I”m a sucker for posts with titles like, “How to be more productive” or “Applications to keep you more productive.” Even if I don’t necessarily incorporate the tips or applications into my life, I enjoy learning about how others keep themselves focused. You can never have too many ideas! So it was with great interest that I read about nine apps to make you super productive Monday at Mashable. Here are a few of my favorite highlights, and some links to past posts I’ve written with similar applications.

1. F.lux: Designed to change the lighting on your computer screen according to the time of day. Your computer screen will look warm at night and bluer during the day. The big perk for me is that it could possibly help you sleep better. We all know we should power down an hour or two before we hit the sack, but how many of us are guilty of using our laptops, tablets or smartphones in bed? (Yep, I’m raising my hand too.)

2. Dropbox: I already use Dropbox and I can vouch for how great it is. I prefer to work on my personal MacBook, so to keep my work files from taking up space on my hard drive, I can just store them in my Dropbox folder and access them from anywhere. This came in handy when my MacBook had to be shipped off for a few weeks to get the display fixed. All of my work files were easily accessed from my loaner laptop.

3. Lastpass: I will definitely be downloading this one asap. Obviously it’s extremely important to have unique passwords with numbers and special characters, but it can be so difficult to remember each and every one of them! Lastpass is a password management system that can be accessed from any computer as long as you provide one ultra-secure and hard-to-crack password. It will remember every other password, credit card info, etc. So useful!

4. KeyText: If you’re constantly typing the same phrases, addresses, boilerplates, what-have-you, KeyText is for you. Just enter a few keystrokes and the corresponding common phrase will be automatically inserted into whatever you’re typing. This is Windows-only, but TextExpander is a similar Mac app.

If you still want more productivity applications, be sure to check out a few of my past posts:

- Applications that can transform your organization’s communications and productivity
- Applications to boost your productivity

(I guess I could have been more creative with my post titles, huh?)

What are some of your favorite apps to help you stay productive?

Throughout the past year (and 310 posts!), I’ve highlighted tons of cool tools small staff associations can use, whether they’re social media-related or not. I thought today, I would compile those posts into one handy guide for future reference. Most of these tools are free (or very inexpensive), and many can help increase your productivity, become more active in the social Web or revamp the way your office runs.

1. Simplify your phone communications with Google Voice: Google has tons of free tools that are great for productivity. Google Voice allows you redirect as many numbers as you want to a single voicemail inbox, so all your calls can be directed to one phone number. Great for organizations with just one full-time staff member.

2. Applications to boost your productivity: I covered Google Reader, Tweetdeck, Evernote and Typinator. Of course, there are tons of RSS readers out there, and dozens of applications to manage Twitter (I’ve also used HootSuite and CoTweet).

3. All about podcasts: I shared a few different podcasts relevant to association professionals, and discussed using podcasts to communicate with your members. Subscribing is easy — anyone can do it straight from iTunes. And I recommended Audacity for editing your audio content.

4. Two options to improve your organization’s communications: TextMarks makes it easy for organizations to set up text messaging campaigns that members can subscribe to. This is a paid service, but it’s fairly inexpensive and has tons of benefits. And Phonebooth has both free and paid services that include a local number with up to five extensions, call forwarding and voicemail with transcription.

5. Create your own check-in application for conferences: With the popularity of location-based applications increasing, many associations may be wondering how they can participate in the trend. DoubleDutch allows organizations to create their own applications for events, distinguishing between different booths on the trade show floor and session rooms.

6. Have you heard about YouTube’s Nonprofit Program?: YouTube provides nonprofits with premium branding capabilities and allows them to raise funds with a Google “donate” program. Additionally, nonprofits will be listed on the Nonprofit channel’s page and have the option to add a “Call to Action” overlay on videos to drive campaigns.

7. Cloud computing now even more collaborative with Google’s changes: Google recently rolled out a slew of changes to its Docs, making them even more user-friendly and easy to use. With awesome chat features built in, collaboration is a snap for organizations — especially if you travel a lot.

8. PostRank: Social media stats and Google Analytics combined: PostRank combines stats from Google Analytics, your blog, Twitter and Facebook to give you a comprehensive “engagement score.” You don’t have to include every element, but the more you have, the more accurate your engagement score will be. Additionally, PostRank offers real-time social media monitoring so you’ll always be on top of your mentions and comments.

