American Express Concierge Employees

We’ve had some interesting comments from former and current AMEX concierge employees.  Worth reading if you are thinking of using their service.

Bank Mistake

I have a bank that didn’t get my last change of address notification. When the mail was returned to them, they found my address and sent it to me along with a note telling me to change my address with them.

The odd thing was along with my statement were 5 other statements from people I don’t know. I called them and confirmed the address change and mentioned the other statements. They said they would take care of it.

The other day I got my next statement--and the statements from 5 different people I’ve never heard of. I don’t mind getting other people’s statements. However, I’m very concerned that some of my statements may be sent to total strangers.
This is one advantage of online statements. They are less likely to get put in the wrong envelope. Of course there is the risk that they will do something wrong and everyone’s information will be exposed, but that is a risk either way.

If you are concerned about identity theft, you might consider moving away from paper statements as much as possible in order to decrease the amount of data about you that is running back and forth in the mail.

Have any readers had experiences like this with their bank?

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need. On Wednesdays we are discussing the financial aspect of productivity. Watch for more Wednesday financial posts in the future.

Large and Multiple Monitor Study

Study from Utah.edu about productivity and larger monitors (pdf start on page 31). NPR interview regarding study. In particular the NPR interview is well worth the time.

Some Online Tools

Rajesh pointed me to Jiffle a web based program for scheduling meetings that integrates with Outlook and Google Calendar. One of the more interesting uses is allowing customers to directly schedule and appointment when you whenever you are free. It looks like it provides many of the features of an Exchange server–without the server.

Louise wrote to tell me about PassPack an online password manager. It will let you autologin to your saved sites and will generate passwords for you.

20 Tips to Save Money on a Home Office

1. Go cheap on your desk.

When it comes down to it a desk is simply a work surface. If you are on a budget, concentrate on getting something stable as a desk and put the savings to work elsewhere. A used door can make a great work surface once you remove the door handle. Place it on some sawhorses and you have an easily adjustable solid surface. Place it on two file cabinets and you now have desk drawers.

This type of desk is what Amazon uses for all their employees. They attach 4×4s to a desk and it is ready to go. In the early days Jeff Bezos made the desks him self–now a carpenter makes them.

When it comes down to it, as long as your desk is solid it probably won’t make a significant contribution to or detraction from your productivity. If funds are tight, keep the money available to invest in things that will really matter.

2. Free printers.

A lot of people upgrade their computer every few years and end up with a new printer each time because it comes with the package. It is pretty easy to find someone with an older inkjet printer that is sitting unused. If you only print a handful of pages each week, this can be a great way to get a printer. (If you print many pages, you should probably invest in something a little more cost effective to operate.)

3. Cheap computer.

Unless you are doing video editing or some other task that requires a very fast computer, modern PCs are overkill. You can go cheap on your computer in order to save money for other items–like the monitor.

The key is to get something reliable at a low cost. Refurbished machines can be a great deal. I’ve had good success buying the exact components I want from TigerDirect and just building a system myself.

Be aware that some very low end computers make extra money by pre installing all kinds of trial applications. If you get a computer that has this, you may want to consider starting over with a fresh install of your operating system to clean things up.

4. Best monitor you can afford.

A monitor isn’t something to skimp on. For most people a 2 or 3 year old computer won’t significantly slow them down, but trying to use a discarded 15 inch CRT monitor will really make work a chore. I would recommend looking into a 24 inch monitor. The extra space is generally well worth the extra expense–especially if you’ve been able to save money on the other items on this list.

If you go with a laptop be sure to consider the screen you are getting. That glossy display that looks great in the store may turn out to be very difficult to see over the glare from sunlight.

5. Virtual phone.

Services like Skype and Vonage can give you an easy way to create a telephone number without getting an extra physical line. If you have a cell phone plan with free incoming minutes that can work out very well. Use Skype for outgoing calls and use your cell phone as the number you give out to people.

There are also some virtual PBX services that will give you features like a virtual attendant, voice mail, 800 number, etc.

6. Avoid particle board bookcases.

Unless you are willing to modify them, those particle board bookshelves you can get from Office Depot are worthless if you have real books. You are better off with cinder blocks and 1×8 planks. If you already have some of those wretched bookshelves (can you sense I must have had a bad experience with these?), you can glue or screw a 1×2 underneath each shelf to give it some added strength. If you do this carefully it should be out of the way where it isn’t noticed.

You can create nice bookshelves with 1×6 boards and cinderblocks or milkcrates. Many lumber stores will cute the boards to an appropriate length for little or no cost.

7. Use the library.

The local library can be a great cost savings tool. The ease of ordering a book on Amazon can make it hard to take the time to go down to the library. At the very least you should bookmark your local library’s search page so you can look to see if a book is available before ordering it.

