Lousy at getting Work Done? Simple Tools to Keep From Being A Lazy Fool...

Time management tools

Using iGoogle

If you've never heard of iGoogle just go to Google's homepage and click
on the iGoogle link in the upper right corner of the page (I set it as my
homepage).



Once you get to your iGoogle homepage click on the "Add stuff" link on
the right hand side of the page under the search box.



You'll find tons of little tools and gadgets to choose from; I mainly use
the following:

Email (Yahoo, Gmail, etc...) - I used to check my Gmail and
Yahoo account twice or even three times per day but now I'm able to
see my inbox as soon as I open my browser so I can see if I have any
mail...

I'm not sure if time management gurus would approve of it or not but it
works for me. I guess it depends on your situation; I don't get a lot of
(important) email so the way I look at it instead of going to Gmail and
signing in I can see right from my iGoogle page if I have any important
emails or not.


Google Calendar - Set up daily, weekly, or monthly goals and you're
able to keep track of them with Google Calendar so you won't forget.

(Yeah this is starting to sound like a Google promo)

To do List - Good for writing down important tasks so that they don't
slip your mind.

Google Reader - If you use Google Reader this is a good way to see any
important stories straight from your iGoogle homepage.

Timer - Good tool to use so that you don't lose track of time or to keep on
schedule with certain projects.

Adwords - Really cool gadget that shows you a quick overview of your
Adwords account. Here's a quote from the add-on page;

... I've never run into any problems so I take them at their word.
They also have a bunch of other cool (most of them are free) analytic
type apps at their website (no affiliation)
Featured | youcalc - On-demand analytics apps and dashboards for CRM, ERP, HR


Other gadgets you might be interested in:

Adsense

Google Hot Trends

Facebook

Twitter


Those are the main add-ons I use; again, I'm no time management expert
but doing this definitely saves me time because I can see multiple sites
from one web page.

Also, I know there a lot of time management scripts and software out
there; I've tried quite a few... I'm sure someone has had some good
experience with certain products but I find it easiest to just use Google
Calendar and a timer.

The calendar for keeping track of weekly and monthly tasks and a simple
stop-watch type timer (either use the timer on iGoogle or go to
online-stopwatch.com) so I can break down my day.

I'll use the to-do list on my iGoogle homepage and write down something
like, "1 hour for keyword research"; then just set the timer to count
down 60 minutes so I don't lose track of time.


Firefox "Morning Coffee" add-on

This a cool little time saver for Firefox that automatically opens websites
that you specify at the click of a button. You can set up exactly what
sites are going to open beforehand so that you don't forget or get
preoccupied with anything else.

I'm quoting this right from the extension page:


This stuff have definitely made me more productive; its all about setting
up schedules, goals, and systems and then training yourself to be
persistent (training yourself to be persistent is probably the hardest part).


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