I often experiment with programs to find new ways to shave a few extra minutes off of each day. New tools are developed daily that may be a fit for my clients’ way of working, so staying on top of the latest technology tricks is important to me.

The following are three free software tools I currently use. I have found these very valuable in saving time. I believe you may find these valuable as well, if you are not already using them.

1. Jing - Jing is a nifty little program that allows you to capture both video and pictures from your computer screen with just a few clicks. By selecting which window I want Jing to capture from and then selecting video, I can create a video such as this example. I can also use it to easily capture small snips of any graphic that I see on my screen and send it to anyone very quickly. My estimated monthly time savings (versus explaining over email or phone): 2-3 hours.

2. Xobni - Xobni is still in “beta”, meaning it is in the process of being tested. However, I already have found Xobni to be a very powerful Microsoft Outlook add-on. Xobni allows me to track email correspondence with my contacts instantaneously. I can click on any contact in my database and see all of the emails that I have sent back and forth to them in the last several months. I can also see how many emails I have sent to them, how many emails they have sent to me, and what times of the day I am most likely to receive an email from that person. There are also some fun features with “Xobni Analytics” that allow me to see statistics about what times of the day I most often receive email, my average email response time, and the number of unique contacts gained through email. My estimated monthly time savings (versus Outlook 2007 alone): 1-2 hours.

3. Firefox – While many have heard of Firefox, only a minority of people are using it as their primary web browser. Many are reluctant to move away from a familiar web browser (most often Internet Explorer). However, Firefox is lighter, quicker, and easier to use than Internet Explorer. Perhaps most important is that it is customizable. User-created add-ons make it simple for me to add features to Firefox and change its appearance. For example, an add-on that I like to use is “Save Image in Folder”, which allows me to quickly retrieve pictures of people from the Internet and save them to the Outlook Contacts folder I created. If you are still not using Firefox, may I suggest that you give it a try now, starting with the newest version, Firefox 3. My estimated monthly time savings (versus Internet Explorer): 2-3 hours.

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