The Internet has forever changed our lives, and now we expect things to be instant, including our communication. Email has played a large part in developing these expectations, and has for the most part proven to be an immensely useful tool. Sometimes, a little too useful. It's not uncommon to hear business owners gripe about email overload. If this sounds like you, don't worry as there are things you can do.

Here are five tips on how you can better manage your inbox.

1. Address last Most people start an email by typing in the address of the recipient(s). While there is nothing wrong with this practice, it can lead to emails being sent before they are finished, which could mean more emails in your inbox asking for clarifications or you having to send a correction email.

To stop this, try writing the body of the email first and when you have finished, put the addresses of the recipients.

2. Merge social with email Sometimes it can be hard to know who you are writing or replying to in your email. Using an app like Rapportive, which brings social information into Gmail can help. This app puts a bar to the right-side of an email with information about the sender, including their social profiles, recent tweets and even links to their LinkedIn profile. You can look up your recipients and connect with them directly from the email.

3. Use links, not attachments With the increasing number of cloud storage and productivity apps like Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive which allow you to share files by sending people links, there's no need to attach files to an email. This is incredibly useful if you find yourself sending document versions back and forth on a regular basis and struggle to keep everything up to date.

These services use one version of the document that users you share it with have access to. Everyone sees the same document, which will cut down on the number of emails and confusion when it comes to version control of important documents.

4. Don't use email for everything Email is so quick and easy that we tend to rely on it for everything. However, there are certain situations when email is not the best form of communication. For example, if you have a tough problem, need to reprimand an employee, etc. it would not be a good idea to do so in email, it's just too impersonal.

As a rule of thumb: If there's any chance of human emotions entering into a response or being affected by an email, it may be a better idea to communicate face-to-face.

5. Cook all your bacn at once Bacn (pronounced Bacon) is solicited email; email you want, just not right now. Social media updates, newsletters, website update notifications, etc. are all forms of bacn. Checking these takes time and can be a distraction if you have work to get done. It would be a good idea to schedule a set amount of time where you focus on reading, deleting or archiving these emails.

Alternatively, you can unsubscribe from these alerts or set up a new email account that is just for this type of emails.

There are thousands of things you can do to make your email easier to manage. What do you do? Let us know. If you are looking for even more ways to manage your inbox, contact us today.

Email has become the go-to communication medium for businesses of all sizes. It's not uncommon to see people emailing one another when they could just as easily talk. While it is incredibly popular, many emails are poorly written, leading to confusion and both parties having to take time out of their busy days to clarify. This can make you unproductive, and the best way to stop this is by writing good emails to begin with.

Here's six tips that can help ensure that the emails you send get your message across. By writing quality emails, you could see your productivity increase as you will have more time to do your work instead of clarifying sloppy emails.

1. Have a clear decision or action 99% of the emails you send are to ask someone to take an action, make a decision, reply etc. So, before you write any email pause for a minute and ask yourself: Why am I writing this and what do I want the recipient to do with this email?

If you can't provide a clear answer to these two questions, you may want to try contacting the recipient through another medium, or take some time to think and come up with an answer.

2. Write it backwards Once you know why you are writing your email, the actual writing becomes a lot easier. Because you will most likely be asking the recipient to do something, why not start with the request. Simply write down, in clear English, what you want done.

It's important to be as clear and direct as possible to avoid any confusion and potential follow up emails that will distract you. Once you have stated what you want, then you can provide justification to your request, or background information.

The reason this works is because many business owners/managers/employees are busy, they don't have time to read a whole report's worth of information that ends with a request. Most of the time they will just skip to the end anyways, so why not put the most important part - the action that you want them to take - at the beginning.

3. Use lists Many poorly written emails aren't actually poorly written. They are just formatted in an inefficient manner. In most English classes, students are taught to develop their ideas or arguments through logical paragraphs, while having only one point to each paragraph. Pause for a minute and think: If you get an email asking you to make a decision on what product to buy with five paragraphs each talking about a benefit or reason, would you actually read the whole email? Chances are the answer is no.

To be more efficient, break your ideas/reasons/arguments into a list. You can usually summarize the majority of main ideas of each paragraph into a single sentence. This makes them easier for you and the recipient to read.

