There's Help for Managing Your Time

In 1925, inventor Hugo Gernsback, considered the father of modern science fiction, devised The Isolator, a means for eliminating distractions in order to concentrate fully on important tasks.

The massive metal helmet and collar, with a hose hooked up to an oxygen tank, blocked out noise. Two portholes allowed the user to keep their eyes on the task.

Not surprisingly, The Isolator didn’t catch on.

Almost a century later, computerized technologies provide much easier ways to manage your time so that you can focus on work. Aaron Johnson, president of Vindy, shared six of his favorite apps in the CAMEX22 session, Software Tools to Maximize Productivity.

Time management is really key to getting things done. “Your calendar should guide you in everything you do,” Johnson said.

Apps also give you a way to automate and organize many tasks. That can be especially helpful to campus stores that are operating with fewer employees or have taken over additional responsibilities.

A quick poll showed that quite a few audience members were already using one or more of the apps at their campus stores. All of the apps have a free version available.

Forest www.forestapp.cc

This app, for phone or computer, helps track your time. The name comes from a little trick the app uses to keep you on task: You plant a tree, and if you navigate away from your task during the scheduled time, the tree dies.

Forest also lets you assign categories to tasks so you can look back weekly, monthly, or annually to see how you actually divided your time. “People may be very surprised where they’re spending time versus where they think they’re spending time,” Johnson noted.

Trello www.trello.com

“Most of us use it for daily planning, also for our marketing calendar,” Johnson said. “I use it for my to-do list.”

With the app you can assign tasks, set due dates, and manage email related to tasks, using a drag-and-drop column format. “You can filter out stuff that doesn’t need to be done today, but still lives on my to-do list,” he said.

Confluence www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

Johnson’s company uses this software as a base to store more than 300 pages of content, such as policies and procedures, new employee manual, branding guide and assets, and a lot of employee knowledge.

“We picked it because it has a great internal search engine,” Johnson said. Content can be tagged or linked to other content, especially useful in outlining processes for sales and other purposes. Email templates are provided for creating FAQs.

Slack www.slack.com

This app is popular with many companies—as well as colleges and universities—for quick internal communication among employees, similar to direct messaging. Channels can be set up to address specific items and messaging can be automated, such as certain reports or updates.

At Johnson’s company, Slack messaging has replaced the need for many meetings. “We don’t want a bunch of meetings going on if we can share the same info on Slack,” he said.

Evernote www.evernote.com

When you do need a meeting, Evernote is handy for taking notes. A search function is built in, and you can create action items within the notes. Notes can be tagged or organized into folders.

Evernote also has the capability to scan handwriting into notes. Web articles can be clipped and saved, with ads filtered out.

Zapier www.zapier.com

This software can assist in automating workflow and managing email. Templates are available and it can be used in combination with Slack.

For more time management tips, take a look at Johnson’s recommendations from his CAMEX21 presentation, The Myth of Multitasking.