8. Power protection.

The amount you pay for good power protection can save you a lot of money down the road–especially if you live in an area with unstable power. For most people a good UPS with 4 battery backup outlets and 4 normal outlets will suffice. Many battery backup units have a guarantee–if your equipment is damaged, they will replace it. Take a look at the fine print to make sure you don’t accidentally do something to void that warrantee.

10. Used furniture.

You can save a lot of money buying used furniture. Ideally if you can find a business with offices that is closing down or moving. For things like file cabinets, you may end up paying just as much as what you’d pay for a cheap file cabinet from Wal-mart, but if you are careful you can get something that is much better quality and will last much longer. If you buy used file cabinets make sure they have the rails for hanging files. You can add the rails later, but this usually is a bit more difficult to use.

Used desks and bookshelves are great–especially if they are from an older business. You can often get much higher quality than what is available from normal stores today.

11. Direct the light.

Instead of buying new lamps, you can often help your lighting simply by getting stronger bulbs. Also if you position your desk to take advantage of a window, it can give you light for free. You may want to put sheer curtains or some other type of light fabric to diffuse the light if the window gets direct sunlight. If your room has dark walls, placing white poster board on your wall opposite the window can help better distribute the light.

12. Recycle paper.

If you print out a lot of stuff just to read, save those sheets of paper and run them back through to print on the back.

13. Efficient printing.

If you can reduce the amount you have to print, you can save a lot on printer ink. A large monitor will help with this. You can also keep expenses down by printing things in Draft mode under your printer settings so it doesn’t use as much ink or toner.

If you get a color printer, take care to choose something that will be efficient for the way you work. For example, if you print a lot in a particular color, you don’t want a printer where all of the colors come in one cartridge. Once a single color is used up, you have to get a new cartridge, so you end up throwing away a lot of ink (if you take the time to calculate it out, the ink for inkjet printers is more expensive than gold).

A good inexpensive black and white laser printer is hard to beat if you print more than 50 pages per week. A local print shop is a great alternative to a color printer if you only need to use it occasionally.

14. Buying wires.

Best Buy and stores like that tend to make a lot of money on things like ethernet cables. They know that most people look at the price of the big ticket items, but rarely think about how much they are paying for the accessories. Getting your cables from Amazon or some other only retailer can save you a lot of money. It is common for wires that cost $30 from the large electronic store to be available for $5 elsewhere.

15. Think ergonomics.

This doesn’t mean you need spend a bunch of money on extra equipment, but at the same time don’t let the fact that you are saving money keep you from spending a few moments to make sure you aren’t going to hurt your wrists or strain your neck. Many ergonomic issues can be solved simply with a block of wood to raise the height of something, or by raising your chair a few inches.

16. Shop around for internet connections.

In most parts of the country you have more than one option. Some things to consider:

• You may be able to get internet through your cell phone. In particular Sprint offers some unlimited EVDO plans that can be cheaper (if you are already paying for the phone service) than going with a cable modem or something like that. With a bluetooth Rev A phone and a decent signal you should be able to get speeds comparable to an average DSL connection.
• Wireless companies are starting to pop up and sometimes they can be less expensive.
• If you don’t have a wired phone line, check to see if your phone company offers DSL without needing to have phone service. This is starting to become more common and is often much less expensive than a cable modem.
• Ask for a good deal. Companies often have specials that they can give you if you ask. Especially if you tell them you are comparing different internet access companies looking for the best deal.
• Neighbors can be a good source of internet access. Usually they can’t resell the service to you, but you might be able to work something out that meets the terms of service and will make you both happy. Another idea is to offer to share connections if service goes down. If you are close enough, both have wireless routers, and use different service providers, you could exchange wireless passwords with the idea that if your connection ever goes down, you can use theirs and if theirs goes down they can use yours.
• Check the upload speed. If you are going to do things like video conferencing and voice communication your upload speed will be very important. Some service providers provide great download speeds, but very slow uploads. You may be better off with a slower download connection if it has faster uploads.
• Try multiple services. As long as there isn’t a long term commitment, you may want to try a few services at the same time for a month. Then cancel the one that is more expensive. In some cases, they will offer you a better deal to stay a customer. By having two connections and canceling one, it puts you in the best position for bargaining–because you can walk away from any deal unless it really saves you money.

17. Save on electricity

Setting your monitor to turn off when not in use and your computer to go into power save mode can add up over time. When you travel, consider unplugging your entire office. It will protect the equipment from storms and reduce the amount of electricity that is being used to power all the devices in standby mode.

18. Minimize cell phone usage.

It is easy to give our your cell phone as your number, but what you want to avoid is sitting at your desk and talking on your cell phone just because that is the number people happened to call. If you get a call, just ask if you can call them right back and use a less expensive line.

