055: Time Management Hacks: Install These Quick Computer Programs Today to Get Yourself Over the Hump, Complete All Your Projects, and Have More Fun

When we run our own businesses and don't have a "boss" to answer to, it can be easy to fall back into old habits of goofing off. It's easy to fall back into the habit of filling up time because when you worked at your "day job", the objective was to fill up 8 hours a day.

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Today, we're going to talk about getting all that clutter that we're used to from a day job out of the way.

Quick Computer Programs Everyone Can Use to Improve Their Productivity

Online Stopwatch: Use this to time yourself doing a task so that you truly commit to getting it done in a certain amount of time, i.e. knock out a blog post in 10 minutes instead of thinking about it for an hour.

Camtasia: This software can record everything you're doing online. This is excellent software for recording tutorials, software walk-through demo's, etc. You can simultaneously record your processes as well as your spoken audio. We'll talk more in depth regarding Camtasia a little later in the episode.

Google Calendar: This is free and you already have it if you have a Gmail account. If you don't, you can just go to www.google.com/calendar to get it. It's great because you can synchronize it to your iPhone and iPad as well as share it with other users, such as spouses and business partners. It will send you popups/emails for upcoming appointments. Don't schedule EVERYTHING you do on your calendar-you'll just end up creating a glorified to-do list. Use it for essential appointments, such as meetings and webinars, etc.

Don't forget to check out Robert's Book, 100 Time Savers for more useful advice.

Essential Software/Programs for Internet Marketers

Camtasia Studio (again): You can record a full video and save that but also have the option of saving just the audio portion. You could use the audio for doing something like a podcast.

You can even record tutorial videos or "helper videos" just for yourself. If Robert has a particular process he has to go through, that he doesn't want to forget, he can record the entire process and then post that video to YouTube.

Some examples would be how to convert a .wav audio file to an MP3 file:

... Or how to convert any graphics file into a JPEG thumbnail:

... Or how to upload a book to CreateSpace:

Now that you have this process, you don't have to write it down on a piece of paper or make extensive notes. Your entire tutorial is accessible anywhere you can access internet to get to YouTube.

Access Robert's video tutorials at his YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe too.

GoToWebinar: Use this software for setting up all of your webinars.

WordPress

Most all other things that Robert needs to accomplish in his business can be taken care of through WordPress and various WordPress plugins.

• He uses a plugin called Paper Template to create landing pages, opt-in pages, download pages, thank you pages, etc.
• He uses a WordPress plugin called Member Genius to take payments in combination with PayPal.
• Then, he uses a plugin called Backup Creator to back up his WordPress sites and if you back it up to another place (i.e. your hard drive, etc.), you've now cloned that site and you can use it over and over (with editing) to produce multiple sites.

These are all plugin's that Robert has created and you can get all of them in one package by joining Income Machine today.

Additional Software/Programs You'll Find Useful

GoodSync: Developed by the same creators of RoboForm, it allows you to synchronize your folders with FTP websites, Dropbox or Amazon S3 buckets.

Let's look at this scenario: When you record a video that you want to put online (like your membership site), first you have to record it, then you have to edit it, then you need to produce it and save it to a folder on your computer, then you would have to open up an FTP program (like FileZilla), then you have to drag the file over and wait for it to upload to your website, at which point you probably go create or edit a webpage and finally your video is there. It's A LOT of steps.

GoodSync automatically uploads certain files to your website. You specify which folders it syncs when a new file is added to that folder. So, essentially, as soon as you would produce and save the edited file from above, GoodSync would automatically recognize it as new and sync it over to your website.

It's skipping an entire step of you having to open the FTP website and wait for your videos to upload.

As part of Robert's sites, Webinar Crusher and Double Agent Marketing, he and his business partner Lance run monthly Q&A video calls. They record them using Camtasia, perhaps do a little editing and then save them. As soon as that step is done, GoodSync recognizes there's new files added to those folders on his computer and it uploads them to the websites so that the replay is always available.

RoboForm and LastPass. If you don't have Roboform, get it. You want to use the "Roboform Everywhere" option.

Roboform remembers all of your passwords and stores them, encrypted, in the cloud. If you ever have to reinstall your computer or certain programs, you can retrieve those passwords from Roboform. You don't have to remember your own passwords for multiple sites and you don't have to have them written down ANYWHERE.

There is also a RoboForm app for smartphones, tablets, etc. There is also a master password to RoboForm so no one can just get on your computer and have access to everything.

LastPass is great for for shared sites.

Jing is useful for capturing screen shots that you can then send as a file. That way, you don't have to send them an entire tutorial or video, etc., just the one piece that you're discussing.

You can then save that screen shot as a file to the public folder in Dropbox.

Dropbox iss similar to GoodSync in that you have folders that syncs up to the cloud.

It's good for sharing files with others but you can also use it between your own computers. For instance, you could edit a file on your laptop, save it to the Dropbox folder, and then it's the exact same version on your computer when you get home from a business meeting.

Dropbox has a public folder that you can save videos and documents to. No one else has access to it until you provide them with a link from that public folder and now you can share those certain files with them. It's also free (up to a point).

Google Sheets: The free Google equivalent of MS Excel. Just like with Google Calendar, you can share your "sheets" with or without editing privileges. It's handy for having documents that you share with your business partners, employees, and outsourcers/freelancers.

This is part of Google's "Google Drive" products which are free software programs almost identical to Microsoft Office products that are browser-based (instead of computer-based).

Google Chrome Bookmarks Bar: This is obvious but most people don't think to use it. Most of us are familiar with bookmarks but we have 100's of them in different folders that we never even use.

Instead, use the Bookmarks Bar for your most common sites that you go to EVERY DAY. You can also use it to bookmark certain docs that you're constantly using (like a Google Sheet) and editing and when you are done with that doc, you can just delete it off your bookmarks bar. The doc still exists but it's no longer a bookmark.

Additional Sites/Timesavers

Fiverr: A website for getting quick outsourcing work done at a fairly inexpensive rate, such as graphics, transcriptions, video editing, etc.

Backup! Backup your desktop, your files, etc. The time IS going to come when a computer crashes, you lose files, etc. Spending time on recovering files or creating new ones is a productivity killer! Here are some options:

• Backup Creator: automatically backs up your WordPress sites. If you have a cPanel and/or dedicated server, use their backup options.
• CloudBerry Backup: backup your desktop/any files you specify to an Amazon S3 bucket.
• G-Safe: An external hard drive with 2 internal hard drives.
• Amazon AWS Import/Export: You can mail an external hard drive to Amazon with specifications as to which S3 Bucket you want it saved to, they will do the upload for you, and mail you back your hard drive. It costs about $120 but it's worth it if you have a slow internet connection to get that "first" offsite backup in place.

Don't forget to relax! Give your brain a little bit of a rest and enjoy some podcasts (free at iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcatchers) or listen to an audiobook via Audible. Robert recommends you take in some fiction and turn off "marketing mode" for just a little bit!

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Filed in: Archive 1: 2012-2016 • Podcast • Productivity