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5 Simple Time-Saving Tech Tips for the Busy Entrepreneur

As a Virtual Admin, I help my clients save time by handling some of their day to day virtual admin tasks.  As such, I’ve come across a trick or two for saving time myself.  As we all know, time is money.  Here are my top 5 simple time-saving tech tips that I swear by!

My Top 5 Simple Time-Saving Tech Tips

1. Keyboard shortcuts

If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts, you could be saving so much more time. The most common keyboard shortcuts include:

    1. Ctrl + C = Copy
    2. Ctrl + V = Paste
    3. Ctrl + Z = Undo
    4. Ctrl + X = Cut
    5. Ctrl + S = Save
    6. Ctrl + P = Print
    7. Ctrl + N = New (Page)
    8. Atl + Tab = Lets you switch between open pages/documents/programs (My absolute favourite!)

2. Organize your email inbox

Previously I was an account manager to over 30 companies and 300 contacts at my previous position. As such I HAD to find a way to organize all those emails.  The #1 rule I followed was to never allow my inbox over 10 emails.  How did I do this?  I created folders for EVERYTHING.

Example:

Inbox: Immediately received items only (max 10)

Folders:

  • Working: Emails that I was currently working on or would get to within 15 mins
  • Follow Up: Emails that I would be working on within that day
  • Client General Folders: i.e. Tim Hortons
    • Client Specific Folders: Support Requests, Projects, Customer Service, etc.
    • General Contact Folders: Contained emails from single-time senders from the company
    • Main Contact Folders: Contacts who I dealt with on a regular basis had their own folders

3. Declutter your desktop icons

Your desktop should be the gateway to the important documents on your computer.  It should only show the main folders/programs you use the most frequently for easy access.

How to set-up a shortcut:

If you use a document frequently, you can set up a shortcut right on your desktop to avoid searching through your folders each time.

  1. Right click the windows start button
  2. Select “Open Windows Explorer”
  3. Locate the document you want to create a shortcut for
  4. Right click on that document and select “Create Shortcut”
  5. You will see a new document called “Filename – Shortcut”
  6. Drag and drop this folder to desired location on your desktop
  7. Now when you open it via your desktop, it will bring you to that document

And don’t worry, anytime you open the document through the shortcut all your changes that you save will be saved to the shortcut linked document as well.

4. Organize Folders

Part of decluttering your desktop can include organizing your folders as well. Windows has a great folder hierarchy system that is easy to use.  You can create limitless folders so that you spend less time searching for a specific document.  Break it down by General Heading, and then into specific headings.  If you find you’re putting a lot of documents into one folder, see if you can further break it down.

5. Recall a sent email

Did you know that you can do this? If you have sent an email and it has not yet been seen/opened by the recipient, you can recall that email to remove it from the recipients inbox.  How cool is that?  This only works with Microsoft Outlook and may depend on your email service provider.

  1. Go to your sent folder
  2. Double click to open the sent email
  3. In the top panel, select the drop down for “Actions”
  4. Click “Recall This Message”
  5. It will ask if you want to just delete the message, or if you want to delete it and replace with a new message.
  6. Select, click “OK” and that’s it!

Just think of what you can do with all that time on your hands!  If you’re finding that you still wish you had more free time, I invite you to contact me to discuss how a Virtual Admin can lift some of those day-to-day tedious tasks from your workload.  It’s my specialty to save you time so you can concentrate on your business!

Hopefully I was able to save you some time.  If you’re still looking for help for day to day virtual tasks, or if you are looking for help building your online presence and awareness through social media marketing, I invite you to contact me by telephone or email, or through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.  I look forward to helping you help our community!

Until next time,

Deanna

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Is Social Media Better than a Website for Online Marketing?

If you’re asking this question, than I applaud you for trying to understand the difference between the two online marketing tools.  Each online strategy serves a different purpose in your online marketing campaign.

Pros and Cons of a Website

Pros:

  • A website contains all the facts of your business. The main menu provides easy and quick access.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Each page of a website has keywords which, when formatted properly, increase your SEO and your ranking on major search engines like Google and Bing, making it easier for people to find you online.

Cons:

  • A website is cold. As much as it may look nice, it doesn’t really have a personality; just the cold hard facts.
  • While it’s good to keep it updated, you simply can’t change the basic facts that often.

Pros and Cons of Social Media

Pros:

  • Let your personality shine! A proper social media presence builds a rapport with fans and followers, and lets shows the warmth of the business.
  • You can post as much as your heart desires! You can send out a range of posts from Community involvement, to inspirational/humorous quotes, and pictures of the daily goings-on at your business.

Cons:

  • Events and Information gets lost in the chronologically ordered timeline. Potential customers won’t spend hours, even minutes, scrolling through to try to find out if you’re open on the Holiday Monday.  A website has that information more readily accessible.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doesn’t really apply to social media streams. Having these accounts active minimally impacts your SEO. The only real way to increase SEO organically is through a properly formatted website and blogging.

What is better? 

Having both an active social media presence and an up-to-date website representing your business is the best online marketing strategy.  The two work hand in hand to help you get found online, interact with fans and followers and provide the information necessary for those potential customers to reach you.

As a social media marketing specialist, I highly recommend you keep both your website and social media as updated as possible.  There are many ways to streamline content from one to the other.  I would love to discuss the options that will have the best return on investment for your business.

If you are looking for help building your online presence and awareness through social media marketing, I invite you to contact me by telephone or email, or through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.  I look forward to helping you help our community!

Until next time,

Deanna

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5 Social Media Tips for the Busy Entrepreneur

The busy entrepreneur is usually a jack of all trades.  They are the face, brains and brawn of their business; making sales, balancing the books, and providing exceptional goods and/or services to the community.

Now, with technology playing such a role in personal and business affairs, the entrepreneur is expected to also be a social media marketing specialist.

If you’re an entrepreneur finding yourself in this position, here are 5 tips to help make social media marketing a little easier so you have more time to focus on your business.

5 Social Media Tips for the Busy Entrepreneur

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