Do you struggle to get things done in your eCommerce business? Do you worry about too many responsibilities? Relax – it may be only a matter of organizational skills!
It’s quite obvious that every ambitious person always wants to do more and more. The question is: how to improve productivity without compromising quality and work-life balance? It is important, especially in case of home-office jobs. These include freelancing and managing your own, fresh eCommerce business. Before we discuss actual tools that, let’s state what productivity actually is and think how it can affect your eCommerce business.
The three definitions of productivity – or more
According to some dictionaries and encyclopedias:
Productivity is a parameter that helps to evaluate one’s ability to produce copious outcome, while using available resources in the most effective way. Sounds complicated, but fear not. Productivity means just not wasting time and energy on pointless procrastination. It also involves using all possible tools to make your life easier and to work more fluently.
In conclusion, being productive means four things:
- saving time wherever possible and optimizing the workflow to cut out any unnecessary steps;
- using tools that allow you to automate all tasks that you can and keeping all your data neatly organized;
- transfering your good habits from work to personal life;
- constantly striving for improvement.
Tools that will make you a better ecommerce businessman
As guys closely related to growing ecommerce business, we keep in touch with numerous entrepreneurs. Were able to compile a short list of apps that help improving their productivity. Most of us, at Codeswholesales.com, have already started using them at work. We can swear these apps have already made our lives in the office easier ;)
Inkflow
Inkflow is a great little helper for all those who prefer developing and presenting their ideas in a visual way. Normally, we would use colorful pens and paper to doodle and draw mind maps. Thanks to inkflow, though, we can keep our rather chaotic ideas in one place. And, most importantly, keep them readable. The latter being not exactly obvious with our writing styles.
Interestingly, the natural way of brainstorming on paper (scribbling) (or, in this case, glass) is proven to help thinking and focusing on the idea. Inkflow is free for Apple mobile devices, so there are no excuses – we sincerely recommend to try it here!
Explain Everything
If Inkflow is not enough and your team meets to discuss new ideas quite often or is spread in many places, Explain Everything is the way to go. This ingenious app was initially developed as a digital substitute of students’ notebooks. Obviously, it was initially marketed for schools. Since it makes explaining everything (pun not intended) so intuitive and easy, though, it quickly caught interest of companies that care about the seamless flow of information. These institutions definitely care about productivity of their employees.
The main feature of Explain Everything is a virtual whiteboard. You can easily place information there in any manner you can imagine, including multimedia and files stored in cloud. Create graphs, plans, mind maps, write, doodle, scribble, include videos and comment on your coworkers’ ideas in a very contextual way. It’s unbelievably intuitive – after all, it was made for kids ;)
Just try visualizing your ideas with Explain Everything online whiteboard and you will probably never go back. At least, if your work involves sharing information and ideas. Free demo is available here.
Evernote
I would be completely lost without Evernote. Well, I when it comes to organizing tasks, ideas, schedules and notes, it is a must have. While keeping it all super-simple, Evernote’s authors managed to squeeze in plethora of cool features. They made their product so much more than plain Sticky Notes that Windows wants us to use. Multimedia capabilities such as voice reminders, images and visuals of all kinds are not the key feature here. What makes Evernote crucial for creative and productive people, is its availability on any device you need and automatic synchronization of your data between your devices. You will never lose track of your ideas anymore.
All in all, if you often travel and have brilliant new eCommerce ideas on the road, definitely try this app.
Hemingway Editor
No successful eCommerce business can exist without copywriting. No matter if its a huge blog, like this one, or just simple copy on product pages. It all needs to be reader friendly in the first place (being SEO friendly is important, too). But how to fill your ecommerce website with texts that don’t discourage potential buyers? There are at least two solutions to that problem:
- hire an experienced copywriter
- write it all on your own
Option one may be quite expensive, if you have just started your ecommerce business (even though it usually is worth the price.) The second one has a major drawback, too. Namely: you have to be a proficient writer. In my work spend a lot of time writing and find it pretty natural, but it hasn’t always been so. At first I struggled and found it literally painful to create, but I quickly found a tool that changed my life: Hemingway Editor. This seamingly simple online text processor is a perfect teacher and can make anybody willing to learn a good writer.
Its main role is helping you make your text natural and stylistically sound. It assesses your writing and shows you what fragments need to be improved. It is all done by giving you simple visual hints: it highlights text in different colors, depending on the problem identified. Try HemingwayApp online here!
Keep it organized with eCommerce business plugins
Keeping your eCommerce business organized with external tools is great, but is should only supplement the real grassroots work, which is keeping your eCommerce plugins tidy. Learn more about CodesWholesale plugins here.
About the author
- Digital dropshipping propagator, e-commerce expert, linguist and cyclist. A literary blogger in free time.
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