25
Oct
If you’re like me, you have an ongoing to-do list. Each day, new things get added to it and others fall down the priority list. Some days you intend to cross off a bunch of items, but only get to a few. Other days, you’re able to completely clear it. I think we all want more of the latter, so any tools or strategies that can speed up everyday processes should be shared! If you’re trying to conquer your list, here are a few tools that I’ve found helpful for getting the small tasks out of the way, allowing me to focus more time on the larger ones. Best of all, they’re all free!
Calendly
Everyone knows that responding to emails takes up a large portion of our day. But how many of those emails are simply exchanging available times for meetings or phone calls? Usually there’s a lot of back and forth that occurs before a meeting invite is sent and accepted. If you’ve never heard of Calendly, this is going to blow your mind. You send someone a link, they see your calendar and pick what time they want to meet. Then you automatically get an email notification and the spot reserved in your calendar. It’s a beautiful thing! Just make sure your calendar’s up to date – don’t want someone booking an appointment on your day off!
Join.me
Anytime you don’t have the ability to walk over to someone’s desk and share their computer, you end up spending a significant amount of time describing either what you’re looking at, or listening to them describe what they see. Whether someone needs help in your ATS, HRIS, or any other platform, this is a time-consuming activity. Join.me is a screen-sharing software that you can use to avoid all of that confusion. Launch a meeting, send someone the link to join, and away you go! When you’re looking at the same thing, resolving technical issues or trying to explain how to do something is so much quicker.
Email Templates
People ask the same questions all the time. If one person wants to know something, other people likely want to know the answer too. Often we end up re-writing the same email over and over again. One thing that I’ve found extremely helpful is having email templates that contain all of the necessary information. Then I just use that template and tweak it for each individual. Next time you get a common request, save your response. Start to build your library of templates, and every time you use one, you’ll think “thank goodness I don’t have to type this out again!” The only thing to be cautious of, is to make sure that you take the time to tweak them appropriately. If you skim over it too quickly, it may not make sense for certain people – no point confusing someone when the end-game is all about saving time!
One of the best feelings is finally clearing a to-do list. Simplifying some of those tedious everyday tasks can help you get to that place sooner – and when the tools don’t cost anything, life is even better.
I’d love to hear from you: what are some of your tricks to speed up every day processes?
Rachel Cwang
Thank you Deborah! That is a great way of doing it!