4. KISS We don't mean you should kiss your monitor. In this context, KISS stands for Keep It Simple and Straightforward. You shouldn't have long essays or arguments with lots of padding. Get to the point immediately and provide the essential information.

If you find yourself writing an essay or long report, email is not the medium you should be using. Instead put your thoughts into a word document that you attach to the email. In the email itself put a brief overview along with the most important points and tell your recipient to check the attachment for more information.

5. Have a relevant subject line The subject of your email is like the title of a report or news article. Without a solid subject, the chances of your email being opened and read are low. It would be a good idea to write your whole email first, then the subject.

A good subject line can A) Interest the recipient enough to get them to open it and B) Provide enough insight so the reader can infer what you want. If you look over a subject line of an email you are about to send and see that it doesn't make sense or reference the email itself, it would be a good idea to re-write it.

6. Proofread everything This may make sense now, but we are all guilty of writing an email and pressing send without reading the content over. Once you hit send, the damage is done, you won't be able to get the email back. That's why it's a good idea to read over your email after you finish.

You should look for any obvious spelling and grammar errors along with ensuring that the content makes sense. If you think it's ok, then you can probably go ahead and send it. If you are the least bit hesitant, walk away from it for a few minutes then come back and read over it again. You will likely be able to see a couple of changes.

There are many options at your disposal that allow you to enhance your and your company's productivity. Contact us today to see how our systems can help.

The dream of many an office worker is to have the option to work from home, either full time or a couple of days each week at least. For many, this is an opportunity to be closer to family and avoid what might be a long commute to work. Many companies have been happy to oblige, especially those in tech that have seen boosts to employee productivity, and benefits from increased flexibility. One major tech company looks on remote working less favorably though.

In late February, an internal memo from Yahoo was leaked. The memo contained a statement indicating that all remote and telecommuting employees will lose their jobs if they continue to work from home after June 2013.

To many in the tech industry, and indeed others who work successfully with remote employees, this might seem like a giant step backwards. There has been a fair amount of backlash on this decision from news outlets, tech experts and employees alike, especially since working from home has proven to increase productivity among certain employees.

According to the memo, "To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices." The two key points here are 'collaboration' and 'communication'. If these are both executed successfully, you have generally productive employees and increased profits.

On the other hand, technology is at a point where employees can log in to their work systems from anywhere. Combine this with video conferencing and cloud solutions such as Google Drive and Microsoft Office 365, which allow real-time collaboration, face-time in an office could be seen as somewhat of a redundant idea. If remote working is executed efficiently, you might save money, see productivity increase more than it might in a physically present team, and profits potentially rise too.

It's certainly an interesting debate. Does physical face-time or telecommuting equal greater productivity? What we can say, is that it depends on the company and the industry to a large extent. Obviously, restaurants couldn't operate using remote employees. But, if your business can support it, this may be a viable way to boost productivity, keep employees happy and cut expensive overhead costs such as rents for office premises.

We'd like to hear that you think. Would you rather work from home, or do you benefit from the structure and face-to-face dealings in an office? Where and when are you most productive?

We'd love to get your feedback. Let us know what your opinion is.

Computers and the hardware components that run them are always evolving, getting faster and faster. Unfortunately, small to medium businesses often can't take advantage of the latest and greatest simply because it's too expensive to be constantly updating. This means using older systems that will get slower with age. That's why it's important to take steps to keep your computer running fast.

Below are four things you can do to keep your PC running smoothly.

1. Shutdown properly If you turn your computer off at the end of the day, or it freezes, it may be tempting to flick the off switch on the power bar, or press the power button until it turns off. This isn't ideal for your computer's health because when a computer is unexpectedly shut down, there could be damage to the operating system.

You may notice that when your computer crashes, it takes longer to reboot. This is because Windows is actually searching for, or trying to repair any damage that may have been done. There is a chance that powering down improperly could cause files to become corrupted which may make the system inoperable.

Therefore, you should follow proper shutdown procedures. If you need to shut down quickly, try pressing Control+Alt+Delete and selecting Shut Down from there.

