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9 Time Saving Websites for You and Your Business

February 1, 2010 By 10 Comments

Waking up in the morning to find you have a “to do” list 4 pages long is never a fun experience. Luckily, in the world we live in today there are tools available to assist even the extremely overwhelmed business owner. Eliminating distractions, removing time consuming tasks, and filtering information can save you loads of time and money. Your time is valuable and therefore should be spent on either income generating tasks or something of personal importance.


1. Remember Everything – Evernote

Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free. Evernote can transcribe text from almost any visual format. You can then browse through it later in searchable form. This is great for finding business cards, receipts, or even notes to yourself for later use. The best part, is that it is accessible through PC’s, Mac’s, and most smart phones. Upgraded services cost only $5!

2. Customize Your Calls – GrandCentral (Google Voice)

Grand Central is a free service can mask your phone number by giving you a number from any area code, and forwarding calls to your phone. You can customize voice messages for specific callers, and even listen in on voice-mails as they are being recorded in real time, much like a conventional answering machine. Grand Central can record calls for you and transcribe voice-mails into text messages!

3. Group Scheduling – Doodle

Doodle shortcuts the back and forth scheduling conversation that sometimes takes far longer than it should. You select the times that you are available for your call, meeting, or whatever you are trying to set up, and Doodle creates a poll based off of your available times, making it a onetime conversation, between you and all participants!

4. Publicize your Schedule – TimeDriver

TimeDriver is a revolutionary appointment invitation system that will compel your clients, partners, etc to schedule time with you. It syncs up with Google as well as Outlook Calendars to allow people to schedule various appoints in your allotted openings. You can embed a “schedule now” button in email messages and on web pages; you’ll drive more appointments with fewer hassles than ever before!

5. Batch Your Inbox – Xobni

Xobni is an Outlook add-in that saves you time finding email, conversations, contact info and attachments. They have a free version as well as an upgrade for about $30. You can search through your inbox for specific information items in any email like pictures, contacts, social media profiles, and attachments. Xobni is available both on a computer and a phone making on the access to information in an email a snap!

6. Jot Some Notes – Jott

Jott With is a nifty tool for note taking on the go. You just call a simple phone number, speak your notes, messages, or updates and hang up. Then, Jott takes the spoken messages (15-30 seconds), turns them into text, and sends them to the right destination via email, text message, or web update. I use more than anything when I am driving or walking long distances and things begin to pop into my head, it’s like having a personal assistant!

7. Transcribe Your Thoughts – CopyTalk

A more accurate, more expensive version of Jott, CopyTalk allows unlimited dictations per user for a low, monthly flat-fee. With a 97% retention rate, they don’t need to require any long-term contracts; you can cancel at any time. They even offer a one week trial service. I found this also indirectly teaches you to leave more precise and direct voicemails, once you see them in text format.

8. Stay out of the Cookie Jar – Freedom

Freedom is an application that disables networking on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time. There similar tools to this for PC’s as well but have not used one. I am guilty of impulsively checking emails, or looking at Twitter and Facebook, before I know it, I just wasted 30 minutes or more. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you to remove temptation altogether. The only way to cheat is to restart your computer.

9. Outsource Time Wasters – Elance

Elance is an amazing way to contract out portions of your business that does not necessarily require that you do personally. You can find high quality experts, manage the work online, and pay only for results. Elance services are available from technical, to legal, to sales and marketing jobs.

Time does not have to be the limiting factor in your life or business. You now have some extra tools to shortcut the less important, yet time consuming tasks. I know there are plenty of other time saving tools and tips available, and if you have any please leave them in the comments below.

If you find this valuable, please share with any friends, followers, or business owners you think will benefit.


Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Lifestyle Development, Task Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chris Ankele About Chris Ankele
Chris is a college student, entrepreneur, consultant, investor, an empowerment to young adults and most of all, a dreamer. His passion is to influence the way his generation seeks success. With a seemingly overwhelming amount of ideas in his head, he has become committed to changing the way the world works for the benefit of humanity.

  • http://www.meetusinghal.com/ Meetu Singhal

    Evernote and Google voice are my favorites and I use these extensively.

