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5 Practical Tools to Automate Your Workflow

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In every entrepreneur’s life comes a moment when the work that needs to be done increases to the extent where you need to prioritize. So identify the areas that matter the most and which only you can do, and outsource or automate the rest.

Luckily for you, innovative business owners have created products that help you free up some time and automate your workflow.

There are so many tools out there thanks to technology, and once you give a few a try and find the right ones for you and your business, you’ll be able to stop worrying about repetitive and tedious tasks, and focus more on what you do best.

Here are 5 such tools you’ll find useful:

1. Onlypult

As we all know, Instagram can become a powerful marketing machine and brand builder if used in the right way.

But instead of having to be there at the specific times of the day when it’s best to publish content, why not schedule these in advance and know they’ll appear just in time for your audience to see them? What’s more, there won’t be any annoying notifications, but non-push ones.

You can enjoy a 7-day free trial and see how much time it saves you and how easy it is to use. Learn more about Onlypult’s features here.

Also check out these 3 apps for analyzing Instagram data.

2. Calendly

That’s a tool designed to make scheduling appointments and meetings easier than ever.

All you do is set your availability and create custom links for specific clients. Then, each person who wants to contact you just picks a time period you’ve listed as free and creates an event in your calendar.

No need to send multiple emails, lose potential clients, make them wait or use the phone. Anyone using this particular scheduling software swears by its simplicity.

Start with a 14-day trial period and see how you’re able to get more work done and simplify communication with clients and staff.

3. Basecamp

Moving onto project management, which is another aspect of the business you must automate as early as possible.

Basecamp is one of the best options as the features it offers can solve almost anything you’re struggling with.

From organizing tasks, prioritizing and assigning each, to having a separate page and discussion for each topic and adding all the necessary files there for anyone involved in the project to see and use.

You also have the freedom to chat in real time and share and organize any type of files. Easily keep track of deadlines and set milestones, with the option to add people to each and notify them right away.

You’ll receive notifications about anything that concerns you, so no need to even think about a project when you’re not working on it.

4. 17hats

Sometimes, even if you automate some aspects of the business, you still end up wasting a lot of time doing administrative tasks.

For example, you may often need to remind clients to pay you, or spend time creating different responses, contracts or invoices.

What about tracking your expenses and trying to manage your money? Even if you have a bookkeeper, you still need to take care of some things. You may also get lost in spreadsheets and notes when tracking all the areas you should manage.

Not anymore. 17 hats’ purpose is to help you stop using tens of apps and let you stay sane and on top of your game.

It’s an all-in-one business management tool that takes care of client correspondence, tracking payments and getting paid on time without annoying the client, capturing leads, bookkeeping, and building templates for the documents you use the most so that you never repeat the same thing twice.

Use it free if you just want to test the basic options, and upgrade when you see the benefits.

5. SumoMe

A set of tools that comes in the form of a plugin for your WordPress site and helps you build an email list, grow your traffic and optimize through analytics.

You can install a scroll box, smart bar or welcome mat to invite visitors to join your newsletter.

The heatmap and Google analytics will give you information about where people are coming from and what they are doing once they land on your website.

To encourage them to share your content, you can add beautiful share buttons, or install the image sharer and highlighter.

All these are free to use, but there’s also a premium version with even more features.

Which tool will you give a try today to make your work easier?

Organization: The Key To Slaying Your Day

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[vc_row][vc_column][dt_fancy_title title=”AshleyElladesign.com” title_align=”left” title_size=”small”][vc_column_text]Ok, ladies now let’s get in formation, ’cause I slay. Prove to me you got some coordination. Slay trick or you get eliminated.–Baddeus Bey Knowles Carter

Let’s face it: Women of today are busy. Busier than we’ve ever been before. Once upon a time, women kept the kids and the house in order. Now combine that with the women of today, many of us single moms, who not only keep the home, but work full time jobs or run our own businesses. It can feel as if we have so much to do and so little time. We wonder how in the hell all these things can get done, looking and feeling a hot mess in the process. To make matters worse, we are bombarded with our favorite celebs or reality stars and wonder how they always seem so put together. How is it that their bodies always look toned, bronzed and so damn glossy. I want my skin to look effortlessly glossy frolicking on the beach too! Or that their business affairs are always up to par. Like anything they touch turns to gold, when I can barely get a call back on some freebies I offered a customer.

Often we compare our “needs editing version” to someone else’s highlight reel. We don’t take into consideration that they are blessed with a glam squad/team who dresses them, tells them what to eat, watch them babies, whips that booty in shape and advise them on business opportunities. Unfortunately, most women don’t have the disposable income to afford these services. However, that does not mean we can slack in life or not excel at things that will make us wonderful. My best piece of advice: Organization. It is time to get in formation. For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.

How many of us get home in the evening, tired from work, attempt to cook a meal with some nutritional value, do schoolwork and then just crash in the bed. Not preparing for the next day, not twisting or tying our hair up, fixing lunch, ironing clothes, or generally having things in place for the next morning routine to go smoothly. So what happens the next morning? We are scrambling around the house looking for this, searching for that and yelling at whomever can’t get with the program when a simple 15-20 mins that night before could have prevented this mess of a morning. Being organized helps you to not pull up to the drive-through four days out of the week in a dinner crunch. Why? Because you and/or honey prepped meals on a day off. Organization allows you to make healthier choices and ultimately save money.

