Technology Tools for Productivity Becky Dunlap Greenplay, LLC Introduce Yourself What are you passionate about? No way to possibly cover all the latest great technology Only have time for 5 productivity hacks Check out my website at beckytalksparks.com Visit Greenplay LLC for more information How do you decide what’s important? I want to invite you to my session on Wednesday September 27 from 9am – 9:20am. The topic is called technology tools for productivity, and in that quick 20 minute session, I want to share with you some of the best tools you can use to maximize your efficiency and workflow. With the constant influx of information, we will need to find ways to organize that information and define our priorities. Technology CAN be our friend in the workplace, and we CAN use it to our advantage. While my hope is to provide information that is useful to all of you, I know that each one of you has different roles in different places, and so really my ultimate goal is that whether you are a front line employee, a middle manager, or a director, that you find at least one tool that you can take back and try immediately. All of the information will also be detailed in the notes after the session, or on my website. Thanks a bunch, and I look forward to seeing you in the _________ Becky Dunlap Greenplay, LLC

Any job that is measured by productivity is a job that humans should not be doing. Productivity is for robots Introduce Yourself What are you passionate about? No way to possibly cover all the latest great technology Only have time for 5 productivity hacks Check out my website at beckytalksparks.com Visit Greenplay LLC for more information How do you decide what’s important? I want to invite you to my session on Wednesday September 27 from 9am – 9:20am. The topic is called technology tools for productivity, and in that quick 20 minute session, I want to share with you some of the best tools you can use to maximize your efficiency and workflow. With the constant influx of information, we will need to find ways to organize that information and define our priorities. Technology CAN be our friend in the workplace, and we CAN use it to our advantage. While my hope is to provide information that is useful to all of you, I know that each one of you has different roles in different places, and so really my ultimate goal is that whether you are a front line employee, a middle manager, or a director, that you find at least one tool that you can take back and try immediately. All of the information will also be detailed in the notes after the session, or on my website. Thanks a bunch, and I look forward to seeing you in the _________ Kevin Kelly

Objectives Organize Information Manage Schedules Share Your ideas Outsource when needed Stay Focused Introduce Yourself What are you passionate about? No way to possibly cover all the latest great technology Only have time for 5 productivity hacks Check out my website at beckytalksparks.com Visit Greenplay LLC for more information How do you decide what’s important? I want to invite you to my session on Wednesday September 27 from 9am – 9:20am. The topic is called technology tools for productivity, and in that quick 20 minute session, I want to share with you some of the best tools you can use to maximize your efficiency and workflow. With the constant influx of information, we will need to find ways to organize that information and define our priorities. Technology CAN be our friend in the workplace, and we CAN use it to our advantage. While my hope is to provide information that is useful to all of you, I know that each one of you has different roles in different places, and so really my ultimate goal is that whether you are a front line employee, a middle manager, or a director, that you find at least one tool that you can take back and try immediately. All of the information will also be detailed in the notes after the session, or on my website. Thanks a bunch, and I look forward to seeing you in the _________ Becky Dunlap Greenplay, LLC

Organize Information Overload of Information How will you Prioritize? Google Sites Evernote Trello OneNote You show up to work. You’ve had your coffee. What’s the first thing you do? Check your email. You’ve got too much information, how will you prioritize? Not only information for yourself, but for your team. COMMUNICATION is your number one job. When I first started as a facility coordinator, it was all new to me. While I had worked there the first 9 months as a front line employee, becoming a supervisor was a new and challenging endeavor. Not only was I in charge of doing my own job, the day to day tasks – but having to then communicate all of that new information to my staff – who all worked part time, at different facilities, and at different times, you might be able to sense my overwhelm. In order to conquer that overwhelm, I started documenting everything that I was learning. At first, this was in Evernote. I started sneding important emails to my evernote account. I would create email templates and save them in Evernote. Finally, as I started to realize how important it was that this information was communicated (my staff wanted to know), then I knew it was time to consolidate that information and put it in an easy to read, easy to understand way. I used the intraweb to put all the links, documents, and procedures into one place. We called it the CST portal, and within 6 months, it had been viewed over 1000 times. You can either collaborate with your IT people, or you can do it yourself. Consider a free internal site such as google sites. This would be particularly good for manuals, policies and procedures,etc.

