Yeah I know it’s 4 days into 2012, so why am I looking back?  Because I find it interesting which were my top 5 post last year and would like to share them with you because I know there are nuggets that will make you more productive if nothing else.

1. Stop Using Your Inbox as a Todo List
2. The last to do list you’ll ever need
3. 4 Sanity Saving Tricks for Gmail
4. Social Inbox Zero
5. How Klout Scores Could Be More Useful to Marketers (though this applies to brands giving away perks too)

Okay no more looking back, use these to help you jump forward and make 2012 a grand success!

Top 5 Posts of 2011

Edit: cohuman is back!!!!

You think I’m joking.  I’m not.

I’ve tried a great number of project management tools and/or todo lists out there.  Trying in creative ways to make them work with my inbox so I can access the information I need plus get things done and share with my clients quickly.   Most systems are trying to be everything for everyone in your business and therefore suck at being the one thing you need, especially if you’re a solo freelancer/consultant company who has many clients to share with.

Sharing with individuals, getting them setup on your system and expecting that they’ll actually use it…well, let’s just say that’s not an easy thing to manage.  It’s a huge time sink for me.

Here’s my new secret weapon:

Cohuman

Cohuman nailed productivity apps for me.  I was invited by my client Aliza Sherman to try it out because she found herself using it regularly, we have talked about apps before so I knew if she found it handy that I would as well.

I dived in one day and haven’t looked back at anything else….even my first love, thoughtbox.es  

Why is it different from anything else you’ve tried before?

First of all, the layout?  Killer.  It’s TweetDeck/HootSuite style that quite a few of you will be intimately familiar with.  So it’s fast and easy to learn.

Second, cohuman has 4 features that I’ll never be able to live without again.

1. Blocking. When your task being completed is blocked by someone else doing their task first  You enter your task and cohuman gives you the opportunity to choose another that’s blocking it.  That plus the due date and some other options allow it to assign a priority number.
2. The priority number will tell you how high on the list this task is based on the other tasks in your list, their due dates and blocks.  It’s innovative for any company to have this down cold but I’d say that cohuman nailed it completely, at least for me.
3. cohuman can sync it with as many email addresses as YOU need to. I have four already setup.  Two for different clients companies and two for myself.  As I consult and have several different projects, this comes in handy quite often.
4. One of the other features that rock for me personally is the integration with Google Apps. Choose a primary email to get alerts delivered to, but the best part is cohuman can sync tasks to your Google Calendar or Google Tasks.  I love Google Apps and Gmail.  Nothing I’ve tried has ever integrated so well with my workflow in Gmail.

I immediately invited Christopher Penn to try it out with me.  He’s never loved any task management system we’ve tried before mainly because the sharing didn’t jive with his workflow.  It finally got Christopher out of living in his inbox and managing in his inbox. His strategy and mine is forward to cohuman with a new subject line, then hit Send & Archive in Gmail.

Once we both started adding in tasks and creating a project in cohuman, we found that it was super easy to update each other about what was happening. Unblocking a task after each of us complete our individual tasks and so forth.  Obviously we still have to communicate but there isn’t an email for every time we finish something with a reminder for the other to get started on that followup task.

It’s unbelievable how much email and sometimes IM it cuts down on.  You will love your co-workers more because you won’t have to remind them to do something.

Click to enlarge image

It keeps tasks and lists totally private unless YOU share them with specific people, yet, inviting someone to get started is as easy as emailing them. No privacy settings to fuss with, no user details to setup.  Email and done.  They do the rest.  You can even add tasks and assign them while you’re waiting for them to accept your invite.

Feature suggestions for cohuman

There are a handful of things I’d like to see done.

1. Due dates by email.  You can currently send an email to cohuman and it’ll create a task for you, but you can’t specify the due date. (I emailed about this and it’s coming hopefully soon!)
2. A browser bookmarklet to bookmark pages as tasks.  For example, sometimes clients will send me an email with a conference they want me to submit their speaking proposal to.  In this case, I’d open the bookmarklet a la Argyle Social and post it to cohuman as a task!
3. A desktop application.  I’d love love love to see a Tweetdeck style application for my desktop.  Though I’m likely to continue using the web interface, I can think of a few times where this would come in handy instead.
4. iPad app.  I know, there’s an iPhone app so just enlarge it, but I’m a huge fan of setting up my day on the iPad because it forces me to focus on one thing at a time, so this would be super handy as well.

