Business Card Organization

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English: Photo of two free business cards

English: Photo of two free business cards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am constantly meeting new people, which means I have stacks and stacks of business cards, possibly from fantastic business card providers similar to Metal Kards Business Cards, stuffed in my desk drawer. I’m sure most of you know the feeling. Also, when you’ve got networking events to go to and you know that you forgot your business cards, at that moment, it feels like the worst thing ever! You had one job, but when you think about it, it’s not the end of the world.

CardMunch: This is a free iPhone app that turns your business cards into contacts. All you have to do is take a photo of the business card and it uploads all the info automatically. My favorite part is it also connects you to the person’s Linkedin profile.

Evernote Hello: Whenever you meet someone you can input their info manually or scan their business card in this app. There is also a “hello connect” feature that can connect you to a group of people instantly. Once you do this, the app will bring in any other related info from your calendar, Evernote account, and social media and build a profile. The app also builds a history of all your meet and greets, so you will never forget anyone! You can download this to your computer or your smartphone.

ScanBizCards: Take a photo and scan in any business card, add in notes, forward contacts to colleagues, and assign and create groups. This app can also remind you to follow-up with people and will connect you to Linkedin. You are also able to sync all this info to your other devices! ($1.99)

Time to scan away! How do you keep your contacts organized?

Uncommonly Productive Tasks

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productivity

productivity (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Twenty-four hours is not nearly enough time to accomplish your daily routine while still having time for yourself. If you are not a naturally productive person, it can be hard to get into the habit of allotting your time correctly for all your to-do’s. If you attempt to be a super star of productivity, you can get frustrated and burnt out fast! Trust me – it takes some trial and error to see what works best for your needs.
Recently, I came across a Forbes article that lists 24 ways to be uncommonly productive.

Here are 5 of my favorites:

1. Get up an hour earlier: The early bird gets the worm as the saying goes! I know the snooze button is easy to hit but getting up a little earlier everyday can help you be more productive. Whether it be reading the newspaper and enjoying a cup of coffee, finishing a pitch for work, or doing that last load of laundry, your day starts out with crossing SOMETHING off the to-do list. Check out what the most successful people do before breakfast!

2. Avoid meetings at all costs: Impromptu meetings, unless totally necessary are a waste of time and energy! You will not be prepared and the things you want to accomplish will most likely not get done. Having a schedule of weekly meetings is the best way to go – even during the meetings you should have a set schedule of talking points and goals.

3. Take a proper break – after one or two hours take 10-20 minutes to dance to your fave song, do some push-ups, or get out in the fresh air.  You always need to give yourself a break to refocus your energy. Working on a task for too long can burn you out.  Madonna (another fellow list maker) is great to jam out to when you need a break.

4. Don’t answer your phone: This is also one of my mottos. I NEVER, I repeat never, answer my phone during the work day unless I have scheduled a phone call (I even have a YouTube video dedicated to it). If it’s really important that person will leave a message. You don’t want to get stuck in a conversation for a half hour that is not on top of your priority list or that you’re unprepared to have.

5.  Ask yourself “Is what I’m doing right now getting me closer to what I want to achieve?” I think this would be great to put on a Post-It note on your computer, or as the background of your phone. It’s a simple reminder to keep focused on what really needs to be done throughout the day!

Try out one of these tips this week, and build up to the rest! Rome wasn’t build in a day and neither is a productive lifestyle. Check out the rest of the productivity tips from Forbes here

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Spring Clean Your Digital Life

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Spring

Spring (Photo credit: Charalampos Konstantinidis)

It’s finally here! It is officially Spring! Usually when this day rolls around I am packing up my sweaters and bringing out the tank tops – – but with the chilly weather still here in NYC (UGH) I thought I would get into the mood by spring cleaning my digital life instead.

It seems like a daunting task to go through the TONS of files and folders that have been clogging up your hard drive but never fear I’ve got you covered. Here is a list (of course) of ways to help refresh your desktop, emails, and your social media accounts! Your computer will thank you for the fresh start 😉

Untweep: Get rid of those lingering twitter accounts that you follow with Untweep. This will go through and pick out accounts that haven’t tweeted in x amount of days (you decide, can be 1 day of not tweeting or a whole month) and unfollow them for you. This is a great way to clean out your account!

Unfriending binge: Not a bad a idea to go through Facebook and unfriend people you don’t interact with! You come to realize you may not even know some of the people on your friend list or you just may be sick of seeing those old acquaintances status updates you skim over anyway! This way — you won’t miss the good stuff.

