There’s a few main aspects to speedreading, which include cutting out the sub-vocalising, using a guide, and not backtracking. As with most things it requires practice, but at least its a skill you can develop for free. Here are the techniques in a bit more details:

• Stop Sub-Vocalizing - You might not have realised it, but the vast majority of people say each word in their head when they’re reading. It’s a habit that’s been engrained through years of unknowing practice, but it’s completely unnecessary and does nothing but slows down your reading. If you can stop saying the words in your head as you read them then that’s usually the hardest part – generally you have to force your brain to not have enough time to subvocalise by reading at a fast pace. There’s also a handy (and fun) website called Spreeder.com that will help you practice – just copy and paste the text you want into the box, click ‘play’, and it will display each word individually one after another on the screen, at a rate you choose. Generally 300 words per minute is a good start, and is just about the threshold speed where it gets hard to follow the text, and subvocalise at the same time. So if you try it you’ll probably stop saying the words in your head, as you just don’t have time to.
• Read in Chunks – Rather than reading one word at a time, try looking at a chunk of three or four words – you’ll find with a bit of practice your brain will be able to process the information from larger and larger chunks of text, without having to read each word individualls.
• Don’t Backtrack - When you’re reading fast, it’s tempting to restart sentences again as you feel like you’ve missed a few points. If you practice not going back when you feel like it, then you should start to concentrate more to ensure you get it first time round, and this will help increase the speed of your reading.

As with most things, practice makes perfect, but you will probably find that you can dramatically increase your speed of reading in quite a short amount of time. When practiced a few times it will really help to increase your reading productivity. What’s more, there’s no need to pay hundreds of dollars on a speedreading course, when you’ve got plenty of free material to practice with on the internet! Obviously if you’re reading a heavy text such as a textbook or research article, you’ll probably have to slow down your speed of reading, as they don’t seem to be designed for easy comprehension! Good luck and feel free to submit any comments at the bottom of this page.

Tags: speedread, increase reading, reading productivity, speedreading, speedreader, speedreading tool, speedreading program

For anybody who answers a large amount of email regularly then this is definitely worth a look at. It allows you to set hotkeys either from within the application, or on the fly by pressing “Ctrl + Shift + H”. For example if you wanted to be able to choose which signature you append onto your email then you can create hotkeys such as ‘sig1’ or ‘sig2’, and then in the text field you can save the text you want to appear when the hotkey is triggered. Then when you’re writing an email you can just type ‘sig1’ and hit ‘enter’. It will then replace sig1 with your signature, saving you having to type it our or copy and paste it!

In my opinion it’s a handy little tool for high-volume email users such as support staff however the program does seem to have a few bugs that need ironing out if a next version is to be released. For example sometimes no matter what hotkey you type in first of all, it still outputs the same text – a workaround to this is to enter the replacement text in “Script” rather than “Text” mode.

There are also a range of advanced features such as auto-insertion of date, which are discussed on the LifeHacker website.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can download Texter here for free.

Tags: texter, text replacement, email productivity

There will always be certain customers and potential orders that you know would be more demanding, and take up more resources of your business, or would lead you away from your core focus. As an entrepreneurial business owner you need to recognise that these customers can detract from your overall strategy, and may even deteriorate your performance on tasks within your core focus. Rather than putting your business under greater strain and accepting the work provided by these customers, you should consider saying ‘no’ (or perhaps even outsourcing the work or recommending it to other suitable providers).

The CEO of the executive recruitment firm The Carmon Group, Chris Carmon, said that it is also important for small business owners to assess not only the immediate revenue that a client can bring in now, but must also consider their future impact on the company, in terms of profitability and time.

In summary small businesses should try and see the ‘big picture’, looking at the all-round impact that a tricky customer may cause. If you consider that the interests of the customer doesn’t mesh with your business’ core focus and would take too many resources for the size of the project then don’t be afraid to turn down the business.