So if you’re ready for a new way of doing things or at least experimenting with cohuman, fill out this form and I’ll email you an invite.  Of course, if you are interested in even more powerful productivity help, let me know that too and can Godin it up to get your productivity back on track.

The Last To Do List You’ll Ever Need

Our inboxes are the hubs of our daily lives.  Some of us check email first thing when we roll out of bed.  (That’s a bad habit too!)  They store notes from various people that are important to us on some level trying to get our attention. But if we start to use it as a way of keeping track of the things we need to get done, problems emerge. See one email but there are 3 tasks attached, one with a deadline?  Get distracted by all the things that keep coming in instead of focusing on the tasks that need your attention?  These create stress.

If you ever cringe upon logging in that means you have a problem.  Let’s fix that.  How?

Change your mindset.

Your inbox is a communications tool, not a productivity tool.

Here’s how to start using it that way:

1. Archive (or delete) the last month.  Let’s say if you’re reading this today, anytime before March 1st.  Delete it.  It’s done. If it’s important you’re missing something, someone probably has or will shortly clue you in.

2. Get a to do list.  What/where doesn’t really matter, what matters is that you’ll use it.  Every day.  It needs to be open in your browser for the majority of the day instead of your email.  I can recommend Things, Wunderlist, and Thoughtboxes.

Thoughtboxes is my favorite, it’s easy to use and I love the format.  There are apps coming soon, for now the browser will work everywhere.

3. If you use Gmail, learn the keyboard shortcuts, even if you need to print them out or put them on your iDevice in front of your face, learn them. If you find yourself typing signatures and other bits of text repeatedly, get something like Typinator to store it and use the shortcuts to expand the text. Both will save you time.

4. First round, delete everything that you don’t need to read. Coupons, twitter notifications, email newsletters (though I might get smacked on the head by Chris and DJ for that).  Everything that doesn’t absolutely need your attention, trash it.  Oh, and no guilt is allowed.  Your time is important, it’s okay to be protective of it.

5. Second round, scan everything that is left.  If you need to respond in anyway, leave it.  If it’s just information that you need to recall for later, read/process it, put it in Evernote (affiliate link) or wherever you store things.  If there are one or two that you can’t bring yourself to archive, that’s okay.

7. Third round, everything that is left should be something that goes on the to do list as a task or needs a response from you.  Put the tasks on the to do list now.  Handy tip: In Gmail when you have an email open, the URL of that email is unique, copy and paste it into your to do list and click the link to bring it up when the task is finished and you are ready to respond.  Archive everything that goes on your list and that you respond to.

8. Fourth and final round.  Answer everything that will take no longer than 2 minutes for each email. Then archive.  Remember that handy tip in my last post, the send and archive button?  Activate it in Google Labs, it will save you keystrokes.

Once you are done with these steps then you should have a relatively clean inbox.  Not inbox zero?  It’s not the end of the world, you’ve made significant progress in creating new habits.

Here’s the secret: You have to follow this process every day.  When you wake up, don’t check your inbox, check your to do list. Then start on those tasks immediately and first.  Save opening your inbox until mid-morning (or later if you can stand it).  That way you get through some parts of your day without being swamped by feeling like the world is waiting for a response.

Does your job rely on you to always be available?  Tell your office/co-workers/etc that if they really need to reach you immediately to IM or give you a call.  Set new boundaries for yourself and enforce them.

Let me know how this works for you in the comments!

Need help to be more productive?  Email me!

Why you should stop using your inbox as a to do list.

