Time is money. If you are like most small businesses you are constantly striving to find low cost ways to improve your overall or individual productivity so you can spend your time on what really matters, which is growing your business. Below are 5 free ways that you can implement almost immediately to improve productivity and make your team more efficient. They are all very easy to use and best of all they will not cost you anything!
- Dropbox.com : Dropbox is your own personal cloud storage space that allows you to have access and share all of your documents, pictures, music, or videos anywhere you go. After signing up, you simply download the software and it places a file folder on your desk top which you can then use just like any other folder on your computer. You can then access all of your files on any computer or cell phone (via the IPhone or Android app). You can also share folders or files with others so everyone can see and edit the same file saving you a LOT of needless time emailing files back and forth and saving mutlitple versions of the same files
- Up to 2GB of storage is free which is good for most people. (If you need more storage they have paid options as well.)
- Dropbox will save previous version of all your files for 30 days so you can go back and see what changes were made.
- You can upload files directly from you cell phone to you Dropbox account.
- You are able to create public photo folders to share you pictures almost immediately with friends and family.
- Sendtodropbox.com will allow you to email uploads to your Dropbox account.
- URLdroplet.com will allow you to save URL’s to your Dropbox account.
- Google Docs : Google Docs may be the best way to help teams and groups of people working on the same projects be more efficient. Check out the video below to learn how to use Google Docs to help your organization. Many businesses are converting to Google docs and getting rid of Microsoft Office products and their expensive licences.
- Workflowy.com : I love Workflowy, granted it is a silly name but it is a powerful yet simple product. Workflowy will allow you to organize your thoughts and ideas. It takes a little while to get used to it, but once you do you will love it. If you are like me, I am constantly writing down ideas, websites, or things that I would like to check out or remember later. This creates a single place for all of that that can easily be accessed from any computer or your cell phone.
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free product that will allow you to receive a countless amount of information about your website and it’s visitors. There are other analytics programs that might be a little bit more robust but they cost money. Considering that Google Analytics is free it is a truly great product and many consider it to still be the industry standard.
- Asana.com: Asana has just been released to the public after completing it’s year long private beta. Asana is a task list manager for your team. If you have a large team that works on many projects and is constantly collaborating this might be the best solution out there.
There are a lot of great and innovative products and services that are available but these 5 stood out as something that could easily be implemented today and for free. If you know of any other great services that I might have missed please let me know in the comments as I am always interested in finding cool new sites. You can also follow on Twiiter @soonersoze. Thanks for checking out my blog.
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