Category: General

Wasting time is costing you money. It’s time to stop.

Managing your workflow is one of the most important parts of being successful, whether as a freelancer, an employee or business owner.

It sounds simple, but using the right tools for the job will completely streamline your workflow and make your life so much easier. So where are you going wrong?

What’s the Word?

The biggest success of Microsoft Word is that it’s accessible, and most people will have learned to use it at its basic level at some point in the past. The danger with that level of familiarity is that people think it can do pretty much anything – and at a surface level, they’re not wrong. It can create almost any kind of everyday office document you could wish for; but it doesn’t mean they’ll be good.

Here’s the kicker – if it’s not a word document, don’t use word.

This entire article was actually inspired by someone bringing me a rota in a word document and asking me to improve on it. So, we’ll actually dig into this example and the thought process behind streamlining your workflow.

What’s going on here?

The first thing to ask yourself when looking for an internal solution is simply: “What needs to happen?”

Using the rota example, the answer to that is: It needs to display information based on dates and times.

That is quite simply the function of a calendar. Nothing more or less than that. Show the dates, show information regarding those dates (eg. whose shift it is, training dates etc). So why was this done in a word document?

The answer is simple: familiarity. And that’s not anyone’s fault, but that’s the issue at hand.

I’ve seen Word Processors being used to create menus, posters, and even to write code, all because it has rudimentary tools to emulate what you want to deliver. It’s an unfortunate swiss army knife – incredibly useful in a pinch, but just like a swiss army knife, unable to do most things with any real quality.

The same goes with other tools like Excel. It suffers a similar issue to Word – this thing uses numbers or this thing would look good in a grid, I’ll use Excel for it. And again, you’ll get some joy at a basic level, but the truth of the matter is, there’s a better tool for it.

I’ve been guilty of it in the past, particularly using Excel for things it didn’t necessary need to be used for because of how well it handles data, despite not actually being a database tool (now, granted, most people have no business being anywhere near an actual database) but as someone who knows better, I should definitely encourage and empower people to do better where I can.

Now, for my workflow, I use Notion (this isn’t sponsored or affiliated in any way, I just find it to be insanely useful) because I can utilise the same information in the way it needs to show up. But it doesn’t even have to be a premium tool to get you there. Most workspaces will have the tool you need for a workflow solution.

Lets get back the the rota example. I was sat in my office about to start building out something in excel and then it came to me. I read the brief again and asked the client – you all use Outlook, right?

“Yes, why?”

“Outlook has a calendar, and everything you want can be done on that calendar.”

I could have sold them on a specially custom built excel spreadsheet option with auto formatting and all these bells and whistles, but why do that when I can actually empower them to have the right solution that’ll serve them better in the long run.

That’s what comes with being able to identify the solution rather than focusing on the issue.

Utilising the right tools at your disposal will make things so much easier than you think. And it doesn’t have to cost you anything.

What Should I Use?

Over the years I’ve build up a fair bit of experience advising people on the best digital solutions for different issues.

Necessity	Common Tool	Correct Tool
Rota/Schedule	Excel/Word	Calendar App (Outlook/Google)
Password/Login list	Excel/Word/Notepad	Password Manager (LastPass)
Task Tracking/Project Management	Excel	Notion/monday

A specific Calendar Tool like Google Calendar is designed to handle date/time data, events and chronology. Excel and word can generate tables, and excel specifically can handle process numerical data, but isn’t designed to create events within dates in a way that makes sense in human-computer interface.

A password manager, like LastPass, for example allows for seamless password syncing across accounts and devices, as well as improving security.

Task Tracking tools like Notion and monday have interfaces that are specifically geared towards managing tasks, assigning them to users, handling progress, time tracking and more. Excel doesn’t have this built in, and whilst you can create a semi-decent copy, it’s not anything close to the real deal.

I’m currently developing a piece of web technology that will hopefully save the lives of abuse victims using the internet. Whilst I can’t talk about it in-depth, for obvious reasons, the process has brought up a lot of philosophical questions and thoughts about the ethics of the technology we build, the data we have access to and who we serve when we build these tools.

Technology, by its very nature, is created in order to make things easier for us. From the earliest invention of the wheel to the space we find ourselves in with generative AI, the initial question we find ourselves asking is “How do I make this easier?”, but how often do we look and ask “How do we make things better?”?

It’s the word “better” that contains the root of the issue here. Are we simply making things “better” in terms of efficiency? Less time and effort, less man-hours therefore less cost. Is this where we aim when we shoot for better? Or do we seek an improvement in the human experience? I’ve written previously about how we can approach web and digital development in a way that includes disabled users, rather than factoring them in as an afterthought and this is further along that train of consciousness.

Can we create technology that seeks PRIMARILY to improve the human experience, literally change and perhaps even SAVE LIVES? Technology, even in its most basic form, has the ability and potential to do exactly that. And when we pour ourselves into that, and by extension, pour ourselves into the greater good, we can advance our fields, and push innovation, whilst all those commercial benefits that we all need in the world we live in are still there to be attained.

Technology doesn’t mean putting people on the backburner. It’s about bringing them to the forefront.