Another Time Management Tip – Email can be Time-Wasters

As professional virtual assistants, and as small business owners, we know that we are no longer employees. But sometimes we have a tendency to continue to work as employees by doing things that are time-wasters. As employees we are expected to stop what we’re doing and respond to more immediate things throughout the day. Now that we’re business owners, we determine our priorities throughout the day. But one of the biggest culprits seems to be how we deal with email.

Email is such a wonderful tool. But it can be such a time-waster also. We have a tendency to leave our mail programs open throughout the day so that we see each email as it comes in. Then we have the tendency to stop what we’re doing, read the email, and of course, reply to it. By the time we get back to what we’re doing, we’ve wasted a good 10-15 minutes. Then we have to reprogram our mind to go back to what it was concentrating on when we broke that concentration.

Some helpful tips I’ve run across lately are:

• Don’t get your email program open all the time. A good rule of thumb is to check it first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon.
• Don’t set a reminder notification – whether that be a popup window or an envelope icon in the bottom of your screen. This way you won’t be tempted to go see what’s come in every time a reminder comes up.
• Let people know that you will be responding to emails twice a day, no more, no less. This helps with any confusion with client communication.
• Schedule times to read and reply to emails. If it’s twice a day, set aside 30 minutes twice a day on your calendar to do read and reply to emails. Put it in your calendar just like an appointment. Don’t disregard it. Let it become habit.

If you try these tips, you will be amazed at how much time you’ll save each day. That’s extra time you can spend marketing your business, writing to prospective clients, narrowing your target market, updating your To-Do lists, all sorts of things. Let me know how it goes for you.

Vickie

AirSet – A Survival Kit for Busy People

If you have been looking for a way to organize your home, your business, your life – look no further than AirSet (www.airset.com).

I have been using AirSet now for about three months and it is an amazing program! AirSet is a free, open source program that allows you to share calendars, contacts, files and lists with your team; coordinate work & home from one place and can sync with Microsoft Outlook, Palm or your mobile phone. Here’s a little information about each component of AirSet.

Calendar – You can add as many “groups” as you wish and color-code them. These could include Personal, Business, Family, Soccer, Church, etc. You are also able to share these with others who you specify as members of each group. It allows single events and recurring events and you can set two separate reminders for each event. You can share the calendar by either emailing it to the members or they can just log in on their own computer and see the calendars. You can set preferences as to who can make changes and updates. You can choose to view the calendar in Daily view, Weekly view, Monthly view, Yearly view or Organizer view. You can also set it up to send your daily Organizer to your email each morning so you can see at a glance all appointments and To-Dos and better prepare for your day.

To-Do Lists – You can make To-Do Lists for each group. You can set up tasks for each of your projects and set due dates, status, priorities, notes and even sort to your own preference.

Contacts – These too can be sorted into groups and color-coded. There are fields for contact info, special info, email addresses and they can be set for certain categories.

Blog – You can add a blog to keep the members informed of project updates and changes. Or maybe you just want to keep your soccer players up-to-date on who’s headed for the play-offs. You decide what you’d like on your blog and who can view it.

Links – There’s a place to add all your favorite links, whether they be personal or business.

Sync – All of this information can be shared, emailed or synced with Microsoft Outlook, Palm and your mobile phone (for a small monthly fee).

This is an amazing, free program. It is simple enough for the novice user but has all the bells and whistles needed for large businesses. I would definitely recommend this software for your organizing needs.

 

Vickie