k_Street Consulting, LLC Blog

We want to make sure you can get the most out of your relationship with us. In this month’s newsletter, we give you three communication touchpoints so that the work we do for you helps foster more growth and efficiency in the work that you do.

Successful businesses need to adjust to changes in the market, what customers want, and new industry trends. This means they have to know their business well and be willing to try new things. Let’s look at six key areas where businesses often make changes to stay successful.

It can be difficult staying productive with all the things that happen day-in and day-out around your business. When your team is productive, it helps you stay focused and organized, and it can make a big difference in how successful you are. This week we break down just how keeping productivity levels high can make or break a business.

Does your business use Google Workspace for its productivity solution? If so, we’ve got a tip for you—several, in fact, as we explore the various shortcuts available to expedite your productivity. Let’s take a look at some of the lesser-known shortcuts and how your business can use them to power up its efficiency.

Have you ever had one of those projects where you struggle to make meaningful progress because it just feels impossible? While reflecting and thinking through how to approach a challenge is helpful, it’s not always in your best interest to slow down. Sometimes, it takes a little brute force to push through and complete an important task.

The tech we have at our fingertips has the potential to dramatically enhance our productivity, support a great deal of creativity, and improve a person’s overall quality of life. What happens when you don't use this technology to its full potential? The answer is simple: you lose out. Let’s take a look at some of the negative effects of not using tech to its fullest.

Productivity is the measure of which an employee and a business is judged by, and for that reason, when productivity starts to lapse at an individual or organizational level it needs to be addressed immediately. In today’s blog, we’ll go through some of the problems that an organization can see when productivity drops.

Adversity is an inevitable part of doing business. Every administrator, manager, and employee will face challenges at some point. Overcoming these obstacles is crucial for maintaining efficient operations and fostering a resilient work environment. Here are some effective strategies to help you navigate adversity in business.

Many business owners considered allowing their employees to work from home like opening Pandora’s box; once opened, there was no going back. Unfortunately, for these administrators, they were faced with the very real prospect of losing their business if they didn’t allow it. Millions of people started working from home in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now that public fear has diminished, how have companies reacted? Let’s discuss some remote work statistics to get an answer.

Data is at the heart of all successful modern businesses. The information you collect and store can help you make better decisions, plan better strategies, and gain a competitive advantage. Let’s look at how your raw data can be refined into more meaningful insights through the use of business analytics tools.

If you want your organization to be efficient, you must increase productivity. However, this is often easier said than done, as plenty of obstacles, communication challenges, and resource allocation issues can stymie even the most well-thought-out plans. Let’s look at how you can improve productivity for your business by considering these common issues.

Running a business has definite highs and lows. When things start spiraling seemingly out of control, it’s important to maintain the confidence that with the right decision-making and conscientious action, you can get through any problem that a business faces. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss some of the technology that can help you get through tough situations. 

With business technology, your company can reap countless benefits, but at the same time, failing to implement the right tools—or worse, implementing the wrong tools altogether—can have devastating consequences. Today, we want to help you understand how you can make the best, most educated decisions regarding your business technology needs while avoiding investments in technology that won’t pay dividends.

If you regularly use Google Docs, you may already be familiar with templates. They can be a quick and efficient way to create certain types of documents that you often use. With several prebuilt into Docs already, you might wonder if you can make your own, and it turns out you can!

Let’s discuss how you can use Google Docs templates and how to make your own. First, we’ll look at what types of elements you might need to implement for your templates, and then we’ll get into the details of how to do it!

Business can often be stressful with all the things that need to be considered. One of the most stressful situations workers face is when they face timelines. Projects need to meet the needs of customers, payroll has to be done, in fact there are very few situations a business faces where they don’t face some type of deadline or timeline. In this blog, we describe how technology can help businesses address timeline challenges:

Maintaining positive customer relationships is an extremely important consideration for every business. One of the best tools any business can use is the customer relationship management (CRM) platform. While most CRMs have similar features, some come with more advancements; and higher costs. Today, we will get into what type of CRM you should consider for each level of business.

Successful businesses often need to adapt to changing market conditions, consumer preferences, and industry trends. This means that they have to not only understand their business, but they also need to stay open to making innovative changes. Let’s look at six examples of changes that the average business may need to make to remain successful.

