The trusted..."build a to-do list"



The good advice..."take breaks to unclutter your mind and encourage productivity"

The difficult..."keep your office life and personal life separated"

The battle with..."put procrastination away" (maybe do that tomorrow)

The vague..."manage your time effectively"

The standard..."set goals and have a plan"

Ok, now that we've covered the intangible, lets note them on a sheet of pretty green paper and post them above our desk, and move on to discussing "tangible tools" that assist in becoming more productive either in the work or home office.

How "hooked-up" are you between your computer at home and your computer at work? If you're thinking, being "that hooked-up" is headache causing, you may want to look at this statistic: According to the Telework Coalition, more than 22.2 million Americans Teleworked in 2005, that is they worked either at home or another location away from the office. This trend requires office productivity software to keep you connected. Certainly remotely accessing your pc, or holding meetings online, are must have services that can provide you with the flexibility you need to work from any location you decide necessary.

Flexibility and office productivity are synonymous. Ok, so it's a cliche, but fundamentally true. Think about it, the weather throws a curve ball into your day, you can't get to where you need to be, but wait, you're tap dancing!, why? Oh, you just remembered you recently signed up for remote pc access and meetings online. Whew. So you quickly call all the parties you need to speak to from your cell phone ('cause the phone lines are out too...'just adding some drama'), and let everyone know you'll be holding an online web conference due to the weather. You've now officially "managed your time effectively" using productivity software services that can be easily accessed online.

OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARES & The Realtor:

Productive real estate sales representatives are often people willing to integrate face-to-face selling skills with modern technology. Realtors come in all ages, and an older representative can be quite reluctant with "hooking-up" to modern productivity software tools. Why is that? In many cases it's as simple as a fear of learning something new. When thinking about setting up computers to talk to each other, some sales reps may still believe the process is complicated, when in fact remotely accessing your office pc, literally from anywhere in the world, is a "service" available online. You sign up for the service, download the software, now you're office computer files and wireless laptop can always be connected.

There are so many circumstances this perk assists a real estate agent in being more productive. As an example, you're at your child's sporting event, your pager goes off, the selling broker needs a copy of the accepted offer which you inadvertently left stored on your computer at the office. Well, no sweat, you have you're wireless laptop with you and remote pc access connected to your office computer so you can simply get access to your office computer on your laptop, get the document and forward it by email to the Selling Representative. Now back to the game.

There are multiple uses for having remote access to your office computer: You're working on an Appraisal, you're getting tired and need a change of environment to finish the project. So you take your laptop with you to your favorite local restaurant, dial into your office computer to access the Appraisal you were working on. After a very productive hour of work, you complete your client's appraisal report, cover letter and all. Because you also have an email to fax service, you can forward the Appraisal directly to your client's fax machine, by email, from your laptop in the restaurant you are sitting in. How nice, you now get to leave the restaurant with the task completed. Next.

The real life scenarios of how email fax, remote pc, and even online meetings can function as modern tools for the busy real estate sales representative, are endless. Real estate and productivity are two words that marry. Commission rates are not at the levels they used to be years ago, so finding a method to create client volume in a professional way is vital to making an impression that separates you from others.

OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARES - For Everyone:

The number of circumstances that can arise where we need remote access to our files are countless. It's almost assumed that we're "connected" between our phone, work pc, and home office. When someone asks us to email them "that file" we're almost embarrassed to say "it's at the office" since there are so many tools out there to prevent that response in the first place.

Getting connected, getting past the learning curve, and software providers developing easy to use template driven remote office tools, are the new "three stooges".