2. Close unnecessary programs running in the background Some programs are written to be always running in the background. If you look in the bottom right of your screen, you should see programs running beside the clock. In truth, most of these likely don't need to be open. You should be able to right click on the icon and close them. This will save computing resources and make your computer run smoother.

A word of warning: It's best not to shut down the antivirus or security software as this will leave your computer open to attack. Also, don't shut down anything from NVIDIA or AMD as this is your video card software. Closing programs like this could cause your computer to crash.

3. Utilize Add/Remove on a regular basis Chances are high that you have installed a fairly high number of programs on your computer, some of which you may not use anymore. Those you don't use just take up valuable hard drive space, and should be removed on a regular basis. You can do this by:

1. Clicking on Start or the Windows Orb.
2. Selecting Settings followed by Control Panel.
3. Opening Add/Remove Programs.

It may take a few minutes to scan your system for programs, but a window will open with all the programs you have installed. Click on those you don't use anymore and remove them. We strongly recommend that you do not go into different files and delete programs, this could damage your system.

4. Use a malware scanner and antivirus program This may sound like a no-brainer, but it is still worth mentioning that having an antivirus program and malware scanner is a good idea. Many viruses and other malware often hijack system resources causing the computer to run slower, or crash. A regular scan can go a long way in minimizing this, which means your computer will likely run better for longer.

If you are looking for ways to keep your older systems running at their optimal levels, please contact us today to see how we can help you.

To many, the entrepreneur is viewed with admiration and jealousy. How come you have to work long hours for a company that doesn't really care about you while the entrepreneur gets to run their own life and have a seemingly perfect work-life? This view, as many business owners know, is often a laughable one as work-life balance can be non-existent. It doesn't have to be this way however and with a little work on your productivity you can actually get something akin to a good balance.

Here are three tips to help small business owners or managers be more productive and from that achieve a more desirable work-life balance.

Learn how you spend your time To be productive, you need to know how you spend your time. The easiest way to do this is to keep a log, or journal, of what you do each day. You should include everything you do in relation to work, including: travel time, Facebook breaks, time spent checking emails, meetings, etc.

The goal here is twofold. Firstly, you get a solid glimpse of how you spend each day; secondly, you can see if there is anything you do that takes up way too much time. Some experts suggest you do this for a week at least. To get the best results though, it would be better to do this for at least two weeks to a month.

There are a number of different ways you can go about journaling your activities. For the old-fashioned among us, go buy a day-timer that has at least one page per each day. For the more technical, your email programs like Outlook or Gmail have powerful calendars that you can record activities on. For the mobile crowd, mobile versions of Outlook, Google Calendar or even your phone's native calendar app will work great.

When you have your day timer/calendar app, it's time to start recording your activities. Record when you start one, and when you finish. From there, clearly label the activity. Over a few weeks, or even days, you will begin to see a clear picture of how you spend your time.

Plan to be more productive After you have figured out where you spend your time, you can begin to schedule around your strengths and weaknesses. The key here is to schedule time that is uninterrupted so you can focus on one task. If you find that you are checking your email every five minutes, it may be a good idea to schedule time in the morning and just after lunch for checking and replying to emails. When you aren't in that time period, you can work in a focused way on something else.

By sticking to a more rigid schedule you will find your productivity starts to rise. If you are having a tough time keeping to a set schedule, try using the pomodoro technique. This is where you set a certain amount of time for one task, and gradually increase the amount of time you focus on that task.

Play off your strengths If you are a small business owner, chances are you wear lots of hats. One minute you're wearing a spiffy salesperson hat while the next you're wearing an HR hat. This constant switching of roles, or doing everything yourself, is not good business practice.

If you are aware that you are constantly spending time on bookkeeping and yet hardly get anything done because you lack the necessary accounting skills, it may be a good idea to look into hiring a part-time accountant.

Many business owners struggle with delegation, as they feel the need to control everything. One way to challenge this idea is by looking at your hourly rate. If you charge $100 an hour and an accountant is $50 an hour, it makes sense to hire the accountant instead.

By outsourcing, you will find that you have more time to focus on what you're good at. As a result your productivity will rise and a better work-life balance will soon follow. If you'd like to learn more about how our IT systems can help make you even more productive, please contact us.