The smartphone has become the go-to device for most people’s personal computing. With the aid of well-developed mobile applications, people are able to manage their digital lives, while also accessing resources that make managing all other aspects of their lives easier. Below are four tips to help you make the most of your smartphone.

Business continuity is a tricky beast, and one that is best fought with proactive and preventative measures. The reason for this is simple: any situation where your business’ data is put at risk could mean the end, and we are not catastrophizing when we say that. Let’s look at two issues that are only small problems at the surface level, but could snowball into serious problems.

Technology is not only essential to the well being of your business, it is also an element of your business that you have complete control over. This is rare. To get the most out of your business’ technology, you will want to adhere to a proactive management strategy. In this blog, we will talk about why staying proactive on your technology management can save your business substantial money. 

Businesses can harness the power of technology to streamline various aspects of their operations, including their sales processes. Let's explore several ways in which businesses can leverage technology to empower their sales teams and achieve greater efficiency.

When it comes to running a business, it's not a single task but a web of interconnected responsibilities that collectively determine its efficiency. For smaller businesses, this web can feel even more intricate, demanding more from their limited workforce. This month, we want to shed light on the substantial impact that even modest technological investments can have on a business's operations.

With the latest version of Windows, Windows 11, users can leverage all manner of great productivity-boosting features to take full advantage of the new technology at their fingertips. Let’s look at some of the features that users of Windows 11 can use to make better use of their time with the operating system.

The right collaboration tools can be game-changing for business, but only if they are appropriately configured and integrated with intention into your infrastructure. Today, we are bringing you four common mistakes that businesses make with their collaboration tool security that could hold you back from getting the most from our solutions.

There are challenges that go with running any business. Some of the most common come from unhappy employees. If you understand some of the most common complaints that today’s worker may make, you can proactively ward against them and create a happier and more productive workplace. Let’s take a look at five of the most common employee complaints in today’s workplace and what you can do about them.

Delegation is something that you, as the leader of your organization, need to master in order to get the most efficiency out of yourself and your team. There are various ways to handle delegation, all with their strengths and flaws. We’re here today to help you figure out your own personal management style and how technology can help you carry it out.

Lately, we’ve spent some time examining the phenomenon known as procrastination and where it comes from. To close the book on the subject, we wanted to go over how you and your team might be able to procrastinate less moving forward so that your business might get more done.

For the past few weeks, we have been looking at the idea of procrastination and how it manifests in individuals to directly impact your business. Today, we want to take a closer look at how you can put a halt to procrastination in the short term, as well as how you can further these tactics to create real change over time. We’ll begin with the short-term solutions.

Businesses have been put through the wringer over the past couple of years, and for the small business owner, this could have you asking a lot of tough questions. It’s even more stressful because, unlike large enterprises, a lot of the issues are directed at you. This month, we thought we’d take a look at a couple of questions that need to be addressed when going through periods of uncertainty.

Every organization needs to have specific strategies on how to maintain productivity. This can be doing things like getting new technology, changing strategy, and even hiring new employees that are more aligned with your expectations. The latter can be a challenge as different people need different situations in order to be their most productive. Let’s take a look at how to establish and communicate your expectations for your business. 

We started a series on procrastination last week and how you might address it within yourself and your business. Last time, we covered topics like how procrastination shows up in everyday work, so now we are continuing the conversation by helping you identify how you can address it.

If you have a to-do list a mile long, then you’ll need to develop a system to place priority on what truly matters and what could be put off until a bit later. Thankfully, you don’t have to develop a system from scratch, as one of the more interesting methods for tackling your to-do list has already been developed and inspired by a 1950s speech: the Eisenhower Matrix.

Procrastination is one of the banes of any productive employee, and as such, it’s worth examining why procrastination surfaces and what you can do about it. In this series of blogs, we’re going to take a deeper dive into procrastination, with this week focusing on the concept of procrastination and what might cause it.

While “redundant” isn’t typically used as a complimentary descriptor, it very much is when it comes to your business’ data and data backups. This is because you want to make sure that you always have a backup copy ready to go. Let’s consider what a business that doesn’t have this redundancy present in its data is vulnerable to experiencing.

