Chapter 9

Leveraging Your Time with Technology

I could write a whole book on the amazing new technologies that save everyone time. There are computer programs and apps for your tablets and phones that dramatically increase organization, recall, and storage of both your personal and business needs. You can organize your time with calendar apps; make lists and memos on the fly by opening a notes app and speaking into your smartphone; and find the best prices on everything from gasoline to dog food with other apps. If anyone told me 20 years ago that I'd be able to write a message on my phone and send it halfway across the world in the matter of seconds, I would have asked what they were drinking!

But as with everything, there are drawbacks. By its very nature, cutting-edge technology is ever changing. Moore's Law states that the speed of computers doubles every two years; this can be said about most technology. In the quest for more productivity and efficiency, you must be open to learning about new innovations.

I caution you that just because something is new doesn't guarantee it's better. Everyone has different skills, so the results with any specific technology app, software, or tool can vary. Just be open to trying new things. You could be very pleasantly surprised.

Timing Is Everything: Taking Charge of Your Time

Recent advances in electronics and technology have given consumers a bevy of new tools. From hardware to software, the choices are nearly endless for ways to track your time and keep yourself on schedule. Evernote, Dropbox, ScanSnap, Google Calendar, Excel, and LastPass represent software and applications; and of course, tablets and smartphones are needed to run these programs.

The leverage you create through using current technology adds value to your life, and can also make you more in demand — you can access data and documents within seconds, have a face-to-face talk with a client across the country without leaving your office, and you can stay on top of your schedule every day.

Making choices about technology

Being successful enables you to make more choices. The person who earns a million dollars a year has more choices and freedom than someone who makes one-hundred thousand a year. The goal should be a life filled with choices and freedom, such as the choice to take the afternoon off on a beautiful day.

In the world of technology you have to make choices. Do you go with a smartphone, tablet, phablet (combination phone and tablet), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, or a combination of several devices? You also need to decide on operating system platforms. Are you on the Apple team with your iPhone, iPod, Macbook, and desktop? Or are you running a PC with Microsoft products and an Android phone system and tablet?

Unlike ten years ago, you can actually choose to use both Apple and PC systems, which I did for many years. Switching back and forth, however, can create confusion, crossover, duplication, and potentially lower productivity … and yes, using two systems can take up more time. Find a combination of hardware and possibly software that works for you. Knowing your systems and making wise choices can lead to huge time savings for you.

Automate rather than replicate

A large waste of time is created when you do the same tasks over again and again each day, week, or month. Automotive companies have transitioned many of the repetitive car-building tasks to machines over the last 20 to 30 years. Their efficiency rate has grown per each car they build.

There are a number of simple ways to automate your workday. Setting up an online banking system is one. I didn't embrace online banking when it was first introduced. I liked controlling my checkbook. The truth is, the amount of time it takes to pay your bills via check can be slow and cumbersome. Setting up your recurring payments — such as your mortgage, life insurance, health insurance, electric bill, cable bill, garbage service, city services, credit cards, and so on — on an automated process is easy. You certainly need to review the bills each month to ensure you have the funds necessary to pay them, but you schedule a date for the bills to be paid and voila … bills are automatically paid and you've saved time.

You can also set up a specific amount to transfer to your savings or investment accounts each month. The process of forced savings creates more freedom and time for you later in life. The vast majority of people don't retire well off. It's not because they failed to make enough money; they've simply failed to save any of it. The world is filled with stories of lower-income people who gave large sums of money away at their death. The reason wasn't because of their vast earned income. It was due to them having a savings system. Any online banking system allows you to be more structured in your savings.

In evaluating what you can automate, ask yourself these questions:

Look around and see if there's a software program or small application that can make your life easier by doing tasks for you, or simply remind you that a task needs to be accomplished. Like yours, my to-do list each day is pretty long. If I can cut down on some tasks through automation, or give myself automated reminders on my computer or smartphone calendar, I reduce my unwieldy to-do list each day.

