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Seize the day. Take control of time. Organize your work and your life. You will not only get more orders, but you will also have a greater sense of accomplishment and feel more energetic. Thirty-five ways to save time with your electronic devices, on the road, in the office, and in communicating follow.
Do it Digitally
Get a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and a notebook computer with a fast modem. Enter all relevant contact and scheduling data and keep it up to date. Synchronize both your PDA and computer when you leave the office and when you come back.
Organize the address book on your PDA into yellow pages for business associates and white pages for personal contacts. Color-code your calendar. Use red for deadlines, green for appointments on the road, blue for local appointments, and your favorite color for vacation. In this way, you will visually organize your schedule to avoid conflicts.
Set up an Idea File in your computer. Key in to do lists, reminders, random thoughts, and notes to yourself rather than jotting them on slips of paper. You can search the Idea File by key words and delete completed or outdated items.
Get a contact manager such as GoldMine or Act. Enter all relevant information and keep it current. Use the alarm and reminder functions to follow up and be on time.
Set up style sheets and form letters to speed correspondence. Customize them for each occasion.
Use a financial program to log and store expenses.
On the Road
Stick to a schedule. Try to make all your calls on certain days of the week saving the other days to set up appointments, follow up on the calls you just made, prepare quotes, and do other paperwork.
Ask for the first appointment of the day. It is less likely to start late. Squeeze in extra calls by taking a client to breakfast, another to lunch, and as appropriate socialize with a customer in the evening rather than watching TV in your hotel room.
Clump appointments. Call on all your prospects in company A before crossing town to company B.
Carry paperwork with you. If you are kept waiting, you can use the time productively and not be flustered by the delay. Work in airports, on planes, on trains, and in cars.
When you are driving, use the dashboard time to listen to instructional tapes, dictate ideas and memos into a tape recorder, and mentally picture winning the order at your next sales call. Use your nights on the road to do your paperwork, research your accounts on the Internet, and shop from catalogues or online.
In the Office
Arrange equipment using the near-far rule: keep things you use frequently within arm's length and things you don't out of the way. If your desk is too crowded, get some shelves. Place shared equipment such as fax machines and copiers in a common area so people using them do not disturb you.
If you are right handed, place your phone on your left and keep a pad and pen beside it. If you are left-handed, do the opposite.
Assign a logical place for everything. Keep your billfold, eyeglasses, and keys in a secure spot by the door. Store letterhead, envelopes, labels, and paper by your printer. Keep your dictionary and other reference books within easy reach by your desk.
Place literature, quotations, notes, and other items needed for your next sales calls in your briefcase.
Store active files in an upright file folder beside the phone. Color-code your filing system so you can find things easily. Use different colored folders and tabs for separate categories. Before you file something, ask yourself two questions, "Will I really need to use this again?" and "Where will I probably look for it?" Clip interesting articles and file them as soon as you read them and recycle the rest of the publication. Once a year purge your files of outdated and unneeded materials and rethink your system. Limit printing and filing hard copy to essential documents. Most of your computer files can remain digital.
Backup your computer files and store neatly labeled disks by your computer or at home.
Get the fastest Internet connection you can.
Communications
Use a telephone head set that frees your hands. While you are on hold, you can trash old files and go through your mail. Caution: while you are talking to someone, give her your full attention. She can hear you shuffling papers and using your keyboard and may take offense. Ask permission to take notes on your computer while you are talking.
Dial directly from your contact manager. While the computer is making the connection, you can continue to sort your mail.
Don't waste time scrolling through old messages on your voice mail. Copy messages and delete them as they come in. Follow up and get rid of those notes.
Cut down on phone tag by setting phone appointments with callers. When leaving voice mail messages, say when you will call again or when you may be reached. Repeat your name and phone number at the end of the message. If you don't want to spend time on social chatter, return calls that only require giving a short answer or posing a simple question during lunch hour or outside normal business hours when most people are away from their desks. Leave a message that fully answers the question that prompted the call. When you leave voice mail, be specific so that respondents can give you a complete answer. If you need to speak with someone, try phoning just before lunch or just before quitting time. Your chances of finding him at his desk are fairly high and he is probably interested in keeping the conversation short and to the point. Respond to business letters promptly and keep business correspondence to one page. Learn to use the broadcast features of your fax machine and your email program.
Look at your biorhythms. Do you get drowsy mid-afternoon? Are you a night owl? Do you rise and shine? Plan your work to take advantage of your peak time. If you are awake and full of energy in the middle of the night, turn on your computer and write a proposal. If you are a morning lark, make your sales calls then. Your energy will be contagious.
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