When is the best time to buy tech? That's right, the first few months of a new year are a great time to buy new technology for the office. This would have been a fairly easy task 10 years ago, as choice was considerably more limited. Now there are so many different kinds of technological devices that it can be hard to pick what will be best for your employees. Have no fear, we are here to help.

When shopping for new technology it's beneficial to know what types of devices are out there and what circumstances they are ideal for. Below is a list of the major categories of technical devices available.

Thin clients Thin clients are a type of computer where the computing power is stored on a server. On an employee's desk there will usually be a monitor, mouse and keyboard that they use to access the system - hosted on the server. These systems are typically low power, but are generally cheap to run and maintain. Any updates are done on the server and are instantly accessible to all users. The beauty of thin clients is that the servers don't have to be in your office. They can be in another location, managed by another company - where everything runs in the cloud. Because of this, thin clients are becoming an increasingly popular option.

Due to shared resources, thin clients are ideal for positions that only require minimal computing power. For example: retail operations, restaurants, sales departments, finance departments, etc. For positions that rely on computer processing power, use programs like CAD, or use legacy systems thin clients aren't a good choice.

Desktops Desktops are the standard in the majority of offices mainly because they offer solid computing power and systems meet the needs of a wide variety of budgets and needs. Desktops can take up space and businesses usually require a solid management plan to ensure every desktop is secure and using the same software.

Desktops are ideal for employees that need computing power, or who have resource intensive roles e.g., engineers who use CAD, designers who use Photoshop Suite, etc. Desktops are not a good solution for employees who are out of the office extended periods of time, or if you have limited physical space.

Laptops Laptops are portable, relatively cheap and can do nearly everything a desktop can. Their size means they are popular with mobile employees, e.g., salespeople, franchise owners, board members, etc. While laptops can handle many of the same tasks as their larger cousins, they do struggle with multi-tasking. If you need to have more than one window or program open it can be annoying having to constantly switch.

Tablets The iPad has shown that the tablet is here to stay, with some companies even being able to do away with the laptop. Like the bigger laptop, tablets are designed to be mobile and are ideal for keeping in touch with the office while on the road. They are perfect for employees who give lots of presentations or need to multi-task. Where they lack is in document creation and editing. While this can be done on tablets, it just takes time and a whole lot of patience.

If you have a mobile workforce that doesn't need to change documents on a regular basis e.g., salespeople at trade shows, tablets are a great choice.

Smartphones It's pretty clear that the smartphone is ideal for nearly every company. Users can check and reply to email, look at most files and many have even started to use it as their main phone. If you have employees that need to be connected to the office e.g., doctors or support staff, the smartphone is a great way for them to stay in touch while not having to be in the office.

With the sheer number of devices and uses, you can guarantee that different positions will require/benefit from different tools, and you should take this into account when looking to buy new devices. The other thing that works well is to adopt a multiple device scheme where users have complementary devices. For example, you can have one desktop for two sales staff who also have a tablet. They can use the tablet while out of the office and the desktop for heavier tasks when in the office.

The key here is to pick devices that will best complement your employees, and allow them to be productive wherever they may be. If you're looking to purchase new devices for your office this holiday season, why not contact us? We may have the perfect solution for you.

One of the most common elements of small businesses is the point of sale system. Many businesses use the traditional setup of a cash register, cash drawer, printer and inventory management system. These systems have historically been the last to be upgraded. There’s a new app for the iPad however that’s out the change this.

The system is called Square and is a series of apps that turn your iPad into a point of sale system, similar to standard touch screen point of sale systems already in use by many small businesses.

How Square works There are essentially three different aspects to the Square system. The central aspect is the iPad app called Square Register. You, the shop owner, install the app and begin by adding your inventory. You set the price, sales tax and the category the item belongs in. When a customer wants to buy something, your employee selects the item and starts the transaction. As you can connect both a printer and cash drawer to the system, it works just like any other point of sale system.

The second aspect of the Square system is the card reader. The vast majority of customers prefer to use debit, credit or ATM cards instead of cash. For these situations, Square provides a card reader that plugs into the iPad’s headphone jack. Simply swipe the card through the reader, as you would with normal systems. What’s cool about this is the card reader also works on Android and iPhones, which makes the system portable.

