Many people have things that they find addicting; things they just canʼt get enough of. Generally, these are things such as TV Shows like Duck Dynasty, American Idol or Dancing With The Stars. Other addictions might include social networks such as Facebook, the amazing Pinterest (thatʼs mine) or even Twitter.
What you donʼt see a lot are addictions to online productivity tools. How many people do you know that truly know what online productivity tools are? For the sake of this argument, a productivity tool is something you can use to pretty much track and manage every aspect of the job you are doing... and with some tools, how long it takes you to do this job. You can schedule projects out to your employees, and the tool will notify them of what that project is and when that project is due. There are so many different productivity tools that it would probably take me a week to list just the ones that I am aware of.
Well, I know someone who has this very addiction: Katie Gutwein is addicted to finding new tools that will “help” us be more productive and organized. I have six that I can think of, that I use...I may be forgetting some. I donʼt even want to know how many she uses herself! She even wrote a blog post about her love for some of these tools.
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Now, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing...especially with “productivity” tools. Eventually you are spending more time tracking things and finding projects that you donʼt have time to finish the projects when you find them.
Luckily, I have the type of relationship with Katie, that I can tell her if she adds one more “helpful” tool, I am going to commit her. She is aware of her problem, and she is working on it one day at a time.
Use Tools Wisely.
You may find tools you cannot live without-- and that’s perfectly fine. For example, I love Yammer. On Yammer I can communicate with my coworkers, post pictures and links, ask questions, or even send instant messages to them. Itʼs like our own personal Facebook.
HubSpot is another one of my favorites. I manage most of our social media and blogs, and within HubSpot, I can post our blogs and schedule them out in social media.
At the end of the day, productivity tools really can be great. Just remember, sometimes less really is more.