We’ve all felt the momentary panic when we reach for our pocket to pull out our smartphone, only to realize that it’s not there. This panic is indicative of a deeper issue with how our society has become reliant on technology, so much so that we have miniature computers in our pockets at all times. Are you using your smartphone as a distraction tool or as a productivity tool? That’s what we’re trying to answer with today’s blog.

When you have a lot of tasks to get done, you might find yourself stressing out about the sequencing or ruminating on your circumstances. How did you let it get so bad? Why does this always happen to you? If this sounds like an everyday occurrence for your organization or your employees, we want to share three ways you can help to make things easier to manage, even when it feels like there is just too much to handle.

Last week, we aimed our laser focus on productivity and how it can be defined for your organization. Now, we would like to examine how you can measure productivity for your business. Let’s discuss how you can track your productivity.

Productivity will always be the primary goal for businesses, right alongside profits, although one thing does in fact lead to another in this case. To ensure your company runs efficiently, you need to understand just how productivity works and its relationship with what you put into your business. We’ll be using the next couple of weeks to take a closer look at the relationship between your business and its productivity.

First, let’s look at what productivity is, in its simplest and purest form.

Mobile computing has become a crucial part of many businesses. Unfortunately, it isn’t always cut and dry as far as the use of these devices is concerned. Sure, they have proven to be a useful tool, but they also have been known to cause significant distractions. If you are looking for a way to maximize the benefits of mobile computing, these four tips can help you.

“Improving productivity” is far from an unheard goal among business owners. What is less common, unfortunately, is a strategic plan to actually do it. We wanted to help, so we’ve assembled five strategies that can help improve productivity in the modern workplace.

For the average business, communication is important, but it may just be viewed as a tool to conduct business. Nowadays, there are a lot of tools that not only facilitate direct communications, they are fashioned in a way that promotes collaborative endeavors. Let’s go through some of the most noteworthy tools.

To sustain any type of relationship, there needs to be some open and clear communication. The worse communication is between two parties the more inefficiency there will be. Obviously, inefficiency can lead to disaster for any organization that depends on consistency so this month we thought we’d give you four ways to improve communication throughout your organization.

Most people look at only the first page of Google when they are trying to find results; anything seen past the first page is looked at as inferior, inaccurate, or possibly even dangerous. However, Google’s new plans for the search engine will put an end to this bias through the use of a continuous scroll feature.

Business can get stressful. Not only for the people tasked with managing an organization, but for the workforce as a whole. Fortunately, businesses are identifying that technology can go a long way toward making all this work less stressful. Let’s go through some of the innovative technology that is being used to keep employees engaged.

With the COVID pandemic still affecting businesses all over the world, many are still considering remote and hybrid work operations. In fact, there are many employees who have yet to step back into the workplace in any capacity, meaning that workspaces previously well-populated are being underutilized.

For the remote worker, video conferencing is an essential tool. Regardless if you are a veteran of using video conferencing or if you are a new remote worker, there are some tips that can help you be a more effective member of a remote team. Let’s go through four today.

Would you describe your business as “productive?” Without setting a specific standard for productivity, you can’t answer this question. A basic way to measure productivity for your business is how effectively your employees use the tools at their disposal in conjunction with each individual’s capacity to get work done. Let’s take a look at some technology built specifically for your employees to be more productive throughout the workday.

There are struggles that the workplace inherently presents to most people (whether that workplace is in the traditional office space or in the home) that can lead to the too-familiar-to-some feelings of burnout. As these struggles aren’t likely going to go away at any point (never mind anytime soon), it is important that you have strategies to help minimize their impacts.

Businesses have a lot of troubles to manage, one of which is their technology breaking down and interrupting their operations. You have options to ensure these circumstances do not influence your operations to the degree they once may have. Let’s discuss some of the ways you can address malfunctioning IT before it impacts your productivity.

For the business owner, when deciding what type of technology to invest in, one of the major considerations has to be when you are going to recoup the expense of that investment. No two technology investments are the same, and if you can’t get your money out of it (and then some), why even bother making the investment in the first place? 

Looking back at the past few years, it’s little wonder that many people have become more concerned about their health—particularly when it comes to the workplace and spending extended amounts of time in the vicinity of other people. This makes it important that you do everything you can to make your workplace a healthier and safer-feeling place to work… but how?

