Workplace productivity – could yours be improved?!

One of the reasons for launching Being Smarter a year ago was because of our wish to help people with workplace productivity.
In previous lives I spent many years watching people and businesses going about things the long way round… doing things in a particular way because… well it has always been done like that… not using technology to be more productive… or worse still using technology poorly and making things worse. I was inspired by some of these issues – and that was one of the reasons Being Smarter was born.

The 8.45 Club (one of our venture companies) has just re-released its course on workplace productivity. We’ve taken on board feedback, shortened it, and made the first session’s trial available without registration.

The course is made up of 12 video-based modules. (Do read them all, because there’s a bonus at the bottom of the page). Once you become a member, they are delivered to your inbox every two working days for a month and cover the following sessions:

Day 1: Keyboard shortcut keys – they speed up your life

We start with a free trial video and give you dozens of ways to increase your productivity by introducing you to the world of shortcuts. We throw down the gauntlet and say don’t do things in that way, just because you’ve been doing that for years – learn new ways to speed up you life. Will you rise to the challenge?!

Day 2: How to save hours a month through email productivity

We then focus on one of the biggest timewasters in business – managing email… and yes, it really is possible to do it better.

Day 3: Productivity monitoring – work out HOW you spend your time – then fix the problem

We then show you a way of getting organised and saying to yourself – are you really optimising the way you work (or your colleagues work?) We introduce a free tool which sits in the background and analyses how you spend your day at your PC. It’s invaluable and will almost certainly shock you at the end of the week when you look at the stats.

Day 4: How and why to share your desktop with anyone for free

We take a look at saving time and money from a travel perspective and see how easy it is to share your PC’s desktop with colleagues or customers, inside or outside of the firewall.

Day 5: Messy office? Not efficient and productive? There’s a link

Your office is a state isn’t it? Do you know where the post-it notes are? We give you plenty of thoughts from an industry leader on how to get more organised at home and at work. Note – this is bedtime reading as opposed to a video session today.

Day 6: Customize your desktop in seconds and save hours

We then move on to Day 6 and show you all kinds of time saving tips when it comes to customizing your PC to suit your needs, as opposed to Microsoft’s… This really isn’t for geeks – it’s for business people – so hang in there.

Day 7: To do list software – friend or foe?

Day 7 then moves on to talk about to do list software and gives you another free alternative which really should help you to get organised and improve the way your stats look from Day 3!

Day 8: Password management software – stop wasting time remembering your credentials

We then move onto the the tricky subject of password management software. How many passwords do you have – 10, 100, 1000? They are a fundamental part of every knowledge worker’s day and this advicelet shows you the perfect, secure way to manage them.

Day 9: Xobni review – Email productivity gets a boost with this awesome plugin

We then move onto looking at another real timesaver – back to email management and a plugin which should have been made by Microsoft originally – but they weren’t clever enough to think of it. We show you the plugin and the power it gives you when it comes to finding ’stuff’ in Outlook – which we all know takes ages… normally.

Day 10: How to write a good email – things you never think about (and should)

We may sound like we are teaching you to suck eggs – but we aren’t. Day 10 talks through some things to think about when you next write an email – taken from expert views in the industry. We bet it opens your eyes.

Day 11: Be more productive – how to fit 12 hours into 7.5

In our second and final piece of bedtime reading – we bring you a set of thoughts (ahem over 150) from industry leaders on the real vision for the course – squeezing 12 hours into your 7.5 hour day.

Day 12: Increase workplace productivity with this free mind mapping tool

And finally, we start with refreshing your memories on mindmapping – you’ve heard of it – but do you use it and do you want to spend £200 on the software? Well you don’t have to – it’s free now – and in the cloud – and excellent – we show you everything – warts and all today.

BONUS

To celebrate the relaunch of this already popular course – and as a thank you for finding Being Smarter… enter the coupon code “beingsmarter” in the registration box to receive a 50% discount until the end of September.

Workplace productivity can be found at this link. Enjoy!