9. Looking for a tool to easily manage your organization’s social media presences?: Postling lets small businesses (or associations!) manage all of their social media outposts in one handy dashboard. Additionally, Postling can monitor mentions of your organization across the Web. You can allow multiple users or administrators access to your dashboard, and select which accounts they have access to.

I hope some of these tools benefit your organization, whether through increased productivity or better social media engagement!

Photo source

Last month, we gave four brand new iPads away to four lucky winners. As the winners, each association agreed to be featured on the blog and check in with us every so often to let us and our readers know how they’re using the iPad in their operations.

The Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association is looking forward to its conference in July. Ashley Crist of PCPA says they’ve downloaded a few applications, such as MyCongress, so they can receive updates and contact congressmen if necessary. Additionally, the organization is hoping to get in touch with someone at the Department of Justices’ Amber Alert program to begin the process of developing an application that will allow them to receive Amber Alerts on the iPad.

PCPA posted a video on its Facebook page to show members how to log into the MemberClicks solution using the iPad. View it here. Very cool!

Additionally, Ashley told me they’re looking to buy the iWork application so they can more easily share presentations and documents at their July conference. They’re also planning on using it as a sound system, so an iPod will be one less device to carry around and keep track of! “Everything will be in one central location,” Ashley said.

Barton, the president of the National Urban League Young Professionals told me he’s added some shortcuts to the home screen (one to their MemberClicks website!), as well as shortcuts to news, travel and their social media outposts. They’re all grouped so they’re easy to find and accessible.

“So far, so good,” Barton told me. “It’s pretty cool – we’re able to access a lot of things with it.” They have also loaded performance management modules so they could see from a mobile standpoint where they are with their performing metrics.

Additionally, NULYP has a board of trustees meeting coming up, so Barton said he’s planning on taking the iPad to show it off and demonstrate how they want to use it with their MemberClicks solution.

These organizations are just getting started with Apple’s tablet, so we’re excited to see where the journey takes them. We’re thrilled to learn that they’re taking the time to experiment and get the hang of using it, and happy they’re sharing the experience with all of us!

Next week, we’ll check in with the other two winning organizations!

It’s almost 2010, and I think it’s safe to say technology is a mainstay in our lives at this point. But it can be frustrating. There is so much software and information at our fingertips, and it can be difficult to know what’s worth it and what’s not.

To sort through it all and streamline your technology experience, I’ve compiled just a short list of useful applications your association could benefit from. Some have a great convenience factor, others are useful for sharing information with others. Feel free to contribute to this list and add your own favorite applications!

1. Google Reader – Some say RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is on the decline thanks to services such as Twitter, which lets bloggers and news organizations give updates as they happen. But Google’s RSS Reader also lets your tag items to share with others. You can put blogs into different folders for easy sorting (I have several related to “Social Media,” “Associations,” etc…) and you can also import your Google Alerts into the Reader. So useful.

2. Tweetdeck – I love Tweetdeck for its monitoring capabilities. I follow the #assnchat hashtag and if there is a conference going on that I want to keep up with, I add a new column with that hashtag. It lets me keep up with my personal Twitter account as well as MemberClicks’. And when I need to buckle down and get productive, I turn off those pesky notifications.

3. Evernote – If you’re on-the-go (and even if you’re not), I predict you will adore this application. Evernote claims you can use it to “capture everything,” and it’s true. Whether it’s an image, text, a screen cap or pretty much anything else, you can store it in Evernote and access it from any computer. You can tag items and have different folders for organization. And there are mobile apps for iPhones and BlackBerrys, so you can add to your account anytime. If this sounds overwhelming, check out Evernote’s About page — it will rock your world.

4. Typinator – This one can save you tons of time if used correctly. To sum it up, I’m just going to quote from its Web site: Have you ever experienced the tedium and frustration of having to repeatedly type your name, e-mail address, home page url, or other words or phrases again, again and again? Typinator is an automatic text software that helps you insert words or phrases quickly into any document. You can abbreviate any phrase and it will be updated as you type. Unfortunately, this one is Mac-only, but there is a similar one for special characters (called PopChar) that works for Windows.

I hope one or more of these can help your organization be more productive! If you use a cool application I didn’t mention (trust me, there are thousands), feel free to share it! I love finding new tools!

(Typinator screencap via its Web site.)