While it can be too easy to assume that specialized software, like customer relationship management (CRM) software is reserved exclusively for massive companies, there are a lot of benefits that small businesses can see from using it. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits now.

Whether you are in the office or working remotely, there are many distractions that can derail your productivity. To set yourself up for success, we recommend that you follow the tips outlined in this blog. You might be surprised by how just a few simple adjustments can make a world of difference for your productivity.

The pandemic has brought about a change in the way that businesses operate. While companies may have once been limited to getting work done in the workplace, there has been a shift in the opposite direction with many companies retaining remote employees or keeping certain remote workplace policies in place even now. What is the difference between remote and hybrid options, and how do you determine which is best for your company?

Productivity is at the heart of running a successful business, but it’s not always apparent to employees how their effort translates into value for the company. Is there a way to use technology to help fuel productivity and ensure employees understand the value that their productivity provides to your organization? The right tools can eliminate barriers to productivity and allow your employees to reach their full potential.

In order to produce the results that your business’ customers demand, it is essential that your team work together. This collaboration comes in several forms, but if one person struggles, it can be a dire development for any project or service delivery. This month we thought it would be useful to outline what effective collaboration looks like and give you some insights into how technology fuels most of your business’ collaborative efforts.

Customer relationships are at the heart of any business that sells a service or goods, making a technology solution like a CRM a powerful way to jumpstart operations. Let’s review what some of the benefits of using a CRM are and how your organization might use one to the best of its ability.

Business is a collaborative effort, and no one individual putting in all the work will create the same results as a well-oiled group fueled by cooperative collaboration. To help your organization build this type of productive collaboration, we’ve put together three tips you can implement to maximize your team’s willingness and capabilities to work together.

Instant messaging can solve a lot of problems for small businesses, and it can make for a much more dynamic work environment compared to the passive one created by sending endless emails. However, this is only true if you are using instant messaging correctly. How does one go about doing that?

Automation as a concept is on the rise, and so too is its practice. Even before COVID-19 created considerable problems for several businesses, it was in use, and there is no reason for it to fall out of fashion now. There are plenty of ways your organization can implement automation to improve operations moving forward.

It can be difficult to stay focused in the workplace, especially with a litany of distractions at our fingertips at just about any point in the workday. What are some strategies you can use to keep your distractions to a minimum? We’ve outlined three great tips you can utilize to stay focused on the tasks at hand and be more productive with your time in the office.

Businesses have always attempted to optimize productivity for their employees in a variety of ways, but there are certain distractions that will always persist–especially in today’s incredibly connected world. One of these distractions is social media, and it creates the illusion of productivity when, in reality, it’s really not helping much.

Of any operational strategy, collaboration is both the simplest to set up and the most difficult to master. The organizations that do, stand to benefit greatly from the massive amount of efficiency that is created, and the productivity that results from it. The organizations that struggle with it,won’t be as efficient and that typically means costs will rise. Let’s take a look at some of the ways businesses can work toward collaborative mastery.

Productivity can be a challenging thing to measure and maintain, especially in a world full of distractions. Sometimes the distractions come from the nature of the work itself, and understanding this can become the key to overcoming them. Here are five tips you can use to overcome any workplace distractions and become more productive in the workplace.

You don’t need us to tell you that business owners have a lot of work to do, so you should make it a priority to streamline as much of this work as possible. You can use an easy four-step process to make your day-to-day tasks easier and more efficient, and who knows? You might even be able to free up some of that time by asking others to pitch in every now and then. Here are four tips you can use to get the most out of your productivity routine throughout the day.

As time passes and your business accomplishes great things, you might find yourself in positions where your network cannot handle its normal everyday workload. When there is so much network traffic and data transference, it can be difficult to identify where and why this slowdown occurs. What is a network bottleneck, and how can you resolve this issue?

As cliche as it sounds, one of the best ways to create a more positive workplace is to simply put more positivity into it. Let’s exercise this for a moment by setting the often-talked-about worst-case scenario to the side, and focus on what the optimal experience could be with the right technology management in place.

Remote work has become more legitimate than ever before to the point that people can now work effectively anywhere and not just their homes. This brings up an interesting question, however, as this trend means that one could effectively work while they’re on a vacation. 

