Even if I don’t always incorporate the tips or applications into my life, I enjoy learning about how others keep themselves focused. You can never have too many ideas! I figured I would share some great apps with our readers!

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.

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

Although I feel like much of the country (especially the East Coast) is experiencing warmer-than-usual temperatures for this time of year, it’s still easy to become affected by shorter days – especially after the holiday season winds down.Although the lights are still twinkling right now, in just a few days, it’ll be January. The letdown can often be a pretty big bummer, leading to Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Even if you don’t have full-blown Seasonal Affective Disorder, it’s pretty common to experience some of these symptoms during the winter months:

- Increased feelings of lethargy
- Difficulty waking up in the mornings
- Difficulty concentrating and thinking creatively in comparison to the summer months
- Incorrectly blaming oneself for things that go wrong
- Difficulty performing tasks that normally seem to be easy/enjoyable

(Source)

It makes sense that the winter blues can affect your work performance. If you or your fellow association staffers are experiencing a bit of a winter slump, here are some ideas.

- Once every few hours, drop everything and do some push-ups. Exercise has been proven to reduce stress and improve your mood. (If you’re pressed for time and can’t get a 30-minute aerobic workout in, at least do some push-ups or crunches!)

- Eat an apple. An apple a day really can keep the doctor away! It’s natural to crave more carbohydrates during the winter months, and fruit is a good source of natural carbohydrates.

- If I’m having lots of difficulty focusing on what I need to get done, I like to use Online Stopwatch to make sure I work diligently for a set amount of time. I also turn off Tweetdeck notifications and hide my iPhone.

- Get your DIY on. Clean the closet that’s exploding with never-used linens. Re-paint your guest bedroom. Working on a project at home can give you a great sense of accomplishment.

- Read a novel. It’ll get your mind off the blah weather. I’m currently obsessed with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy. As in, I didn’t want my flight to end yesterday because I just wanted to keep reading.

It’s crucial to take care of yourself during the winter months. No one wants to end up bedridden with the flu! It should go without saying, but the better your health, the more productive you’ll be at work and the happier you – and your colleagues and members – will be.

(Image source: Flickr)

In case it wasn’t apparent, at MemberClicks, we’re all about using technology to simplify busy lives and schedules. Of course, we realize that small staff association professionals are often more overwhelmed than your typical association professional. It’s tough managing an entire organization with just four (or three, or two, or one) staff!

Therefore … I love highlighting awesome applications and sites that help save me time. Today, I’ve got three: Remember the Milk, Evernote and Dropbox.

Right off the bat, I love Remember the Milk — I can sign in with my Google account and sync my Google Cal, Tasks and Gmail. (As a self-proclaimed Google addict, I adore this.) Basically, RTM is fantastic for the list-lover in you. You can make any kind of list you want; set reminders to notify you however you’d like; easily manage your tasks; plot your to-dos on a map; collaborate with coworkers, friends and family; sync your lists with your mobile phone; easily search your tasks and schedule your time however you’d like.

Phew! What a list! For association execs managing multiple departments, members and their own busy lives, I’d definitely recommend checking this one out.

Evernote is similar in that it wants to help you “remember everything.” Online bookmarking tool, file collaboration tool and easily accessible on-the-go, Evernote would be great for small staff professionals to share files, save ideas and inspiration and organize their files. Your account is easily searchable and can sync to your work and home computers and mobile phones — and your account is also available in the cloud, from any computer with an Internet connection.

Evernote suggests several ways for users to use the service:

Now, Dropbox … Dropbox is the savior of my work/personal life balance. Similar to many other people, I have two computers – a work laptop and a personal laptop. However, I often need work files when I’m at home in the evenings on on weekends, and it’s not practical to put these files on a bulky external hard drive.

Enter Dropbox. Simply create a free account and Dropbox will host all of your specified files in the cloud so you can access them from multiple computers (and phones!). You can pay a small monthly fee if you need more space, but I’ve been using the free version for more than a year and upgrading hasn’t been necessary – as long as I remember to clean out old files.

Do you use any of these tools? What other tools do you use to stay productive and efficient?

And don’t forget to enter our ongoing sweepstakes in honor of Small Staff Appreciation Month. You could win an iPad 2!

I’m a sucker for blog posts and articles that are written in list form. I think they’re more easily digestible. Additionally, I love any tips to make my workday go more smoothly – aren’t we all?

We work with hundreds and hundreds of small-staff association executives, and we’ve heard from them how important it is to be as productive as possible, how important it is for them to be able to streamline their duties, how difficult it can be to manage their memberships with just a handful of employees.

There really just aren’t enough hours in the day!

With that in mind, here are a few tips to increase productivity and make the most of your precious hours during the day.

1. Schedule a time for e-mail. We can get sucked into answering tons of e-mails and, before we know it, we’ve lost hours of our workday. By scheduling a time for checking our e-mail — for instance, just before lunch — we can avoid the timesuck that often comes with answering important messages. If you wait until just before lunch to check it, you’ll be more anxious to get to your midday break, and, likely, get through the e-mails more quickly.

2. Don’t have a pointless meeting, and don’t let them last for hours on end. How many times have you left a two-hour long meeting only to say, “what just happened?” Meetings are often just a formality, and we could often get the same things accomplished over just e-mail. Don’t have a meeting unless it’s truly necessary.

3. Use an egg timer or online stopwatch. These tools give us tangible deadlines for important tasks, and often we stay more focused when we set a finite time for projects. Additionally, those tangible deadlines are usually the ones we actually adhere to. Whether you set it for yourself or it comes from your boss, deadlines keep us on our toes.

4. Make a to-do list. Research has shown again and again that people who create lists are happier and healthier. Plus, there’s nothing like the feeling of crossing a task off your to-do list. (Full disclosure: I sometimes retroactively add tasks to my list just so I can cross them off. Anal retentive much?) Lists help us prioritize our days, weeks and months.

5. Stop multitasking! Our shiny new iPhones may be able to effortlessly switch from task to task, but that doesn’t mean our brains can do it. Again, research continues to prove that multitasking absolutely kills our productivity. We flit from task to task without really accomplishing anything. So set a timer, get to it and then cross the item off your list.

6. Learn how to say no. Many of us have this inane idea that we have to please everyone, all the time, or we’re failures … which of course, is absolutely ridiculous. If someone asks you to do something (that doesn’t have an immediate deadline) and you just don’t have time for it that day, realize that saying no, delegating or outsourcing it is perfectly acceptable.

And remember, no matter how many or how few staff members you have, we all need time to recharge and have a life outside of work. Whether it’s grabbing a mid-week pedicure, exercising a few times a week, catching up with an old friend for dinner or curling up with the latest from your Netflix queue, don’t forget to take (at least) a few hours each week to breathe.

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?