It’s easy to let technology hinder your time management with so many distractions at your fingertips. But if you want to make time management and productivity a priority, technology can be a major help as well. From wireless solutions to cutting edge apps and good old fashioned (or new fashioned) calendars, there are myriad ways to make sure you’re managing you time better.

Do a Productivity Assessment

To get a handle on time management, it’s a good idea to start with an assessment of how you actually spend your days. Time tracking applications like RescueTime will run in the background of your computer or browser to track how much time you spend on different sites and with different programs, allowing you to see just how many minutes (or hours!) you spend each day on social media, email, or other sites that may not be helping you with productivity. Time tracking apps like Toggl may also be helpful, though they require you to start and stop a timer to determine where your time is being spent.

Block Time

Once you have figured out where your time is going, consider using an application to layout how you would ideally be spending your hours at work. Time blocking can be a particularly effective way to do this with one blogger estimating it leads to 50% more productivity each week, turning a 40 hour workweek into 60 hours without spending any extra time. The process involves spending a bit of time at the end of each day to plan out the next work day, thereby dividing your day into blocks of productivity. You can do this simply, and offline, using a paper calendar or just a notebook. But for something a bit more technologically advanced, consider using a calendar app, whether it’s your Outlook calendar, Google calendar, or an app like Sunrise. Scheduling out your daily tasks as if they were each a meeting makes it easier to stay on task on more difficult to procrastinate.

Stay Organized

It probably goes without saying that being organized goes hand in hand with time management, but it’s also important to not spend so much time making to do lists that you actually damage your productivity. Instead, set aside a small amount of time at the beginning of each day to identify 3 key tasks that you must complete before the end of the day. By narrowing things down significantly, you can need every day feeling accomplished and motivated. To Do apps like Remember the Milk and notebook apps like Evernote can be helpful in this pursuit, keeping tasks in one spot for easy review.

Improve Focus

You can’t make more time in the day but you can improve your focus during the hours you do have. Time management techniques like Pomodoro allow you to work for a set period (generally 25 to 30 minutes) and then rest for a shorter period (5 to 15 minutes). This method can actually help you to be more creative and more productive throughout the day. Use pomodoro tracking apps like Pomotodo to keep track of your time and watch your productivity increase.

Change of Scenery

Need a creativity boost and a bit more focus? Consider taking a walk or sitting outside near your office. Being outdoors has been shown to encourage sharper thinking and spikes in creativity. Plus, with the right wireless solutions, working outside can be just as easy as working at your desk. Work on your mobile phone or bring a laptop and connect to your office wireless network for portability and productivity.

If your business phone system works, you might think that’s really all that matters. But the thinking that all you need is a dial tone could be preventing your users from communicating effectively – internally and externally.

If you’re using a legacy PBX system, your phones aren’t meeting the evolving needs of your business. Unless you look closely at some of the costs of keeping a legacy system, you might not realize the hidden costs behind it. The costs of upkeep, the inability to provide the best customer experience and the lack of worker mobility can be very damaging to your business, in ways you don’t even see.

The reality is your phone system can – and should – be doing more for you.

Improved Affordability

Older, legacy phone systems are expensive to maintain and encounter a number of challenges with upkeep. Legacy software and servers require periodic updates or replacement that may no longer be available. In some cases, vendors have gone out of business, leaving customers with no real support for their systems.

A modern phone system, like ShoreTel Connect ONSITE, is easy to deploy and maintain, so you get a more affordable system based on a modern, agile solution.

Improved Collaboration

Legacy phone systems tether users to their desks, offering limited options for a workforce that now can work from anywhere and from any device. Older phone systems such as these provide only the most basic forwarding options. Today’s modern workers – who can do their jobs from the office, remotely or on the road –expect to have tools that enable them to work in teams, collaborate, share content and communicate – all from a unified solution. They must be able to instant message, call, video chat and more from any device, anytime, without having to switch between multiple applications.

With ShoreTel Connect ONSITE, workers can call, chat, email or even video chat to connect with anyone, from any device. Connect ONSITE is a feature-rich IP telephony solution combined with an enterprise-grade collaboration suite that is easy to access via a simple modern interface.

Features like ringing multiple devices and find me/follow me are built in from the get go.

