Put Your Personal Data Assistant (PDA) to Work!

STOP allowing your PDA to sit in your pocket, purse or on your desk under employed! If the only thing you use your Tungsten,Treo or other PDA for is to store telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and contact information, then it's like having a computer and only typing thank you notes! You're allowing your PDA to collect unemployment, and here are some ways you can Fire Up Your PDA. If you're familiar with "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, you may recall the concept, "Sharpen the Saw". In order to maintain an edge, remain current on trends, techniques and developments in your field, you must continually update your knowledge. Reading, researching and self-study are effective ways to increase your knowledge and improve personal performance. However, most of us don't have the luxury of carrying around books, magazines or newspapers. Just the amount of paper alone makes this impractical. So what's the answer? Use the Internet The Internet is Free, it's fast and millions of people use it everyday to advance their personal and professional lives! Others are already taking advantage of this fantastic resource and you can too. Get your PDA off the unemployment rolls and put it to work today! Use one of the many free applications available from the Internet to keep track of inventory, prepare for meetings, keep a journal, take notes at a conference, record your daily exercises, track your gas mileage a thousands of other uses. You can find many of these applications free at PDA sites such as: www.eurocool.com www.MobiPocket.com www.Palmbooks.org www.freewarepalm.com www.freeware4PPC.com These aren't the only PDA sites on the Internet. By using the standard search function on your browser bar, you can find literally thousands of other sites! So how do you "Sharpen the Saw?" Many professionals already receive e-mails and newsletters targeted at their specific field. They recognize and acknowledged their need to stay current with today's information. So they've taken some dynamic first steps to quickly receive the latest information. Yet many complain that instead of "Sharpening the Saw", they're experiencing information overload! With the availability of technology today, information overload is unacceptable, and now there is a better way! The Better Way - Start by connecting your PDA to your home or work computer; whichever one receives the majority of your electronic e-mails, newsletters, and news articles. Next configure your PDA Desktop application to retrieve your e-mail (Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, AOL etc) during the hotsync. Finally configure your desktop e-mail to copy any e-mail which has specific words related to your field of interest in the subject block. For example, Outlook has a Rules feature, which permits the subject block of all incoming messages to be read. Then based upon what you want Outlook to do with messages with specific words in the subject, they can be forwarded, copied, deleted, blocked or filed. When messages are sent to a particular folder in outlook, or on your computer, you can hotsync them into your PDA for later reading and review. Hotsync often and reduce your reading workload significantly. You may have a favorite news site you like to visit to read the latest information related to your field. Consider a visit to: www.avantgo.com an excellent site that will allow you to download (during the hotsync) specific news sites containing information of interest. This service also has features, which allow you to customize and download information from your favorite site, right to your PDA. Finally, you office may send out required reading through the Intranet or your office e-mail. These digital documents and articles are often lengthy and require you to either stare at your monitor for long periods of time, or print out the required reading. Your PDA can help here as well. I suggest a small investment in a commercially available off the shelf PDA application such as; Documents-To-Go, www.handmark.com, which allows a variety of document formats to be read such as, PowerPoint, Excel and Word. Another. Wordsmith Pro is another PDA application from www.Handmark.com, which picks up where Documents-To-Go leaves off. It Wordsmith Pro read a large variety of text type document formats, such as Ascii text, Rtf, MS Word, Linux and more. Wordsmith Pro also replaces your PDA's standard memo pad application and provides the ability to edit text with functions which rival their traditional full version counterparts. So what does this mean? It means, if you're heading to another meeting and you arrive a few minute early, or the meeting starts a few minutes late, instead of engaging in benign chitchat, you could be reading your e-mails and other important documents. o If you car-pool or use public transportation, your commute time could be leveraged to increase your work time productivity by reading your e-mail o While you're waiting in the airport, you can be reading those e-mail newsletters you never seem to have time to get to o As you wait for your associates to meet for a business lunch, you could be reviewing important business documents in preparation o Or of you just want to keep up with the major news headlines, your PDA could have them waiting for you By using your PDA to capture and store your information, you can stay connected and stay ahead. Essentially, any uncommitted time you find available, you could leverage into useful, productive reading and thus, "Sharpen the saw." "Seek to understand, then be understood" This is another effective habit discussed in Stephen Covey's book. The simplest way to apply this habit for the PDA professional is to begin using your PDA to ask and answer questions. Since you already know how to download information from your e-mail to your PDA, you should also recognize that you could send e-mails through your PDA. Using this feature will double your e-mail effectiveness partly by increasing the time you have to read e-mails and also by increasing the time you have to respond to them. Don't sit there in an uncomfortable location while you're considering an important issue. Why not go mobile? Go for a walk around the office, around the building or go outside and think. Now that you're away from your computer and can focus on one specific matter, read the e-mail from your PDA, sit comfortably, organize your thoughts and respond! You are virtually guaranteed to have a much clearer and useful response now, than you may have had otherwise. All because you were able to read in quiet - respond in comfort and continue to be productive. Now go back to your desk, hotsync your PDA with your PC, and send the message(s). Many ideas have been presented here in how to maximize your time and Put your PDA to Work! Remember, having a PDA is a great first step. But using your PDA is what makes the difference between whether it's viewed as a practical tool or a pricey toy! Stay Safe! APPCRAFT.ORG