Communicating Effectively through Technology

In the last ten years, communication options have exploded far beyond Mr. Bell's exclamation to Mr. Watson, “Come here, I want to see you.” That first telephone message took place in 1876; Mr. Bell would have never imagined the amazing devices available today that are the basis for most of communication. But what's the best medium for you? Do you want to talk? Send text messages? Create and send video? Use technology to talk in real time plus see the person with whom you're chatting? Check and respond to email? You need to determine what you want to do before you can choose your medium. And the amazing thing is that all of these communication options can be performed on everything from a desktop computer down to your smartphone.

You hold more computing power in your smartphone than what it took to get astronauts to the moon and back!

Social media options to consider

The world communicates via social media. To not be part of the social media revolution is to get left out of the communication loop with your friends and family. Facebook is a primary part of most people's days and lives (see Chapter 11). If you want to be entertained or informed, turn to YouTube for videos. For breaking news, many people are using Twitter (see Chapter 12). For photo and video sharing, Instagram is an up-and-comer.

Facebook has reached 665 million users with the fastest-growing age group being the 45-to-54 age demographic. And there are now over 500 million registered Twitter accounts. The fastest growing age demographic for this social media site includes 55- to 64-year-olds. Their use is up a whopping 79 percent in the last year.

Which social media options you choose depend on your needs. If your family is spread over many locations, states, or countries, use Facebook to keep them informed and communicate.

For pre-teens and teens, Instagram seems to be the favorite social media tool. That doesn't mean it can't be used by others, however. Instagram can be connected to many of your other social media platforms. It posts to my Facebook page, as an example.

As a parent I need to brush up on my Instagram because Wesley has hit the teen years in the last few months. He and his friends communicate frequently through Instagram. If I want to be an informed parent, it requires my technology skills in social media to be ever improving.

Using FaceTime, Skype, and other video communication systems

Because communication is more effective when you can see facial features and expressions through a video feed, I am in love with video communication technology. When FaceTime was announced by Steve Jobs midway in 2010, it changed the world of video communication forever. FaceTime has made communicating among the family of iPhone users a snap. As someone who has logged 200,000 air miles over the years, I know I can see and communicate with my family and children as easily as making a phone call. Although Skype was an option before FaceTime (that is, for anyone with a webcam or phone camera), it was less responsive and more cumbersome to use on the fly (no pun intended). If you're accustomed to a PC, then Skype is a good option. It enables you to make calls internationally, engage in video communication, and even instant message.

In my office at Sales Champions we use Skype's instant message service among our office staff, sales staff, coaches, and trainers. This creates a flow of communication instantly without geographic barriers. Skype has created apps for both Android and Apple systems so you can launch Skype right out of your smartphone, tablet, or phablet, as well as laptop or desktop. You can use Skype on more devices than you can FaceTime, because FaceTime is an Apple-specific product. Because most new laptops and monitors come with webcams, Skype has made up much of the ground that made FaceTime so revolutionary.

Engaging through online meeting platforms

I believe the future of business communication, sales, and training is online meeting platforms. The skill of delivery, sales, company trainings, and education is through online delivery. These time-saving options eliminate the need for travel, which is time consuming and a stress for the traveler. Now, meeting participants can attend from their home office, a hotel room, or even in their jammies from their living room.

The flexibility of delivery and design is amazing in these systems as well. If I'm asked a question by an attendee, I can easily pull a related series of PowerPoint slides, Word files, and other materials and begin speaking while sharing the slides. I can even upload materials and files for the attendees to review now or later. The ability to respond to the needs of employees, customers, and clients is astonishing.

The industry leaders in online meetings are GoToMeeting, WebEx, Adobe Connect, and Join.me. There are other companies that are in the online meeting environment, but these are the heavyweights. Each has varying features and costs, which makes selecting the right one for you one of the most challenging decisions. Each one has different enterprise levels as well as allowed participant numbers.

