Timewasters are always present in every workplace. Today, our modern timewasters are the online ones. However, instead of letting these biggest timewasters distract our work performance, we can turn them into powerful productivity tools.

Below are a few of the biggest online time wasters along with some suggestions on how to turn them into productivity tools.

In today's economy it is becoming increasingly popular for people to run their businesses from their homes. This is perhaps not surprising considering the many savings and lower overhead expenses that home businesses make possible. However, running a business from your house poses the question of what kind of technology is needed in your home to run your business successfully. Most people would agree that one of the basics is a fax number and a means of accessing a fax service. Today more and more home business owners are concluding that online faxing services are the best way to meet their faxing needs. This means using your Internet connection to send faxes as email attachments (such as PDF) or by other formats through an online fax account. Here are three of the major reasons why it is becoming increasingly common for home business owners to choose online faxing services over the traditional office fax machine :

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Sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living I’m tempted to simply say “everything”.  Anybody who starts out on the rocky, but rewarding, road to self-employment will know the feeling.  Whether you simply work for yourself or run a small business your ‘core’ work is usually only the start of it.  For those working alone the list, apart from the actual job, usually includes being the cleaning staff, the secretary, the HR manager, the catering staff and your own accountant.  Most of these jobs I’m relatively comfortable with, apart from the last, which has a tendency to make my blood run cold.  I’m a writer and I love words, but numbers and I have had a long and bitter relationship which stretches back into the distant past when I was always last in the class to learn each of my times tables.  But keeping up with accounts is crucial, not only for the obvious reason – cash flow – but depending on the size of company you run, for VAT, tax and payroll purposes.  The latter being a particular focus of attention as far as your staff are concerned.  Well presented, accurate accounts can be valuable in other areas of business life too – from your client’s perspective professionally presented invoices are an indication of your attitude and from a bank’s point of view accurate, understandable accounts speak volumes. 

How many times have you been told that the best way to get organized is to use a calendar?  It's good advice, but do you actually know anyone who still carries a paper calendar?  Your smartphone probably has a calendar already installed on it, but additional calendar apps are available that can help you sort and sync your schedule to make you more productive.

Calendar apps are a great tool to for students studying at business school, law school, criminal justice school or other any other schools or colleges.  They efficiently organize class schedules, homework, and any other relating tasks. Try out these calendar apps to help you juggle work, school, and your social activities to ensure you'll never miss another appointment.

The sale always begins with a sales lead. Looking for more sales leads is a critical component of any sales professional's job. Without sales leads, you have no new potential customers to market your product or service to. Following are 10 ways to source great sales leads, to help you start your sales process off right:

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If you’re looking to get a website created for your business, finding the sweetest website design in Portland might be more difficult than one would think. But even if you’re able to find the best designer for your needs, you still have some work of your own to do.

With that said, there is definitely a way for you to maximize the effort you put in conceptualizing your design while you look for the right web designer or web design company.

In this article, we will tackle 5 simple tips for maximizing your effort once you finally have the right website designers in Portland, Oregon on board.

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Any company which is successful has a hard working team behind the scenes. They are the kind of people who put in extra hours for that deadline and stay dedicated to the goal the company has in mind. Employees sometimes end up work next to each other for almost the rest of their lives, so you can imagine why a seamless co-existence would have to be found in the team – to ensure that they can run at a hundred percent efficiency.

This is where corporate team building comes in. Team building can be used in small, medium or large businesses. In small businesses employees have their allotted tasks and, through team building, other employers can see how each member contributes individually to the company.

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I was working hard to increase the position of my website in the search engines using all the best SEO techniques that I was aware of. Admittedly I knew very little about optimization and relied upon what I had researched on the Internet.  As a small business I thought that I could manage my online marketing well enough to get ahead of the local competition.

I tried various activities such as creating articles and submitting them to various article directories, writing guest blogs to be placed on various sites, adding links to my social media accounts and adding a blog to my site. As you can imagine this took a lot of time to manage and I was able to grow a little, but it was not delivering the high impact I was after; which is why more businesses like mine are turning to SEO providers.

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Loyalty is a funny sort of word. We are loyal to our friends and we are loyal to our partners and family. Sometimes we even feel a certain level of loyalty to a store or website that carries out favorite items and the best prices. Some stores offer loyalty reward points to get us to buy even more and save even more. Yet, on the whole, what does loyalty count for?

Perhaps you might consider your home/cell phone company, your credit card company, your bank or your mortgage company. How loyal do you feel toward them? How loyal do you think they are toward you? Are they quick to notify you of any special offers that are usually aimed at “brand new customers only” or do you have to call them and threaten to change to another company in order to get a deal from them?

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In the past, businesses relied on referrals more than they relied on advertising. A certain local establishment can be a town landmark yet does not employ any kind of marketing campaign because it has excellent word-of-mouth. Presently, there are so many marketing strategies aside from referrals which any small business can employ. However, the power of referrals is still going strong, making it a must for local businesses.

Unless your customer is that happy with your services, you cannot expect them to refer you to their friends and family without you motivating them first. This is why most local businesses have a referral program wherein they reward customers for their referrals. The idea of giving out incentives will usually mean that a business has to spend money in order to make money. But if this strategy is carried out wisely, business owners need not worry about throwing cash into the drain.