2013 was a great year here at Innovatively Organized and to celebrate we are sharing our ‘best of 2013′ blogs. From useful downloadable checklists to step-by-step processes for increasing productivity, here are our top blogs from the past year:

1. Must Haves On-the-Go: Mobile Professionals Checklist- In February, we shared our Mobile Professionals Checklist to all our readers so that they could be more productive no matter where they work.

2. How to Efficiently Delegate to Your Assistant- Whether you need help from your assistant or a coworker, this article will help you delegate efficiently so you can save yourself time.

3. Essential Productivity Apps Checklist to Keep You Efficient- As a celebration of Small Business Week in June, we compiled a list of our top productivity apps that we recommend to our clients and shared them in this article.

4. 7 Ways Our Team Has Efficient Meetings- We described our step-by-step process of how we at Innovatively Organized hold efficient and productive meetings.

5. 5 Common Bottlenecks in Your Office- Whether it’s the chatty coworker in the cubicle next to you or duplicate documents that make finding the most recent version a headache, most offices deal with numerous productivity killers on a daily basis (sometimes unknowingly). This article helps bring awareness to some of those common bottlenecks.

6. App Recommendation: EchoSign- When a client signs a contract with you, the process of faxing or scanning documents is tedious and makes the negotiation process longer and more stressful for everyone involved. Fortunately, EchoSign allows users to send, sign, track, manage and access documents digitally. Read why we love EchoSign with this post.

7. Staying Productive When Your Self-Employed- When you are your own boss or work from home, there isn’t always someone pressuring you to complete that tedious report and while this can be refreshing for some people, it can also lead to procrastination or added stress because you are fully responsible for your own work load. In this article we provided a few tips we have come up with to help you stay motivated and productive when you’re self-employed.

8. Decide & Delegate During the Holidays- As more and more people in the office start disappearing during the holiday season, it can be stressful for those still left working. We provided a list of questions to go over with your team or coworkers so that everything is handled accordingly.

Our team just received our first Turnstone Buoy and are so excited about it that we have to share the news! This seat is great for the people that don’t like sitting still for too long or tend to distract themselves easily. This seat will make your office tasks more enjoyable as you spin and wobble on the Buoy.

Some of the reasons we love the buoy:

• Height Adjustment - Using a lever you can easily adjust the seat to the height that fits you.
• Mobility - The buoy is light enough to move it around with you and has a handle to carry it.
• Customizable - You can make the buoy your own by choosing the color of the cap, main body, and base. We decided on a teal, white and brown buoy to match our company colors!
• Saves Space - This seat takes up less space and doesn’t roll around like an exercise ball does. It also looks better in an office than an exercise ball.

Think the Buoy is something you’d enjoy in your office? Check out their website and order one today! 

To continue celebrating Small Business Week, we have compiled a checklist of productivity apps that we often recommend to clients.  For all of you fellow small business owners and entrepreneurs, these apps can help keep your to-do list in sync, your calendar at hand, and your projects organized.  Download our FREE copy of your Essential Productivity Apps Checklist and start using them now!

As a Productivity Consultant with Innovatively Organized, I am constantly on-the-go. Each week I meet with my clients at their various locations throughout the greater Seattle area, which is one of the aspects I enjoy about my job – the variety. However, as a mobile professional I’ve come up with ‘my way’ to be productive on-the-go. I may work from my home office one day, then be on the road and in between appointments the next.  A typical day in my life usually involves…..

Mobile Devices

I often find myself switching between my devices depending on my location and what I need to do. I have a 15” laptop, which is great to work on from the office or when I’m sitting in a coffee shop, but there are times when I’m preparing for an appointment and I’m in my car, so I call in the iPad (see screenshot at left)! I can review client session notes on Dropbox, update documents with Docs To Go, or read and respond to emails (I use a Bluetooth keyboard when I am sending longer emails; for me it’s much quicker than typing on the iPad itself.) My Android phone completes the productivity trifecta. In addition to being able to read and reply to emails from my Droid, I often touch base with the Innovatively Organized team between appointments to check in or debrief about a project. We set up a conference call and get a lot accomplished from the road!

Microsoft Exchange Server

Our company email is on a Microsoft Exchange Server, which allows me to read my email on my phone, iPad, laptop, or via the web and keep it synced. I never have to worry about emails incorrectly showing up as read or unread (and therefore I avoid the time wasted trying to figure out if I’ve read or responded to a message). I’m also confident that when I move an email to a folder, it syncs across devices. Knowing my email is synced no matter where I view it from makes my work life MUCH easier!

