[IMGCAP(1)]Everything that’s being done manually in your office or when you work remotely needs to be given a good hard look. We are on the eve of 2012. At long last, software is actually starting to work!
The dirty secret few software industry providers want you to know is that adoption rates—and I’m talking about adoption rates on anything—are actually pretty dismal. I believe that’s the case because most business software has traditionally been quite complex, requiring a lot of adoption, training and wrangling on the part of the user. The result? We ultimately opt for a simple solution like Word, Excel and perhaps QuickBooks to manage a practice.
If you’ve written off software for years—and trust me, you’re not alone—now is actually a good time to take a look around. Here are a few key business processes that you can easily automate to help expand your available productive time:
Accounting: A good alternative to QuickBooks desktop is the new
If you’re up for considering alternatives to the QuickBooks universe altogether, you may want to start your search with upstart
Time and billing: Our friend Dustin Wheeler, CPA, of
Project management: We use two products for project management. First,
For more collaborative bells and whistles such as milestone tracking and file sharing, check out
Email marketing: I’m a huge fan of sending out a regular, monthly email newsletter. I believe it’s the highest leverage marketing activity you can do. More leverage gives us more time.
If you’re new to email marketing, the easiest tools to get started with, in my experience, are
Ditch (most) of your social media efforts
If you think this idea is controversial, you probably need to be reading this. Are you actually getting anything from your social media efforts, or do you just feel busy?
Don’t confuse effort with effectiveness. If you’re not tracing new clients back to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, maybe it’s time to dial back or outright axe the time you put into social media.
I speak from experience. At
The bottom line
Remember when outsourcing was all the rage? Well, computers have come a long way, overtaking humans in a wide range of tasks. This is a very good thing for the enterprising professional. You can command a workforce much larger than your current one for the low monthly price of most software offerings.
Whether you consider outsourcing part of your plans for 2012, the bottom line is simple. Eliminating your interruptions, automating your busywork and reducing your social media burn should help you grow your total productive time available—and make your work more fun and fulfilling to boot.
Take baby steps. If you only have the bandwidth to adopt one of the three core time-saving ideas in this article, then go for one and tackle the others in succession. Make yourself a list of goals and stick to it!
Brett Owens is chief executive and co-founder of