What Does Your Vehicle Say About You?
For many of us, our vehicle is our office on the road. We use our vehicles to conduct business, travel to and sometimes even transport our clients. Doesn’t it make sense that your office on wheels is as efficient and productive as your brick and mortar office space? For [...]
How to Keep Your Important Data Safe
Have you ever lost your smartphone? Broken it? Dropped it the toilet, pool or hot tub? Experienced plain old hardware failure? What happened to all of the apps and other customizations that you had saved on your phone and how much time did it take to get your [...]
Don’t Let Nighttime Electronic Use Kill Your Productivty
Do you enjoy reading on an electronic device or using your computer right before bed? If so, it could be affecting your sleep and your productivity! Here’s why. Impact of nighttime electronic use Recent research shows that “using these (electronic) devices before bed prolongs the time it takes to [...]
Do You Want to Reduce the Amount of Mail in Your Email Inbox?
In my previous blog, 9 Tips to Email Management, I suggested that my readers unsubscribe from unnecessary and unwanted emails. This includes subscriptions that you may or may not have intentionally signed up for and that you don’t read. The best way to reduce email clutter! The best and [...]
Use Colored Folders for Better Organization
Whether you have a paper filing system, a digital filing system or both, you can use colored file folders to help you organize your information. Did You Know? Most people know that they can find hanging or traditional file folders in a variety of colors other than army green [...]
4 Easy Steps to Organize Your Papers
An effective filing system will allow you to find any document you need in 20 seconds or less! If you read that statement and think that’s impossible, this article has been written for YOU! The Streamlined Office uses 4 basic steps to organize any office, business or personal. Step [...]
How to Make Preparing For Your Taxes Painless
How Did It Go Getting Your Taxes Filed This Year? Was it an easy and painless process for you? If so, that’s GREAT! Or, were you one of the 5.5 million business owners or 10.25 individuals that filed a tax extension this year? Will you be spending the next [...]
Do You Need An Easy Way To Track Your Mileage?
If your answer is YES, then look no further than the MileIQ application. Gone are the days of keeping the written mileage log in your vehicle, briefcase or purse. With today’s technology, tracking your miles can be done directly from your smartphone. Here’s how. Download the MileIQ app [...]
Are Your Passwords Well Protected?
Cyber security is on everyone’s mind these days. Now, more than ever, it is important to protect your information from those who would steal it and use it with mal intent. Having strong and different passwords for all of your online accounts is a good place to start. With [...]
Productivity Tip: Never Make a Spelling Mistake or Typo Again Using Grammarly
Have you ever wished that spell checking was available in WordPress, LinkedIn, Facebook or other web based applications? It is, thanks to a browser extension called Grammarly. This month’s productivity tip, courtesy of The Streamlined Office, explains the pros and cons of Grammarly. It works with Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. [...]
Are You Overwhelmed by Email? Here are 9 Tips To Get Your Inbox Under Control NOW!
Are you overwhelmed by your email? If you are, then you are in good company. Almost all of my clients are stressed out by their inbox. The GOOD NEWS is that there are 9 quick and simple things you can do to get in control and get there quickly! [...]
Productivity Tip: Use Alexa to Be More Productive
Millions of Alexa Devices were sold this past holiday season with Echo and Echo Dot being the best-sellers. Were you one of the millions? Have you been using Alexa as a novelty or a productivity tool? If you haven’t already, you should consider Alexa to be one of your [...]
Be SMART When Making Your Goals For 2017
The New Year is upon us! Are you one of the 45% of Americans who make New Year’s Resolutions? Are you one of the 8% of Americans who are successful in achieving those resolutions? If you are, then this article might not be too helpful. But, if you are in [...]
Productivity Tip: The Sleep Cycle App Can Help You Get a Good Night’s Sleep and Be More Productive
The Streamlined Office has written a number of blogs about productivity. Mostly, these articles have pertained to goal setting, prioritizing, the importance of processes etc. Until now, I had yet to write anything about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle so that you can function at a high level [...]
Is Spending Too Much Time at Your Desk Costing You?
Are you spending too much time at your desk? Is your body paying for it in the form of eye strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, or neck and back pain? Are you or your employees experiencing decreased productivity as a result? There are a number of simple things that [...]
Productivity Tip: Want To Save Money Shopping Online?
