I love productivity and efficiency.
You’ll know that much if you are a regular reader of Leaving Work Behind. After all, I only published a pretty big post on productivity a few weeks ago, and yet here I am again, talking about efficiency this time.
But sometimes, when you’ve got what you think is a cool idea, you’ve just got to get it out there. Not only do I think that this post represents a good opportunity for me to show you how you can be more efficient in your day-to-day work, but it also offers an opportunity for all of us to share our ideas.
Read on to find out how!
Scalable Small Efficiencies
The key to any successful online business is scale — the ability to grow a business model exponentially. Last week, I had the idea of applying the concept of scale to my work.
The concept was pretty simple — optimize minor tasks that I carry out regularly. I came up with a few ideas over the course of a week or so. Although each idea resulted in only a relatively minuscule amount of time being saved, the cumulative effect was big. This is what I call making “scalable small efficiencies”.
I’ll warn you now, before you get started — this can get pretty addictive. Once you understand how much of an effect scalable small efficiencies can have on your productivity, you’ll want to find as many as possible (I know I do). You have been warned!
My Scalable Small Efficiencies
Like I said, I only started doing this a week ago, but I have come up with quite a few ideas in that time. I’ll share them with you below, as you may well be able to adapt them for your own purposes.
Using Email More Efficiently
This is a pretty obvious one. Email is something that we all use often, so any way in which you can get through your inbox more quickly can’t be a bad thing. If you are a Gmail user, you’ll may find these articles particularly helpful:
- Tips to Cut the Time Spent with Email
- How to Quickly Learn Keyboard Shortcuts and Email Twice as Fast
- How to Become a Productivity Ninja (scroll to the “Dominate Your Email” section)
Mac Shortcuts
I have been a PC user most of my life, but I made the switch to Mac right around the time I quit my job at the end of last year.
I certainly haven’t looked back, but in some respects, I’m not quite as efficient with my Mac as I was with my PC. So I took the time over the weekend to learn some nifty shortcuts, such as:
- Command + Spacebar: opens the Spotlight search bar
- Command + `: switches between windows in the current app (great for switching between browser windows in Chrome)
- Alt + Command + Arrow Keys: scrolls through open browser tabs in Chrome
Of course, these won’t be of any use to Windows users, but the principle remains the same — learn keyboard shortcuts!
Moving Tweet Adder to Another PC
I am a huge fan of Tweet Adder, having featured it in a post just a couple of weeks ago. However, your PC needs to be turned on in order for it to do its job. Not only that, but it drains a little bit of your processor power whilst it is active.
So this morning, I finally took the blindingly obvious step of installing Tweet Adder onto an old laptop that I have. On that machine it can operate 24 hours a day without interruption, and I no longer have to worry about keeping my main laptop on at all times.
Using the Freshbooks iPhone App for Time Tracking
If you are a freelancer, I can’t recommend Freshbooks highly enough. I look back and laugh at when I kept time and prepared invoices in Excel — that kind of system is crazily inefficient.
Putting that to one side, Freshbooks’ broswer-based time tracker app using to bother me a bit. Then the Freshbooks iPhone app came out, featuring a quick and easy time tracking feature. For the most part, I prefer using Freshbooks from the app these days.
Adding Regularly-Accessed Notes to my Evernote Favorites Bar
If you use Evernote (which you should!), there will probably be notes that you access regularly. Mine include a checklist I follow once I have published a LWB post, a note of the web proxy for my library’s wi-fi connection, my shopping list, and so on.
I used to access these notes from their respective folders, before I realized that it would be far easier to add them to the Favorites bar:
Switching to Google Chrome Across All Platforms
The fact that you cannot easily sync browser favorites between Google Chrome and Safari on iOS has bothered me for a long time. As much as I would like to use Safari on my Mac, I much prefer Chrome.
So instead, I took the step the other day to switch to Chrome on my iPhone and iPad. Now I have synchronized bookmarks and tabs across all platforms. That’s more like it.
Leveraging the Benefits of Little Tweaks
As you can see, none of the above things are groundbreaking. They just save me a little time here and there. But the more of these tweaks I make for tasks that I carry out on a regular basis, the more time I will save on a cumulative basis.
I think it is a really good ideas for us all to occasionally take a step back from our day-to-day activities and examine what we can do to be more efficient — even with the smallest of tasks. Because if you do them often enough, those little changes can make a big difference.
With that in mind, I’d love to know what scalable small efficiencies you can recommend to us. What minor changes have you made to your workflow that makes a big difference when scaled up? Let us know in the comments section!
Creative Commons image courtesy of abooth202
Bon Crowder says
I like to use Dragon dictate. It takes about 30 seconds to a minute to set up, including turning on the remote microphone iPhone app.
Not only does it save typing time, but it also reduces the likelihood for carpal tunnel syndrome, and prevents me from having to figure out how to spell things (or right clicking and choosing the correct spelling).
Of course occasionally it will crash, or it hears the wrong word. But the speed at which I can write when using it makes up for that tiny bit of “lost time.”
