Ecommerce

Manage Your Work Load Series: 3 Free Must Have Organization Applications

By Tinuiti Team

In the chaos which is online marketing, I can sometimes find myself slowly losing it.

Here are some of the work load organization tools which have helped maintain my sanity.

Organize work load applications
Look how happy I* am!

*Happy woman in picture is not actually me, although my work load is happily organized.

Organize and Manage Your Work Load

 

1. Manage your Contact Information with Rapportive

organize contact information with Rapportive
Rapportive Program

Rapportive is a free Firefox and Chrome extension for Gmail which stores details about the people you email.

You meet someone at a party, and talk with them for over an hour. They know your favorite food, personal history, and can recall the name of your high school crush. Remember your name? Not a chance. I apologize if we ever meet, but I’m one of those people.

Prior to Rapportive, I was forever wandering the internet with intimate knowledge of contacts, but I still needed to look up their basic information often. Rapportive acts as my virtual personal assistant (she never forgets anyone’s name).

Access and Organize Your Contact Information 

After you download Rapportive, you can access contact information to the right of the email you are writing. All you need do is compose an email and enter the contact’s name into your send field, and watch Rapportive pull the info from their public profiles to display.

You can also hover over an email in any email thread and Rapportive will grab that contacts public info:

work load organization with Rapportive profiles
Mouse over for contact information on Rapportive

Make yourself look spiffy by editing your personal Rapportive profile in Gmail by composing a new email to yourself:

Change your Rapportive information
Edit your Rapportive profile

Here is a closer look at a Rapportive profile:

Contact information on Rapportive
Rapportive Contact Profile

I use Rapportive to identify who I am writing to, what they do, what time zone they live in, and what they are doing. This saves me time and effort and helps me manage my work load efficiency, even if my description makes me sound like a stalker.

Rapportive Summary

Pros:

Cons:

Download Rapportive

 

2. Organize Your Notes and Manage Work Load Efficiency with Evernote

Manage your workload with Evernote
Work load management with Evernote

Evernote is an application which acts as a virtual notebook and organization tool in the cloud. Think of it as Microsoft Word on steroids, with virtually unlimited storage (maximum 100,000 notes) and access from any computer with an internet connection.

Store and Organize Your Work Load with Evernote

I use Evernote to organize my daily work load activities, record account actions, and store information.

For me, Evernote is the application which maintains the thread of my sanity. If you exclude Facebook (I know, shame on me!), and Gmail, Evernote is the only application which I leave open during my entire work day.

Manage Your Notes and Projects

Here are some of the elements of your work load you can organize with Evernote:

1. Manage note and document organization on “pages” in content specific folders or “notebooks”, which you can share, label, print or modify through the Evernote interface, either through the desktop login or online.

2. Organize and store web links and Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents inside of individual notes.

3. Edit individual notes.

4. Label notes and folders.

Here is an example of my Evernote:

Organize work load notes with these Evernote functions
Manage and store notes on Evernote

With Evernote you can:

Evernote All Star Organization Functions

If anything is keeping me out of a sanatorium, its Evernote’s web clipper extension, which helps me store web links, client reports (Excel or PowerPoint files), emails, documents, and even images inside notes.

I do this by dragging the document from my desktop, and dropping it into an open note.

Here’s an example of this with some notes I took on Rand Fishkin’s Guest Blogging Whiteboard Friday:

Evernote work load organization
Drag and drop files into Evernote notes

Wham, bam, thank you ma’m, I’m organized across multiple programs in half the time.

It can be a really scary and daunting idea to switch over from Microsoft (or however you organize your documents and tasks), to a tool like Evernote. Evernote’s web clipper makes this transition really easy, so you can transfer existing records from Microsoft programs or integrate two note taking systems for your online marketing campaign.

Similar extensions like Clearly also integrate with Evernote, which can help you manage and organize work load efficiency even further.

Evernote Summary

Pros:

Cons:

 

Download Evernote

3. Organize Passwords for Optimal Work Load Efficiency with Lastpass

Manage passwords with Lastpass
Lastpass password management

Password storage is easy enough when you use the same computer, and passwords are stored automatically. But dare to use another computer (or goodness forbid your computer tanks) and chances are your memory of those various passwords has been replaced by a Head On infomercial (Apply directly to the head!).

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to remember a forgotten or lost password, a hassle which I am happy to have put behind me with Lastpass

Lastpass is a program which stores all of your passwords under one interface which you can use to automatically log in to different sites.

Systemize, Store and Access Passwords with Lastpass

Before you organize your work load with Lastpass, be sure to create and save your master password, or use a password which you won’t easily forget (like you’re wife’s birthday). Lastpass does not email forgotten passwords, only self-created hints.

Lastpass master password
Choose Your Master Password Carefully

Once Lastpass is installed, you can log into sites you use frequently to generate the Lastpass store password prompt, or manually populate Lastpass with stored passwords.

Lastpass password storage and organization
Save and organize passwords with Lastpass

This same pop-up will appear whenever you create a new password on a page. This is a really handy way to manage your work load, so you can read Facebook status updates about your friend’s (Run, Work, Dinner with Ashley, Sleep).

Or you can also choose to let Lastpass generate a random password, and save even more time to Facebook, ehem excuse me work on your online marketing campaigns.

Create passwords and store new with Lastpass

Once you have completed saving passwords you use frequently, you can manage your work load productivity, and login to those sites with one click.

Access stored passwords with Lastpass

If you have multiple accounts for a program, a fast and convenient dropdown menu appears. (Please note the example below is censored for privacy purposes).

Manage your password work load
Multiple account passwords with Lastpass

You can also login with any of your saved passwords rapidly, and block sites from password prompts. (Makes you feel like Superman a little bit doesn’t it?)

Login automatically with Lastpass

Lastpass Work Load Organization Functions

Storing passwords is a great feature, but if you watch Storage Wars (Don’t knock it till you try it!) you know that just because something is in storage, doesn’t mean it is at all organized.

Lastpass lets you organize and categorize your marketing passwords through the Lastpass login.

I find creating titles for saved passwords is also very helpful in organizing online marketing passwords. I tend to organize by site, client or subject, which saves me time managing my work load for other important tasks (Storage Wars isn’t going to watch itself).

Check out this example of Lastpass below:

Organize passwords with Lastpass

Lastpass Summary

Pros:

  • It’s FREE!
  • Never lose a password ever again! (Your car keys you’ll have to find on your own.)
  • Access passwords from any computer.
  • Save time managing your daily work load and login to sites automatically.
  • Generate strong passwords for new sites.
  • Passwords are encrypted on your computer.
  • Applications which use Facebook to sign in are logged into automatically.

Cons:

  • One Master Password for access to all of your passwords, which Lastpass does not store. (One password to rule them all!)
  • Lastpass will auto-logout of your sites after a certain time period (anywhere from 4 hours-2 weeks depending on your settings).

Hurry up and Save Time

With the spare time these work load organization tools provide, you can finally take that Krav Maga class you’ve been thinking about (or pottery, we don’t judge here).

The Manage Your Work Load Series

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing some time saving applications with you, to help you organize your online marketing actions, manage your work load organization, and streamline you daily activities. Some of the topics covered will include:

Week 2: Online marketer work load organization tools for time efficiency and organization while web browsing.

Week 3: Getting the most out of Gmail for online marketers, how to organize and optimize your inbox work load.

Week 4: Establish social order with these must-have social media work load organization applications.

What applications keep you out of padded rooms? Please share your go-to work load organization applications with me via email: [email protected].

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