I have personally conducted more than 4,000 online meetings and trainings in the last seven years. My company has conducted more than 6,500 sessions in that period of time, as well. We are the experts in online training and education. WebEx is the industry leader in online meeting software, if you want all the bells and whistles. It has been around the longest and offers a number of versions of its system. Meeting participants need to download the WebEx software before the meeting, and they can participate on a computer, laptop, tablet, or any mobile device. If possible, use voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP) for audio.

WebEx offers the option of a video feed from your web camera as well as any participant's web camera. You can have meeting sizes from one person to hundreds of people at a time. As the host or presenter you can assign privileges to participants where they can chat, type on the screen, and use a highlighter to create interactivity. You can also share files that meeting participants can download directly from your computer or from a Dropbox account.

The participants can use their computer with or without a headset. They have the option to raise their hand and ask a question audibly, just as with a normal in-person meeting or training event. You have the option to share video, pictures, PowerPoint slides, or even whatever is on your computer screen. This allows you to have preplanned or off-the-cuff meetings and presentations. The options are limitless.

GoToMeeting has similar features to WebEx. The layout and design revolves around a panel that allows you to move it to the right- or left-hand side of the screen, unlike WebEx, which has the participant and host panels only on the right. You can limit what the participants can see, comment on, or use as with most online meeting software. All participants need to download software before they can participate.

GoToMeeting is used heavily in the GoToWebinar version. Webinars are larger educational meetings that can accommodate hundreds to thousands of people. GoToWebinar is frequently used as a free educational webinar session on a topic or problem. At the end, usually the presenter offers more complete or comprehensive training or solution for a fee. There are literally thousands of webinars conducted each day by experts to help people and also sell their services to the attendees without leaving the comfy confines of the home or office. GoToWebinar is the most-used online meeting software in this niche. The GoToWebinar software allows you to manage signups, send them reminders, create links for the sessions, deliver pre-webinar materials, and drop the scheduled webinar into their Outlook calendar, Google calendar, or customer relation management (CRM) system easily. You can also record the webinar to make it available to people that attended or couldn't make it as well. You can post the link on your Facebook page or host the recorded session on your website or YouTube.

Some experts develop a library of webinars that they market to and replay over and over again. So when they are on the beach in Bora Bora, their webinar is playing to a packed house on GoToWebinar. That's the definition of time savings and leverage! The other online meeting platforms like Zoom, Adobe Connect, and Join.me have some similar features and amenities as do GoToMeeting and Web.ex. I will share with you a few differences that might make them a better solution for you.

Join.me is the simplest of all the online meeting platforms. It doesn't require the participant to download any software. The removal of this step for the low-technology-minded user can be a big help, because all they have to do is click on a link and they are in your meeting. It can be the best avenue for a quick meeting. Join.me also has a free version so you can easily test and try without making a financial investment. Your only option with Join.me is to share your screen, unlike GoToMeeting or WebEx, which can have a cleaner look rather than a row of all the programs you have open across the bottom of your screen in Join.me. There is no video capability or audio in the free version of Join.me, and you need to be on a phone line to have audio communication. You use your cell phone or other phone line to verbally communicate.

This can be a challenge when you have more than one person with whom you are meeting. It requires conferencing people on your phone system or using a teleconferencing service. Using Join.me with a service like Free Conference Calls.com for the audio means you can have zero costs to host and hold meetings.

Adobe Connect is an up-and-coming online meeting platform. It has many of the same services — from screen and file sharing, video, recording, and participant engagement. The biggest difference between Adobe Connect and the rest is you can design the visual of your layout. You can put the video feed, PowerPoint slides, chat panel, and so on anywhere and in any size on the screen. This allows you to create different looks and experiences for different types of trainings and meetings.

Online meetings are the wave of the present and future. It's important to be able to master the delivery in whatever software you are using to communicate. Five years from now, most people and companies will say, “I wish we had been on the cutting edge with online meetings.”

