Posts Tagged ‘Jott’

Who needs to be more efficient?

Most all of us have tips and tricks that we use to manage our business. No doubt you also have apps that you use and which allow you to manage your business more efficiently.  I have found a few great apps that I cannot live without and which help me manage my business.

These five applications have allowed me to boost my productivity.

KeePass

We all have a kadjillion usernames and passwords. Who can keep track of them all? Don’t put them in a spreadsheet or Word doc. Keep them in an encrypted database. KeePass, an OpenSource password management application,  is great for keeping me organized. It allows my business partner and me to sort, enter, retrieve and manage passwords from a simple interface. And when combined with DropBox, we can have our encrypted password files available whenever/wherever we log on with one of our computers.

Jott

I don’t know about you, but when I’m driving, I find that I think of all kinds of things I have to do. Instead of trying to hold all that in my mind, I Jott myself. Jott is a web based application that transcribes voice messages to text and then e-mails them and text messages them to the recipient.  I subscribe to Jott and when I call, the app takes all my notes to myself or others, and e-mails them to me and to the intended recipient. Jott interfaces with Microsoft Outlook and allows me to make appointments, tasks and draft e-mails. It interfaces with lots of other apps too. Jott is great for helping me track my mileage for business. I just Jott the beginning and ending odometer reading, and then add to my spreadsheet.

Skype

If you don’t Skype you should. We did away with our landlines and got Skype numbers for our business. We can call all over the continent for a very low flat-price. In addition, Skype makes conference calls a breeze. Just create a conference call group, add all the member’s numbers and click to call! Everyone on the line at one time in one place. Not only are conference calls easier, but virtual face to face meetings are too. And I can share my desktop as well, oh, and there’s chat function too.

Google Voice

I love my Google Voice! If I listed all the attributes of this wonderful app, you’d never read about anything else. So, I’ll list what is best to me. I can’t live without call forwarding and voice to text transcription that forwards the text message to my phone. Then there’s the Chrome Google Voice extension that allows me to call any number displayed on a website with the app which rings my designated number then connects me to my called number. It’s just like having a virtual assistant. Then there’s the Google Voice widget for my website which allows anyone to call me just by clicking!  And the other great perk of Google Voice is the ability to call back a number from the Google Voice mailbox and return to the mail box to manage/listen to more messages. It’s all very simple and complex–and all incredible!

Google Docs

Cloud apps are the best. I can create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and share them right from the same screen with co-creators or editors. I can publish them to the web as pages with unique URLs too which makes the sharing of press releases easy. I can also easily add images, change the HTML or CSS attributes of any item.

What are your 5?

There are so many other apps that I’ve used to enhance the day-to-day management of my business. But, I’d love to know which ones you find indispensable!

A decade ago, I was so proud that I knew what ping meant. I learned to use pings to determine whether other desktop systems were talking to mine. Now comes the new way to ping, but with similar meaning.

I have become addicted to Twitter, Linked In and Facebook. Just today I found (through a connection on Facebook) a former frat member from my college days. However, what’s even more wonderful is a new app that I’ve learned about that is helping me keep all my status and blogs up to date. It’s Ping.fm and this update just posted from there.

Now I can post to my blog, update my status, tweet –all with one online application–but wait, I can also use my phone to update and can ping from it.

Now with Jott, Ping and others I feel as if I have an entire staff.