Directive Blogs

Have you ever felt like there was simply too much to do and unless you light a fire under your butt, you have no chance to get it all done? What if this state is standard operating procedure? For many small business owners and employees, this is the reality of going to work every day. In this week’s blog we thought we would discuss three strategies that work to lighten the load when it seems like the to-do list is just too big.

We’ve been spending the past few weeks examining productivity and how to optimize it, and today, we felt it was necessary to address the issues that could throw the proverbial wrench into the works. 

Don’t worry, though, we’re also going to touch on how you can avoid and/or mitigate the issues that might threaten your productivity.

It’s no secret that automation is one of the major trends that most businesses have tried to incorporate into their business plans, most with some middling success. The problem becomes that many businesses don’t really have a strategy for building out automated tools for their business, so they may not be able to take advantage of the benefits automation can bring. 

Recently, we talked about productivity, and how it can be defined. We wanted to continue our deep dive into the concept of productivity with an examination of the different ways that you can measure your own.

So, how can you keep track of your productivity?

Technology is a big part of doing business for a lot of organizations. One issue that comes into play is that managing that technology can get a little much for a small organization or one that doesn’t actively have some type of plan of how to organize their IT in a way that can keep that technology from being a risk or a problem. This month, we’ll take a look at a couple things that can be done to clean up your IT and make it be more of a benefit to your organization.

When we talk about projects, we typically mean new technology deployment. Our technicians spend a lot of time trying to outfit our clients with the right technologies for their business. What becomes evident pretty quickly is that most businesses don’t just need help with the IT projects, they need to get the tools in place for their own project management needs. In this week’s blog, we will briefly discuss what businesses should be looking for in project management and how today’s tools can help your organization be more productive and get more done. 

Productivity has been, is now, and likely will forever be heralded as one of the preeminent goals for any business. As such, it makes sense to understand as much as we can about it. To do so, we’ll be examining a different aspect of productivity for the next few weeks.

First up: what is productivity, in the first place?

If you’re looking to maximize your productivity, then having the web-based resources you browse to everyday is a must. You can take this idea one step further by assigning a shortcut icon to a specific web page you frequent. Let’s discuss the process for how you can do this.

There’s no denying that productivity is one of the primary goals of any business nowadays, with countless examinations into the concept of productivity, theories on how to maximize it, and methods to promote it in the workplace. Today, we wanted to take one of these theories and explore it so that you can perhaps capitalize on it yourself.

Both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets offer a plethora of features to those who know how to use them, many of them with really niche applications to businesses. For instance, there is one function that allows you to easily calculate the time between the current date and a specified  day that, if applied properly, could easily provide businesses with some serious utility.

Unfortunately, the number of cyberattacks is consistently growing and many of those attacks target business end users. This means that any account that requires a password for access could conceivably be compromised should attackers gain access to its credentials. At Directive, we promote the use of multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication or 2FA) to mitigate some of the risk inherent with the use of password-based accounts in business. 

Have you ever heard of the Uncanny Valley? It’s the theory that explains why the human race tends to prefer humanoid robots, but only up to a point, after which we find them unsettling. It’s one reason why so many people found the 2019 film Cats bothersome to watch. The Uncanny Valley has also been present in film in recent years, especially when actors who have passed are recreated digitally to make an appearance, or when talent needs to look older or younger than they are.

The key to a productive workday may be the tomato. Not in the sense that eating more tomatoes will make you smarter; instead, we’re talking about the classic tomato-shaped cooking timer that counts down from 25 minutes. It turns out that 25-minute-tomato increments could be the most effective way to accomplish your work.

The idea of a four-day workweek has been popular for some time now, to the point where it is actively being tested in practical settings. Let’s discuss how successful this approach has been (spoiler alert: it’s been quite successful indeed).

We hate to be the bad guy, but we’re certain that you cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. Multitasking is just not how the human brain works, and whether or not you believe in the psychology of it, we think you stand to benefit by outsourcing some of the tasks on your plate to a managed service provider.

For a business, technology solves a lot of problems. Covering operational pain points is what it does best, after all. Unfortunately, they come with their own pain points that have to be dealt with. In today’s blog, we’ll give you a list of common technology pain points a small business can have and how managed IT services go above and beyond to mitigate those problems. 

The cloud is a great business tool and resource, enabling businesses to offset a lot of their IT workload onto these providers. If you haven’t migrated some or all of your business’ technology to take advantage of the cloud, it is certainly something to consider.

If you’re already considering it, we wanted to offer a few tips to help make the process more effective for you.

If you suspect that your organization has trouble managing its technology, you are far from the only one. Small businesses tend to have more difficulties with technology management and maintenance compared to their enterprise-level counterparts, mostly due to limitations placed on resources and time. You can make things much easier for your business by working with a managed service provider.

Automation has been a business buzzword for some time now, and was a key facet for many businesses remaining open through the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it seems like there’s no reason for it not to remain in use from this point on. Let’s examine a few ways that automation can and likely will be used moving forward.

Laptops are pretty great, I think we can all agree, simply due to their portability. Having said that, the one-screen situation that laptops bring with them can certainly get in the way of productivity—particularly for those who are used to using more than one. Let’s discuss why an additional display is so helpful, and what your options may be for hooking one up to your laptop.