Unroll.me*: We all sign up for newsletter after newsletter to get promotional deals but all they end up doing is clogging up our inboxes. I was subscribed to almost 300 without even realizing it! Unroll.me will handle this messy problem for you. This site will go through your email account and locate each and every newsletter you’re signed up to receive and unsubscribe for you. (Except for the ListProducer.com email updates — I know you want those. Sign up here!) No need to go to each site and do it yourself- such a time saver! See more about it here!

Clean out your Browser: I bookmark things all the time that I find on the web like recipes, fun articles, or sites that I want to go back to and explore. Because it’s hidden away it builds up quickly. Go through and delete unwanted items. It’s also smart to go back and delete cookies and your browser history – tidy everything up nicely!

Backup your data: It’s smart to keep files safe and back them up! Sites like Dropbox are perfect for this. You can store as many files as you want including pictures and images. This allows you to make sure nothing gets lost in case a coffee spill on your laptop happens and it opens up some room on your hard drive! I’d also suggest going through your Dropbox account and clearing that out too. Any old photos or documents that you’re not going to use anymore should go. Do not forget Evernote either! The same goes for your work data too. Backup as much as you can. No one likes to think too much about losing their data or crucial work documents, but you can never be too safe.

Clear out the apps: We download so many apps with the intent to “try them out,” but usually never do! This happens to me all the time and I now have two full screens of random apps that I never use. I cleared them all out and now I have much more space on my phone – more room to try even more apps now 😉 Test out a few of my faves here.

I hope these tips help with the start of your digital spring cleaning! What other ways do you organize your cyber life?

Happy spring everyone!

*Unroll.Me makes money by learning what people stay subscribed to and what they unsubscribe from – that data is valuable and helps corporations learn what people want and what they don’t want. Your email address is NOT sold. If you’d like to keep your subscription list private you’ll need to unsubscribe manually from individual email subscriptions. If you appreciate the swiftness that you can unsubscribe from multiple sources while helping brands service customers better then Unroll.Me is for you!

Get More Done By Speed Reading

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Speed Reading Class

Photo credit: iBjorn)

With only 24 hours in a day, finding time to get everything done in our hectic lives is really a challenge. Each day I find new articles, books, or little tidbits that I am dying to read but they just end up collecting dust in a pile on my counter or get lost in one of my cyber folders – what a waste!  I’ve started using a new system to capture some of the tweets and articles I want to read later but it’s not enough. It’s hard enough to read what I need to (especially now that I am attending B-School) and it’s frustrating that I have no time to read for fun.  But recently, I thought… “What if I could speed read?” that would solve this problem, right?

Speed reading is a technique that allows you to obtain the material you are reading in half the time as normal by reading groups of words at once. It may seem strange and it’s a little intimidating at first, but it really works !

Here are two tools that I found for quick and easy speed reading:

ReadQuickApp: This app displays an article (no books) of your choice one word at a time at the pace you are comfortable with. You can start at the slowest speed and gradually move on to get used to the technique! It will also tell you how long an article will take you to read based on your words per minute. (Cost $9.99 and is available for the iPhone)

Spritz: Want to read a whole novel in 90 minutes or less? Well now you can with Spritz. This app works by displaying one word at a time with a “fixation point.” One letter of the word is a different color and that is where you focus your eye. This allows you to focus on the word individually and obtain it, rather then moving your eyes side to side – this leads to distraction. This app can train you to read up to 1,000 words a minute – that is some serious speed reading! (Comes out around March 21st for Android, Javascript for web, and iOS. Test it out on their site here.)

If you can’t get into the speed reading that’s okay- it’s not for everyone! There are other ways to cut down reading time by using some old fashioned skimming techniques:

Yahoo News Digest (formerly Summly): No time to read lengthy news articles? This app will summarize them for you. Each story is created from multiple news sources that way you are consuming the essential information. You get all the important stuff without wasting your time! And it’s free!

Need 2 Know: This awesome free newsletter gives you “Need 2 Know” news coverage! It’s one of the first things I read in the morning.  They consider themselves the CliffsNotes for news. In each news category they sum up everything you need in 1-2 sentences. Want to know more details later – no worries, they provide the links for the full coverage.

How do you get all your reading done? Let me know which reading techniques you like best – I’m always looking for new ideas.

Where Does Luck Come From?

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Is it luck that opens doors in our life or is it our hard work and determination that pushes us forward? I think that it’s a little bit of both! When I look back at the good things that have happened to me — sometimes I’m the one who creates my own luck! I think that Oprah puts it perfectly, “I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been ‘lucky.'”

It’s always good to be prepared for the time that opportunity comes knocking at your door, and to always keep an open mind.

So to get you inspired, and of course, in honor of St. Patrick’s day, here are 7 quotes to lead you to that lucky pot of gold 🙂

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