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Brain fade |
| 11.29.03 (9:16 am) [edit] |
[b]2004 – The year I take back control of my life…[/b]
Do you suffer from short-term memory loss? I do. I was beating myself up the other day over an important appointment that evaporated from my memory ten seconds after I ended the cell phone call. In my defence I had taken three calls immediately afterwards, all before I arrived at my office, and - caught up in the urgency of deadlines, proofs and a thousand other minor emergencies – I forgot to note the date and time of the appointment. Unforgivable. Or is it? Think of the tens of thousands of bits of information you process every day. A simple task, like driving to the office, sees us react to a hundred different stimuli – here avoiding a taxi, there dealing with an out-of-order traffic light. Add to this mix a cell phone call or two, each requiring an immediate decision. Those of us with children will still be carrying the residue of a typical school morning, lost shoes, signing homework and refereeing round six of the ongoing bout between our darling offspring. How much information can our brain absorb before it starts to misfire?
Our technologically deprived forefathers sure worked hard. But they also had it easy. A letter was a letter. Written on real paper. And it waited patiently for the postman to deliver it to your office. You could then take a day or two to formulate your response before you popped your reply in the postbox. Modern-day email now demands you respond immediately.
In the old days folk simply had to wait until you were back in the office before they could call you. Drive time – even without airbags and ABS - was a quiet affair, there was much less traffic to avoid and you were safe from tele-canvassers interrupting your journey with annoying cell phone calls.
All this got me thinking about working smarter. My goal in 2004 is to take back control of my life. I have made the decision to drive with my cell phone switched off – car kit or not. I desperately need the time to plan, to digest information, develop creative solutions and simply give my brain a break.
Making technology work for you…
The second phase of my plan to regain control is to use technology to work for me, not the other way round. The nature of my work requires that I keep up to speed on many different topics. I find the easiest way to stay abreast of happenings in the industry is to subscribe to electronic newsletters. Ezines deliver breaking news, on topics I choose, instantly right to my mailbox. Of course, I also receive a lot of irrelevant subject matter. I have installed a handy bit of freeware called Mailwasher. This tiny utility reveals all my email instantly, even before it is downloaded from my ISP. A quick glance through the list allows me to open my email without downloading. I can delete and even blacklist unwanted email. This small program, actually ‘donationware’ – if you like it, you can donate any amount to the developer – saves me nearly 20 minutes every day. Over nine hours a month! Nearly a whole working day.
Manage your clients…
Absolutely essential to any modern business is effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Letters, quotes and other communication are fully automated and yet deliver personal looking material with the addition of only a few key words. I have looked at several CRM solutions, ACT, GOLDMINE etc, but have found MAXIMIZER to be the easiest to get up and running.
Auto responders…
An autoresponder system, running alongside your CRM software that responds to clients queries automatically. Follow up letters, emails, reminders and more – all personalised – WITHOUT having to write a single word. Yet another thirty hours a month saved, and increased business to boot! (Dependable research shows that most sales are only completed after the fifth contact – just imagine how effective you will be, if four of those five contacts are done for you?)
Box smart…
Business people, utilising the myriad of networking opportunities at their disposal, have a potent tool to easily add business to their book with very little impact on their precious time.
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