We are living in a fast-paced world. Everyday, we see people racing against time in an effort to NOT come in late for work, miss their classes, fail to make it to an appointment, miss their deadlines and so on. That said, anything that could potentially save a person some time is always welcome. Such is the concept behind efficiency, not just in the workplace, but life in general.
Efficiency is definitely not a buzzword, but a metric that can potentially measure a person’s aptitude, if not common sense. And to stay the efficiency course, people have devised shortcuts (or life hacks) for the purpose of making their lives simpler, easier and free of clutter. And if you’re a certified shortcut hunter, here are 5 sites you might want to consider:
1. Bitrix24.com
If you own or manage a company, chances are productivity is foremost in the list of things you value, and you want to use all types of software that can do just that – increase productivity: CRM for sales and marketing, instant messaging to keep communication lines open between yourself and your employees, activity planning software to ensure that everything that needs to be accomplished gets accomplished in time, calendar or activity planner to track your own responsibilities and so on.
Bitrix24.com is an online social intranet platform that does all of the above and more. First off, it is cloud-based, so there’s no installation necessary. Second, it’s absolutely free for companies with 12 employees or less. For companies with more than 12 employees, service starts at $99 a month.
2. LastPass.com
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably already said, “I’ve had it with these passwords!” more times than you can count. And if you’re somebody concerned about security, you know by now that using the same password for several accounts is not a good idea. Using different passwords, however, especially if you have a lot of accounts to manage, can be very tedious as it’s so easy to forget which password is for which account. Next to using the same password, writing your passwords down where someone else can accidentally get hold of them, is not a brilliant thing to do, too.
Good thing there’s LastPass.com, a browser plug-in that synchronizes your data – passwords included – with the computer you often use. Once your data has been stored, you can conveniently forget about your other passwords. Your LastPass.com password is all you ever need to remember. And the service only costs $1 a month.
3. PickyDomains.com
You’re launching a new business, or a new product, or a new website. Naturally, you need a name or a slogan to go along with it. But the problem these days, on the domain front, most of the good domains are no longer available. And if you’re running out of ideas and practically had it with mechanical domain generators, head on to PickyDomains.com, a crowdsourcing site of over 55,000 contributors.
To start receiving suggestions, register as a client, pay the required $50 deposit for names and domains (slogans cost $75) and identify your specifications. Now, here comes the best deal – if nothing fits your needs, you’re entitled to a refund.
4. JetRadar.com
Summer is almost here. If you’re a regular gal or dude, you probably are envisioning yourself basking in the sun in a tropical beach somewhere. And if you’re one with a doctorate in frugality, you know pretty well that airlines aren’t seeing eye-to-eye with price-comparison websites these days, so that cheap tickets are mostly offered only through their own corporate websites or other sites they have exclusive contracts with. What happens now is that you, the consumer, would have to hop from one airline website to another, one ticket-selling agency to another to scour for the cheapest deal possible. Tough, eh?
Tough no more it is. JetRadar.com is here to do the work for you. JetRadar is an engine that systematically searches through 35 ticketing sites and 728 airlines and make the data publicly available, definitely your one-stop shop for everything cheap in the airfare arena.
5. TimeBridge.com
If you’re a business honcho, you perhaps already know how difficult it is sometimes to come up with a meeting schedule that’s amenable to everyone in your team. Despite you constantly nagging your people, there’s always the off chance that somebody will come in to the meeting either late or unprepared, which can become agonizingly frustrating.
Acquired by MerchantCircle in 2010, TimeBridge.com is a web and mobile app that coordinates your people’s calendars and confirms the best date and time for a one-on-one or group meeting automatically. TimeBridge also guarantees everyone shows up through e-mail alerts and SMS notifications.
6. HootSuite.com
Social media is the “in” thing nowadays. Almost everyone is on Facebook, Twitter and several other social media platforms. And if you’re a business owner hoping to capture a decent share of the market, chances are you already have a social media campaign in place. What’s remarkable about social media is it’s constantly growing, and several other platforms are expected to crop up anytime soon. That being said, sooner rather than later, it may become increasingly challenging for a business to manage marketing activities through existing and upcoming platforms.
HootSuite.com is a social media administration tool that allows you to handle all of your social media campaigns using one web-based control panel. The service can either be free or pro. Pro costs $9.99 a month.
7. Gliffy.com
If you’re an architect, an engineer, a teacher or somebody who constantly deals with charts and/or diagrams to send your message across, you know how valuable a flowcharting application is. It saves you time, energy and yes, money. Coined from the word “glyph,” Gliffy.com is an online diagram service that makes designing floor plans, network layouts, SWOT charts, organizational charts and other complex technical drawings as easy as they can be. Gliffy’s service may either be free, standard or pro. The standard package starts at $4.95 per user per month.
No comments:
Post a Comment