Organizational Technology Tools

Everyone seems to be an expert these days with something to share or sell the masses. The information marketing world is exploding with podcasts, e-books, white papers, videos, e-courses, and webinars. Being able to organize all this information with the ability to retrieve it, use it, and implement it can be a full-time job.

Whether it's pictures of your kids and family, a research paper that you wrote years ago but now need to reference, or a long-lost relative's obituary, we all need a system and set of tools to store and grab the information we need.

Building your system to find what you need fast

My first suggestion for you is to separate your personal retrieval system from your business. For example, because I write books, white papers, articles and blogs, create videos, training courses, podcasts, and many other forms of content, I need to retrieve work quickly so I can update, refresh, and rebrand it. I personally use Evernote, which I describe at the end of this chapter in the “Creating a Digital Brain with Evernote” section.

And then there's the organization app called Alfred, named after Batman's handy butler that was always ready to assist the caped crusader. This app saves you a lot of time when you need to search your local hard drive. It can even review your bookmarks and the web for information that you need. You can create your own themes in colors and font sizes to match how you learn and retrieve.

Because you work in the world of many accounts and passwords, rather than having a piece of paper with all your accounts, user names, and passwords, use LastPass. Your personal identity and passwords are something you never want to fall into enemy's hands. The only solution for most people is to use the same user name and password on all accounts. That is not safe either. The time it takes to clear your name when you're hacked is enormous. LastPass allows you to safely share passwords with others that might need access to your information.

If you're serving as project manager and leading people and projects, you might try SweetProcess. This app is a work-flow documentation program that enables you to delegate more effectively. SweetProcess emails you to create procedures, and share and track results all in one place.

Protecting your technology from catastrophe

Accidents can and do happen, especially with technology. Backing up work files and information is imperative today. Although many still perform regular backups, the need for cloud-based or offsite types of backup systems have never been more important.

There are numerous services that offer backup capability, such as Carbonite, Backblaze, or CrashPlan. My personal favorite is CrashPlan because it is easy. It also offers a forever free option, or you can upgrade for a small fee of $5 a month for individual users or about $10 a month for a family with multiple users (your data is backed up continually in real time with an upgraded account). Most people have a limited backup-plan strategy. It's not a matter of if your hard drive crashes; it's only a matter of when. When it happens, whether you lose one file or hundreds, it still causes problems.

Clouding, Dropboxing, and storing your stuff

The ability to use cloud or have documents, data, and information available on any device creates time efficiency. In cloud computing you share computing resources rather than store documents, software, data, and files on a local server or single server and system. Putting something in the cloud refers to Internet-based storage and commuting. Transferring data from your laptop, tablet, phone, and desktop is truly a “has been” action. Selecting cloud-based software and apps is the only way to go.

If you select a CRM solution for your business, using cloud-based technology is a must. The remote servers of the past don't offer the flexibility needed today. The cloud provides safety in case of lost data or files and provides access to all people and devices. It promotes sharing of information between departments and people.

Dropbox is the most-used cloud document sharing software for both business and personal use. No need to email large files anymore when you can give people access to specific folders and files. Dropbox provides strong encryption so your private business or personal files remain protected. It's easy to use, so you can set up files and folders similar to a Windows-based filing system. You can use over 300,000 apps that connect to Dropbox, enabling you to increase your productivity from Microsoft Office to AutoCAD.

For those who travel, Dropbox allows you to access your presentations, documents, and PowerPoints from the road. If you need to make adjustments and update when on the road, you can easily do that and store them in Dropbox.

DocuSign is another must-have time-saving and storage program. The ability to replicate and edit a standardized agreement can save hours of work. The faster you can deliver an agreement of the terms and conditions of service, the less likely the prospect could change their mind, have second thoughts, or your competitor outflank you. People want easy and faster service, and DocuSign fits both of those to a T. It stores all your contracts, but the best feature is how quickly clients receive them and can approve them with a few clicks of their mouse. No more printing the document, signing the document, then scanning it back into a computer to email back to the sender. It also tracks when they received the document, and when they opened it as well as completed and signed it.

