I am always looking for ways to increase my productivity both at work and at home. Afterall, at work, the more productive I am, the more value I can produce for my employer (leading to good things like promotions/raises/etc). At home, each minute I save in productivity can be spent elsewhere (sleep, play, drink, eat, relaxation, slaying dragons, taxedermy, creating a human shaped computer)

Here’s 3 easy technological innovations that are HUGE boosters in productivity no matter who you are!

Email on your phone - This is an absolute must.  After you try using email on your phone, you will never go back to not having it.  This will help you be very responsive to email and more aware of what is going on at work.  However, I must warn you that your significant other will probably not like this feature.  The ultimatly means you will be working more but it will work out to your advantage in the long run. Learn how to turn this to your advantage without getting addicted to the drug known as the crackberry and you’ll crush your current productivity level.

Dual monitors - Everyone should have dual monitors in their office. By having more real estate in which to work on your computer, you can get things done faster without flipping through a million windows a hundred times each. This is critically important if you have to create presentations or work on complex spreadsheets. *BONUS TIP!* Work will usually happily pay for an additional monitor for you. All you have to do is ask. Who would say no to an more productive employee? *DOUBLE BONUS!* If you can afford it, put this on your home computer and you basically can watch TV shows or movies you’ve downloaded while having another window open to work on your personal email or whatever. Pretty sweet. Again, don’t go overboard as it is expensive and has diminishing returns.

Good Email Search - Just about every single email has search in it but most of the time it is as useless as your tonsils. In fact, if you try to use them, you might as well be trying to use a butter knife to kill a bear. They simply don’t work and just get you mad/killed in the process. If you aren’t already using Gmail, do yourself a huge favor and go through the painful process of switching email providers. Sure its a bitch to tell everyone you have a new email but you’ll be thankful. They have GREAT email search. It enables you to find any email you’ve ever sent or received with the greatest of ease. If you use outlook or outlook express at work, try Google Desktop. It allows you to search your Outlook emails too. Pretty wicked sweet..