Time Saving Shortcuts from the “One Click Wonder”

Sometimes it is all too easy to get bogged down by the slowness of your computer, tasks that you only need do for 10 minutes stretching out into 60 minutes and beyond (like answering emails for your online business), but there are some short cuts and hints that can make these tasks almost become seamless.

(1)   Create delicious bookmark account (I learned this one from Rich Schefren), that loads up as your home page.  On it you place links to the normal places that you visit on the net, a day to day list of tasks that you have planned for the next week and links to any resources that you might need.  You can just point and click, rather than type or find URLs you might need for that day’s work. Plus you can save and bookmark places that you need to remember, and then tag them with a category so that you can find them quickly. This can actually save up to 30 minutes a day!

(2)   When answering emails, do you often find that you are typing out the same thing over and over?  Well a way to get around this is to create and save email signatures or templates for each of the replies that you find yourself typing in over and over again. I have dozens of entire e-mail signatures that I use on a normal basis.

(3)   Speaking of e-mail—let me show you a sure-fire way to eliminate SPAM and automatically filter all of your e-mails. I recommend gmail, and for everyone having 3 different e-mail addresses—

a.       Private e-mail address—used for family and close friends

b.      Business e-mail address—used for everything related to your business

c.       Public e-mail address—for opt-ins, purchases and everything else

I have folders, rules and alerts set up with my gmail and outlook as well, but the most important thing that I do when I want a break or a vacation is to not look at any e-mail at all—take a break, you’ll be glad you did. You can take care of it when you get back.

(4)   If anyone knows me, they know I am a huge Mac fan, and I love my iPhone for a lot of reasons. I can look up directions, take pictures, and if you use Jott you can save any thoughts, ideas, or to-do’s that you remember on the go, you can record them. And if you don’t like typing or texting on your phone, you can even use Jott to dictate an email on your iPhone.

(5)   On the same kind of theme as Jott, you can use Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate letters or articles straight to Word.  The latest version even allows you to dictate URLS, so you don’t have to type them in.  You can speak 140 words per minute (probably twice as fast as I can type), so it can be a great time saver.

(6)   Alt-Tab, Control-V, Control-C---if you recognize these shortcuts, you know what I’m talking about—shortcuts! Most software and programs that we use regularly, like Microsoft Word, or something a little more complex have a lot of short cuts.  I would advise you to learn them, because they really can increase your productivity and reduce the need for numerous mouse clicks. I even have a wireless keyboard where I can create my own shortcuts for the programs and actions I do most often.

(7)   Let me ask you a question.  How many minutes a day do you search for passwords, or try to remember passwords for something?  It can be up to 30 minutes a day.  I know I’ve been guilty of it, but Roboform remembers your passwords, so you don’t have to and enters them in automatically when you visit a page that needs a password.  It is also great if you fill in a lot of forms online too. I can’t tell you how much time this small application saves me online—no more forgetting and losing passwords any more for me.

(8)   The speed of an internet connection can be a strain for us all.  If you are experiencing your browser taking forever to load up, whether it is a normal web page or laden with videos, than I’d recommend an Ethernet internet connection, instead of a wireless one.  This one change will make web pages load faster and save you lots of time throughout the day.

(9)   And I saved the best for last—Firefox. I love Firefox because I can use so many add-ons and themes—it truly makes a personalized browsing experience with all the tools you need in one place. Plus, I have seen that browsing is faster and doesn’t crash all the time like internet explorer.

These of course, are only a handful of shortcuts off the top of my head.  I would recommend looking for more and incorporating them into your daily tasks as you lay the groundwork for your seven figure internet business.  There is nothing more satisfying than a really productive day.