Improved Productivity

In older business models, employees worked predictable hours, from set locations, partly to make sure they were easier to get ahold of. A legacy system reinforces this model, leaving your business far less agile than your competitors.

Imagine the boost in productivity when you’re using ShoreTel Connect ONSITE, which lets employees turn virtually any endpoint into a fully-functioning phone system just like the one sitting on their desk. Features like softphone, remote number support and a fully featured mobile app allow users to access the company phone directory, make calls, use instant messaging and set up conference calls on their smartphone, PC or tablet, no matter their location.

Improved Security

Traditional phone systems lack security features like encryption, so your communications are more easily intercepted and easy to interpret.

For many organizations, this lack of encryption presents problems with government compliance or concerns about corporate espionage. In contrast, the ShoreTel Connect ONSITE solution offers encryption using TLS/sRTP. It has been tested and is protected against the newest vulnerabilities, as well as attacks designed for older systems.

If you’re among those companies still clinging to your current phone system because you need to retain administrative control and cloud is not an option for you yet, here’s some great news. A premises-based system like ShoreTel Connect ONSITE gives you everything that a modern cloud phone system offers and still lets you retain control while enabling modern communication and collaboration features for your business.

How well is your phone system really meeting your needs? We can help. Contact us 801-394-5959!

If you make money using the phone, then your phone system needs to be a business enabler, not an inhibiter. It needs to differentiate your business from your competition. Your prospects must be able to reach you in a timely manner. Your customers need to find you wherever you are, at the front desk, in a meeting or outside the office. In short, your phone system needs to work for you, not against you.

Your business communications system needs to ensure you have the best tools that will help you do a better job with your customer…today and tomorrow. Below are two ways an onsite phone system can improve the customer experience by improving flexibility and enhancing reachability.

Improving flexibility through work groups

When a customer or prospect calls your company and the phone rings endlessly without being picked up, or it goes to a general voicemail box, they may question how capable your business is. Since today’s customers have higher expectations than ever before, you want to give the impression to current and potential customers that you can serve them the way they want to be served, regardless of whether your employees are in the office or working remotely.

A ShoreTel Connect ONSITE phone system allows you to improve your business’s flexibility by routing calls using the power of work groups. Here’s how…

Work groups can be created to respond to what’s happening in your business. For example, you might have a new advertising campaign and you need more people ready to answer the phone. Perhaps there are changing weather conditions and you need to re-route how support is handled. Or you want to better enable how calls are routed to a call center team and establish a top-down or longest idle calling pattern so your best salesperson or available call center consultant gets the next call. You may even have a business that requires seasonal considerations like greetings or auto attendance during high call volumes.

Using work groups gives you speed and flexibility in how you organize your employees and respond to your customers, allowing you to deliver a consistent level of service no matter the dynamics taking place in your business.

Enhancing Reachability for Mobile Employees

Today’s business reality is such that if you aren’t reachable and you aren’t set up to respond to your customers, then your customers will go elsewhere.

Reachability is how easy it is for a customer or prospect to locate you or your team. It’s not just how long it takes to reach them, but how easily a customer can access them. Employees are no longer tied to an office or a desk phone. You need to make sure your staff has a mobile office with them.

A ShoreTel Connect ONSITE phone system can help your employees be more reachable by allowing your phone to find you or key staff members wherever they are.

ShoreTel Connect ONSITE gives you the ability to use external assignment rules that have phones ring wherever an employee is – whether that’s in a meeting, traveling or at a client site. It can even mean having several phones ring at the same time, say, your desk and cell phone ringing simultaneously.

World-class phone systems using unified communications allow you to implement tools making you and your team more accessible through Microsoft Outlook integration, and desktop sharing and mobility features like find me/follow me. These basic communication and collaboration tools are a must in today’s business environment and critical for future business success.

Such capabilities enable your staff to be reachable no matter where employees are located or what type of technology may come next. That’s a differentiator your customers will appreciate.

Creating a Better Customer Experience

You pride yourself on how you serve your customers. If your current phone system isn’t helping you be flexible and reachable, then it might be inhibiting your business – not enabling it.

It’s time to consider how your business communications can help you even better serve your customers…now and in the future.

If you’d like to evaluate how your phone system can be a business enabler by implementing ShoreTel Connect ONSITE, give us a call at 801-394-5959!