You don’t have to go to the gym everyday, but 90 minutes of physical activity a week helps you to maintain your weight. Pick two days a week and do an hour and a half each time. Pick one activity a season for your kids, if you are doing it by yourself or carpool. Think you don’t have any clothes? Think again. Once a week pick up them clothes off the floor, wash and iron them, mix and match–tada–you are your own glam squad. Are you on the go in the morning and low maintenance of hair, yet want to keep it stylish? Braids are your best friend…or a curl wave weave.

The point is to run your life or watch your life run you. Too many people live day to day and we are not maximizing the time we have. The world is getting super competitive and we must step up, or get left behind. So, slay trick or you get eliminated, respectfully.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Don’t Eliminate a Bad Habit – Replace It

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Previously, we talked about cultivating better work habits. Now let’s turn that same attention and technique to breaking bad habits. Keep in mind that all of the habits you currently have are in your life because you chose them – probably not consciously, but as a result of a chain from trigger/behavior/benefit, or Reminder/Routine/Reward.

As an example, let’s consider responding to every email as it comes in. The reward for this may be that you feel you’re being responsive, and on top of everything. But the downside is significant. Your focus is broken, you spend your time putting out inconsequential fires rather than addressing your real priorities and you increase your stress level.  Keep in mind that there is research that has indicated it can take up to 25 minutes to return to the task you were doing prior to being interrupted.

Rather than berating yourself or simply saying that you have to stop, what you need to do is replace the habit with a new one that gives you a similar (or better!) reward. This requires a little self-examination to start.

Identify the cue or trigger for the bad habit. Is it the ping of your inbox or flash of a message across your screen?

Figure out what is the next immediate action you take. It’s not necessarily answering the email itself. It’s probably looking up, opening the email and reading it, for example.

Determine what your reward for the habit is – maybe you automatically feel a little more productive.

With this information, you’re better equipped to eliminate the triggers, choose a substitute for the behavior and give yourself an equal or superior reward in celebration.

You might turn off the notifications on your inbox, at least during your most productive period of the day, or set it just to alert you if key clients or your boss contact you.

Instead of opening the email, dismiss it. Instead of looking up, write an extra sentence or two on that proposal.

Find another way to feel productive, like noticing how much you’ve accomplished in the hour you didn’t answer every email.

One other thing to consider as you work with your habits is the concept of “Keystone Habits.” Keystone habits are the foundation for other habits in your life, and frequently are terrific points of leverage for change. You might find that blocking out the first hour of your day for your top priority helps the rest of your day fall into place. Or if you get exercise, your brain works better. Going out to lunch or connecting on a regular basis with a colleague or mentor can also be keystone habits that make the whole rest of your work life run smoother. Think about it!
What are some of the habits you want to replace?  What tips will you use to replace them? Share with me in the comments.

Build Better Work Habits

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essence.com

Work habits may vary according to your field, but there are some that  can be categorized as universal no matter the environment. You want to be organized, efficient, adept at problem solving and follow-up, a team player and possess the ability to prioritize.

However, the best habit you can possibly have is the habit of evaluating and changing your existing habits. Yes, it’s convoluted, but if you habitually examine your repetitive behaviors and learn to improve or change them, you’ll be way ahead of the game.

There’s a common misconception that it takes 21 days to build or break a habit. Research actually shows that how long it takes to make a habit is individual, based on a person’s environment and what the habit is. The average, however has been documented as 66 days to build a new habit.

The good news is that the key to developing a habit doesn’t lie in pushing yourself to some magic number of days. It’s all about working with your existing patterns of behavior and structuring a new action into those patterns. In this way, you’ll create “sticky habits” by taking advantage of what you already do!

Think of your behaviors as action chains. You sit down at your desk, then open your email and drink your coffee. You have control over each element in that action chain. You can go directly to the file room and organize your files instead of sitting down at your desk. You can sit down at your desk, work on the most important thing of the day, and drink your coffee. Inserting or altering one or two variables in an existing chain of action allows you to incorporate a new behavior with minimal disruption.

Breaking it down even further, consider the “3 Rs” of habits as developed by behavioral researchers. Everything you do has a:

  • Reminder (or trigger)
  • Routine (the action chain)
  • Reward (benefit or consequence of the behavior)

I can personally attest that this method works, although my example is more personal in nature, the process still hold true!  I kept a daily gratitude journal for a year and to say the first few weeks were rocky would be an understatement.  I totally skipped a few days in a row and would have to write  several posts at a time recalling the previous days events.  This was not sustainable and defeated part of the reason why I committed to this journal in the first place.

I found a way to include writing my journal entry into an already established routine: Shower in the evening (reminder).  Get in my bed (routine).  Turn on the television (reward).  I agreed to write my journal entry prior to turning on the television: Shower in the evening (reminder). Get in my bed(routine). Write my journal entry (added routine). Turn on the television (reward).

It also helped that I left the laptop on my bed when I left for the day so it acted as a visual cue when I entered my bedroom for the evening.

So just remember, if you want to build a new habit, do so by working with those you already have. Add a better link to your existing action chain by altering a factor in Reminder/Routine/Reward. It’s that simple![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]