Traffic App

I use my WSDOT Traffic App a lot since I travel to meet with clients all around the city.  It saves me a lot of valuable time and helps me avoid traffic by finding alternate routes when needed. There are similar apps available in other cities. If you’re on the road a lot, it’s worth finding a good traffic app. Your time is valuable – if you can find a way to save it, you should!

Want to learn more about Jackie Chapman? Read her bio here or connect with her on LinkedIn.

One of our favorite task management product recommendations is the Action Method Journals since they effortlessly turn your to-do list into actionable tasks.  Their system helps you focus on your priorities and requirements, instead of just making a running list of back-burner ideas. It is especially beneficial for visual people or creative types.

So we were excited to test the new suite of Action Method Online tools—a great opportunity to continue using the Action Method system while going paperless.  Action Method Online even syncs with your mobile devices—allowing you to work more efficiently on-the-go.  Here are a few of our favorite things about Action Method:

• It’s great for project management and task management, especially for visual people
• Tasks are displayed like sticky notes, to help you organize and prioritize them
• You can use 3 colors (blue, orange, and gray), which allows you to color-code your tasks
• Easily delegate tasks and monitor their progress (we also recommend changing the color of the task to denote that it has been delegated)
• You can create your to-do list for the day by adding items to your “Focus Area”
• If you like to use a combination of paper and electronic tools, the Action Method Journals match their color scheme, offering continuity to your task management systems

The Action Method Online is available online, as well as with iPhones, iPads, and Androids.  You can try the introductory system for free; let us know your thoughts!

How many pages of apps do you you currently have on your phone? What percentage of those apps do you actually use? If you have more than 3 pages, chances are that you have more apps than you use on a regular basis.

Many of us our guilty of a cluttered phone.  We hear about a trendy new app, decide to test it, but we eventually stop using it.  To help reduce some of the digital clutter on your phone, we suggest deleting five apps that you don’t need.  Not only will it help clear space on your device, it will save you time in the long run because you won’t have to scroll through unused apps that are cluttering your screen.

Got five minutes to spare? Move the apps you use most frequently to your home screen for easy access.

For more tips to organize your phone, try our 8 Tips to Declutter Your Phone and especially this one time management tip you can implement today.

Odds are you no longer have a Rolodex on your desk.  Or if you do, it’s most likely a little dusty and no longer relevant because we’ve become an increasingly mobile society. If you’re looking for a new contact management system to replace your Rolodex, here are some qualities that a modern day Rolodex should have:

Available on multiple devices

Back in the day, before cell phones and tablets and laptops, you only needed one place to keep all of your contacts.  Today, we have a wider variety of tools and devices to hold this information, meaning we have a different set of needs now.  Your contacts need to be available on all your devices, including your cell phone, tablet, laptop, etc.  It’s important to sync your mobile devices to ensure access to your contacts anytime.

Ability to sort into categories

In an effort to categorize their contacts, people used to put colored stickers on their Rolodex cards.  This type of categorization is still helpful today.  To help you stay organized, categorize your contacts (e.g. clients, vendors, networking contacts, etc.).

Track communications

Remember writing notes on the back of your Rolodex cards to note the last time you contacted someone?  Today’s modern Rolodex should also track when you last contacted someone.  Add a category field to make a note of each time you follow-up with a contact or keep track of it in the notes section.

Capture information

People also used to jot notes on the back of Rolodex cards so they could add a personal touch next time they called (for example, “Ask how their recent vacation was”).  Your modern day Rolodex should be able to capture conversation starters to add a personal touch.

There are so many options for storing your contacts depending on your needs.  For keeping track of personal contacts, iCloud is a great option for Mac users.  For a more robust solution, consider switching to a CRM system.  Check out our Contact Management Consulting to give your company or personal contact management system a facelift.

There are countless ways to waste small pockets of time throughout your day. A few minutes here and a few minutes there can add up quickly! However, for actions you repeat frequently, there are some easy fixes to help you save time. Here is a list of ten ways you may be wasting time and how you can fix the problem:

