A more efficient toolset (part 1 of n)

I really like software tools that make me more efficient. Over the last few months I have really come to love and rely on Text Expander and Mind manager.

Text Expander helps me quickly insert text blocks, mostly into emails. I have a few scripts that I use all the time that save me a ton of typing and ensure I include the right stuff every time. For example, when someone wants to meet with me, I type “ttungle” (my Text Expander label for this action using a calendar service called Tungle that I love) and get the following automatically inserted.

I know your time is very important, so in an effort to make scheduling easier and more efficient, here is my free/busy info http://tungle.me/tamccann if you want to suggest some times that work well for you. I am also copying my assistant, Teresa so she can confirm and work out any details. I look forward to connecting with you soon and if you need any more of my contact info, it’s on my Gist Public Profile http://gist.com/tamccann, you should consider getting one as well.

Or, when I do my internal status reports, I type “tstatus” and get;

Status:

Important info:

Kudos:

Did:

Doing:

Need help:

I have about 10 of these “text expansions” that I use all the time. Other people on my team use Text Expander as well including Greg Meyer, our awesome Customer Experience Manager. He and I are now sharing our scripts which makes us both even more efficient. Here is how we do it;

Take a snippet that allows you to set a date 3 days in the future. Paste it into TextExpander and name it with a memorable name. Then you can add a character code such as r-3days (for me, this means reply + 3days)

Can you please respond to this emall by %@+3D%A (%m/%d) and confirm that you received this message?

Give entire folder of snippets:File > Save a copy of folder

Give all snippets:Set Text Expander to back up to Dropbox, then share this file (attached)

Import Snippets:File > Add Group from File

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We all have lots of ideas and organizing them quickly and then being able to combine, move, organize… is critical. The best tool I have found is Mindmanger. I can quickly create “Mindmaps” of everything from product ideas, to new company concepts to list of influencers in a space…all in a way that I can easily edit, evolve as my thinking evolves, share and use to communicate with others. They have tons of templates on their site like the one below.

I hope these tools work well for you and I would be very interested in others that will help me (and others) be more productive!