Quote Source: Miami Herald: www.miamiherald.com/103/story/97454.html

Tags: small businesses, say no, turn down, be assertive, small business

• Idea 1 – Install the Google toolbar and make use of the bookmarking system it offers. I personally log onto about a dozen or so websites every day, from checking my bank account to logging into website control panels. Instead of typing in a web address every time, clicking “log in” and then entering your username and password, when you’re next on the ‘log in’ page, bookmark the page using the Google bookmarks (or any other web-based bookmark tool of course). Not only does this allow you to access your bookmarks from anywhere on the Internet, but with a click of a button you can be right at the log-in screen for each website you need to check.
• Idea 2 – Are you victim to inbox obsessive compulsive disorder? In other words, do you waste time checking your inbox too often? Unless you’re a support representative that would need to have a very quick email response time, try setting aside a certain portion of your day for answering emails. Don’t even look at your inbox until the time you chose in advance, and when you are answering emails make sure you’re not doing anything else. Basically work when your working and email when your emailing. Duh?!
• Idea 3 - If you regularly check news feeds and the like on the Internet then try using a feed-reader to bring all the news stories together in one place. Rather than having to surf between sites the feed-reader will present them in a single location for you to view whenever you like. Again, set aside a specific time to keep upto date. Google Reader is one such free feed reader where you can enter your favourite RSS feeds and it will bring them together in one place. This will also help you keep abreast with industry developments if you choose to subscribe to feeds related to your industry. Some of you will start thinking I’m paid by Google for all these recommendations I keep making, (I wish!) I’m just grateful for a useful free program when I see one!
• Idea 4 – When working offline, actually work offline and don’t be tempted to go surfing! From my experience if I’ve got to do some paperwork offline, especially when it’s quite menial (eg: tax returns, sorting bank statements etc!) I’m always thinking of new ideas to try with my business and I’m a victim of distracting myself by having a ‘quick’ look online to see if the idea’s viable. Frequently this quick look turns into a longer look! So if you need to work offline and to concentrate doing so, turn off your computer, Internet connection or Wi-Fi to give the task your full attention.
• Idea 5 - Get the systems in place early. With business ambitions, always ‘thing big’ – if you’re aiming for growth in your business (which most new small businesses are) you’ll need to set up systems to cope with this growth. Time invested in automation and setting up labour and time-saving systems is well invested. This allows your business to be more ‘scalable’. As an example, rather than manually creating invoices, look for an automatic invoice creation and CRM system. Once you’ve found one, then integrate it into all your other business processes to avoid duplication, unnecessary typing and flicking back and forth. Lack of capacity and the resultant decline in business performance from stretched resources is a significant business killer that shouldn’t be overlooked. Aim high and get the systems in place.

Okay so there you have it, like I said the ideas above won’t exactly change the world, but they’re definitely a step in the right direction to helping you reclaim back some free time and/or work more effectively. You might also notice a common theme (no, not my affinity for Google applications!) but the theme of COMMITMENT and FULL INVOLVEMENT in a task. Only when a task has your full concentration will you perform your best and will you feel truly happy in your work.

I hope this article has provided some food for thought, feel free to send me a comment if you’ve found it useful or have a question.

Tags: productivity enhancing, business efficiency, productivity, personal development, full commitment

As I mentioned in one of our previous telephony blog posts, Skype is a Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) telephone package which can be used wherever you have a broadband internet connection and a headset/microphone combo, or with a handheld USB phone. With many airports, service stations and even trains now featuring Wireless Access points, you can even access it when on the go.

One-Click Dialling From Your Browser

The Skype Add-In for Internet Explorer (or Firefox for that matter) is a simple toolbar that installs into your web browser, and any numbers that then appear on the website you are viewing are highlighted with a little Skype icon. Rather than having to type each number into your phone, or into Skype, if you click the phone number on the website then Skype will automatically call that number. This does however, require you to have SkypeOut credit, as described in a previous article. The add-in also allows you to display your Skype contact list on the left-hand side of your browser, so when you are visiting a website you are just a click away from calling your contacts as well.

Skype As A Cold-Calling Time Saving Tool

If like me you prefer not to be cold-calling, then why not reduce the time you spend doing it not by reducing the amount of calls, but by increasing your productivity. Alternatively if ‘distance selling’ is your thing then you can use the time saved to make even more calls, and hopefully get more sales! So how exactly is Skype useful as a cold-calling tool:

1. Call History Log – Rather than having to log all calls you make into your CRM system, Skype records these in its history log, which can be filtered to show either outbound or inbound calls or voicemails. What’s more, this history is ‘searchable’.
2. CRM Integration – If you prefer to go one step further, Skype can be integrated into your CRM package. Salesforce.com is one example of a CRM solution which offers Skype integration. See http://www.skype.com/business/skype-in-salesforce.html for more details about the integration. I’m sure that other CRM providers will also offer these plugins, but Salesforce is the most well known.
3. Low Call Rates – Whilst this one won’t increase your productivity, it will definitely save you money – with extremely low call rates with SkypeOut, you will probably save money with Skype rather than your existing landline telephone provider.

Skype Add-In for Your Browser & Spreadsheet Cold Calling :: The Golden Egg

If you currently call new leads or prospects from an Excel spreadsheet, and are manually dialling the number into your standard telephone keypad then you really should pay attention now. This little tip could potentially save you hours over the course of a cold-calling day!

In your Excel spreadsheet, go to “Save As” and then choose “Single Web Page” as the file type, and save it somewhere memorable such as your desktop. Then go to your web browser and click “File” –> “Open” and open the file you just saved. This will appear as a web page, and once you have installed the Skype Add-In for Internet Explorer as described previously, even if you have 1,000 numbers row after row, they will all light up with the Skype symbol, meaning that you can just click on them and Skype will connect the call.

This really does have the potential to save hours of time, and hopefully take some of the drudgery away from cold-calling. If you have any comments or experience using Skype for business applications then please feel free to leave a comment and let us know.

