Is technology managing your life? Or, are you managing your life with technology? Cell phones, computers, email, personal electronic assistants, even the dishwashers have new high-tech components to them. Take control of an electronic-driven life by developing the following five easy-to-implement technology habits.
Remote Access to Office Computer
Working from home full time or part of the time is becoming a welcome standard in many professions these days. To ensure access to all of the necessary electronic files needed, most have to carry a laptop from work to home and then hope that all of the files are on the laptop.
An easier, less stressful and more productive way to work from home is to implement software that allows complete access from a remote location to the computers and networks at the office. There are many free programs online to do this including LogMeIn, TightVNC or FolderShare.
Schedule Automatic Hard Drive Backups
Hard drive technology is well over 20 years old yet hard drives are still plagued with the dreaded disease – hard drive crash. When (not if) a hard drive crash occurs, it can devastate a project or entire office. While the disease is most eminent, a safe-guard solution is there for the using.
The problem with the solution is that most people work in a denial stage thinking that their files are always safely stored on their computer. If manually scheduling a backup just doesn’t seem to work (I’ll backup tomorrow is a fatal symptom of manual scheduling), there are effective scheduling programs that will backup daily, weekly or whatever timeframe the user designates.
These programs are inexpensive, easy to install and setup and work entirely in the background.
Carry a Thumb Drive or iPod Instead of Laptop
Thumb drives are getting physically smaller but come with more storage ability than ever before. They are easier to carry than a laptop. And, the prices have dropped dramatically.
Storage capacity is so great these days, users can store software, data files, photos, accounting software, and large databases on a device so small it can fit in a shirt pocket or wallet.
The iPod is not only a great music and podcast storage device, but it can also store data, photos, and office production software. Storage and prices on iPods have also become more useable and more transportable.
Manage Email Daily
The once coveted email has become a distraction and a cumbersome task to manage for some. Getting hundreds of emails a day can take hours to go through. Nonetheless, doing so daily will keep the time down versus managing email every other day or weekly.
For those who travel or are out of the office for the better part of each work day, forwarding the email to a PDA or BlackBerry can help reduce the office time spent on going through the email. Also, creating folders under the inbox and then dragging emails to the associated folder can help organize and prioritize reading through the emails.
Keep Electronic Calendars Synced
How many calendars can one person keep track of without missing an appointment or two? It is a must do to implement a routine of syncing an office calendar with a PDA or BlackBerry and with a laptop or home computer.
To make life even easier, designate one location as the main entry for each appointment and then sync the others from the main calendar.
Work with it or Work for It
It is up to the individual how they accept today’s almost mandated technology. Wasting time fighting the technology will only make life harder.
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