Using Google Tools To Improve Your Efficiency

Here is a guest post from my friend Richard Adams:

In this post I’d like to take a few minutes just to outline 4 Google tools that I have started using that have really made my life a lot easier.

1) iGoogle

iGoogle allows you to create your own personalised homepage on Google. Set it as the page your browsers start page and it’s the first thing you’ll see when you log onto the Internet from your computer, or in an Internet cafe can be easily accessed safely by you using your username and password.

iGoogle allows you to add all sorts of different “gadgets” to your homepage so you can see lots of things at once and so acts as my main control panel (or my “dashboard” for all you Wordpress bloggers out there!). Pretty much everything feeds into this one area so a quick view and I can access most of the tools I need.

Examples of what I have set up on my page:

a) My Gmail account shows unread items. Click the email and it opens up for me to read.

b) Weather forecast for wherever I specify. When I’m at home it helps me decide which days are going to have the best weather over the next week or so and so which day’s I’ll go out and enjoy it. When I’m away it can be useful for planning trips.

c) Google Feedreader. See below for more details on this one.

d) Latest News Headlines just to keep me up to date with what’s going on in the world.

e) Date and time.

f) Google Calendar so I always know what I’ve got coming up.

2) Google Docs

Create and access Microsoft Office-like files online. This means I can access files from any Internet-enabled computer so I can have domain details etc. in a handy spreadsheet and then if anything goes wrong (as it invariably does!) while I’m away I have the information I need to rectify it.

3) Google Calendar

My online calendar. Up until a year or two ago I maintained a paper calendar on my wall plus an Ipaq and a paper diary merely listing birthdays etc. Keeping all 3 of these things in sync was nigh on impossible.

With Google Calendar I have everything in one place that I can access via any Internet-ready computer. Even better, it’s set up to text me before important events so I don’t forget things and automatically syncs with my Palm Treo thanks to a nifty bit of free software I downloaded from the net. So I’ve even got a copy of my calendar on the smart phone whenever I need it.

4) Google Reader

Quite possibly familiar to you RSS-toting blogizens, Google Reader allows me to insert the RSS feeds of blogs I love to read. Using this reader means I can view all the latest posts in one handy place rather than having to visit each blog individually to see if they have been updated at all overnight.