If you find yourself wasting time–or notice an employee is wasting time, there are so many online tools that are great for improving efficiency. Your competitors might already be using them, so make a change today in how your team uses their 40 hours.
Time Trackers
Being aware of where you spend your time is the first step in diagnosing where your time is wasted. The website Toggl is a quick and simple tool that helps you track your time and sends you weekly reports automatically. Simply create a free account and start tracking those projects! Toggl also offers other timer services that can be used in meetings to help you stay on schedule.
Password Sharing Extensions
Cyber security is a huge concern for businesses of all sizes, so it’s important to have secure passwords. Sharing on email can leave you or your clients vulnerable to hacking, and writing them down on paper is both time consuming and unsafe. The browser extension LastPass can help solve this problem. Passwords are saved right to your computer under one login. While this extension is completely free, if you need to share passwords with other team members, you can look into their paid version as well.
Communication Platforms
To cut down on the number of emails coming into your inbox, it’s often helpful to have a separate reciprocal for internal conversations. For this, the Google platform is the most efficient way to communicate and share documents. Use the Google Drive interface to organize folders on the cloud that can be shared quickly with team members. Notify them with the Google chat that’s built into Gmail, it’s free and highly efficient.
Feedback Software
An often overlooked part of running a business is implementing constructive criticism from employees. It can be daunting for employees to give feedback to their managers, but all good managers know it’s a vital part of making a more inclusive and efficient workplace. Try using the website SurveyMonkey to create a questionnaire that enables team members to offer feedback or complete a self-review. Depending on the type of feedback you seek, you can send out secure, anonymous surveys. The free version enables you to send up to ten questions and view up to 100 responses.
Self-Monitoring
Time can be wasted on certain websites if you aren’t always accountable to someone else monitoring your browsing history. So, whether you’re a manager that’s noticed your employees spending too much time on social media or you’re doing it yourself, try using the browser extension StayFocusd. You set which websites you’d like to spend less time on and it’ll block you based on the time of day, day of the week or whatever parameter you set. Encourage employees to do this for themselves if they find they’re becoming unproductive.
