Google Voice Review

Posted by admin on August 31, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Similar to PhoneTag.com, Google Voice is another product I recommend to clients.  If you’re like most people, voicemails can get cumbersome and aggravating at times.  Google Voice is a service by Google that was originally known as Grand Central.

Sign up as voice.google.com.  Once you get your account, choose a friendly number.  What I mean as friendly is that you can put the letters to your own name or business name as a number.  Google will search to see if it’s available.  I have a couple of cool numbers including XYZ-CONTEXT.  where XYZ is the area-code and CONTEXT represents the keypad version of a number.

The next step is to forward the number to a wrong phone number that you can answer.

Once you have your new number, you’re now ready to play.  Give all your friends and business colleagues the Google Voice number now.  For each call you recieve,  Google will transcribe the call and either Email or text you. If you have it set to call you, then you phone will automatically ring.

It makes my life easier, as I can leave the country and either have my Google Voice number to forward to one of my team members or I can receive the messages via email or streaming Mp3 from my Google Voice inbox.

The best thing is the cost of the service…Free! The only cost from what I see are if you are making international calls from your Google Voice number, at which point it operates like Skype to phone and you are billed a fairly nominal amount per minute.

The Action Machine Timer

Posted by admin on under Productivity Tools | Be the First to Comment

I’m a big fan of timers.  I use them constantly to stay focused and cut out distractions.  I have a desktop one with a green start butto and a red Stop button.  Every time it counts down to zero, I’ve built a habit to stop what I’m doing and move onto something else, which might even be taking a 10 minute timed break.

Having a timer has allowed me to put Parkinson’s Law in action, hence knowing that the time I have is the time I take to complete a task.  It’s allowed me to get out of Social Media overwhelm, as I set a timer a few days a week for my 20 minute Facebook and Twitter sessions.

Now, here is the ultimate timer that I’ve recently stumbled onto by Derek Franklin.  It’s what’s called the The Action Machine Timer or AMT for short .

The AMT is awesome as I can put different tasks for my day and see them Visually.  There is a box for each action that I call the “Why” box.  I put down the bigger reason Why that the task is important.  Knowing my Why encourages me to stay the course until completion.

There are pre-made action item templates or you can make your own.  Thisis something I encourage people do as there are certain days where you will be taking on many of the same tasks, and hence each of these tasks becomes a Focus Session.

It’s worth the $37 as you will make your money back with the amount of completion you bring in your life.  There are a couple of bonuses that will teach you how to get rid of known time wasters and to manage your energy the best as you build up your own template.  I highly recommend Derek’s Action Machine.

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