Doing less but getting more done

Before I answer your question, I just have to make a remark. Unless you want to become just another low-margin commodity, getting more efficient in some areas may not be the right choice. Personally, I highly value getting a handwritten thank you note from my vendors and service providers. That to me shows real effort and puts you in a better category. Every "Happy Holidays" e-mail I got this year I actually filtered out, because I was getting too many of them and did not want my mailbox clogged. And because ut is so cheap to send out customized e-mails, everyone is doing it. Why be like everyone else and turn into just another commodity business? When it comes to customers, more attention and better "touch" is more important than efficiency.

Now to answer your original question, technique I use is to have every task pass a "money test". How will whatever I am going to make or save money for me (my client, my company)?

If you want to really learn efficiency, find an entrepreneur who is a mother of multiple school age kids and shadow her for a day. Those ladies are amazing! There is zero waste in their day.

These are my best tips:

Email Filters

Every time an advertisement, newsletter, automatic notification, or other message that doesn't warrant immediate attention lands in my inbox, I create a filter to put similar messages into a mailbox that I don't check often or to delete such messages.

Instant Messaging

Many disagree with me on this, but I find being always available by instant messenger enormously wasteful.

Other Notifications

Being automatically notified when someone you follow posts to Twitter or when an RSS feed has an update also seems very wasteful. Check them when you have spare time, but there is seldom reason to be proactively notified of such events.

Rather than search for reading, I use Google Reader to organize my feeds, and check it twice a day. This reduces the time I spend daily just reading posts (although they are important to my work).

I use an online notebook (http://www.evernote.com) instead of a paper one, which ensures that I don't lose my notes, and can organize them better than slips of paper.

The above techniques are good, but I think there's something more fundamental at work now: between the web, mobile and your desktop, nearly everything you do in your business can go - and should go for the sake of effectiveness - be digital. Three examples.

1. Instead of continuing to play bookkeeper by entering checks, debits, balancing statements etc in MS Money, I've switched to Mint. I don't "enter" any of that. Time saved: a good 2 hrs a week.

2. Instead of listening twice a day to my voicemail via my phone, I fired AT&T voicemail and set my business landline to forward to my Google Voice number. Now I get - transcribed - each message as a email with a audio attachment: I decide what the priority is here.

3. Instead of paying AT&T ever increasing amounts for their "unlimited" calling, I use Skype, pay them $14/month for really unlimited calling - anywhere in U.S and 40 other countries. I talked with a friend in New Zealand for 45 minutes. I called her land line there. Total cost: $zero.

Look for opportunities to replace assumptions with better ways to do the same online. And, by the way, you might want to "upgrade" your ecards to Jacquie Lawson - awesome cards, $12/yr and well worth it. http://www.jacquielawson.com/

Another suggestion that takes Google Reader to the next level is a Firefox add-in called Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/). I find it much easier, with it's magazine-like layout, to navigate through all of the feeds I send to Google Reader.

Getting a Kindle is also great. I always have my reading materials with me to take advantage of small amounts of down time that would otherwise be wasted. Additionally, I can search the items I flag easily.

Saying no.

Being able to say no keeps good activities from stealing my time from great activities. I end up staying focused more and getting more done with less effort.

Automation. Anything you do more than a few times can be automated.

As a developer this comes naturally and I write programs to do all sorts of things. One additional brain cell freed up to think and reflect on my business ideas.

For the non-developers there are plenty of opportunities with all the software out there. Lifehacker.com is a good resource.