Creating a Digital Brain with Evernote

Evernote can help you create a paperless environment in your office or home. You can store almost anything in it — recipes, articles, web clippings, documents, pictures, Kindle notes, meeting notes, and so much more.

Getting the most out of Evernote requires some planning and execution. You first need to set up your system (computer, tablet, and so on) to work with Evernote notebooks for your collected and stored notes. You can have only one notebook, but that would be like having one large filing cabinet that you dump everything in without labeling. Use notebooks for the different areas in your life. You can have a notebook for business files, personal stuff, travel, family, and financial. These are some of the notebooks you might consider.

You then create stacks. Think of these as a grouping or collection of notebooks. Your work stack could be broken down by client, area of responsibility, or specific project. For example, the stacks for me in my personal notebook are Wesley, Annabelle, and Joan, along with goals, books I want to read … just to name a few.

The final sorting method uses tags. These are attributes that you attach to an individual note that you create. Evernote gives you the ability to view all notes and documents based on the tags. They can be notes in different notebooks or stacks, but because of the tag you can find them easily.

Getting your notes, ideas, and thoughts into Evernote

There are a number of ways to transfer what you want into Evernote; you create a note and start to type your thoughts, ideas, or observations. You can attend a meeting, training, or class and type your notes directly in. Because cell phones are never far away, you can photograph anything and store it in Evernote. That dress you tried on but were not quite sure about buying it; you wanted to think about it for a day or two. Evernote indexes all the text from your picture so it's easy to recall it and decide that you deserve that dress after all. (Finish this chapter before going back to the store for it, though.)

You can forward any email to your Evernote address, and the email will show up in your default notebook in a matter of seconds. This allows you to tag it, then place it in the correct stack for storage. You can use your scanner to scan into Evernote for storage. You might go the paperless route once you master Evernote (although the rest of the world may not follow suit). You can send an invoice, contract, Christmas card, or invitation directly into Evernote from your scanner.

One of the coolest ways to use Evernote is with social media posts, blog posts, web pages, and online images. You can clip the online article you want to save using the Evernote extension for Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox, to name a few search engines. You can then decide in which notebook you want to place an online story or picture, and attach a tag for easy finding. Evernote extensions are available for almost all Internet browsers.

Remembering and finding things you need

It's so easy to find your stored notes in Evernote that it doesn't even include training on this in its Getting Started Guide. There are three basic ways to find your notes easily.

If you click on your notebook or your tags, you can look for what you want. The notebook and tags feature is set up on the left-side toolbar for easy access. This way is easiest when you have a limited number of notebooks, stacks, or tags. As you use Evernote more and continue to expand your organizational strategy, you might have to move onto another method.

Using the Evernote Search box is similar to using any search engine. You merely type into the search box what you want to find, and it pulls up everything matching your command. You can limit the search results by clicking on a notebook or tag first. This shows only the search results within the notebook or tag.

If you wanted to search all files that contained references to salt and pepper, you would type “salt pepper.” What Evernote would do is pull up any notes that had both “salt” and “pepper” in them. This is considered an “and” search. If you type “Any: salt pepper” into the search, this sets up an “or” search and you get back any note that had “salt” or “pepper” in it. By omitting the “any,” the default was an “and” search.

You can search tags with Evernote by using the Tag: command. This creates a search of all the tags that you type in after the semicolon. For example, you could put in “Tag: success tools,” and Evernote would bring up notes or saved items that are tagged under success tools. You can even search for things you haven't tagged simply by using the minus sign before “tag” (such as -tag:dogs).

Evernote also enables you to save often-used searches. After you create a search that you know you'll use again, you can create a saved search and reuse it whenever you like. After you create your search, you need to get into the habit of asking yourself, “Would I use this search again?”