  • http://WhosChrisHughes.com Chris Hughes

    great resource list Chris! I definitely am going to be using the Freedom app, Jott and Evernote! Definitely was not away of any of these! Thanks!
    -Chris

  • http://WhosChrisHughes.com Chris Hughes

    Oh, I also came across http://Tungle.com which allows you to share meeting times/allows for you and your clients to actually schedule a meeting at a time that works for both of you…saving time trying to make up a meeting time that works for both of you! Might be a great addition to the list

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  • http://www.ChrisAnkele.com ChrisAnkele

    Evernote is my favorite! Its great for recording ANYTHING

  • http://www.ChrisAnkele.com ChrisAnkele

    I will have to give that a try! Thanks for the feedback Chris!!

  • http://www.rentacoder.com RACNicole

    Hi, this is Nicole from Rent a Coder. Rentacoder provides access to programming, writing, illustration, even data entry jobs. (You can get a sense of the broad scope of work available here: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareCo…)

    I'd like to point out a few differences between our service and services like Elance since those differences could influence the success of an outsourced project.

    ===
    Employing a new worker that you don't yet know/trust:
    ===

    When you don't yet know if a worker is productive, both Elance and Rent A Coder let you employ them in the safest way possible: by paying them a fixed price for the final deliverables (called pay-for-deliverables). However, if there is a problem, Elance charges you for the arbitration process necessary to get a refund (while Rent A Coder does not), and the process can take much longer if the worker is abusive.

    1) Money-back Guarantee
    —
    If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Rent A Coder does this for free. If a worker doesn't deliver what they agreed to, both sites will step in and give you a refund via arbitration. However Elance charges you $66-$133 to do this. This may also make it impractical to get a refund on smaller projects. Rent A Coder, on the other hand, does this for free.

    2) Arbitration
    —
    On Rent A Coder you can start arbitration immediately. A worker intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Elance for 21 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. During the first phase (dispute assistance), the worker has up to 3 business days to respond, and can make this phase last up to 12 additional business days (15 business days total). After this, the arbitration phase “begins”, but does actually start because the worker is given 3 business days to acknowledge the notice of arbitration, and the another 3 business days if they did not acknowledge the first notice. Only at this point is arbitration actually started. See the Elance contract for more information.

    3) Expert Guarantee
    —
    Both sites' triple-point money-back guarantee protect your money from a worker that doesn't deliver. But if you had a critical deadline, you may have lost vital time. Our Expert Guarantee helps you avoid this situation by identifying the most committed and expert workers during bidding. The workers agree to place a deposit to guarantee that they will not break any of the triple-point (or quadruple-point) guarantees. If they do, they forfeit the deposit (which goes to cover cancellation fees and then gets donated to a worthy charity).

    For more details on the above see:
    https://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/mi…

    To learn about additional differences (as well as compare the other 5 major sites), you can click here:
    http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/mis…

    If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedb…).

    Nicole
    http://www.rentacoder.com

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  • William

    I couldn’t help but notice that Nicole from Rent A Coder (vWorker as it is now called) failed to mention a major flaw in their system. So, please allow me to do so…

    Nicole says that you can call in and talk to a facilitator 7 days a week… I have to disagree. I have tried to call in numerous times and not been able to reach anyone.
    Additionally, if you decide to work through vWorker (Rent A Coder’s new name), don’t be in a hurry to get paid. Their pay periods end on the 15th and the end of the month and then they have 7 days to get your money to you. So, lets say you finish a project on the 1st of the month. That project will go on the pay period ending the 15th. And then it very well may be the 22nd before you get paid. So, almost a month has passed since you finished the project.
    Additionally, when getting paid, even though vWorker has already charged you 15% of the amount that you bid on the project, they still will charge you 2.00 more to process the money for you.
    During these possible 21 days, where has your money been? My guess would be in vWorker’s bank account drawing interest that you will never see.

  • Jeff Fleming

    Hey Chris,
    Thanks for consolidating this information. I like Doodle but agree with your assessment. If you or anyone else is looking for more robust scheduling software, you should check out Appointment-Plus.com scheduling software, which is user-friendly but also very capable of organizing people and dealing with complex logistics (Besides, you can try it for free.)

    Best,
    Jeff