Do you have tired eyes?

Do you have tired eyes?

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Do you have tired eyes?

Do you have tired eyes?

By the end of your workday do you have tired eyes? Are your eyes dry, sore and have difficulty focusing? Do you have a headache?  These are symptoms of digital eye strain.

Yup, I had digital eye strain

If you answer yes to any of the above, you could be experiencing digital eye strain. This is caused by overexposure to blue light from our digital devices. As an Online Business Manager and Web Designer, I’m pretty much in the same boat as you, sitting in front of our digital device is how we serve our clients and prospective clients.

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Little Side Note

Have you heard of the Kolbe A? It is an assessment that identifies the natural way you take action. My high number is fact finer which means, I start everything I do with research.

Enter Research Mode Here

At the end of the day when I had tired eyes that were so exhausted I didn’t even want to open them, I entered into research mode.

What I found out is…

I was suffering from digital eye strain, in this day and age is very common. A solution to digital eye strain is simple, you can purchase computer glasses that reduce the blue light exposure from your digital devices.

With a Google search, you will have more options than you know what to do with. Because I wanted to make sure they would be helpful I just found a pair on Amazon. I did not even give it a second thought I ordered them immediately.

Can you say life changing

These glasses have made a huge difference for me. ((Insert little dance party here)) In the evening my eyes do not feel tired and dry. Nor does my vision seem hazy any longer. My eyes are not tired in the evening and my vision does not seem as blurry as it was in the past. I can tell you from experience that when my first pair broke and I didn’t replace them right away I could tell from my tired eyes I had all the digital eye strain symptoms again.

Here is a bit of my research if you would like to check it out:

Article One: Blue Light – It's Both Bad and Good for you from All About Vision

This had a ton of great information in it. It explains why blue light is needed and why too much of it is bad for our eyes.

 

Article Two: Blue Light and Your Eyes from Prevent Blindness

This article gives a list of what you can do to protect your eyes from blue light.

I did read through a few others, but I found the most information in the two articles above.

 

Dubsado for Managing Your Prospects

Dubsado for Managing Your Prospects

by | May Contain An Affiliate Link, Planning-Organization-Productivity

Dubsado for Managing Your Prospects

Dubsado for managing your prospects

Utilizing Dubsado for managing your prospects is an ingenious time-saving move as a business owner.

For Reals

Yes, really! How are you currently managing your prospects? Let me share with you how I handled them before Dubsado was recommended to me by a Mastermind Sister.

A prospect would fill out a Google Form with a list of questions about there business. I would review the form and send a follow-up email with a link to Calendly so that they could schedule a call.

They would get entered into my project management system for follow up. All pretty manual, ya I know I could use Zapier to connect everything. However, it is so much simpler going into one application for all the things.

And Now

When a prospect visits my website they still fill out a form, though this form is from Dubsado. I’m able to map the fields, create a new lead, tag them with interest and select how they found me.

Once the form has been completed it enters a workflow, pending the answers they’ve provided it sends the appropriate follow up email to meet the specific done for you service they need.

Scheduling too

Dubsado has rolled out scheduling too. They are so fancy, yet still so simple to use. Instead of using Calendly, I’m able to use Dubsdo for scheduling the discovery call with the prospect.

Following the discovery call, a task to follow up at a later time is set up or if we both decide to say“yes”  to working together than a proposal, contract and invoice are sent out of Dubsado.

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A Little Side Note

This isn't the first time that I've professed my love of Dubsado. 

Check out my earlier post too!

After it’s signed they go into another workflow, that actives them on my client portal, send them all the information they need about working with the Miss Task Team and creates a project. Did it take some time to set up – heck ya. Still, once it is set up say bye-bye to doing all the work manually every single time.

 

Would you like to use Dubsado for managing your prospects for your business? Here is my affiliate link that provides you with 20% off your first month! Oh, and they do allow you to try it out for FREE up to three projects. Just lets you dip your toe in the water first – love it!

Best Tips for Email Organization

Best Tips for Email Organization

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Best Tips for Email Organization

Best Tips for Email Organization

Either you control your email or it controls you. Here are my best tips for email organization and keeping your inbox in control.

When I chat with people about what I do and how I help, when I mention keeping your email organized the same reaction of Hallelujah is heard.

Your inbox should be treated as a tool in your online business, it should not be where you spend a bulk of your time. Here are the best tips that I provide or implemented for email organization.

Labels and Filters

Setting up labels and filters is the first step to an organized inbox. In the past, I've created a number of labels, but I've scaled that back a bit. 98% of the time if you go looking for an email, likely you’ll search for a keyword or person before you go and look for it. If that’s not the case, how are you finding those emails? Searching is quick and easy.

 

Here are the best labels or folders that I’ve found to use:

  • 0-Immediate
  • 1-Action
  • 2-Active
  • 3-Hold
  • Finance
  • Finance/Payable
  • Finance/Receivable
  • Review
  • Unscribe

Any specific folders that are needed in your business. Such as client or product folder.

Let's talk about labels or folders and the purpose they serve.

Dubsado Is A Game Changer a blog from Miss Task OBM
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A Little Side Note

When you need a mindless activity use this time to unsubscribe to all those marketing emails that are no longer serving you. This not only helps you but also the conversion rates of the list you're opting out of. It's a win-win for you both. 

1-Action

These are emails that require action by you but doesn’t require immediate action.

2-Active

These are emails for active projects that are getting a number of emails. I would suggest creating a filter to put them directly in this folder. The filter can be on an email address or subject.

3-Hold

These are emails for meetings, travel, reservations, activities. Generally anything with a date or an agenda that will no longer be needed after the event has taken place.

Finance

The actual Finance folder is used to hold the emails. Once the email has been completed it can be moved to either the payable or receivable sub-label/folder pending what it is.

Review

These are emails that do not have a timeframe as to when they need to be reviewed. This is where I put the marketing emails that I like to skim and archive for reference later.

Unsubscribe

This folder can either be manually added to or a filter can be created. I’ve done it both ways, personally, I prefer to manually add these when I’m sorting through my emails because some of the marketing emails will be added to my review folder to be skimmed later.

Inbox Applications

You have options, options and more options when it comes to inbox applications. I can’t even remember all the inbox applications I’ve tried out. These days I use mostly Spark, however, Kiwi is a very close second. Do not be scared to try different applications, you need to figure out what works for you. You have so, so many possibilities!

Why I like Spark

I like Spark because it has an app for my iPhone, I can pin emails, save canned responses, I can schedule emails, and I can have them come back into my inbox. They also have a paid option for teams to chat back and forth on emails. One other feature that I like is Quick Reply this option allows me to set up canned responses that I can send with a click of the mouse. For example,  that allows me to send a quick email to let my customer know that I’ve got the email and will take a look at the request. It is handy dandy.

Why Kiwi

Kiwi brings your Gmail to your desktop and if you have multiple Gmail accounts they receive tabs to jump back and forth with. With kiwi, you can use Boomerang. This will allow you to set up emails to be sent at a later time or to snooze a email to review later.

Get out of your inbox

As an online business owner, it’s important that you get out of your inbox. Your work should not be driven by the emails that you receive. It’s best to block time to work on your email. I check mine twice per day. About mid-morning and at the end of the day when I’m looking at planning the following work day. My emails are sorted when I open up my inbox to the appropriate project.  Everything gets filed in the correct label or folder so that it is completed in the correct time block.

 It is possible to get your inbox to zero, it just takes a bit of time to clear out the clutter. Once you have the system in place email is so much more.