Only the best time saving services get cataloged here. These are services that truly save you time. What’s the difference between a service and a web site here? A service will require human activity to render the service or product and/or there will be a recurring charge involved. Subscribe

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Time Saving Services

There are a number of firms that provide virtual (remote) assistants.  I have used both offshore and USA resources. Individuals that work for these firms will perform a wide variety of tasks for you from updating websites to sending flowers to your wife.  If you can state your needs clearly, they can save you a lot of time and potentially money as well. If you’re not in the habit of being crystal clear, however, you can frustrate yourself (and them) in the process. This is true even in local face-to-face delegation but it is a more acute problem in the offshore model where you face cultural and language differences.

Tim Ferris (author of The Four Hour Work Week) has assembled a list of firms through which you can hire a remote assistant. Some firms have areas of specialty (Agents of Value) while others are more general (AskSunday).

For work that requires a high-touch phone presence (scheduling sales appointments, for instance) or discernment about American culture (we speak more slowly in the South), I recommend using a local person. Check out Cindy Filer’s Innovative-Outsourcing for superb USA-based virtual help.

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Virtual Assistants Save Time

As seen on HumorHotlines.com.

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Outsource Your Friendship

Blissfully let society pass you by, while you concentrate on more important things

Social networking is close to mandatory nowadays – if you don’t check your facebook account for a couple of weeks, you’ll find your new pokes and requests met with stony silences by shunned friends … Twitter bills itself as the modern antidote to information overload, but if you fail to update your status at least daily, you’ll find your Mom, your best friend, and your supervisor all calling your phone asking what you’re up to. It’s enough to make you become a hermit mountain recluse, isn’t it?! If only I could afford a mountain retreat…

We’ve recently found a couple of new services that make the pervasion of social media a little easier to deal with – Nutshell Mail is extremely popular and well regarded, and Fuser is older, and works on the same principle but is often blocked by company firewalls as an evil, personal service.

All your social networking updates in a you-know-what

Nutshell Mail can consolidate updates and information from many popular social networking sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and Twitter, and also has the capacity to consolidate mail from more email accounts than any rational person needs.

It will collect all of this information and deliver it to you at times you specify, rather than when everybody else is doing their thing on the web. Slackers.

Some of the email providers and networks from which Nutshell Mail can collect - click the pic for the full list.

You can access the service through your most commonly used inbox, which, incidentally, can be your work email address. Nutshell Mail updates are not blocked by company firewalls, and you don’t need to log into a web service to get them.

However, you will have to write down those witty replies that come to mind when you read people’s status for later – you can’t reply through the service! We’d have to write about that aspect in our blog on how to waste time, for people that have too much J

Fuser was recently relaunched, and includes several new features and benefits. Fuser also aggregates all the biggies – most major email providers, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. The performance of the old version was reportedly sluggish, but has been improved. The navigation for Fuser is simple (saves you time on learning the new software …!), with a logo and account name in a panel at the top left of screen.

Fuser screenshot

You can choose not to receive mail from some accounts and not others, as well as choosing the types of updates you receive for each service (for example, status updates but not comments on facebook). And for those crazy people who actually think the Gmail display is more intuitive than Outlook (I love the service, but I’d happily throttle the designer!), it retains the display features of Gmail.

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Consolidate Network Messages and Save Time on Pesky Socializing!

Identify your location -> Select a category -> Select a merchant -> Connect!

There’s a text message option as well for those of you who are not driving (hint, hint). Send your text query (e.g. “pizza near 30305″) to short code 466453 and Google will text you back what it finds in your area.

Need more detail? Click here.

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Google 411

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Tivo

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Skip TV Commercials

I use it on a regular basis to send myself reminders while I am driving. I call a special number, and the nice lady says “Who do you want to Jott?” I say, “myself,” then she says, “Record your note.”
When I return to my office, my note is waiting for me.

This routine saves time over using a digital recorder in the car because I don’t have to (A) remember to take the recorder into the office, (B) listen to the message playback, (C) erase the recorder, and (D) remember to take the recorder back to the car. If I jotted myself something that I can easily forward, I have even less to do because I don’t have to type anything… just forward the email.

The free version used to show the text in the email body… but now that they have launched the premium version you have to click their link to see the message… no biggie. Perfect advertising model, if you ask me. High value with minimal work.

Great service to be sure, but here’s the kicker… Jott has links to other services like Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and more. The one you’ll want to use this holiday season is Amazon. It works like this…

Jott: “Who do you want to Jott?”

Me: “Amazon”

Jott: “Search Amazon. Is this correct?”

Me: “Yes”

Jott: “Say the name of the item.”

Me: “Lord of the Rings movie”

Jott: “Got it”

Now watch this… when I get back to my office, guess what is waiting in my email? That’s right, the search results from Amazon for the phrase “Lord of the Rings movie”. All I have to do is open the email, click the link, and I’m ready to buy.

Check it out this gift-giving season and save time by not only capturing those brilliant gift thoughts you have in traffic (not the weapons *you* want… the other stuff) but making them ready to buy as soon as you return to your email!

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Jott from Cell to Email

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Get fast delivery of business cards and beautiful full color brochures. Full color discount business card printing from the online discount printing experts. Get the quality you want and the speed you need by using PsPrint’s online business card design tools and fast professional printing. Whether you need color business cards, letterhead printing, or quality brochure printing PsPrint will handle the job fast! Use the online business card designer to design your own using professional templates.

PsPrint

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Full Color Discount Printing

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Do you need to refill ink cartridges? Want replacement ink and toner? Buying these toner and inket cartridges at your local office supply store is EXPENSIVE! Get your canon refills and hp ink cartridges from a huge inventory of cheap ink cartridges! Order printer cartridges and ink refills online and save time. Don’t wast time wandering around a retail store and pay *gasp* MRSP for refills! 4InkJets has all your printer supplies including cheap ink. They guarantee your satisfaction with every product.

4InkJets!

Ink cartridgets and toner

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Time-saving Impact

Avoid wasted time in the car – get your supplies by mail!

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Replacement Ink Cartridges

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Do you back up your files every day? I didn’t either until I started using an online backup service. Safeguard your data – back up your computer online using this smart online backup software. I use it for my own family computer and it’s a breeze. Don’t lose important files! Use this simple online backup service to keep your important data safe. Using an internet backup service takes our human laziness and forgetfulness out of the equation. An online internet backup also eliminates costly backup tape equipment. Get backed up right now!

Carbonite

Online backup service

Highlights

• Safeguard your important information
• Very easy to use – I use this on my family computer
• Recover accidentally deleted files (the main reason files are lost)

Time-saving Impact

Avoid lost days or weeks reconstructing important lost documents.

Learn more…

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Online Backup Software

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