In this day and age, with so many high tech ways of doing things, we often forget about tried and true ‘old school’ methods of doing things.

There are online file storage programs, web based contact management systems, electronic to-do lists, and so on and so forth.

Does that mean we should all go paperless? Do away with our tangible file storage, rolodex and steno pads?

I don’t think so - not entirely, anyway.

If I had a rolodex, I would have business cards I collect in there and easily accessible. Instead, I enter my contacts’ information in an electronic database. After a networking event last week, I had my cards ready to be entered, and the one I really need I can’t find anywhere. I can’t find the person online either. I’m trying to go by memory to bring up her website address, but I have to do a thorough search here. I need to get a rolodex!

That has me thinking about what others do high-tech versus low-tech.

I like to keep actual manual notes about my clients. Each client has a notebook where I enter notes as we speak on the phone, I have their passwords for different applications stored there, and I find it very easy to access information very quickly.

I also keep old fashioned files in an old fashioned filing cabinet. I would like to have an identical system set up online, but with my not-quite-as-fast-as-high-speed Internet connection, the thought is rather painful to start uploading everything I have stored on my computer.

Another thing that really bugs me is ebooks. I love ebooks, I’ve even written some. But I can’t stand to read them on my computer screen. I print them out using FinePrint, which is a fabulous free (high tech) tool that helps to reduce paper and ink usage when printing items. I print my ebooks 4 pages per sheet of letter sized paper. I have them at my desk where I can read them in between projects, or for quick reference.

So what do you do the old fashioned way versus the technological way? What works for you?

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So Mark has done it again.  He has blogged about another awesome little tool that I am really loving.

It’s called Windows Pager - it’s an open source program that works with Windows XP to give you up to 4 desktops on your machine, all running at once. Open Source = free!

Right now, I have one desktop with my collaboration site open, one with my word processor where I’m doing some writing, one with my time tracking tool, and another here where I’m blogging, etc.

It’s a teeny tiny file, and even with my slow broadband I was able to download it and have it working in seconds.

Download it here:

http://windowspager.sourceforge.net/

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One of my fabulous VAs, Victoria, is just the best at finding cool software solutions. Yesterday she sent me a link to a program that has resulted in the freeing up of a ton of my time and it’s keeping me on the ball like nothing else!

It’s called Toodledo, and you know it has to be good because of the name.

What it is, is a program to manage your daily/monthly/weekly/yearly/wheneverly ‘to-do’ items and goals- hence the name ‘Toodledo‘.

So, you might be thinking, “ya, big deal, another to-do manager”, but listen up! This one is different. It has a super cool Firefox add on so right now, as I type, my list is staring me in the face on the left hand side of my screen.

I’ve asked Victoria to take over my email management because it eats up way too much of my time, and because I upgraded from a free ‘Toodledo‘ account to a Pro Version (for the hefty sum of $14.95/year) I can add Victoria as a collaborator. She can add tasks for me as things come up in my email, so I can deal with them.

I’m one of those people that’s very motivated by crossing off items on a list, so this is just perfect for me. Yesterday I accomplished an amount of work I didn’t think was even possible, because it was all listed right there for me all day. Tasks are organized by folders, which I have set up for each of my clients, Mann Made Time, and my personal items. Since I don’t necessarily need Victoria to know when I’m going for a physical or what grocery items I am out of, I set up my own personal folder as private so she won’t know what’s in there. Not that it matters, because she has enough information about me, including all of my passwords, to completely hack into my life anyway.

Anyway, It also has a very cool feature with the Pro Version that’s perfect for those that procrastinate or are easily distracted. You can tell Toodledo that you have some free time, let’s say one hour, and it will search your hottest or highest priority items and tell you what you could do for that hour. You can even choose one of your folders (or clients) for it to pick tasks from.

It really is a great tool, and you can get an account for free. Check it out!

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Last month I was raving about a collaboration tool I found called Assembla. Well…while Assembla is a really good tool, after using it for a couple of weeks, I determined it wasn’t right for me. I was going nuts from the number of alerts I was receiving and the information I entered seemed to be scattered and difficult for me to find.

Lesson learned - when using a new collaboration tool, test it out before adding your clients!

One of my associates, Victoria, who seems to know about all the coolest software going, steered me towards something for virtual assistants. It’s called Client Spot. And I’m in love. The information is organized very well and while it’s more expensive than Assembla (which is free) it’s going to reduce my stress. How valuable is that?

To all my VA friends, check it out. It’s quite wonderful.

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I’m fairly new to Mozilla Firefox. If you haven’t heard of Firefox, or if you just haven’t switched yet, you might consider checking it out. It’s an open source (I believe) internet browser and I just love it. I started using Firefox about a year and a half ago, when I discovered their tabbed browsing feature - something that Microsoft’s Explorer has since implemented, but I have grown to love my Firefox.

Thing is…there are certain websites that I can’t access with Firefox because they don’t support any browsers besides Explorer. That really burns me…tee hee…get it? Firefox-burns me…anyway….

I really can’t believe that Top Producer is among the three sites in three days that I have been unable to access with Firefox. How frustrating! I don’t think there’s any good reason for it. If there is, I wish someone would enlighten me.

Is anyone else with me here?

And can anyone share their favorite Firefox features with me? I don’t use it to its full potential. I know it has lots of cool capabilities, but I haven’t really had the time to learn much about it.

I would love to hear what you do with your Firefox.

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