Apps That Save You In a Pinch

iphone-410311_1280If there is one thing organized people fear, it’s when life doesn’t go as planned. It’s because we make lists and detail everything out in order to leave as little room for error as possible. Sadly, no matter how organized you are, things can still go wrong.

I’ve struggled with this my whole life. But I think there’s a reason I became a TV producer – it has helped me deal with this. When I worked in live TV – I always needed a backup plan…just in case.

Here are some apps you should download for when things go awry you aren’t caught off guard and can immediately move on seamlessly: Read more

Smart Ways to Cut Back on Decision Making

businessI’m sure most of you have your go-to outfits for when you have an important presentation to give or a special dinner to attend.  But what about some other go-to must haves that will make your life easier and more efficient?

Go-to Meeting Spots

I was reading an article in Fast Company magazine where they had a productivity tip from Christina Wallace, the founding director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Bridge Up: STEM Initiative. She encourage readers to have a go-to list of meeting spots in the neighborhoods they frequent most. Read more

Overwhelmed by Your Email? I Can Help!

emailAccording to this study, on average we send and receive 120 emails at work every day. It’s easy to see how some of us can spend an entire day just replying to emails. So if your feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t worry, there are several ways to fight back against the email onslaught.

Here are some tips for tackling your email inbox:

Download Boomerang – This Gmail app can help you get your inbox back down to zero. There are several useful features like being able to schedule emails to send at a later date. I love this feature for when I’m up late getting things done but don’t want my email to get lost overnight.  I just schedule it to go out in the morning and off it goes.  This is also a great feature when you want to write emails right away about a subject but don’t want to send them right away.  Let’s say you want to remind someone about a meeting or a conference.  You can write up the email and schedule it to send the day before the event.  That way you get it off your plate and still get the goal accomplished.

You can also set an incoming email to be returned to the top of your inbox at a more relevant time. So if you get an email you don’t need to deal with until tomorrow, Gmail won’t display it in your inbox, until the next day when it’ll appear right on top for you to tackle.  The service is free for up to 10 scheduled emails but after that there are paid packages.

Read more

3 Steps to Overcoming Your List-Writing Addiction

listsI got an email this week from a regular reader of this blog asking me for some help. She writes:

“What should I do if I’m spending more time writing out lists than crossing off tasks on those lists?”

Given that we make the most lists around holiday season I imagine a few of you might be suffering from this same problem, so I thought I would share my advice with you. Read more

How to Keep Track of Your Addresses

address bookAs much as I love new technology, especially technology that helps increase your productivity – there are a few ways in which I’m still behind the times. For starters, I still have one of those old school style address books. I write addresses in pencil so I can easily update when someone moves.  It works – until I need an address when I’m not at home! This week I’ve been trying to drag myself into the 21st century by looking at online address books.

While looking at all the various sites, I started to realize that at some point I was going to have to sit down and manually enter all my contacts! It’s not a job I’m particularly looking forward to, but that’s one of the necessary evils of modern technology. There are options to auto sync your contacts but I don’t want to import everyone’s email addresses, phone numbers, etc.  I just want their physical addresses in one spot! Read more