One of my biggest pet peeves is having to enter the same data several times. In some cases, we can’t help it. For example, when a client sends you something that just cannot be converted or transferred.

But there are plenty of other opportunities to reduce data entry in our business. Here’s what I mean…

Scenario 1: Maintaining two contacts lists, one in your email and another on your phone. There’s nothing more frustrating or less productive than not having someone’s email, phone number or address when you need it. Keeping two sets of contact lists doesn’t make sense because that means twice the work and incomplete data in both places.

The solution: contact list synchronization. For example, we use Google Apps which has a feature that allows you to sync your contacts list with your phone. It’s the best thing ever because appointments and contact information are only entered once. Editing also happens once and Google Sync keeps both places updated.

Scenario 2: Copying and pasting story submissions. This used to happen a lot. Thankfully as more people become exposed to blogs and excellent content management systems, it’s becoming rare.

But if you are still using a simple form to accept guest author submissions and copying and pasting them to your website, you need to stop it. Get people to create their own account, OR setup a way for people to submit their contributions that go directly into your database.

You can always set the system to not publish stories until you approve them. If you’re using WordPress, a great plugin for public (non-account holders) to submit their content is the TDO MiniForms plugin.

Scenario 3: You write better on paper and write up gobs of content in your paper notebook, then later you re-type in everything when you are at the computer. Invest in a digital pen. I use the Livescribe Pulse pen. With the handwriting recognition add-on, now all the writing in my notebook can be converted into articles with a click. It’s pretty accurate too.

Scenario 4: Repetitive searching. Sometimes a client may want you to repeatedly search for the same set of information on a regular basis daily, monthly or weekly. Instead of going to the search engine to lookup the information, just bookmark (or save) your search. That was easy .

Scenario 5: Testimonials. When collecting testimonials, most of us don’t have any structured method of doing so. Sometimes it’s a short email asking for one, at other times, people would just set up a simple form that gets sent to your email. Nothing wrong with that. You want to keep things simple right?

But email is one of the worst places to store data because they get buried easily. They also get lost and to use the data, you’d have to copy, paste, reformat it.

Since the client is already entering the data, the data entry work is already ‘done’. You can leverage that with a very simple system. Testimonials entered can be stored in a database, categorized and later pulled up to be included on a web page. You can even make it automatically update on the page. There are free scripts out there that can help you with this. Just do a search over at Hotscripts.com or similar sites.

Data entry is expensive whether you do it yourself or outsource. Plus, manual data entry is prone to mistakes. In that light, it make sense to reduce manual data entry work. Take a look at the things you do everyday in your business, particularly the little things that you do repeatedly. If you are entering or copying and pasting information from one place to another regularly, then that is a sign you need to find a new and better way.

About the Author

Lynette Chandler enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a small business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find more ideas about implementing technology on her blog, or catch up with Lynette on Twitter and Facebook.

photo credit: gcoldironjr2003