Look how old this is!
I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 15 years 1 month 17 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.

Are you tired of trading your time for money? Are you worried you’re going to run out of time? Well I am, but no, I’m not selling Amway any time soon. 🙂

What I’ve assembled below is a list of ways that I can probably be 2 to 3 times more productive than you, given the same amount of time. It’s not because I’m any smarter, so don’t get defensive, it’s just because I’m on this everlasting journey to find ways to become more efficient – i.e. I’m a cheapskate!

In the interest of full disclosure, I do have a financial interest in everything below – they save me a lot of money and time by using them! Some are affiliates, some are not, and some are my own stuff, but one thing they have in common are that ALL are an indispensable parts of my job.

Firefox Session Manager
I have a frequent need to open multiple windows, sometimes as many as 20 or more, going to various parts of a clients website, stats, analytics, PPC, Webmaster tools, various other admin logins, and even their credit card processing windows.

When I get ready to do end of month reporting for a single client, or devote some time to a particular domain, just getting started can be an enormous pain in neck. With FFSM I can instantly open up an entire browser full of tabs, and even multiple window sessions, with tabs in each. I gave it a full review here and you can get the free Firefox add on here. –  (Time to learn? Under 2 minutes)

My Speed – (Play Videos Faster)
I subscribe to quite a few paid membership sites, and these days a lot of them are sharing things with videos. My son and some friends are also constantly sending me Youtube links, and I just don’t have the time!

There’s nothing worse than watching a six minute video to get to the payoff, when I can accomplish the same thing in two minutes or less, or, to listen to a “slow talker” for long periods of time! That’s where this software shines, and lets me get back some of my life for reuse elsewhere!

Using Myspeed, I can play Flash videos at 2x or even 3x their normal speed, without downloading them or distorting the sound, and getting right to the juicy stuff. I have a full review here, and they have a free 7 day trial here and if you don’t think it’s indispensable, I’ll be stunned. –  (Time to learn? Zero – works automatically)

Roboform
Having multiple logins and passwords for multiple sites and multiple clients can be challenging at best, and that’s if you’re using Firefox. Quite often , usernames and passwords simply will not autofill, and as security improves on websites, I’m seeing this more and more. Using Internet Explorer on the other hand, it can be downright impossible, and that’s where this program can save you tons of time.

Roboform easily lets you safely and securely manage multiple usernames asd multiple passwords, and can be used with any browser. You can export a file and import to another PC, and even password protect the entire thing, in case you lose your laptop or thumb drive.. This program has been around forever, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Check it out here, or download it directly download it here . –  (Time to learn? Minimal. Add new data as you need it.)

Dragon Naturally Speaking
As a writer, blogger, Tweeter, emailer, and SEO consultant, I have to write a lot. My typing skills are pretty fast, but not nearly as fast as the spoken word.

I first saw speech to text software in the late 1990s, and made it part of my daily routine around 2002. Throughout each incarnation, I’ve grown to love and rely on it to make me far more efficient than I would otherwise be.

Nuance has two versions, Standard and Pro, but I just use the Standard, which does everything I care about… Visit their site –  (Time to learn? Under 2o minutes to be functional, including training)

Multi Task Timer with Assignments & Reporting
I’ve long been a fan of setting a timer to focus on certain tasks, by alotting myself a given amount of time to get something done, then doing nothing but that task.

Going back to my retail management days at Ross Dress for Less and Office Depot, I used to make task lists, assign each task an approximate number of minutes, and then assign them to various employees, including myself.

When I started sitting behind a keyboard all day, I quickly found this simple task timer so I could do nothing but ONE TASK until the buzzer went off, but recently I ran across the Action Machine, and it was truly a life changer, and puts that timer on steroids!

In addition to setting up multiple timers for multiple tasks you can then sort them into groups, even export them for another user, AND get completed task lists back from those you’ve assigned them to. In short, it gives you user reports!

If there is another program that does this, I’m not aware of it, and each and every member of our staff has a copy on their PC. Watch their demo video here. –  (Time to learn? Minor. I was functioning in less than 10 minutes, and within the first day I’d tweaked it completely)

Shortkeys
This is a program that allowed me to easily create keyboard combinations (macros), that will then press the keys I desire, including TAB, ENTER, function etc.

There’s a a simple “designator” that you get to choose yourself, which will set off the macro, and I chose double pound signs ##, whcih can then be followed by as little or much text as I desire. It’s a no brainer!

I began using this program because I didn’t have many .html commands memorized and it was faster. For example, every time that I type ##link my text is immediately replaced by this code <a href=”http://www.domain.com/”target=”_blank”>text</a> and then I simply change the URL and replace the anchor text. Crude, but it was more efficient than opening a notepad file of .html or .php snippets.

As I used it more, I began adding longer blocks of text. For example, typing ##wl will get me an entire welcome letter, that I can simply go back and edit the places I need to.

