If I asked my clients about their most valuable commodity, without a doubt they would tell me that it's their time. Many are solopreneurs and are wearing the hats of CEO, CFO, Director of Marketing, Director of Sales, and IT Director, just to name a few. When they discover a product or service that helps them reclaim time, they feel they've hit the mother load, as time is money to them.

I love to find new technology or new services that help automate my business or enhances my productivity and makes the daily chores easier and faster. How many more clients could you follow up with and add to your business if you freed up 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or as much as 2 hours a day? Here are my top 10 tools that I use to turbocharge my productivity:

1. AcqURL: AcqURL makes managing a moderate to massive amount of bookmarks very easy. You create any number of categories in which to file your favorites, and adding a favorite website is as easy as clicking a button. http://www.acqurl.com

2. AddressGrabber Business: Address Grabber Business helps small business owners capture names and addresses from sources like email signatures, web sites or documents into a chosen database (ACT, Excel, Outlook, etc.) in just one click. http://www.addressgrabber.com

3. Argali White and Yellow: Argali White and Yellow searches multiple telephone and email directories so you don't have to. The found listings are combined, formatted in uniform way and displayed as if they came from one integrated metadirectory. You can also do a reverse search for a phone number and search for area codes. And, the program updates itself with any new listings every time you open it. Both a free version and a paid version are available for download. http://www.argali.com

4. Evernote: With EverNote you can easily store and quickly access typed and handwritten memos, webpage excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords, brainstorms, sketches, documents and more! A free version or a 30-day trial of the paid version is available for download. http://www.evernote.com/en/downloads/

5. GotoMyPC: Need access to your files but don't want to drag your laptop with you on vacation or on a business trip? A subscription to GotoMyPC.com will enable you to log into your office computer and retrieve whatever you need, just as though you were sitting in front of it. A free 30-day trial is available for download. http://www.gotomypc.com

6. MaxEmail: I bought a fax machine and it sat unopened on the floor of my office for over a month, and I eventually returned it. Why? Because MaxEmail, www.maxemail.com lets me send a receive faxes through the Internet/email and made my need for a fax machine obsolete. The faxes arrive in PDF format, so you can easily share you faxes with others as needed.

7. Practice Pay Solutions Merchant Account: If you're not taking credit cards in your business, you're missing out on sales. The coolest feature that they offer in this service is the ability to do batch uploads of charges, so if you have a number of clients on retainer that you invoice every month, you can simply create a spreadsheet and batch upload the data rather than entering each client's information individually. http://www.profcs.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=127926

8. Roboform: This program is the top-rated password manager and web form filler that completely automates password entering and form filling. You'll never have to remember a password again! I maintain both my passwords and user info and that of my clients in this program. http://www.roboform.com

9. Tidy Start Menu: As time goes by, the list of the programs in the Start Menu becomes too long. As a result, each time you want to launch a program, it takes too much time to find it in the menu. The "Tidy Start Menu" program will help you to put the menu in order and make your work comfortable. Thus, after using the program, you will have a compact menu, which will contain nothing but categories' names and you'll have no trouble finding a necessary program. A freeware version and paid version are available for download. http://www.tidystartmenu.com/index.shtml

10. XDrive: Xdrive is your personal hard drive on the Internet. Whether you are managing files for yourself or your business, Xdrive enables you to store, access, share, and backup your files anytime, anywhere. You can also send others a link to a file that's too large to send through email. http://www.xdrive.com

Copyright 2005 Donna Gunter