1. Not having enough chargers: If you’re constantly moving a cell phone or laptop charger from one location to another and searching for new outlets, we suggest purchasing multiple chargers.  You can keep one at home, in the office, in your car, or anywhere else you frequently use them.
2. Driving and parking: Rather than lose chunks of time every day driving to clients or sites, schedule meetings on the same day.  You can also download a traffic app to help your commute run smoothly, like Seattle Traffic Mobile or Beat the Traffic.
3. Searching through your phone: It’s a waste of time to constantly dig through your phone in order to find frequent contacts or apps. Help yourself out by adding specific contacts into your “Favorites” screen and moving your most-used apps to your home screen.
4. Reacting to each phone notification: Yes, we all love to see a text message or social media notification come through.  However, this distraction slows productivity and focus.  We suggest putting it on silent or tucking it away in a desk drawer to help you focus on the task at hand.
5. Trying to remember the genius idea you know you came up with but didn’t have a place to capture it: Ideas come to us while we’re in the car, while we’re getting ready, or while we’re commuting on the bus.  Try solutions like the Dragon Dictation app, a waterproof notepad for your shower, or a virtual notebook for your mobile devices.  Maybe even get a virtual assistant and call them when you have an idea; just make sure to schedule time to process theses ideas later.
6. Holding onto tasks because it’s too much effort to explain and delegate: Delegating tasks is a great way to save time.  We can’t always do everything ourselves and sometimes we become a bottleneck to the team by holding tasks up. Here are a few additional tips to help you delegate.
7. Not protecting your time: Letting everyone else have your time between 9 am to 5 pm means your to-do list doesn’t get touched until after hours.  Block off times that you can specifically work on your tasks. Think of it as scheduling an appointment with yourself and think twice before you reschedule the appointment.
8. Meetings, meetings, meetings: Meetings that drag on, get off topic, or have no agenda take everyone’s time.  Make sure your meetings have a schedule and a timekeeper to keep it on track.  You can also try cutting down to just 45-minute meetings.
9. Responding to each email that comes in: It’s almost impossible to divert your eyes from the bottom of the screen when an Outlook email notification pops up.  Try turning these notifications off and then establish consistent times in your day to respond to emails in batches.
10. Deleting the same spam emails you never read: If you signed up for an email newsletter but never read it, then take the time to unsubscribe.  It may take a minute, but it saves the time spent deleting them each day.

Which of these time-wasters are you going to fix?  Let us know in the comments!

Throughout this three-part spring cleaning series, you have learned how to clean out Microsoft Outlook and how to organize your physical mail (life should already be feeling less stressful).  For the final part of our series, we’re focusing on areas that tend to get cluttered when you’re a busy professional on-the-go.

In order to stay organized and productive throughout your busy days transitioning from one meeting to another, here are 3 tips to help you spring clean your car, mobile devices, and more:

 1. Clean out your car

Go through all of the clutter in your middle console, glove box, back seats, and trunk.  In between your meetings and work, your car is bound to get a little disorganized. Restock your car with supplies you use frequently, like car chargers, notepads, pens, and wet wipes. To help you stay productive on-the-go, add grocery bags and create a mobile desk to sit in your passenger seat.  And if your car could really use some TLC, maybe it’s time to treat yourself to a car detail.

 2. Clean up your mobile devices

Delete the apps you no longer use (or that game you played for one day), the productivity apps you tried but didn’t like, etc. Wipe down your screens to kill the germs that have accumulated. Scroll through your contacts to delete duplicate entries. Don’t forget to delete the photos you no longer need.

 3. Clean out your purse, briefcase, or tote

No matter what your bag of choice is, it can quickly become a dumping ground full of old business cards, meeting notes, etc.  Clean out your bag, but make sure you process the items you remove (maybe adding a task to your to-do list, adding new contacts to your CRM, or scanning meeting notes).

We hope you are feeling more focused and less cluttered now after our Spring Cleaning series!  Remember to add time to your calendar every month or every quarter to help you clear out clutter consistently, not just in the spring.

And be sure to sign up for our newsletter for monthly tips like this to keep you track.

After Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s announcement last summer about a new Office, Microsoft has finally released Office 365 Home Premium. From a productivity standpoint, we are excited that it has been modified for better use with smartphones and tablets. As Microsoft now says, “One Office. Five Devices.”

Here is a quick look at what’s new in Office 365 Home Premium:

So what else is new?

• You can purchase the program as a subscription (with automatic software updates so you always have the latest version) or as a standalone version (purchasing each new version as it is released).
• You can install Office 365 Home Premium onto five different devices with a single subscription, each with its own customizable experience that is tied to each Microsoft account.
• All of your work is backed up on Microsoft’s SkyDrive in the cloud, so you can access your information anywhere.  7 GB of space is already included on SkyDrive for free, but with the Office 365 subscription, you receive an additional 20 GB.
• Now you have the option to hide the ribbon in applications or keep it visible.

Keep in mind:

• Office 2013 runs on Windows 8 and Windows 7, but is not available on earlier versions of Windows.
• The software is not compatible with iPhones, iPads, or Android devices.
• The Home version is available now, but the Business version doesn’t come out until the end of February.

We are excited to continue trying the new software and will let you know when we have a more in depth review to share.  What are your thoughts on Office 365?