Optimising your Email Apps – Afternoon Productivity
As we move into the later part of the day, I often find email is the biggest time-sucking culprit. Whether it’s just getting emails in order, dealing with the influx, or remembering to action all the different points that have come up during the day.
- Unsubscribe Deals is a free service that allows you to unsubscribe from the hordes of daily emails that land in your inbox at the optimum late lunch time, in two very quick steps. It’s amazing the amount of time you save by not having to half read/delete/try to ignore all that unnecessary bumpf!
- Boomerang is a wonder of an application that can be plugged into both Outlook and Gmail, allowing you to schedule emails to be archived, schedule emails to be sent at a later time or remind you to chase people if you don’t hear back. Productivity in a box!
- Taskforce allows you to convert emails into tasks, within your inbox – you can also delegate tasks or save them for later. Great in conjunction with Boomerang!
Saving Ideas/Plans/Links Apps – Coming Back to Great Ideas
Moving towards the end of the day and I often find myself in danger of forgetting all the little tips and tricks I’ve thought of throughout the day, or that quick to-do tasklist I need to sort out for myself. There are to-do list apps galore out there but here are a few of my favourites.
- Clear (iPhone only) is an app that’s quite recently launched and it’s great for those simple lists. You can swipe, pinch and drag tasks and even store them in iCloud.
- Evernote – you can’t get away from it. It still rules my life as the place I save EVERYTHING. If it ain’t broke….
- Captio crosses back over into email territory but is also a great to-do app as it allows you to email yourself with just one click. Open the app, write a message and hit send. For all those times when even Evernote is just too much effort!
Timesheeting Apps – Ensuring the Day Doesn’t Get Away From You
Timesheets are a royal pain in the derrière – nobody enjoys them. In an attempt to understand where I was losing all of my time, I recently not only started to log work time in terms of projects and clients but also log some of the extra-curricular things I do – e.g. this blog post for example. I also block out time in my calendar so that my day has a very clear routine. Whether or not his actively contributes to my productivity remains to be seen, but it certainly helps me feel calmer and more in control.
I tend to get around to a quick timesheet review at the end of each day, which is why I’ve left these recommendations to the end of this post.
- Freckle easily allows you to tag up everything you are working on, quickly breaking it down between billable and non-billable with great colourful and easy to understand visualisations within its reporting system. It’s simple, effective and actually easy on the eye compared to most tools – not bad at all.
- Timesheet App does exactly what is says on the tin. It’s compatible with both iPhones and Androids and allows you to keep track of time on the move. Great if you want to just catch up on your work hours on the commute home.
This article first appeared on Women’s Agenda.
