn’t take a masters in engineering to see if you’re wasting water from a leaky tap or electricity from a suspicious wall plug, but detecting wasted productivity is a little less obvious. There are many, many ways in which you can boost the productivity of yourself and your team from ordering new office furniture to ensure that everyone is comfortable enough to perform optimally, to ensuring that workers are free of distracting noise and have access to natural light. Here, we’re going to look at the common office tools that might be syphoning away your productivity and what you should replace them with.
Microsoft Office… fine, but while it could be used for most workplace activities doesn’t necessarily mean that it should.
There are many more efficient and cheaper apps available that will do the job better and quicker. Every one of the apps suggested here is free or has a workable free version available.
Don’t “create new document”, use Evernote
Evernote is a quicker and simpler alternative to traversing your hard drive for a half-remembered Word document. It allows you to store all your notes and documents in one place and once it’s in there everything is text searchable. You can also access images using tags, so you can even access an old business card that you snapped and filed away.
Don’t share links via email, use Twitter
Let’s face it, even the most immaculate email inbox is full of clutter and spam. Most of us are quicker to react to a Twitter notification than an email (it makes us feel far more loved and appreciated). Accompanying the link with an appropriate hashtag will also help you to share the link with a broader audience and generate awareness and interest for your business at no extra effort or expenditure to yourself. And who doesn’t love free publicity?!?
Don’t use Word, EVER! If you collaborate, use Google Docs
If you’ve torn your hair out sending the same document to multiple recipients, then becoming bamboozled when they all send different sets of feedback, then you’ll thank your lucky stars for Google Docs. Not only is it far more intuitive and and easy on the eye from a UX perspective than Word, Google Docs allows for quick and easy collaboration. After creating a document, you can grant access privileges to anyone in your circle, anyone to whom you send the link or just about anyone on the whole darned internet if you feel so inclined. You can download it HERE.
Multiple collaborators can make helpfully color-coded annotations or (if you grant them editing privileges) make alterations to the document. This also allows you to see who made which changes, so those awkward conversations about who suggested what are a thing of the past!