In fact, I wrote this whole reply using it.
(I could also increase my efficiency if I didn’t immediately check the Leaving Work Behind website every time you sent out an e-mail saying that you had a new post!)
Tom Ewer says
I’m curious — how fast can you “type” with the software, and how often does it get things wrong? I type anywhere from 80-100 WPM, so I’m curious to know how it compares.
Bon Crowder says
I just took two typing tests online. On one of them I typed 1080 words per minute (that’s a bit ridiculous). On the other one I typed 153 words per minute. I made 14 mistakes in the second one.
When I took the second one again with my fingers, I got 71 wpm with no errors. Of course I corrected errors as I went – that’s what slows me down.
(I took it at: http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php)
The big thing is getting my thoughts from my brain into the computer without being stalled by spelling errors or typing speed-bumps (like “question” or “conscious”). I ignore what goes on the screen until after I’m done dictating. I always go back and reread what I’ve written, regardless if it was typed with my fingers or my mouth, so there’s no time lost there.
I used to type 90 words per minute in competition typing. But really it’s not about typing, it’s about getting words from brain to text. And if you’re a bad speller (and have to right click and choose the proper spelling all the time) or have to slow down when your fingers get tied on those strange words, then you’re losing valuable writing time.
Bon Crowder says
Oh – but do note that you can’t listen to music while you dictate. That’s a detriment if you like to busy the other parts of your brain while you get the important bits to focus on one thing.
Tom Ewer says
Good point — and I do.
I like your approach though — write drunk. edit sober, as they say!
Andrea Nagar says
I think that one of the best productivity boost can be done by a phraseexpander. A phraseexpander can automatically complete words and sentences as you type and correct your spelling mistakes in any application.
You can use it to quickly reply to your emails or insert the texts you happen to type often.
There are free solutions (like Autohotkey) and commercial solution, like PhraseExpander for Windows (or TextExpander for Mac)
Disclaimer: I’m the author of PhraseExpander
Tom Ewer says
Good suggestion Andrea! 🙂
Susan says
Hi Tom
I switched to Mac last December and am way more productive due to some apps and a bit of time invested so I’m sure you’ll get here too. Two things I’d recommend …. in fact, let’s make it 3
1) ‘text expander’ for mac complete with fill-in forms for frequently used text – buy from the website (smile software) rather than App Store for the souped up version – similar to Andrea’s tip above.
2) ‘Hazel’ for file management – she sweeps and files your docs,MP3, video, creates dated subfolders etc – all in the background based on simple rules you can set up – really really good.
3) if you like podcasts, listen to Mac Power Users- I save SO much time as a result of their app recommendations and mac tips. Also the mac productivity books by David Sparks. Brilliant ( I have no connection whatsoever with this lot by the way – just a recommendation from a user and listener).
Look forward to other’s tips.
Tom Ewer says
Awesome stuff Susan! That’ll take me a while to digest!
Susan says
You’re welcome
Try this screencast – worth 4 minutes time investment 😉
http://macsparky.com/2012/6/21/textexpander-40.html
Jessica Kihara says
It’s a great idea to make increase efficiency for smaller, seemingly insignificant business tasks. They do add up.
Andrea and Susan, thanks for recommending phrase/text expanders. I’ve never tried one but I will definitely try it out.
Billy McDiarmid says
I’m going to order the new Evernote / Moleskine journal shortly. I love Evernote but I’m a visual person and really need to be able to scribble. This should make it a bit easier to convert my notes and save me a bit of time!
Tom Ewer says
That’s not for me personally, but a seriously cool concept!
Alex B. (@DreamJobGuy) says
Tom!
Great suggestions here! I certainly look forward to putting them to use. I always sit down at my desk felling like I’m going to get a lot done, but then a couple of hours pass, and I have nothing to show for it!
Thanks again for the great post!
All the best,
-Alex
Tom Ewer says
No problem Alex 🙂
Robert says
I use 30/30 app on Appstore to track my time. It ultilizes the Pomodo methods where you set a fixed amount of time (around 30 minutes or less), then start your task and try to complete it 🙂 Really challenging and it forces you to focus on 1 task per time
Tom Ewer says
Hey Robert,
I’ve read about the Pomodoro technique a lot, and I understand it helps a lot of people, but I’ve never got along with it. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Great suggestion though! 🙂
Cheers!
Tom
Steve says
Yeah, I’ve used the Pomodoro Technique – Which totally helps me stay on top of my writing. (Actually used my “five minute break” to read this article.)
But you’re right – It’s not for everyone. You have to get used to breaking apart your day in a series of tasks. It can easily make you feel more stressed out than you need to be.
Matthew says
Yes. I think you are right. Small tasks, which we perform daily, do eat up a lot of time. However it would be of great help if you could provide links to the various shortcuts that you have mentioned in your blog here. Overall, a great job done. 🙂 Thanks for the post!
Tom Ewer says
Hi Matthew — what links are you referring to? All the shortcuts I have mentioned are explained (I think).