The holidays are fast approaching. I know this because there are already Christmas decorations in the stores and we haven’t even made it to Thanksgiving yet! In anticipation of the holiday shopping season, this month’s productivity tip is about a FREE browser extension called “Honey”. Honey can save you money [...]
Passwords – Are You Set Up for Security or a Security Breach?
Passwords. A necessary evil in today’s world of electronics and the internet. I don’t know one person who doesn’t have at least one password that they need to keep track of. Even my parents, who are older and avoid technology with a mixture of suspicion, confusion and fear, have passwords. [...]
Productivity Tip: Scheduling Gmail to be Sent at a Later Date and Time
Recently I had a client who needed me to send her a reminder email about a project we had been working on. We worked together in early September and my client needed the reminder to arrive on November 1st and then again next year on April 1st. I use Gmail [...]
Audit Your Office With Our FREE Checklist
Do you ever find yourself wishing someone would come in to your business or home office and get it organized for you? Just like those reality TV shows, where someone walks into a home that is in complete disarray and by the end of the episode everything is neat [...]
How to Protect Your Digital Information
Last month, I wrote a blog entitled "How to Create a Paperless Office - Your Questions Answered". In that discussion, I answered two of the three biggest questions my clients ask when it comes to digitizing their paper; those being the pro's and con's of moving to a paperless [...]
Case in Point: How Saving the Right Paperwork Can Make You Money
Have you ever heard the stories about people who, years after a family member passes away, receive a letter notifying them of an unclaimed insurance policy? How about someone who has found the name of a long lost relative in a newspaper advertisement for unclaimed insurance payouts? Have you ever [...]
How to Create a Paperless Office – Your Questions Answered
The Streamlined Office gets a lot of phone calls for help to reduce paper clutter. Most people have the same three questions when it comes to their paper filing systems (or lack thereof) and how they can use technology to eliminate paper clutter and create a more efficient digital filing [...]
Is Your Email Inbox a Source of Revenue or Is It Costing You Time and Money?
It’s been less than 20 years! According to the E-Commerce Times, email usage became mainstream in November of 1999. That’s less than 20 years ago! There are generations alive today who have never known life without email! Since 1999, the number of email users has increased to 2.6 billion [...]
3 Steps to an Efficient Paper Mail Management System
If the largest source of paper clutter in your business or home office is mail, you are not alone. The statistics quoted by the National Association of Professional Organizers regarding mail are staggering. The average American buys 668 books and 9,000 magazines annually. That is the equivalent to a small [...]
Do You Wish You Had More Time to Get Things Done?
Do you find yourself saying things like “I never have enough time” or “I wish I had more time”? As a small business owner, there are ALWAYS things to do. The “To-Do” list, quite honestly, can feel endless. Many of us check one thing off the list only to add [...]
Efficient Systems for Small Business
Having efficient systems is CRUCIAL to success! Business organization and the use of efficient systems is crucial to the long term success of your business. Don't believe it? Here are just a few statistics on the direct correlation between organization, efficiency, productivity and your bottom line. Time spent mishandling paperwork [...]
Why Processes Are Important to Your Business
What is a process? The definition of a process is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. If you think about it, every action in your business should be part of a larger process that is moving you towards a very specific [...]
Time Management – Aligning Activities with Priorities
"I never have enough time"! In today’s busy world, it seems one of the biggest problems is that there is never enough time! Many of us are so busy moving from one calendar event to the next that we are searching for a way to slow down time, or [...]
Business Card Scanning Apps – Have Contact Information at Your Fingertips
In March of 2016, I posted a blog entitled Business Cards – Are You Storing Them or Using Them? I posed this question and wrote the blog because all too frequently I find that my clients are spending valuable time networking, building referral partners, and interacting with potential clients. An [...]
Create a Digital File System in 5 Steps
It used to be that creating a filing system meant color coding your file folders, and then organizing them alphabetically or chronologically. In some instances, this may still be reasonable. However, today’s small businesses and home offices are now a lot more dependent on technology. Most record-keeping is now electronic, [...]
Business Cards – Are You Storing Them or Using Them?
How many times have you gotten someone’s business card with every intention of contacting them and following up? Perhaps the new acquaintance would be a great networking partner or referral source for your business. Perhaps the person was a potential client or vendor. Maybe they offered a service that [...]