Organize Information Overload of Information How will you Prioritize? Google Sites Evernote Trello OneNote You show up to work. You’ve had your coffee. What’s the first thing you do? Check your email. You’ve got too much information, how will you prioritize? Not only information for yourself, but for your team. COMMUNICATION is your number one job. When I first started as a facility coordinator, it was all new to me. While I had worked there the first 9 months as a front line employee, becoming a supervisor was a new and challenging endeavor. Not only was I in charge of doing my own job, the day to day tasks – but having to then communicate all of that new information to my staff – who all worked part time, at different facilities, and at different times, you might be able to sense my overwhelm. In order to conquer that overwhelm, I started documenting everything that I was learning. At first, this was in Evernote. I started sneding important emails to my evernote account. I would create email templates and save them in Evernote. Finally, as I started to realize how important it was that this information was communicated (my staff wanted to know), then I knew it was time to consolidate that information and put it in an easy to read, easy to understand way. I used the intraweb to put all the links, documents, and procedures into one place. We called it the CST portal, and within 6 months, it had been viewed over 1000 times. You can either collaborate with your IT people, or you can do it yourself. Consider a free internal site such as google sites. This would be particularly good for manuals, policies and procedures,etc.

Organize Information Overload of Information How will you Prioritize? Google Sites Evernote Trello OneNote You show up to work. You’ve had your coffee. What’s the first thing you do? Check your email. You’ve got too much information, how will you prioritize? Not only information for yourself, but for your team. COMMUNICATION is your number one job. When I first started as a facility coordinator, it was all new to me. While I had worked there the first 9 months as a front line employee, becoming a supervisor was a new and challenging endeavor. Not only was I in charge of doing my own job, the day to day tasks – but having to then communicate all of that new information to my staff – who all worked part time, at different facilities, and at different times, you might be able to sense my overwhelm. In order to conquer that overwhelm, I started documenting everything that I was learning. At first, this was in Evernote. I started sneding important emails to my evernote account. I would create email templates and save them in Evernote. Finally, as I started to realize how important it was that this information was communicated (my staff wanted to know), then I knew it was time to consolidate that information and put it in an easy to read, easy to understand way. I used the intraweb to put all the links, documents, and procedures into one place. We called it the CST portal, and within 6 months, it had been viewed over 1000 times. You can either collaborate with your IT people, or you can do it yourself. Consider a free internal site such as google sites. This would be particularly good for manuals, policies and procedures,etc.

Manage SChedules Schedule your Employees Efficiently Track pay rates, total hours, run reports Integrate your Calendars As an employee, you know how important your schedules are. It allows you the flexibility and ability to have your work-life balance. But as supervisors, it’s incredibly easy to forget how important a schedule is. We get busy and we forget to communicate how/when/schedules will be released. While I can’t predict exactly what scheduling system you use, you probably do have one if you have summer/seasonal/variable staff. I encourage you that if you are still utilizing a manual scheduling system, or using Excel, that there ARE better ways. There are paid methods to make life easy. When2Work is one of those. Google also has pretty good scheduling capabiliites and I encourage you to try that out for free first. When2Work

Manage SChedules Schedule your Employees Efficiently Integrate your Calendars As an employee, you know how important your schedules are. It allows you the flexibility and ability to have your work-life balance. But as supervisors, it’s incredibly easy to forget how important a schedule is. We get busy and we forget to communicate how/when/schedules will be released. While I can’t predict exactly what scheduling system you use, you probably do have one if you have summer/seasonal/variable staff. I encourage you that if you are still utilizing a manual scheduling system, or using Excel, that there ARE better ways. There are paid methods to make life easy. When2Work is one of those. Google also has pretty good scheduling capabiliites and I encourage you to try that out for free first. When2Work Google/Outlook