The third aspect is rewards. Using Square Register you can set up a rewards program for return customers, while providing them with yet another way to pay. The client downloads the Pay with Square app, links their credit card to the app and is able to open a tab with you. When they buy something, you can bill their account directly. When they use the app to pay for something, the reward program is updated and they receive a receipt by email or SMS.

What’s the catch? While Square sounds like a viable system, and is a theoretically great idea, there are some things you should be aware of. First, merchants pay a flat transaction fee of 2.75% each time a card is swiped. If you manually enter a payment, or if a customer uses cash, the fee is slightly higher. While this may seem a bit steep, the upside to it is there’s no monthly fee or commitment. you just pay the flat fee.

The other thing to be aware of is Square does put holds on transactions of over USD $1,000 if the credit card information is keyed in, this is a weekly limit. In other words, if an employee manually enters a credit card number for a purchase of $1,500, $500 will be held by Square for 30 days. This isn’t ideal for businesses that manually enter credit card numbers.

This system is a good option for the small business owner looking to replace their current point of sale system, while at the same time integrating the iPad into their business environment. This is also a good option for a company looking to mobilize their business. If you have any more questions about Square or other similar options for the iPad please contact us.

There is an 'instant' feeling to so much of what we do and expect to be done in life that this has kind of clouded the way we interact with one another. For example, if we receive an email, the sender expects an instant reply and if we don't reply within an often very narrow time frame, the sender will often move on. ‘Instant’ is a two way street, so while we have come to expect things to happen immediately, we often hate it when people want something right this minute. There is a danger this could become a big problem in the near-future.

This insatiable need for the ‘instant’ has arguably led to a decrease in the overall attention span of many people. We no longer focus on one thing and are constantly multi-tasking. Think of the last time you went out for a team lunch, what was the conversation like? More than likely you were sat around a table, talking for about five minutes before almost everyone resorted to looking at their phones, while kind of listening. Beyond that, think of the last time you had to wait for something, anything. If you're like a lot of people, you probably mumbled some comment or question as to why it was taking so long.

This instant, multitasking, relatively impatient lifestyle has started to really affect many us in negative ways. For example, looking at a forum post with over three pages of entries, most people will read the first few visible posts and then skip to the end and read the last post. If the post contains lots of text, most people bust out the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) and skip most of the information, potentially missing the most important parts.

If this was on an important sales contract and you skipped over the section that detailed how your company would be compensated because you just didn't have the time or patience to read it, you could irreparably harm your business, simply because you didn't feel like reading a few extra paragraphs.

Before you go throwing the computer out the window - many businesses simply can't afford to get rid of it, or can't operate without it - you should take a step back and track how you utilize technology in your daily life. Look for gadgets, devices and even websites that distract you and take steps to decrease their use. Using a timer with a set amount of time during which you concentrate on work, and another with a smaller amount of time for breaks could be a real big help.

There are thousands of other ways you can increase your productivity, regardless of your reliance on technology. Which do you find work for you? Let us know.

Do you remember playing in the sandbox as a child? It was usually you and your friends having a ball building sand castles or tunnels. However, should any rival group get near your toys, it was an all out turf war. It seems that this is almost exactly like the state of play with technical devices these days. Each company has their own spot in the IT sandbox and are generally unwilling to share the space with other companies. For the consumer, this means their devices don’t generally play well together.

Here’s three things you can do to ensure your devices play well together, or at the very least talk to one another.

One file system Ever put important data onto a flash drive, gone to another office, or colleague’s computer, only to find that they use a system that doesn’t recognize the drive? This is because Windows and Mac systems utilize different file storage formats, both of which can’t be read by the other system. The solution is to format your drives as ExFat - a format that can be read by Windows, Mac and Unix. If you have blank external storage drives, or would like to format existing external drives you can follow the instructions here. Just be aware that formatting will erase all data on the drive.

For drives that have data on them, where you don’t want to format and lose all the information there are a couple of solutions. If you’ve been using the hard drive with a Mac, and it can’t be read on a Windows machine, you can use MacDrive which will make the drive readable on Windows. For a drive that’s been formatted to work on Windows, you can access it on a Mac by using a program called Tuxera NTFS for Mac.

