Snagit screen capture software by snag it will capture anything you have on your computer screen.   I find i use it often to create images that combine pictures, words and other objects – to communicate what I need to relay quickly when I am outsourcing tasks.   This way I can create a visual representation of what I am looking to have completed.  It’s quick. It’s efficient.

Some of the special effects make it fun to use too.

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• Was this what you were looking for? If not- besure to try the search function - upper left hand corner

Big Stock (formerly called BigStockPhoto) is a subsidiary of ShutterStock.com.  Over 5,500,000 images ranging in prices starting at $1.00 per photo

How to use Bigstock?  Sign Up and start a Bigstock account for free. Charge up your account with credit packages starting at $15.

Image downloads start at 1 credit. Bigstock images can be used in almost any creative project. It’s always free to search and download preview images.

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• Sources for Low Cost Graphics
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Time Management can problematic when you have a combination of things on your to-do-list.  Those things you love to do, need to do but don’t love doing and those things that you would rather put off or even procrastinate at.

The Action Machine is a piece of down loadable software that you can program in your tasks – and then lovely large visual timers to each task or project you assign.   The beauty of this program for those things you tend to procrastinate around – you can set a short timer – and make a commitment to do at least that amount of time.   10 Minutes is usually enough to get me started on something I have been putting off.

The second cool thing about this piece of software – is if you have any illusion about how much time things take you to accomplish…. you can set up the timers – and really find out – just how much time you have been spending on things.    How much time does it really take to get thru all of those emails?     What would happen if you allowed yourself 30minutes?  Would you move on to other things.

I like this program idea.  It’s a great way to create some structure around time.

You can do the same thing with paper, and yet…there is something alluring about using the visual aids of timers.  There is also the small piece about “giving yourself permission”  to call a day  – a day.   When there is always more to do – this is one way to use a tool to help you limit the size of your plate for the day.

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• Listen to recordings Faster… well almost

FasterAudio.com is my new thing to tell my friends about when I am talking about increasing productivity.

FasterAudio

I listen to 10-15 hours of audio a week on average – not including the email I listen to using another one of my favorite tools … TextAloud.   When a fellow coach -mentioned I could easily save 20minutes on every 1 hour of recordings that I was listening to – I was really excited.  If I could reclaim 20 minutes x5 recordings a day – that is 1 hour regained where I can be focusing my mind elsewhere.

If you are someone who lives as if time were money… did you know … if you earn 100,000 a year, 1 hour not wasted each day could save you around 4200.00 in a year?  That was enough for me to lay out  the 65.00 to have a easy-peasy way to convert my mp3 and wav files to be faster.

I think there are those that offer this service for no cost… a quick Google Search give me a number of links to similar tools – but they didn’t seem to have the “easy-peasy” factor going for them.   I found the investment well worth it – when you count in the audio files they included on how to increase your listening speed skill set.

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• Using Multiple Timers

I have been using Jott.com now since February of 2009  – and every day I am finding ways to make the system work well for me.   One of the things I have discovered is that when I am working at my desk – it is faster for me to use a JOTT EXPRESS  a Outlook add-in to quickly add tasks to my Outlook tasks and Calendars as well as a number of other places such as Smart Sheets.    When I am away from my desk – I use Jott.com and call in my tasks and appointments.   My new process when I am working at my desk I use Jott Express to capture the task or appointment.   By usiing Jott Express I don’t need to interrupt my work flow in order to capture my idea, thought, action step, meeting or what ever.  It’s fast.

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Wiggio.com is a free, online toolkit that makes it easy to work in groups

On Wiggio, you can share and edit files, manage a group calendar, poll your group, post links, set up conference calls, chat online and send mass text, voice and email messages to your group members. Each group member can define how they want to keep informed of group activity. For a complete overview of what your group can do on Wiggio, click on the following video:

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• Using SmartSheet for Team Collaboration

Jim Edward’s multi-media blog this morning had a wonderful post on some cool new Firefox plug ins that really help with productivity. One in particular caught my eye and my energy: It’s called Speed Dia l . I got super excited on this one – because – this plug in – combined with a program I already use now - RoboForm makes moving around from site to site – a snap.

The best part of this – is that I can now – run a sequence of checking emails, membership sites, and blogs in an order from my Speed Dial page. It’s quick, it’s efficient – and more than anything else – it gives me a visual map of where I am going to.

T he Product: Speed Dial for Firefox 2.0

The Marketing Blurb: "With Speed Dial, you can easily access your most used websites"

The Product Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810

My Experience: Super Duper!

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• Read Blogs of Interest with A News Feed Reader
• Fill in your Log-name and Passwords with Ease

The Marketer: Google

The Marketing Blurb: "The great thing about Reader, is it lets you follow sites more effeciently than you could just by visiting them directly"

What it is: A free feed (rss) reader

What it does: provides a central reading place for all the newsfeeds you are interested in. A nice drag and drop function lets you easily organize folders and move feeds between folders and well as re-order thing sup and down your list. One of the nice functions of this reader is that there is no software to install

Product link: Google Reader

My Experience: I have used NewsGator and for longest time now Bloglines for my online feed reader. What is different about Google’s reader frankly is that it seems easier to read – and anything that makes my life easier – I am all over it.

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The Marketer: IHMC

The Marketing Blurb:“Empowering users to construct, navigate, share and criticize knowledge models represented as concept maps”

Software, self-hosted, no cost if for personal use.

The Product Link:http://cmap.ihmc.us/download/

What it does: Among a lot of other things – CMAP tools is a wonderful product to use when you need to create a concept map of a series of directional steps. Any planning activity that requires a series of forward moving steps is handled quite nicely by this program. You can also do a lot of other things with this program – Have a look at their home page where you can find details about functionality and different versions that are available.

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