I’m a student of the craft of productivity. It’s just how I’m wired. I naturally seek faster and more effective solutions to get work done. Full disclosure though, I don’t consider myself a hyper-productive person. Far from it actually. I study productivity so that I can create the space to do the things I love; help small business owners solve problems and spend time with my little family. Read on to find the tech that helps me stay efficient. Conservatively, I estimate they save me at least 10 hours per week.
Turn off notifications [tutorial here, cost $0 per month]
Nothing kills productivity like the notifications on your devices. They’re the worst. Turning off notifications for email and social media apps is probably the smartest thing you can do for your productivity. This topic has been widely covered, but if you’re not aware of how detrimental those little red circles can be to your brain, check this out.
According to research by UC Irvine, it takes between 11 and 25 minutes to truly refocus on a task after an interruption. It’s not a terribly difficult to see how this one change can result in big time savings. It’s very hard at first, but give it a few days and you’ll realize how trained your brain has become to constantly checking your device. It’s pretty sad actually, but there is some deep brain science behind it. Resist the urge to go back, and commit to leaving the notifications off. You’ll thank yourself, and so will your family.
Speed up mouse [tutorial here, cost $0 per month]
Honestly, I was very skeptical when I first learned about it on this episode of the Tim Ferris podcast. Basically, the premise is that unless the speed setting on your mouse or trackpad is set to full speed, you spend an extra second or two every time you move the mouse from one location to the next. Big deal right? Well, if you think about saving one or two seconds a few thousand times per day, it actually adds up very quickly.
It takes a day or two to get used to it, but after that, you’ll never be able to move back to a slow cursor again. Now, when I use anyone else’s computer and they have their speed set to a slow/medium setting, it physically pains me to wait for the mouse to catch up. I estimate this saves me 10 minutes every day and about an hour per week.
Witch [get it here, free trial, $14 one-time for full license]
I’m an apple guy through and through, but the one thing that I do miss about windows was the alt+tab functionality. If you’re not familiar with what that does, it acts like the “last” channel button on your television remote. It allows you to jump directly back to the last window open without reaching for the mouse or trackpad. The mac allows you to Command+tab through applications, but not to specific windows within an application. If you’re still lost, watch this.
Many times during the day, I find myself wanting to hop between excel files or between excel files and chrome, and the stock functionality on my mac just doesn’t cut it. The Witch app brings the functionality of the windows alt+tab to the mac. This saves me time and frustration when jumping from window to window. This probably saves me 5–10 minutes per day, so 30–60 minutes per week.
Calendly [calendly.com, free basic account, $8 per month premium]
I hate going back and forth via email trying to set up appointments. I’m busy, you’re busy, and I can recall many meetings stifled due to the inefficiency of finding times that work for everyone. That’s why I love calendly. Any time I need to schedule a meeting with someone, I just send them my personalized calendly link (calendly.com/michael_albert/60min) and they can directly access all of the time slots that I have available. No more back and forth. The app syncs directly with my Google Calendar, and handles all of the notifications. The result is more meetings set up and in a much more streamlined fashion.
There’s a free version which works just fine for most people, but if you want a little more control you can pay $8 per month for a premium account.
Contactually [contactually.com, free trial, basic plan starts at $29 per month]
Networking has never been something that I’ve been good at because like 99% of the world, I was doing it all wrong but thanks to the excellent coaching of Adam at the Wonder Jam, I’m getting slightly better. Essentially, I use contactually as a personal CRM. It allows me to bucket my contacts and set reminder intervals to follow up. I have a bucket of people that I want to touch base with every month, some every 90 days, and others once per year. Contactually also connects to your gmail and other mail clients to keep track of the organic interactions with the people with which you want to stay in touch.
The value that contactually has provided me is two-fold; it’s made me very good at keeping in touch with the people who matter to me, and it handles the process in a streamlined and intuitive way.
Bonus feature: If you’re tracking a sales funnel, the pipeline feature in contactually is as intuitive as any I’ve ever seen. I think it has wide application for a lot of the businesses that I work with and I find myself recommending its use regularly.
Google Calendar
There was a time in my life when managing my schedule was a breeze. Wake up, go to work, hang out, go to bed. Being a husband, father and entrepreneur has changed all of that. I can’t imagine my life before google calendar. It allows me to keep all of my coaching and consulting appointments and family/life commitments in one place. It has saved me dozens of hours of apologizing to my wife for not missing things over the last year. If you need help keeping your time commitments straight, I like google calendar because everything works well with it (calendly, gmail, etc)
Mileiq [mileiq.com, cost $6 per month]
This is a must have for anyone who regularly drives for work. This app has allowed me to track business mileage without being a huge headache. It runs in the background on your iphone and logs every trip you take. Later you can classify trips by swiping left for business and right for personal. Not as sexy as tinder, but close.
I was worried that the location services usage would drain my battery, but I have found that not to be the case. I wasn’t great at tracking my mileage prior to download, but if keeping a milage journal is something you do, I estimate this app would save you 15–30 minutes per week. It does cost about $6 per month, but I’ve averaged more than 5x that amount per month in additional tax deductions, so it pays for itself and then some. Save time and money? Yes, please.
IFTTT [ifttt.com, free]
I don’t use IFTTT.com as much as I would like to but think of it like the duct tape between everything that’s connected to the internet. IFTTT stands for “if this then that”. It connects 350 of the web’s most popular apps in a genius way. Basically, they plug into the APIs of apps and allows them to communicate to each other when a certain set of conditions occur. Want to save a copy of every iOS photo you take to google drive? Want your google calendar to block off your lunch hour every time the it’s 80 degrees and sunny? Want a message anytime your child leaves school? ITTT.com can do that, and a lot more.
I use it mostly for social media automation, but have used it for other purposes in past ventures. There are as many uses for the service as your creativity will allow. Here is a complete list of all the apps/services that you can tap into with IFTTT. Best of all, it’s 100% free.
What tech do you use to stay efficient? Leave a comment below!