The Power of Future Think

Save Ideas in Insightly for the Future

Unfortunately, you rarely carry around your trusty notepad. You’ve tried sending yourself an email, but that usually just gets buried and forgotten. How can you capture your ideas in a more structured way so you can capitalize on them in the future?

Insightly has you covered. Pop open your mobile app (you can download it here) and tap on “Tasks.” Add a new task and input the basic details. Be sure to specify a due date and enable a reminder. In doing so, you can create accountability for yourself. On the chosen date, Insightly will remember to send you an email alert. For busy business owners and sales professionals, this type of notification can prove to be invaluable.

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.

And, as ideas evolve into new initiatives, consider linking the original task to a project or opportunity. It can be very fulfilling to see how a raw idea translates into a new service, product, or business transaction!

Seek Integrated Apps

You’re a busy person.

To get more done, you rely heavily on smartphone apps and cloud-based management systems. Although it can be enjoyable to research and test new software, it is also a time-consuming process. Clients, payroll, meetings, and urgent tasks routinely prevent you from discovering the next cool tool. Even when you do have time, you feel overwhelmed by the amount of blog articles and newsletters that promise ROI.

Streamline your search by reviewing integrated apps to the software you already use. For example, Insightly offers dozens of native integrations (learn more here) for a variety of solutions:

• Email hosting providers
• Accounting software
• Customer support systems
• Data management
• Document management
• Email marketing platforms
• Task management
• Sales administration services

If that’s not enough, consider checking out the countless other integrated platforms available on the Zapier app directory. Insightly users can browse dozens of prebuilt Zap combinations.

By starting with a list of integrated solutions, you can simultaneously increase your tech IQ and bypass apps that won’t “play nice” with existing systems.

The net result? Better technology for your business – with less effort.

Smile More

Life is too short to feel like a robot all the time.

Smiling is not only the byproduct of a happy life. In many cases, it’s actually a choice – especially when things aren’t perfect (as they seldom are).

Stop and think…how often do you smile each day? In today’s productivity-driven world, it’s not uncommon to go several hours without ever smiling. If you work remotely, you may go an entire day.

Consider these tips in your quest to smile more often.

Pay Attention to Your Smiling Habits – For the next few days, pay particular attention to your facial expressions. Do you find yourself feeling stoic most hours of the day? After work, does this translate into your personal life?

Set a Smiling Goal – If you rarely smile during business hours, set an attainable goal of smiling every hour. You’re not trying to win a congeniality contest. Just try to break your bad habit of never smiling. You might even set a desktop reminder to prompt you (although your co-workers might think you’re a little weird – but who cares, right?).

Intentionally Do Things that Make You Smile – If you work from home, step away from your desk and hug your spouse or kids. If you’re stuck in a cubicle, close your eyes to recall a funny story from your college days. Either way, taking a 30-second smile break can be both refreshing and good for your long-term outlook.

Sell What You Love

Early in your career, you probably took at least one lackluster job just to gain experience (and reliable employment).

Now that you’re more established, you’re an increasingly hot commodity. Whether they’ll ever admit it or not, your current employer relies on you to achieve its goals.

As Adam Honig at the Spiro blog points out, “You should either be passionate about the product or service you sell, or you should be passionate about how your company compares to others in your industry. If you have no interest in the product, but also have no interest in how you’re different from the competition, then you’re doing your company and yourself a disservice by continuing to work there.”

Well, does this sound like you? Do you feel passionate about what you sell or how your company helps others? If you’re feeling a little ho-hum, ask yourself these questions:

• What product (or service) would I actually be excited to sell?
• What company (or companies) sell this type of product (or service)?
• What is my plan for getting this company’s attention?
• How can I market my work experience for an opportunity to sell what I love?
• Are there barriers preventing me from making a career move?

Remember, effective salespeople are some of the most sought after professionals in business. If you’re good at what you do, there’s no reason why you should keep selling that which you dislike.