As someone who values being as productive as possible, I find using Gmail helps me keep up with my inbox while trying to get things done.  If you are a Gmail user yourself, there are some things that you can do to make life in your inbox a little less cluttered and stressful.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Muted conversations

Do you keep getting included on reply all threads that you don’t really need to be on?  Mute the conversation!  It will filter the email in the sense it won’t appear in your inbox, rather than you having to set up filters for individual emails.  If you for some reason need the mail later, you’ll have to search for it (tip: type is:muted in the search box) but we know Gmail is awesomesauce at that.

To use this on a conversation:

Bonus: Enable Smart Mute in Settings -> Labs.  It prevents the conversations from showing in your inbox unless your email is added to the To: or CC field or you are the only recipient.

2. Priority Inbox

A few months ago, Google released a new tool in the Gmail inbox called Priority Inbox.  It doesn’t require setting up filters, but it does require you to teach them what is important to you.  Once it understands that the email from your boss or your mom is more important than that sale over at Keen’s (though I *do* love Keen shoes!) it shows those emails at the top of your inbox.

Bonus: Make Priority Inbox always appear upon login by changing the setting below.

3. Quick links

One of the best things about Gmail is how easy it is to find email.  Once you archive it, it’s still there, like an old file on your hard drive.  The search is powerful but if you know you’re going to need to search for an email later and still want it out of your inbox, create a quick link.

First enable Quick Links in Mail Settings -> Labs.  Then to get started on making your link list.  Open the email that you want to link to, then click ‘Add Quick Link’ as shown below.

Once you click the box, a dialog will appear enabling you to customize the name of the quick link as it will appear in the sidebar.  For my email I chose Facebook Stats.

And viola, a link will appear in the sidebar for easy access later!

Bonus: Create a draft of your to do list, save it and then add it as a quick link in your sidebar!

4. Send and Archive

When the Send and Archive button landed on the Labs scene, there was much cheering at Pixieology.  This button allows you to send your message and then archive it after the send.  Enabling it doesn’t make your ordinary Send button go away but it saves you another keyboard shortcut after the send.  To enable, you can find it in Mail Settings -> Labs.

Bonus: If you ever wished email has an undo send button, it does now.  You can find this option in Mail Settings -> Labs to enable, then set the time delay in which you can undo send.

These are just some of the quick and dirty tips I use to keep my inbox under control and find things quickly.  Do you have a favorite tip or trick that saves time?  Share it in the comments!

4 Sanity Saving Tricks for Gmail

Lately I’ve heard a lot of people ask the question how do you say no to something constructively?

Maybe you’re busier than you know what to do with, but someone’s emailing you with this one project, thing, idea that they must talk with you about, get your input on, a review of their book/blog/business plan, an interview, a quote, or just help with promotion. Sometimes they use the following line: “I know you’re busy but…”.   The person on the other end sees a minor time commitment on this really awesome thing but you see your current to do list and calendar and groan.

Here’s a way to say no:  ”That looks/sounds like a fascinating project, but I can’t commit the time to it right now.  Can I help connect you with someone that I think could help with your really awesome idea?”

Maybe your specific brand and knowledge is exactly what the project needs and the asker won’t want to work with someone else. If he is adamant about it being YOU, he will work with you to find a time that works with your schedule.

If the asker wants to work with you solely to be branded with your name/company (believe me, you’ll know this one when you see it. mostly.), then you likely don’t want to do the project, attempt to find the time or burden someone else with it anyway.  In which case, the above will work perfectly.

If it is for a great cause and you are compelled to say yes, you still need to consider what exactly you are committing to.  Here are a few tips for that.

• Narrow down exactly what is being asked of you. Is it a retweet?  Do they want you to manage a recording or put together promotion materials? Do they want you to show up for an hour and share your knowledge?  Finding out exactly what time committed is the first step.
• Analyze where it fits best in your schedule. If you don’t respect your time, then no one else will.
• Make it clear exactly what parts you to which are agreeing and committing to do. Then put it in writing, even if just an email.
• If you can’t say hell yes to it.  Don’t do it. (h/t C.C. Chapman)

Refine this process to fit your needs.  Strive for clarity before you commit. It avoids confusion and also shows other that you value people who respects your time.