Download Skype now and start making productivity gains!

Tags: cold calling, skype cold calling, business phone, phone productivity, voip

Stop Paying Your Inbox More Time Than Your Customers

Unsolicited bulk email, or spam as it is commonly known, plagues the majority of internet users nowadays. If you are a business then even more so, as you have probably listed your email address online in a variety of places. Not to be pessimistic, but over time the problem will only get worse as more and more rogues get their hands on your email addresses. If you’re regularly having to sift through inbox to manually filter out spam then it’s time to look for a better spam filter or email service! Ideally you want a filter that can ‘learn’ and teaching it is as simple as clicking “Report spam” when a spam email slips the net. That way it will adapt its filter and become more effective in keeping your inbox clean. We provide Microsoft Exchange 1Gb and 2Gb email hosting packages which have effective spam filters – please contact us for more details.

Forever Filling In Forms?

If you’re the type of person who’s always doing a million things at once, and having to sign up for dozens of things every week then you’re also probably spending way too much time entering your personal details over and over again. Many online registration forms require much of the same information (eg: name, address, phone number etc..), and so there are applications out there that can do the legwork for you. RoboForm is one such example which is a relatively inexpensive application and saves your ‘profile’ so that you can get it to enter all your information at the click of a button. These programs are also extremely useful in link building campaigns, which require similar information to be entered repeatedly.

It’s A Date!

There are some tasks which we really should do every week, or daily if you prefer! Data-saving tasks such as full virus and spyware scans together with full system backups should be performed regularly. The importance of creating regular backups of your work onto CD, DVD or an external hard-drive really shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s probably happened to all of us when we’ve been writing an article or document for hours, only to later discover much to our dismay that it didn’t actually save. Backup programmes (and even external hard-drives) can be bought quite cheaply, and many antivirus and backup utilities come with a scheduler installed. Rather than having to manually run a virus scan or backup it would save time and be more efficient to set the scheduler to run at a certain time every week (or day) – don’t forget to also have your antivirus program set to automatic updates.

Part 2 Will Follow On Tomorrow…

Tags: time management, business time management, softare, automate tasks

Once the spammers have your email address there’s nothing you can do about it, but sometimes prevention is better than cure… If you list your email address on your website then make sure you have run it through an Email Obfuscator Script. This is an online tool where you enter your email address and it returns an encoded version that is visible to human eyes, but the automatic bots that the spammers use has trouble reading it. Unfortunately it isn’t foolproof, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Once you have the encoded email address, you need to enter this into the code for your web page. If you had your website designed by us then we normally ‘ofbuscate’ all email addresses before publishing them on a website, however just contact us for a quote if you want us to do it for you.

Another method of reducing spam is to replace the text version of your email address with an image. For this you need an image editor to create a blank image with the background colour of your website, and then type the email address into the image, and insert this into the code for the web page. Most spam-bots can’t read images so this should help prevent the majority of the unsolicited bulk emails.

A couple of tricks of the trade are to try and avoid using common email addresses if possible such as info@… sales@… etc. as these are also randomly targeted.

Finally for some light-hearted vengeance (if that’s not a contradiction in terms), take a look at an example of a Spam Trap that has been created to randomly generate fake email addresses on a page whenever it is loaded and confuse the bot into harvesting thousands of fake email addresses.

Tags: spam prevention, unsolicited bulk email, spam, bulk email, email obfuscator

If you don’t yet have a sturdy webmail system for your business domain name (eg: yourbusiness.co.uk) then AeroDesigns can offer corporate strength Microsoft Exchange hosting, but if you don’t need all the bells and whistles that come with Exchange, then you should think about using the free Google Mail Apps service. With this service you can have up to 100 mailboxes (or more if you negotiate) at a whopping 2Gb per box! These email addresses are configured so that they appear from your own domain name and you can administer all your employees email accounts from your Admin panel.

You can find all the new applications over at the Google “About” Page.

So what kind of new features are available? Well if you’re not familiar with the Gmail standard, you sort emails according to a label you give them rather than into folders, this takes a bit of getting used to but has definitely got a shallow learning curve with all the tips and tutorials they offer. You can also link up with their other free tools such as Google Calendar (which you can set to send free SMS text messages to your mobile phone as reminders to events), and Google Docs which allows you to share and collaborate on documents with other employees online.

 Google Mail Apps also allows you to store the details of all your contacts in an easily accessible and searchable format. If you use Skype regularly (particularly SkypeOut and SkypeIn) then you can also download a Skype Toolbar for Internet Explorer which highlights telephone numbers that you can call just by clicking on. So to sum up, if you use Google Mail to store your contacts and use Skype, then you just have to navigate to your contact and click their number and Skype will call them for you without having to type the number in. I’d highly recommend Skype for small business users as they offer really cheap landline calls and personally I have found the call quality to be perfect when using broadband (even 512Kb).

Tags: increase business productivity, google apps, google applications, business productivity, gmail, google docs