Use the cloud for your documents If you collaborate with other colleagues in the office, or clients on a regular basis, it can be tough to work together when everyone is using different systems, or different versions of the same program. To solve this, and save a bit of money, use cloud storage providers such as Google Drive.

Drive allows you to not only store your documents online, but share them with other users and edit them in the browser of your choice. This means less downloading as everyone is using the same version of the program and users can edit in real time - no need to download documents and sort through changes. Beyond that, Drive is supported by Mac, PC, iOS and Android; you can access documents on any of these systems.

If you prefer Microsoft, you have SkyDrive which is more or less the same thing as Drive, just integrated with Microsoft Office. Apple's cloud is mainly for within the Apple system. To span across all systems, a third-party cloud provider like DropBox or Box are a great solution.

Use Google to sync calendars, email and contacts By using multiple devices, it’s a near certainty that you have contacts unique to each system that you would like to access on other systems. Regardless of the system you use, there is some way to connect it to Google’s products. You can use Google Sync to sync with Google’s Web based products which can be accessed from any browser on your desktop.

If you have a Windows machine and would like to sync your Google account information with the related Microsoft programs - like Outlook - you can use Google Apps Sync. Mac users can sync with Google easily by going to Preferences and selecting Accounts for each program.

These are just a few ways to get your devices to work well together. Do you have any other ways you get your devices to work as one? Let us know.

“Please see attached” three words which have become synonymous with files attached to an email. Often, there is more than one file to send, or files can be large, which takes up bandwidth. Sending these files can be a real pain. To make things easier and quicker, you could compress the files into one neat little package. The question is, what program do you use to do that?

File compression, or zipping, is the process of using a program that takes files or a folder on your computer and combines them into one file, then compresses this into a smaller package. It does this by taking redundant information that is prolific in data, and paring it down to one list that all files in the compression can use. For a brilliant, in-depth explanation on how zipping works, you can checkout this article on HowStuffWorks. As with most computer related programs, choice isn’t limited to a couple of programs, rather there are hundreds. Here are five of the best:

WinZip WinZip is the most popular compression/decompression program amongst PC users. The latest version of WinZip, WinZip 16.5, allows users to zip and send files via email - using YouSendIt, a program that uploads files to a server and sends a link over email that recipients click on to download the file. The program is easy to use, just open it up, select the files to zip and the program will help you to compress your files. Decompression is as easy as double clicking on the zipped file (.zip). WinZip also allows you to encrypt compressed files. The program has a free trial, but will cost around USD$30.00. Available for Mac and Windows.

WinRar The second most popular compression program for Windows is WinRar. RAR files are another popular form of compression container used by Windows users for archiving purposes. WinRar offers a higher compression ratio than WinZip which means files will be smaller, while also offering tools that can help repair damaged RAR archives along with strong file encryption. Like WinZip, the tool has a free trial, but then costs around USD$29.00 per user, with the price per user reducing the more users there are. WinRar is available for Windows.

PeaZip Looking for a free compression program that has an easy to navigate interface and supports a large number of compression formats? PeaZip is a good choice that has all these features. PeaZip also offers some of the strongest encryption features compared to other compression programs, including two-factor authentication. PeaZip is available for Windows and Unix.

Stuffit Stuffit is the go-to file compression and decompression program for Mac users who want more robust features than those offered by the built-in OS X compression program. This program is similar to other zip programs, it opens, compresses, encrypts and can share your files. It does all this through an incredibly user friendly interface, and costs from USD$29.99. Stuffit is available for Mac and Windows.

7-Zip If your compression needs go beyond simply compressing the odd file, and your budget doesn’t allow for extra licenses, 7-Zip is the program for you. It’s open-source, which means there is a solid base of experts working on constantly improving the program. As an added benefit, it’s free, while being fairly easy to use. You just have to get over the somewhat dated interface. Then again, retro is in style now isn’t it? 7-Zip is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, Command Line Interfaces and Windows Phone.

These five programs should cover all your compression needs, while allowing you to send more files, or increase available storage space. If you have any questions about compression programs, please contact us.