In a recent post we discussed how to evaluate your existing productivity tools and applications to see if they are a match for your needs.  And should you discover that they aren’t, you’ll need to find replacement or supplemental tools to increase productivity.  How to go about doing this?

Research.  Once you’ve evaluated the tools and methods you’ve employed, you’ll likely have surfaced some problems or challenges you need to address.  When you notice these problems, you’ll have to do a bit of research to solve them.  Are there better tools out there with the features you need?  Is there a productivity or efficiency system you haven’t tried yet?

Your research can start simple.  If you have a cluttered inbox, you can simply input “how to unclutter email inbox” in your favorite search engine and start from there.  You can also look at the reviews of existing productivity tools to see if they are for you (my colleague Bill’s many reviews here at The AppGap may be a good place to start).  Note down everything relevant that you discover during the research process so you can easily go back to these ideas later.

Testing and Tweaking.  Once you’ve found a list of new tools and methods, it’s time to test them.  Of course, it’s best to test them one at a time rather than as a group so that you can accurately evaluate each change you’re making.  Set a testing period of 7 to 10 days, or earlier if it’s obvious that your new tools aren’t working out.  Here are some things you should look out for:

* Ease of use.  Are the commands and interface intuitive?  Can you easily access the features you need whenever you need them?
* Features.  Does the tool have the features you need? If not,c an it easily integrate with another tool to compensate?
* Lifespan and reliability.  Do your new tools have many bugs?  Is technical support available?  Is the company reliable enough that you’re likely to get updated versions for the next few years?
* Collaboration-friendly.  If you’ll be using your tools with a team, it’s important that they have options for collaboration, or that everyone in the team can easily adapt to using them.

Don’t be frustrated if your new tools have imperfections - it’s almost impossible to find a tool that will perfectly pair up with all your needs and expectations.  That’s why it’s important that you learn how to integrate different tools and make them work together to form a unified system.  After all, there’s no way to get everything you need out of a single application unless you have the resources to hire a reliable programmer to make you the ultimate productivity tool from scratch.

During your testing phase, you might find that you’ll also be using non-computer tools such as index cards or a whiteboard.  This is perfectly acceptable, and, in fact, encouraged.  The point of the testing phase is to find out what works for you and your team.  Whatever tools you need, no matter how bare and simple they are, you need to incorporate them into your workflow.

Also, don’t be surprised if the testing process takes a few weeks - it’s a necessary step to finding the best tools and system for you.  However, it’s very important that you record and measure the results of your testing phase.

Re-evaluation.  Now that you’re done with testing your new tools, it’s time to evaluate the results.  Did they make a significant impact on your productivity?  How much time did it cut back on your previous number of working hours?

This is like a debriefing process that allows you to review the lessons learned from your testing period.  If you’re doing this with a team, it helps to have each individual’s input.  Not all members of your team are guaranteed to have success with your newfound productivity system.

What’s guaranteed is that there are many valuable lessons you’ll learn when it comes to finding new tools and getting them to increase your overall productivity.