Our day can be taken up by a lot of little things: going through mail, replying to emails, updating social media, making copies, etc. But as a nonprofit leader, you don’t have time to spare. Make “working smart” one of your New Year’s resolutions and cut down on the busy work. Here are a few free productivity tools that will help you break busy and be proactive:
Doodle is an online scheduling tool that provides easy scheduling of meetings, events, and appointments. This can be a simple time saver for staff or board meetings. You just create the event with multiple time and date options, email the link to participants, and they vote on what times work best for them. It really cuts down on emails and phone calls trying to coordinate events.
I can’t tell you how much energy I spend trying not to forget things. I even write down the things I need to do in the day, but it turns out I’m a magician with paper, and within minutes it’ll disappear! Wunderlist is a great online feature and app where you can create lists. It’s also nice that when our consultants are on the road, they can put tasks in Wunderlist for our executive assistant, Jolene, to do. No phone calls, texts, or emails necessary.
Newsletters, Facebook updates, website offers—sorting your email can be a full-time job. Unroll.me makes email easy. Unsubscribing is simpler, and the stuff you do subscribe to rolls up into one neat email. It really helps with clutter in the inbox.
All your online usernames and passwords are stored in one secure location. To login in, you just have one master password, and from there, Password Box will automatically log you into any saved website. I have more than twenty-five main usernames and passwords, and it’s such a relief not to have them floating around my brain anymore.
This helps you sync everything into one workspace. Type notes, capture images, and clip news articles—Evernote will organize all your work in one place and sync with your phone, tablet, and computer. It’s a great feature for meetings and staff planning.
