4 time saving tools for bloggers and social media users.

 

Hartwig HKD via Compfight

 

Time for a break from serious stuff and to get back to ideas and tips that I hope will help you in your marketing. I am working on a post about an amazing customer experience I had at a retail store this week. Made more amazing because I did not spend a cent at the store. That post will be published early next week.

Today I wanted to pass on links to 4 tools that I find very useful, they all save me a huge amount of time.

The first is a free WordPress plugin that makes finding and inserting photos into blog posts simple and quick. I found that finding, uploading, inserting and checking the licensing or attribution requirements for a photo can take longer than creating the post itself.

Compfight does the task for you, it is a free plugin which you can find by typing “compfight” into the search box on the install new plugins page of your WordPress dashboard.

I wrote a more detailed post about it on my Focused Prosperity blog. For those of you who are unsure about installing plugins, there is a link in that post to an earlier post with screen shots and a detailed explanation.

Compfight was used to find and install the photo at the top of this post.

Here are 3 more that I have written about before but which continue to impress me because they all help me to save time and be more effective.

LastPass.com is a password vault that stores your passwords securely, it will create very secure ones as well. Sites that require log in details and passwords can be categorised for easy access and it is free for individual users. Because it is an on-line application, it is useful if you use more than one computer, just remember your LastPass log in details and you have access to your password vault.

I have been using Rescue time for a few months. It is an excellent tool for tracking and recording the time spent on your computer. It allows you to set up categories, assign a productivity score to each activity and includes a number of weekly and monthly reports. One of the best systems for using time effectively that I have found. It is free for individual use, there is an upgraded paid version for networks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phase Express, is a free text extender programme that is useful for frequently typed phrases, emails or html code. Some of the places I use it are:

• Opening and / or closing paragraphs of emails.
• Responding to friend requests on social media sites.
• Adding my signature to posts, blog comments.

I have only been using it for two weeks but I am finding more uses for it every day and saving valuable time.

 

Wishing you success and effective use of time.