Share Your Ideas Don’t Reinvent the Wheel Share with others Patchwork Marketplace NRPA Connect So now that you have all of your information organized and prioritized, and you’ve got a system for scheduling your people, it’s time to get down to business and be creative! For inspiration, I often look at the Parks and Rec Magaizne, Business Parks and Rec Magazine, and other websites. Patchwork Marketplace is a pretty new website that allows people just like you to submit your own programs and staff ideas, onces that you havea already created – and you can get paid for submitting those. You can also buy resources from other profiessionals. I encourage you to check it out, because as more of you upload your products, then the most robust the service is, and the more educated and well rounded we will be . No need to reinvent the wheel.

Share Your Ideas Don’t Reinvent the Wheel Share with others Patchwork Marketplace NRPA Connect So now that you have all of your information organized and prioritized, and you’ve got a system for scheduling your people, it’s time to get down to business and be creative! For inspiration, I often look at the Parks and Rec Magaizne, Business Parks and Rec Magazine, and other websites. Patchwork Marketplace is a pretty new website that allows people just like you to submit your own programs and staff ideas, onces that you havea already created – and you can get paid for submitting those. You can also buy resources from other profiessionals. I encourage you to check it out, because as more of you upload your products, then the most robust the service is, and the more educated and well rounded we will be . No need to reinvent the wheel.

Share Your Ideas Don’t Reinvent the Wheel Share with others Patchwork Marketplace NRPA Connect So now that you have all of your information organized and prioritized, and you’ve got a system for scheduling your people, it’s time to get down to business and be creative! For inspiration, I often look at the Parks and Rec Magaizne, Business Parks and Rec Magazine, and other websites. Patchwork Marketplace is a pretty new website that allows people just like you to submit your own programs and staff ideas, onces that you havea already created – and you can get paid for submitting those. You can also buy resources from other profiessionals. I encourage you to check it out, because as more of you upload your products, then the most robust the service is, and the more educated and well rounded we will be . No need to reinvent the wheel.

Don’t do it all Outsource when needed Fiverr As you accumulate experience and ideas, you will want to start to share them not only with your team, your supervisor, maybe with other supervisors, and other professionals. I want to encourage you to make these things pretty. Now not everyone believes this, but I can’t help but recognize that over 80% are visual learners. We need to be catering to the epople who need our information. So presenting it nicely is essential.

Outsource Outsource when needed Fiverr As you accumulate experience and ideas, you will want to start to share them not only with your team, your supervisor, maybe with other supervisors, and other professionals. I want to encourage you to make these things pretty. Now not everyone believes this, but I can’t help but recognize that over 80% are visual learners. We need to be catering to the epople who need our information. So presenting it nicely is essential.

Stay focused If all else fails, limit facebook. Blocksite At the end of the day, you can choose to prioritize your day or not. And as much as you organize it, at a certain point, you have to set boundaries and be able to say no. Whether it’s eliminating distractions online – perhaps with a chrome extension that blocks certain sites – or maybe it’s simply turning off notifications on your phone and computer so that you can return to it refreshed. Finally, if you continue to feel overwhelmed, frustrated by things you can’t control, go for a walk. Put on a podcast. Let it be quiet. And finally, use apps such as insight timer or aware which has been proven to help you focus.

Stay focused If all else fails, limit facebook. Blocksite At the end of the day, you can choose to prioritize your day or not. And as much as you organize it, at a certain point, you have to set boundaries and be able to say no. Whether it’s eliminating distractions online – perhaps with a chrome extension that blocks certain sites – or maybe it’s simply turning off notifications on your phone and computer so that you can return to it refreshed. Finally, if you continue to feel overwhelmed, frustrated by things you can’t control, go for a walk. Put on a podcast. Let it be quiet. And finally, use apps such as insight timer or aware which has been proven to help you focus.