How To Get More Done With Online Tools

What could you do with 20% increase in available time? Would you get more done? Could you be more creative and invent more useful resources for your business and customers? I am going to show you how I did it. You might be surprised at the solution …

Over the last few days I have been concentrating on trying to make better use of my time. I turned to online tools to make my work more productive. I figured with a better set of services, along with more automation, I could achieve a more streamlined workflow.

My first idea was to monitor my daily activities to see what areas could be prioritized. As I analyzed my day I came to a startling realization. The first job jumped out at me. I knew where I had to start.

Rather than finding new tools and websites to help me get more done, I would initially find my greatest gains by cutting back on them!

Just see if this pattern of internet usage is familiar to you …

… of course the list goes on.

Just by cutting down on the trivial, batching up the less important, and prioritizing the vital, I saved a good few hours out of my day.

It’s easy in retrospect how much time I was wasting with these time-leaches and how they could be worked into my work flow as a benefit.

After rearranging my day so that I get my work done before even looking in on the leisure stuff, I further trimmed down the irrelevant by culling contacts from my messaging systems, buddy lists, followers, “friends” and network. Anyone who I really didn’t need to keep track of or talk to were gone. The same with my RSS feeds, if they are not essential I hit delete.

When I embarked on this productivity drive I thought I would be telling you about all the wonderful Web2.0 services I had discovered. In fact my advice is to cut out the unessential distractions, you might find your day is more effective with fewer web services in your life than more!

Have you managed to save time in your day? Let us know how in the comments …

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

4 Responses to “How To Get More Done With Online Tools”

  1. Matt Keegan on August 23rd, 2007 10:06 pm

    Good points, all. Many of the tools we use are time wasters, so adding tools can only worsen the situation. I never went the Twitter route and RSS feeds are not of interest to me. Then again, StumbleUpon is cool and worth spending using on a daily basis.

  2. Chris Garrett on August 25th, 2007 12:29 pm

    I like SU as a way of finding new sites, but I can spend way too much time with it :) Twitter I now use as a treat because at one time I had the desktop app open and tweeting at me every five minutes – not good for concentration!

  3. Facebook: Productivity Boost or Bane? : Codswallop on September 4th, 2007 12:50 pm

    [...] readers will have seen how I saved a big percentage of time by cutting out unnecessary distractions. One area I am struggling with though is keeping up with my contacts. Actually, to be more [...]

  4. Stop Drinking from the Fire Hose : Codswallop on October 11th, 2007 1:18 pm

    [...] via Remarkablogger)I have spoken about pulling back from time leaching activities, but my recent enforced absence from the internetstubes made me truly realize how much time wasting [...]

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