For business managers, it can sometimes be difficult to create policies and procedures that allow for the efficiency that they’d like to see from their business. Business growth leads to more complex situations which in turn demand more complex procedures. This enhanced complexity can not only get constant in that you need to alter the way things are done, you also could fall into the trap of mistakenly putting productivity roadblocks up that can alter the way your business operates.

There is one question that workers don’t hear enough, and if they do hear it, it is usually said in passing as a rhetorical question. That question is:

“How are you doing?”

One of the biggest arguments for remote work is that it poses environmental benefits, but how much truth is there to this statement? Today, we want to dive into the details and see if there is actually a solid benefit to working remotely—for the environment, at least. The answer might surprise you.

Have you ever felt like there was simply too much to do and unless you light a fire under your butt, you have no chance to get it all done? What if this state is standard operating procedure? For many small business owners and employees, this is the reality of going to work every day. In this week’s blog we thought we would discuss three strategies that work to lighten the load when it seems like the to-do list is just too big.

It’s no secret that automation is one of the major trends that most businesses have tried to incorporate into their business plans, most with some middling success. The problem becomes that many businesses don’t really have a strategy for building out automated tools for their business, so they may not be able to take advantage of the benefits automation can bring. 

Technology is a big part of doing business for a lot of organizations. One issue that comes into play is that managing that technology can get a little much for a small organization or one that doesn’t actively have some type of plan of how to organize their IT in a way that can keep that technology from being a risk or a problem. This month, we’ll take a look at a couple things that can be done to clean up your IT and make it be more of a benefit to your organization.

When we talk about projects, we typically mean new technology deployment. Our technicians spend a lot of time trying to outfit our clients with the right technologies for their business. What becomes evident pretty quickly is that most businesses don’t just need help with the IT projects, they need to get the tools in place for their own project management needs. In this week’s blog, we will briefly discuss what businesses should be looking for in project management and how today’s tools can help your organization be more productive and get more done. 

Unfortunately, the number of cyberattacks is consistently growing and many of those attacks target business end users. This means that any account that requires a password for access could conceivably be compromised should attackers gain access to its credentials. At Coleman Technologies, we promote the use of multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication or 2FA) to mitigate some of the risk inherent with the use of password-based accounts in business. 

We hate to be the bad guy, but we’re certain that you cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. Multitasking is just not how the human brain works, and whether or not you believe in the psychology of it, we think you stand to benefit by outsourcing some of the tasks on your plate to a managed service provider.

Taking a sip of cocoa, Trinket leaned back from his computer and let out a long sigh. Here it was, barely after 9:00 in the morning, and his agenda was already impossibly full. Around him, Santa’s Workshop was in full swing, the other elves frantically working to ensure that all the deliveries were prepped for the Boss before the big day came. 

Labels

Instead of categorizing your notes into folders and notebooks, Keep is organized by labels. You can create labels to find everything you have stored on a particular topic. Fortunately, it's also easy to use, so in this tip I'll show you how to use Google Keep to track all the important information you need to process and store.

Agriculture

Farms often cover miles and miles of real estate. Traditionally, this makes it more difficult to keep track of everything that is going on around the property. Drones can make monitoring the status of the farm much simpler. With specialized sensors that collect important data, farmers are able to successfully manage irrigation levels, fertilization, and crop spacing, leading to higher agriculture output. Using drones, farmers can also manage livestock much simpler.

Make Your Inbox Do the Work for You

You’ve got better things to do than organizing and prioritizing your emails manually. Granted, you’ll still need to respond to important emails, but most email clients have everything you need to set up a system that automatically parses and sorts emails based on a whole slew of different factors. It will take a little time, and likely a few rounds of adjustments to get your inbox to work the way you want it to, but we’re going to show you the tools that will help get you there.

There are multiple add-ons and browser extensions available to help boost your email templates with more dynamic options, but today, we’ll be focusing on the baked-in capabilities that Gmail comes with.

When we say that some businesses are using Windows 7, what we really mean is that with a remarkable market share that still sits around 23 percent, a lot of businesses have chosen not to upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest OS. In fact, as of January, when Microsoft officially did away with support for Windows 7, nearly half (47 percent) of SMBs were still utilizing it. It’s not a good scene. Let’s take a look at why so many haven’t moved off of Windows 7.

When most people think about IT, their thoughts turn to the phone calls they make to tech support that usually take forever and feel like they do little to move the recovery process along, or they think about the technician who comes in to repair something onsite, making a huge mess and causing a distraction. Naturally, this has made many business owners and users loath to call in IT services, preferring to make do as best they can with what they have. Neglecting IT-related problems, just like neglecting signs of malaise, can exacerbate problems substantially.

What is Data Automation?

In so many words, data automation is the collection and transcription of data using software, rather than the outdated and time-consuming manual processes that were once necessary.

Rather than one of your valuable employees being committed to data entry instead of the other tasks that are better suited to their talents and abilities, data automation utilizes technology to attend to it. As a result, your team can focus on their other responsibilities, while your data is managed more efficiently and accurately.

#1: Interact with it less.

As we established from the very start, email can very rapidly shift from an asset to a considerable time commitment, often multiple times throughout the workday. If possible, avoid getting drawn in by reducing the total amount of time you spend in your mailbox. There are a few ways to accomplish this:

Real-Time Analysis

It’s been said that knowledge is the best weapon. For the small and medium-sized business looking to navigate this situation, this couldn’t ring more true. To be able to make the best financial and operational decisions possible, SMBs are turning to data analysis, in real time. By being able to look at the data that is coming in and going out in real time, a decision maker can swiftly make educated decisions. This can help businesses stay afloat in times where they are at their most vulnerable.

To start, let’s consider the situation that we find ourselves in.

With COVID-19 still spreading, the general consensus is that spending time around other people is currently a bad thing, making the workplace a less-than-ideal environment in which to spend one’s time. As a result, many people have self-quarantined themselves in their homes. With today’s available technology, however, this does not mean that they cannot get work done, with the cloud offering great opportunities for collaboration and remote work. This plays into VoIP’s benefits quite nicely.