The important thing is to keep it honest and straightforward without hashing the reasons you are saying no.  There is zero need for justification.  Showing that you’ve taken the time to consider what the ask is will allow for grace, which makes the no easier to bear.

How hard is it for you to say no?  Why?

How to Say No (and Yes)

As a long time Gmail fan, every email that I send or receive goes through my gmail account.  Once I was annoyed by it’s clustered conversations but then it won me over with keyboard shortcuts and amazing search of my inbox.

One thing that does terrify me is their ability to lock you out of your account, taking several days to fix it even if you do the required reset to your password via text message or secondary email.  While I have both set up in case of emergencies, I also have a backup.

If you work remotely, you probably have a lot of important details in your inbox.  Don’t risk getting locked out and immobilized for days while your account is verified again.  There are a handful of ways to back up your data. And though I don’t see Google going out of business soon, you never ever know when that data will go away.

If you are using Gmail take a few minutes to ensure that your account is setup for easy verification should Google ever decide you’re worthy of scrutiny.  Go to google.com, at the top right corner there is a settings link, you want to go to your account settings.  At the top right of that page there is a link to change your password recovery options.  Click that, verify your password and fill out the form.

Backing up

Thunderbird – This powerful email client is from Mozilla.  Why this and not Apple Mail or Outlook?  Because it keeps the actual data files small so your hard drive isn’t overwhelmed by the size of the backup.  Plus I love Thunderbird for offline composing.

To set this up first change your settings in Gmail, you want to enable pop access but leave a copy of all messages in your Gmail account.  Save your changes.

Then in Thunderbird, setup a new account.  Gmail has handy step by step instructions for this in whatever email client you choose.

After the setup is complete, Thunderbird will download a backup of your account.

Backupify – A great tool that first came to my attention via Twitter, then in conversation with Jason Falls.  Backupify will create a remote backup of accounts for you including Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIN and numerous other social media accounts.  It’ll also backup your Gmail account to a secure server.

I do not personally use it for Gmail backups but it’s a great way to handle everything in one place.

Gmail Backup – If you want an additional Windows and Linux option, I haven’t tried this but I’ve heard that it’s a good backup tool.

Another Gmail account – You can always create another Gmail account and configure it to download your current account email.  It’s another backup on Google’s system but it’s a good place if you don’t want to back it up on your computer or a third party service.

Remember to do a backup on schedule. I open Thunderbird before I go to sleep most nights, so much client info and many tasks come into my account during the day and I wouldn’t be functional without a full backup.  Also, backup THAT backup to an external drive.

Do you have a favorite backup method not mentioned here?  Share it in the comments!

How to Back Up Your Gmail Account

I read about SwiftKey after seeing it tweeted as a keyboard alternative for Android users.

When I landed on the home page of their website I saw this:

I immediately went to search for their app and paid for it.  It took less than a minute to sell me on this product.

I haven’t come to any conclusions about how effective it is and I don’t know anything about their customer service, but they got me to spend.  While social matters, that sale is the ultimate goal. (Keeping customers is another blog post. )

How can you make people buy into your product when you have less than a minute? Does your website/landing page/marketing efforts convey that message?  If not, you have work to do.

How to Sell Your Product in Less than a Minute

There’s a lot to say for practice, but at some point we have to jump out of the plane or into the deep end.  We cling to the safety blanket of what it is, instead of doing the things that would get us to the place we envision in our minds.  This applies to all areas of life: saying no, learning martial arts, taking downtime, working on our own content, taking a leap from our day job, jumping on the speaking bandwagon, or writing a book.

There is one major goal that applies to small businesses marketing online: make more delighted customers.  Reputation and word of mouth are kings.

If you’re a business owner, you probably have a website and/or are involved in social networking. There are many great ways to learn more about how to improve your efforts and meet your goals.  Often time is spent doing research, attending genius webinars, reading brilliant blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, and downloading ebooks.  Of course you want to learn from others who have done a remarkable job.

But now it’s time to get to work with the knowledge that you’ve accumulated.