I made up my own sort of mental code, and while I thought I’d find myself having trouble remembering them, I’ve had very little trouble at all, and when I do, I can pop open the program and search for what I want. After all these years, I’ll bet I have over 100 items in my shortkeys file, which I can export and import to other computers, and even carry around on my thumb drive.

I don’t have to be a programmer. All I have to do is remember what I called it. Finding this program was literally a lifesaver, and my command file probably has 90 different things in it after a few years. Try it out here – (Time to learn? Under a minute to figure it out, then gradually use it more as you discover new uses)

Fast Blog Finder
Anyone that has to go out and search unfamiliar territory for blogs to comment on, should own this amazing software.

More often than not, it takes even more time to track down a decent post on a relevant subject in the first place, than it does to leave the intelligent and helpful comment, and this takes that wasted time out of the equation. Since I pay for that time, everyone on our team has a copy of this one too.

It’s a great program, and it saves a TON of time, and even lets you identify dofollow blogs, and then filter by PageRank etc. I wrote a full review on it a while back, as sort a white hat instant link builder. –  (Time to learn? Under a minute to intuitively begin using)

TechSmith – Camtasia & Snaggit
When trying to explain something or get into details, the written word is often inefficient. Improvements in screen capture tools have been astounding, and as they say, a picture speaks 1000 words.

I’ve been doing my end of month client reporting for nearly 3 years now using Camtasia, and I’ve been using their screen capture software Snaggit almost as long.

When my father calls leaving me a voicemail on how to do some simple task in Windows (that he should’ve learned years ago), or a developer needs to navigate around a Web hosting control panel so his programmer can create a Cron job, I can make a 60 second video and pop it off a lot faster than I can walk someone through it over the phone or type out directions into an email.

The industry leaders are from Techsmith, and both h free trials here of their software. (Time to learn? Expect to invest 30 minutes “training” but it’s well worth the effort)

(There are some other options that didn’t exist when I wanted to begin using TechSmith, and f you have any recommendations on free screen capture software that does both audio and video , please feel free to leave them in the comments below.)

Outsourcing with Odesk
There are over 350 MILLION service providers on Odesk, including over 50,000 in the US alone. If you think outsourcing simply means overseas unskilled labor, guess again, because the Odesk Oconomy is changing the world with its remarkable growth rate. To date, over 96 million dollars in business has been done on Odesk, and the growth rate is staggering. –  (Time to learn?You can get an account created and a job posted in under 10 minutes)

MY New SEO Toolbar
If you’re like me, you probably have several great seo toolbars, and add ons that you can’t live without, and I hope this becomes another one.

I’ve included sections in the toolbar for learning SEO, a menu of my unique SEO tools listed below, and a section of recommended services and products.

The entire toolbar will dynamically update as new content gets added or removed, and when not in use, you can easily disable it from view.

It’s completely free to download, and I hope you like it! – Here are a few screenshots –

The menu’s go on and on, and there’s a lot to look at, but I think they’re ALL useful, and if they cease to be so, they come off the toolbar. Slick, huh?

These are some of my included SEO tools on the toolbar:

• Keyword multiplier Tool
  Setting up a Pay Per click account can be tedious, and you have to consider every possible variation of link text for each and every campaign. This tool lets you put in up to four different columns of variables, press a button, and get back the complete keyword list to place in your ad campaign. Mine is not the only tool that does this, but I’ve not seen many with four columns and match type included. Also, I’ve never seen one that can be asked to leave spaces and special characters, so that’s what I think makes it unique.
• Link Variance Tool
  A spinoff from our keyword multiplier tool, it can be quite handy to have a list of dozens or hundreds of URLs, with dozens or hundreds of varied anchor texts, and this tool we developed ourselves is the only one I’ve ever seen before. Simply paste a link if URLs on one side, the list of anchor texts the other, check a box if you’d like them nofollowed or set to open in a new window, and press a button. Instant link code!
• Multi URL Server Response tool
  I’ve personally only used this three times since I had a developed, but each time, it saved several hours of manually hunting down problem URLs on large domains, where it seemed like new 404 errors were showing up daily in Google webmaster tools. Simply paste every URL you want in the box and download the results.
• SEO Review – Instantly!
  Not much to say about this one! It tells you everything you need to know about your organic on-page search optimization with the click of abutton, and now, it’s even available for the Iphone

In conclusion I have to say that if you think this post is a “not so thinly disguised” plug for my own toolbar, then I’m sorry, but I assure you that it didn’t start out that way.  I couldn’t very well leave it out though, since it not only saves me immeasurable time daily,  but it’s my blog too! 😉

Being productive is all about devising a system and sticking with it inside your organization. Whether you’re a one-man show, or large company, the things I’ve added here should let you squeeze more juice out of each minute in your day.

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