As your entrepreneurial life takes off, you'll find your business slowly getting cluttered with repetitive, frustrating (and often time-wasting) tasks. It's all too easy to lose hours a week focusing on things that aren't productive. In this series, Chris reveals 3 killer tools to free your days up so you can have more fun (and time) in your life focusing your energy on profit-producing activities.
Copyright (c) 2008 Chris Zavadowski
As your entrepreneurial life takes off, you'll find your business slowly getting cluttered with repetitive, frustrating (and often time-wasting) tasks. It's all too easy to lose hours a week or hours a DAY focusing on things that aren't productive, instead of pouring your energy into profit-producing activities.
Which means, it's critical you recognize the "time vampires", as Dan Kennedy calls them, and put an end to them once and for all. Kill them as soon as they start cluttering your day.
That's why I'm a *huge* fan of outsourcing these tasks so you can have more fun (and time) in your life. But outsourcing doesn't always have to be to another person - it can mean handing something off to software or 3rd-party systems that handle the heavy lifting.
So with "Organize Your Home Office Day" recently being celebrated, I thought it would be the perfect time to share three of my favorite kick-butt, time-saving tools with you in this three-part series. In part #1, I hit on the ins and outs of Google's awesome free Calendar service. And in part #2, I shared a powerful tool for eliminating 100% of your spam, while still effortlessly receiving all of your legitimate email.
Now it's time to wrap things up...
CLUTTER REDUCER #3: j2 and PhoneTag "1-2 Punch" (j2.com and phonetag.com)
Have you ever found yourself getting totally derailed every time the phone rings? Or have you ever found yourself listening to voicemail messages that last for 5 minutes, only to realize they should have taken 30 seconds?
One of the biggest time wasters entrepreneurs face (along with email) is the PHONE! Just one ring can completely get you off track when you're focused on a project and totally clutter your day with distractions. Not to mention a quick phone call here, and another quick phone call there really adds up over a month...
That's why I recommend you let these two tools do the heavy lifting.
Simply put, j2 is a dedicated business line that's essentially "answer-only". For about $15/month, you can have a phone number in virtually any area code you want. Then you set up the voicemail and presto - it will take all your calls!
Not only will you avoid getting derailed by unexpected calls, but this service will also convert the voicemails to .wav files and email them wherever you want. If you have an assistant, let him handle these calls for you.
Plus, j2 also accepts faxes on your number - forget adding extra papers to your office clutter!
Your faxes instantly get converted over to .pdf and emailed wherever you want. I've been using this service for the last five years and love it!
But...it works best when you pair it up with PhoneTag, formerly SimulScribe. Have your j2 voicemails forwarded right to PhoneTag and you'll never have to listen to messages again! This $10/month service will instantly transcribe your voicemails with amazing accuracy and email them to you (or your staff). In my case, they go right over to my assistant who handles them for me in a jiffy.
Not only will a streamlined system like this help to unclutter your life and office with distractions and paper, but it also helps you to service your customers and clients better!
You can be fully prepared to help someone out, instead of being caught off guard, putting them on hold, and wasting everyone's time. Check these services out - you'll love 'em!
So there you have it. Three ways to unclutter your business life. Give them a try so you can spend less time bogged down in clutter and time-wasters, and more time making money and having fun in your business!
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3 Kick-Butt Tools to Unclutter Your Business Life (Part 2 of 3)
As your entrepreneurial life takes off, you'll find your business slowly getting cluttered with repetitive, frustrating (and often time-wasting) tasks. It's all too easy to lose hours a week focusing on things that aren't productive. In this series, Chris reveals 3 killer tools to free your days up so you can have more fun (and time) in your life focusing your energy on profit-producing activities.