Here are 6 things you can do right now to make a difference in your marketing efforts online:

1. Tell your story. Why are you so different from every Tom, Dick and Jane, Inc.?  Customers want to know what makes you different, what makes you tick.  If you don’t know the story, how can you market it?  Freshbooks does a brilliant job with sharing their story and they stand out from other invoicing companies as a result.

2. Test. Test everything. Click on things.  I promise that button won’t make things explode.  Maybe.  Test links, test to see how the website looks in different browsers, test the forms, and when you get everything right, dig into A/B testing to see what makes visitors happier.

(Editor disclaimer: if you click the button that does make something explode, I’m in no way responsible for your failure to read.)

3. Make it easy. Every business has a call to action.  You want to sell something, raise money, raise awareness, or share information.  Help me find it when I land on your page.  Help your visitors find it.  Easily.  Big, red (not literally) and loud works.  A site can be pretty and loud at the same time.

4. Think locally. Online marketing is a fabulous thing, but local groups, meetups, networking and other events can help you get to know people around town and boost your business.  Target the local market with Google Places, find a way to share special deals with people in your neighborhood.  Even if your business is virtual, you can still find local customers.

5. Work on your inbound links. The first step in this is creating valuable content that others will want to share with their network. This again goes back to sharing knowledge, but make sure you’re doing it in keyword rich phrases.  Think of it as online word of mouth marketing.

6. Be extraordinary. As Chris Brogan says, if you can’t be extraordinary, be helpful.  Do the unexpected.  Send a customer flowers when their date cancels.  Monitor social channels and reach out if you have knowledge that will help.  Offer them a reward just for being your customer.  When you’re extraordinary, it makes you sticky.  Sticky in a world full of businesses in your niches is good, yes?

It’s now time to stop thinking and start doing.  Stalling runs the risk of the knowledge becoming stale before you have a chance to implement. Learn more and expand your understanding of how to build a better business through online marketing.  Then share it with the rest of us.

What other advice would you give small businesses?

6 small business marketing tips to do right now

Editor’s note: Habilis closed it’s doors.  However you can use http://sendtodropbox.com/ for now!

Huge Dropbox fan here, it makes sharing big files super easy which is great, especially for workshifting.  I wanted to share a tip with everyone on how to email files as attachments that you want to share with others via Dropbox.

First, if you don’t have Dropbox, get an account now. (Referral link!)  If you haven’t heard of Dropbox, it allows you to sync your files online and across computers.  It also allows you to share the folders that you create with others, see their changes and offers mobile support for phones and the iPad.  Check it out, you’ll love the ease of file transfers and collaboration opportunities.

Then go over to http://gethabilis.com.  You’ll need to authorize Habilis to connect with your Dropbox account via API, but it only takes a second.

Refresh the http://gethabilis.com page and you’ll see a handy email for adding to your address book.  I added mine to my Google contacts as Dropbox Files.

That’s it! Now you can enjoy sending files to your Dropbox via email if you can’t access the public folder on any device for some reason or another.

Do you know of any other cool Dropbox hacks?  I use it daily and I know others who do as well so share, please!

How to Email Files to Dropbox

When doing business online, one of your first priorities is to make it dead easy to buy.  It is the responsibility of a business to provide a flawless experience online for customers when they get into the sales process.  The goal of every business should be to convert the sale, yes?

As an assistant, I spend a lot of my time managing speaking information, travel schedules and flight/hotel bookings for clients.  For example, booking a hotel should be dead easy.  It takes at most 3-5 minutes (unless they need a convoluted amount of information).

If a site fails me at that moment I click that button to pay, it marks my day.  I now have to call you to book a room and this irritates me because you are wasting my time.  Please don’t.

If you are doing business online, check your processes.  Go through each scenario as if you are a customer and make sure you are providing the best experience possible.  Test the products, forms, buttons, and confirmations.  Then, test it again and then have others test it to get different perspectives.

Make it easy for your customers to get what they want from you. At the end of the day if you make their lives easier you’re more likely to get a repeat customer and recommendations to try your products and services.

Want more sales? Make it easy.