Welcome back to the Let’s Grow Leaders Frontline Festival. This month’s festival gives tips about favorite tools and technology. Thanks to Joy and Tom Guthrie of Vizwerx Group for the great pic and to all our contributors!
Next month’s Frontline Festival is all about how to take a complete break from work (i.e. for vacation.) There are two ways to participate…either submit a blog post on the topic, or your 1-2 sentence answer to the question. Click here to participate! Now on to our topic for June:
What tools do you use to stay productive?
Beth Beutler of H.O.P.E. Unlimited has used the task/recurring task functionality in Microsoft Outlook for many years. She loves how she can set up task reminders to pop up on the appropriate days, can easily change dates to defer tasks, can batch tasks into categories, and can drag an email into task format (this helps keep her in-box clean too.) She also uses Google reminders for the occasional on-the-fly “thing to remember” to pop up at a designated time. Follow Beth
Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership has been tracking his productivity for around fifty years now. Here’s what has worked for him consistently over that half century. Follow Wally.
Michelle Cubas, CPCC, ACC, of Positive Potentials, LLC shares that one of her stress saving tools is Evernote. “This application has a free component and I use it daily. How does it serve me? It puts all my information in one place, easily labeled and organized so I can find it! Follow Michelle.
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.
~ Paul J. Meyer
For David Dye of Trailblaze Evernote is the first app he installs on a new phone, tablet, or computer. It is an extension of his brain! The other “tool” that helps stay productive: exercise–preferably a good hike in nature. He’s always more productive afterwards. Follow David.
Chris Edmonds of Driving Results through Culture shares: The apps I use daily are proven tools that maintain my sanity and enable promotion of my concepts. They include Nozbe (a cloud-based brilliant task manager), Evernote (a cloud-based “memory enhancer” – for notes, photos, and more), Tweet Jukebox (a terrific quote scheduler that will soon add Facebook and LinkedIn to Twitter posting), Sucuri (website firewall and anti-malware), WPTwin (backs up and restores my various WordPress sites), and SurfEasy (a private VPN that enables safe WiFi use, even in countries where social media is “blocked”!) Here’s a link to learn more about these and other tools I depend on. Follow Chris
Ariana Friedlander of Rosabella Consulting recommends starting your day by identifying your Big 5 tasks for the day and keep them front and center. These are the things you need to check off the proverbial list in order to fall asleep knowing you got the important stuff done. Follow Ariana.
I think I have over 60 apps on my iPhone. I use six.
~ Gordon Smith
As an entrepreneur with many projects on the go, Patrick Hankinson of Hello Focus grew frustrated with current tools on the market, finding that none of them really kept his team focused, becoming harder to manage as the team grew. He followed the adage, “Scratch your own itch” and created Hello Focus. Follow Patrick.
John Hunter of Curious Cat Management Improvement has found that taking advantage of all the great ideas among leadership and management bloggers is very important to his continued productivity and success. He feels would be greatly disadvantaged in doing so without an RSS feed reader. Follow John.
Lisa Kohn from Thoughtful Leaders Blog says, “I’m sure that everyone has wonderful tools, apps, and technology to offer that they use to be more productive, but I’ve got something else entirely that is probably my biggest secret and tool. Quietness and meditation. If I forget to find quiet time, if I forget to slow my mind and breathe, if I forget to spend time in peace and meditation, I am simply not as productive. Or as happy. Follow Lisa.
Boundary setting is really a huge part of time management.
~ Jim Loehr
Jennifer Miller of The People Equation takes the productivity concept of “batching” to the next level with “Theme Days” and explains they can help provide focus and a sense of accomplishment. Follow Jennifer.
Alli Polin of Break the Frame shares: “Two of my favorite apps that help to manage my productivity are 1) Evernote: I keep everything in there and it’s at my fingertips; and 2) I’m also a huge fan of Rescue Time. You can’t change where you spend your time until you know where it goes. It’s an eye opener! Follow Alli.
Becky Robinson of Weaving Influence shares “My team uses Basecamp for every project, and using Basecamp helps us stay focused to deliver what we’ve promised. We can easily track progress, find files, and share helpful information with others. We also use Slack for in-the-moment communication and team building. These two apps are critical to our work success.” Follow Becky.
Each minute is a little thing, and yet, with respect to our personal productivity, to manage the minute is the secret of success.
~ Joseph B. Wirthlin
Shelley Row of Shelley Row Associates recommends an environment that enhances productivity, with visual and auditory stimulus that aligns with getting things done (it may require headphones.) Follow Shelley
Dr. Artika Tyner of the Planting People. Growing Justice Institute finds Hootsuite to be her favorite application, using it to organize her social media life. Follow Artika.
Unless otherwise stated, quotations are sourced from Brainyquote.com.
Thanks so much for this festival and yours principal adhere to create a new generation from the first line supervisors.
Great information and very valuable guidelines / quotes indeed.In a time of crisis and uncertainty, we can achieve our & corporate objectives / targets by the intelligent and prudent use of technologies.
Zafarmanzoor,SR.Executive,Pakistan.