Have you ever wondered how it is that people can build up bad habits over time, yet break them and establish better ones? Have you also noticed how difficult it can be to break habits that have been ingrained into the very fibers of our being over an extended period of time? Believe it or not, people can change, and the science behind it—neuroplasticity—can provide some valuable insights into how to make it happen.

In order to get the most value out of your business technology, it’s important to understand best practices and how they can figure into your business operations. Let’s examine some of the most effective practices that you should include in your day-to-day operations and how they can benefit your organization.

The Internet is a wondrous place filled with countless resources and tools to be more effective in your day-to-day routine or business practices, but it is also home to a plethora of dangers that threaten the very existence of your organization. As an executive and business professional, it is your responsibility to identify opportunities to protect your company. One such way you can do so is by implementing a content filter.

Businesses are always trying to be as productive as possible, but the truth of the matter is that productivity is not a constant state of getting things done. It is perfectly natural to have ups and downs throughout the week that ultimately contribute to any progress made on tasks. The question then becomes one of how can you make progress toward goals for the workday. Here are four tips that might help you get more done throughout your day-to-day duties.

There is a misconception going around that the absolute only way you can possibly take care of your organization’s technology is to hire dedicated professionals to monitor and maintain every aspect of it. There is considerable benefit to doing this, we won’t lie, but there is value in applying specific mantras from everyday life to your IT infrastructure. With these small, common-sense practices, you might see some long-term success in IT management even without professionals at the helm.

Many critics of a shorter work week believe that cutting the number of hours worked throughout the workday or work week could potentially lead to a decrease in productivity, but a new study from Iceland suggests that this simply is not reality. This study suggests that productivity should no longer be a cause for concern when it comes to a shorter work week, as its astounding results show what really happens when you reduce the number of hours worked without reducing pay.

Computers are supposed to make life easier, and in a lot of ways, they do. However, using a computer can get complicated at times, especially when you are working with tons of files, applications, and resources on a daily basis. This can lead to a ton of digital clutter, which can be counterproductive and time-wasting. Let’s learn about how you can reduce digital clutter on your work PC.

For all the time we spend promoting productivity-enhancing technologies, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the source of quite a bit of inefficiency: the user. People get distracted from their tasks all the time and the bounceback rates from these distractions aren’t great. Let’s go over a few tips that you and your team can use to help identify and avoid distractions throughout the workday.

The fact that many of their workers never see each other has led to some interesting shifts in the way that businesses approach communications. They used to just walk across the room and have a conversation, but as people try to make sense of the hybrid work environment, communications will continue to be a key. Let’s take a look at how your internal and external communications strategies will change to meet the needs of your roving workforce. 

It can be said that most of 2020 and the first couple of months of 2021 have been difficult for most people. Not billionaires, of course, but most other people have found the past year difficult on some level. That’s why it isn’t surprising to hear people talk about workplace burnout. Today, we’ll define burnout and what is being said about it. 

Today’s business is always searching for a leg up, and this often means doing what it can to improve their operational efficiency. Companies can approach this in several ways. They can try to cut out redundancies, they can invest in training, or for many businesses, it means leveraging innovative new technological tools that are designed specifically for this purpose. 

While no email platform is immune to mismanagement, Microsoft Outlook can quickly become filled with outdated and redundant messages that detract from the communication that it is meant to provide. Fortunately, there is a bit of a hack that you can use in Outlook to help prioritize your most pressing messages. Let’s dive into it.

A business that has workers that are above average at maintaining productivity is typically a successful business. There are an endless number of suggestions on how to be and remain productive, and how to sustain that productivity. One thing that isn’t typically mentioned in all of that self-help advice is the role that patience plays in productivity. This month we thought we would do just that.

Productivity improves as time management improves. It seems like a simple notion, but if you aren’t deliberate about managing your time, there isn’t much positive movement that is going to be had in the productivity meter. This month, we thought we would help you by giving you a few strategies that will work to improve your employees’ productivity. 

Running a business is hard. There are a million-and-six things that have to be done each day just to keep the doors open. For this reason, it is crucial that a business’ employees want to be there. In today’s competitive marketplace, there simply isn’t time to waste on workers that don’t pull their weight. So, how do you get them to want to be there? This month, we will take a look at that very issue. 

