Jessica Williams, aka Tech Biz Gurl, was one of the talented women in my Hot Brand Action mastermind team this spring. As soon as I launched OBC guest posts, I knew I wanted her to share her tech wisdom with all of you. This Top Five list blew me away—and may have persuaded me to finally look into buying a smartphone or tablet. Tip #2 was the clincher for me; I’d love to know which of these tips changes the way you view how to accomplish your own work.
5 Smartphone Apps for Entrepreneurs on the Go
Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or a newbie, I bet you’re always looking for ways to get more done in a day. One of my tricks? I use wait time complete tasks. By “wait time,” I mean time spent waiting for a doctor’s appointment, standing in line at the grocery store, or even commuting. Even if it’s just 5 or 10 minutes, you can probably knock a couple of things off your to-do list.
Here is a list of five apps that you should have on your smartphone or tablet device to help you accomplish tasks on the go:
1. Dropbox: Dropbox is a great cloud-sharing tool that lets you sync your files and access them from anywhere. You can sync documents across your PC, Mac, iPhone and Android devices. This can come in handy especially if there is a file you need to access on the go but it’s on your home PC. As long as you have it saved to your Dropbox, you can pull up the document on your phone. There is a free account with a 2 gigabyte limit, but you can gain additional storage through simple acts like referring your friends.
2. Microsoft Office Mobile Equivalent: Most mobile devices ship with a program similar to Microsoft Office that allows you to create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations on the go. Most times it is QuickOffice Pro or Documents to Go. If neither comes pre-installed on your phone, look into purchasing one. This mobile Office suite provides the capability to edit a client proposal on the go. You can even send the file to the client, all from your smartphone.
3. Amazon Kindle App. Wait times are a great opportunity to read a page or two of your favorite entrepreneurial book or catch up on the latest novel. The Amazon Kindle App gives you the opportunity to learn or relax while you wait for that client who’s running late. You don’t even need to have a Kindle to read on the go: you can install the free app on your phone and use it to purchase books or magazines. But if you prefer listening to reading, there are also apps available that allow you to listen to podcasts or audiobooks instead.
4. Google Reader. As entrepreneurs, we tend to follow a lot of blogs on various topics as a way to continue our education and stay informed. Instead of subscribing to these blogs via email all the time, think about subscribing via RSS and having those feeds go directly to Google Reader. That way you can access them all in one place and catch up on the latest news, posts and updates on your favorite sites without clogging up your email. You can also post relevant articles to your social media networks while you’re at it.
5. Evernote. If you need a note-taking tool on the go, definitely get Evernote. You can copy web links, clip articles, write notes, or speak tasks into this application, and it will create searchable notes for you. These notes can be tagged and sorted into categories so that you can easily find them later. It also automatically syncs to the Internet, which means you can access your notes anywhere you have web access—including from your smartphone.
Note: I am by no means saying that you should use all of your free time to work on your business or that you should do any of these things while driving or walking. This is meant to show you ways in which you can use your smartphone to make the most of those unexpected wait times to get a little bit more done in your day. After all, every little bit helps.
What are some of your favorite timesaving tips or applications? Please share with us in the comments.
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Jessica Williams currently works as a Proposal/Marketing Coordinator at SDI, a technology consulting company in Chicago. She is also the founder of Tech Biz Gurl, a business designed to educate women entrepreneurs about technology and social media while empowering them to use these tools on their journey to greatness. You can follow Jessica on Twitter: @techbizgurl.