Nearly everyone feels like they don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done that they want to do. That feeling has only been amplified this year as more and more has gotten dumped on our plates with the pandemic. We are working from home and working more hours. We are helping our kids with school a lot of the time, too, or even watching them during work hours if childcare has shut down. And we’re doing all that while worrying about our health and the health of the people we all love.

That means that our productivity has taken a hit.

For those running small businesses, the impact on productivity may even be worse. They have to think about all of the tasks that they might have done in person and figure out how to get them done online. Or, if they are in person, they need to figure out how to remain safe. So, they are looking for all the tools they can find in order to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency from every second of every day. Luckily, technology offers some untapped potential that may be helpful to keep moving and end up with this experience and everything else stronger.

For starters, the movement to more and more of our work online has meant figuring out all the snags that impact collaboration is particularly important. If you have to work on a document but your teams do as well, how do you do it so that everyone’s thoughts and changes are incorporated, and comments can be tracked? There are some useful collaboration tools that can help.    And the online focus has led more and more people to complete sales or negotiate deals through technology versus in person. That’s fine but there are nuts and bolts – things like signatures – that have to be taken care of now and done so in a safe, reliable manner. Contract signing and management software can help.

 What other tools should you turn to in your quest to manage productivity in an online world? This graphic has some ideas that can help.

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