Automation does nothing but help businesses, but can the same be said for the people that work at these businesses? With more systems relying on some semblance of artificial intelligence, smart automation could replace up to a quarter of the current workforce over the next ten years. Today, we will take a look at the importance of profitability and how AI is likely going to usher in a whole new era of human existence. 

Business leadership is an important trait for more than just a business’ leader by title. It is something that should be present at every level, encouraged by the individual at the top. To do so, it helps to ask your team the right questions to put them in a mindset of responsibility for the business’ well-being. Here, we’ve shared some of these questions to get you started.

Not many Android users are aware of the Google Lens application, and the supplemented utility that it can bring to your device’s camera. Let’s fix that by going over what Google Lens is, and how you can use it to your advantage.

Wi-Fi can be found in many homes and businesses alike, as it is perhaps the simplest means of connecting your various computers and mobile devices to the Internet without installing networking cables or risking going over any data caps you may deal with. Of course, some devices may take priority in such a setup, so it could be very useful for you to partition your Wi-Fi.

A schedule has long been the tool of choice for businesses to uphold their productivity, despite the challenges that managing everyone’s schedule can often present. Fortunately, today’s cloud solutions provide a means to overcome these challenges. Let’s explore the idea of smart scheduling and how it can make your entire process so much simpler.

For a lot of businesses, 2020 has seen some major challenges. Many SMBs feel like they are in a snow globe attached to a paint mixer that is always switched on. With all the problems laid out in front of them, many businesses have decided that in order to protect their business that they would subscribe to a strategy of proactivity. Let’s take a look at a couple of ways managed services help keep you ahead.

In business, the more time your operations stutter, the more it costs. If downtime is extended, it can cause some serious problems for your business. This is true from the one-man band to the largest enterprise. This month we thought we would outline a couple ways that downtime can have a negative effect on your business aside from the obvious.

When most people think “spreadsheet,” they’re thinking about Microsoft Excel. Yet, for how well-known it is, many people are unaware of many of its capabilities. This is particularly true of the shortcuts available to properly format these spreadsheets. For this week’s tip, we’re sharing a few of these formatting tips.

Productivity is always an important consideration when it comes to your business’ processes. That’s why, for this week’s tip, we’re going over how to boost your productivity by adding some of your G Suite documents into your bookmarks bar.

With working from home becoming all but normal, a lot of workers are hoping that their foray into remote work isn’t going to come to an end anytime soon. Business owners who never would have considered letting their staff work from home are now finding that they are saving money and getting comparable (or more) productivity from their staff remotely. We thought we would just remind you that there are benefits to working in a dedicated office. 

There is a lot that needs to be done in the typical business each day, and with so many steps involved in each process, it can be difficult to stay on track. Without the right information, it is basically impossible to remain productive. To help keep up your productivity and morale, we’ve put together a guide to help you task out your objectives for this week’s tip.

Working from home isn’t new, but with the COVID-19 pandemic sparking public health fears many businesses decided to move their operations offsite. For much of the past decade remote work was an available strategy for business, but many business owners feared it would give them a lack of control over their workforce, and therefore was largely ignored. This was despite remote work being a strategy people have embraced for a long, long time. Today, we take a look at the history and progression of working from home.  

In the workplace, projects are used to push operations forward. This makes your ability to manage your business’ projects truly important as the global economy turns back on. To help, we’re sharing three tips that will help you most effectively do so.

Google Chrome is adding a cool feature over the next week or so (it may already have been released for you). The next feature is sure to make a big difference for some and will be non-descript for others. Let’s unpack colorful tabs in Google Chrome.

Saving on capital expenditures is the successful business owner’s superpower. Today, a lot of the strategic cost cutting that is being done is through collaboration. When you increase the productivity of your staff, you can do more with less. Let’s look at some of the tools being used by successful organizations to enhance their productivity.

If you are like millions of other non-essential workers, you’ve probably spent the better part of the past two months working from home. As a result, you may have considered repurposing an area of your living space to be a dedicated work area (assuming you didn’t have one already). If so, we have a few recommendations you should consider as you do so.

Email is a great tool for businesses to use, but if mismanaged, it can quickly become a major time sink. That’s why we wanted to go over a few ways that you can use your email solution to boost your overall productivity (rather than squander it) in the form of some handy tips.