Here are some things that will make it easier to use other less expensive options:

• Make sure your cell phone address book synchronizes with your computer. If you have to use your cell phone to look up a number you are likely to use it.
• Make sure you can dial from your computer’s address book. There are scripts to set this up for Vonage and Skype and other services. Skype will actually look at your address book and show you everyone. To dial is just a matter of double clicking on their name.
• “Can I call you back in 30 seconds?” If someone calls your cell phone offer to call them right back. give an amount of time (and make sure you meet your commitment). If you get 3 calls a week that would take 30 minutes each, this will save you about 360 minutes on your cell phone bill each month. If those 360 minutes keep you from going over your plan, this can save you hundreds of dollars each month. It also frees up your minutes for the times where you aren’t at your desk and need to use your cell phone.

19. Avoid getting fax machine

If you have a reasonable set up, there should be no advantage of having a fax machine. Your scanner, printer and an only fax service should do everything you need. This type of setup will also help you save on paper because you probably won’t need to print out every incoming fax. If setup correctly you can even sign faxes and send them back without ever needing to leave the digital domain.

Take care in setting this up. If you don’t get the right equipment or a good workflow in place, you can end up wasting a lot of time–and you might be better off going ahead and getting a fax machine.

20. Use free software.

There is a lot of software that would be helpful in your home office. However for every $400 piece of software, you can usually find 3 or 4 alternatives that do 75% of what the commercial package does for under $20 or even for free. If your needs fall within that 75% there is no sense spending the money on the commercial package.

Also there are many online services for free that you can use. For example, Google will host your email at your own domain and give you access to their online office applications at no charge.

Here is a very short list of things to look into:

• Gimp - Photo editing
• Google Apps - Hosted productivity applications and email.
• PDF995 - Simple PDF creation.
• Open Office - Full blown office application suite.
• AVG - Anti virus with free and paid versions.
• DIA - Drawing program like visio.

I am all for paying for quality software when you need it. But it is pretty painful to pay $300 for software where you only need to use 10% of the functionality–especially if that functionality is covered by free or low cost alternatives.

Bigger Monitors

WSJ has a post referencing a study showing that people with a 24 inch monitor were 44% faster than people with 18 inch monitors on a particular set of tasks.  They said that performance started to go down again when given 26 inch monitors.

I find that most people don’t really know how to use a big monitor–especially with Windows.  I’ve watch a lot of people open an application and maximize it regardless of how big their screen is.  Then they jump back and forth between screens just like they would with a smaller monitor.  You have to learn how to get the most productivity out of a bigger monitor–especially if you are in the habit of working with a smaller computer screen.  This is especially true when you start getting to the large monitors. If you have a larger monitor, take a look at  your actual usage.  Are you really taking advantage of all that space?

Noise Canceling Headsets

Many years ago, I was reading a popular science article reviewing the first noise canceling headsets.  (Noise cancellation is done by creating a sound wave exactly the opposite of the ambient noise so the two waves cancel each other out and you hear silence.)  The reviewer noted that he had no jet lag when wearing the headset on a long flight.

Has anyone experienced this?

Reader Question - Getting Your Money

How do you get money back from someone who owes you?

Generally if you are asking this question, you’ve probably made a mistake somewhere. Here is a list of rules I follow for loaning money.

• Never loan money to friends or family that you can’t afford to lose. If you can’t forgive them the debt without holding it against them, you are not the person who should be loaning them money.
• Do everything in writing. Don’t expect to remember the terms of the loans. Get it in writing and signed.
• Make sure you have terms listed to handle the case where they don’t pay. This could be listing an item as collateral, late payment fees, etc. You need to leave yourself an out if they don’t pay. Be careful because every states have different laws about what you are allowed to do.

Keep in mind that if someone is coming to you for a loan instead of going to a bank, there might be a good reason the bank won’t loan them money.

Ok so lets assume that you have already loaned someone money and are having trouble getting them to pay. The best thing you can do is to keep communication open with them. If they haven’t spoken to you for 6 months about it, you have much less chance of seeing your money that if they are making some small payment every month. Give them some options such as:

• Offer them a longer payment period.
• Offer to accept a physical item in exchange for some or all of the debt. Their boat, motorcycle, computer, vacation house, etc. may be worth more to you than it is to them, so it can be a win win for both parties
• Offer them other payment options. If you can accept a credit card payment, you may be able to move the loan off your shoulders to the bank.

As a last resort you could turn the loan over to a collection agency, get a lien against their house or car (they can’t sell it without paying you off), or even get a court order to garnish their wages or seize property.

International Holidays

When working with someone from another country it is easy to forget that they will probably have a different holiday schedule than what you are used to.  If you hire a remote executive assistant, make sure you get a list of their holidays.  It helps with your planning and is a great way to better understand their culture.

Looking for Bloggers to Interview

I’m working on a new set of interviews on various productivity and life management topics and I’m looking for bloggers who would like to participate.   We will then publish all the answers to a particular question together along with the name, website, and RSS feed of the person who contributed each answer.  This can be a great way to highlight your website and your writing.

You choose which questions you want to answer, so it only takes a few minutes to participate.

If you are interested in participating, send an email to contact@productivity501.com with the subject interview and a link to your website.

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