Are You Ready to Drive Out the Distractions?

Save Time & Improve Productivity with Activity Sets

 What is an activity set? In short, an activity set is a way to automatically create pre-defined tasks or events in Insightly. Activity sets can be manually or automatically triggered, depending on your preferences. Here’s an example of each:

 Manually Applying an Activity Set

Let’s say your administrative assistant answers incoming phone calls from new customers. Each time a new call is received, she pops open Insightly, creates a new lead record, and captures the person’s contact info. At the end of the call, she usually finds herself assigning several follow up tasks for herself and you. Sometimes she forgets to assign all of the correct tasks, which annoys you and makes her feel bad. To remedy this situation, you configure an activity set. Now, instead of remembering to assign several tasks and due dates, your assistant simply applies a single activity set to the lead record. Multiple tasks are assigned with one click, and everyone is happy.

For added convenience, check to see if your mobile device offers voice transcription. This can be very helpful when capturing thoughts in the task’s “description” field. Rather than fumbling with your keyboard, let your smartphone or tablet serve as your virtual assistant.

As you add more “idea” tasks into Insightly, it may be wise to define a task category reserved only for collecting your thoughts. By organizing ideas in this way, you can quickly view and prioritize those that add the most value to your business.

Automatically Applying an Activity Set

Using pipelines to trigger activity sets adds even greater automation. When an opportunity (or project) advances from one stage to the next, Insightly can automatically apply an activity set of your choosing. No more waiting for someone to manually apply the set. Instead, tasks and events are assigned to the correct users like magic.

Automate the Rest of Your Life

While we’re on the subject of automation, there’s no reason to isolate it to the confines of your business. Your personal life can probably stand to benefit from the power of automation, too. Every hour is a precious gift, so constantly seek ways to use time more wisely.

Here are six simple ideas for moving toward a more automated personal life.

1. Enable automatic payment authorization for utility bills and other expenses.
2. Start using your bank’s budgeting software (or find one that offers such a service).
3. Use a news aggregation app to collect stories you care about (and weed out the noise).
4. Configure recurrent reminders in your smartphone, especially for important stuff you forget to do (like paying your estimated taxes on time).
5. Consider participating in the Amazon Subscribe & Save program for items you already buy each month.
6. Opt-in to receive paperless statements, rather than being bombarded with paper documents in your mailbox.

Automating the mundane can help you realize more time with loved ones or reach other personal goals. Take the first step today, and you might be surprised by the new efficiency you can achieve at home!

Clear Your Mind by Going “Distraction Free”

What’s that noise? Oh yeah, it’s the familiar buzzing sound of your phone. It’s only Tuesday morning, and you already have five unheard voicemails, six unread texts, and even more overdue tasks. It’s just another week of your life.

You have several important goals to accomplish this week, but you feel like you’re falling behind. You’re simply too busy dealing with the latest crisis (which usually turns out to be less urgent than first thought). While it’s certainly important to be responsive, jumping from one distraction to the next can be detrimental to your productivity.

How can you look beyond the noise and actually get work done?

It’s time you freed your creative genius by going “distraction free.” Here are just a few strategies for doing so:

• At the start of each day, identify pre-scheduled meetings and budget “work time” where available
• During such work time, put your phone on silent and turn it upside down
• Close or hide your email inbox and only check it every 30 minutes
• Mark your instant messenger status as “do not disturb”
• Set a goal to only check social media once in the morning and afternoon
• Batch up “computer-free” activities to ponder in a peaceful location
• If all else fails, turn off your phone for a few minutes (yikes!)

By going “distraction free” and crossing things off your to do list, you’ll likely feel more productive and less frazzled. You may even be in a better mindframe to handle your next crisis!

Break Big Sales Into Manageable Steps

The thought of making your first multi-million dollar sale can be daunting. Of all the actions you could take, what should you do first? How do you know what should happen after that? Your gut tells you to do one thing, while your brain pulls you in a completely different direction. You’re stuck, and you need a gameplan.

Luckily, most sales processes follow a similar pattern. If you’re completely new to sales, you unfortunately lack the practical experience to draw upon. However, most people reading this article have likely made at least a few smaller sales. Making a big sale is often much like a smaller one, just on a larger scale.

Think back to some of your more memorable sales. What did they have in common? Was there a rough sequence of events that happened leading up to the purchase? Although each niche and industry is going to be different, most transactions went through some or all of these phases:

• Initial Inquiry / Interest
• Discovery of Information
• Needs Assessment
• Bidding / Quoting
• Decision by Customer
• Fulfillment

Before becoming too overwhelmed, try breaking your process down into manageable steps. If you’re using Insightly, you can even build customizable pipelines and tasks. Now, instead of staring at a blank opportunity record, you have an action-oriented path aimed at closing that big deal.