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How Entrepreneurs Boost Productivity Using Shift

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Sophie Blaine

Marketing Specialist - 22 Mar, 2021

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As an entrepreneur, you often juggle a pretty chaotic schedule, and staying organized is the biggest roadblock to success. Whether it’s untimely meetings, making meaningful progress, or developing a start-up strategy — entrepreneurs have a full plate. Being task-oriented is critical to an entrepreneur’s success, and it begins with getting organized.

Any entrepreneur knows that priorities change daily, and keeping up with multiple investors, personal projects, and strategy building is a challenging process without a bit of help from productivity apps. By now, you probably have multiple email and app accounts, but you’re juggling a messy browser that can’t keep up with your fast-paced work style. Shift is a logical and beautiful solution to browser overload and will ultimately transform your workflow.

The roadblocks to entrepreneurial growth

There's never enough time... or at least that's how it feels for many entrepreneurs. Feeling as though you have accomplished your goals (at least in part) at the end of the day is critical to entrepreneurial success. With changing priorities and a chaotic schedule, you need to improve your time management. Whether you're a serial entrepreneur, startup founder, or always on-the-move, finding the perfect email and app aggregator is essential to managing your time. Shift streamlines your workflow in an intuitive way, with an array of features designed to optimize time efficiency and prioritize deep work.

How on-the-move entrepreneurs use Shift to stay organized

Entrepreneurs can use Shift and streamline their workflow by adding all email accounts, integrating their most-used apps, and personalizing workspaces for various projects.

“I open my computer, I log in, I open up Shift, and that's how I manage my day. I couldn't live without Shift now.” - Nile Harris, Coach, and Consultant

Manage Multiple Email Accounts

We know email can be a headache, especially for the busy entrepreneur. Within Shift, you can add all of your Google and Microsoft accounts to streamline multiple inboxes and stay on top of your to-do list. Add an unlimited amount of Gmail, Outlook, or Office365 accounts, and Shift will aggregate your accounts along an intuitively designed sidebar. Whether it be incoming calendar invites, threads with investors, or product updates, you need a logical way to organize ever-changing priorities as an aspiring entrepreneur. You can easily toggle between your different email accounts and stay up to date. Integrate email into Shift and watch your productivity skyrocket!

“If you're strictly a Gmail user, you know that juggling multiple accounts is a colossal pain. Newcomer Shift (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux) takes away that pain, letting you shift (aha!) between accounts with ease.” - CNET

Integrate all of your favorite apps

There's no doubt that entrepreneurs use productivity apps to the fullest, and as you build your presence as an aspiring business, the list of apps only gets longer. You can integrate all of your favorite apps into Shift and visualize your workflow in a synchronized space that encompasses all of your social, email, and todo-list notifications. Imagine the time you could be saving by eliminating the pain point of logging in and out of multiple accounts.

Shift has recently launched saved passwords, and our users couldn’t be more ecstatic. You can quickly transfer passwords over from Chrome and never again worry about logging in and out of accounts. Between saved passwords, muting notifications, and building personalized workspaces: Shift is the perfect platform for deep work.

How startup founders use Shift

As a start-up founder, your workload can be overwhelming, and a high level of productivity is a must. The boat is only going as fast as you can handle it, so let's tackle the threshold for reaching optimal efficiency. As you onboard new hires, develop innovative business strategies and take on new challenges, Shift will help you navigate your start-up with ease.

“I used to have three google chrome windows open with about 15 tabs each, which led me to the point of exhaustion. But being able to consolidate all of my main applications in one place and optimize my workflow is a simple but wonderful addition to my workflow.” - Casey Glidden

Related Post: The Best Productivity Tips for Startup Founders

Onboarding New Hires

At some point, you might’ve realized that it's time to put some fuel behind your boat and bring together a team of people who share your goals. Onboarding can be a lengthy process, especially when you’re trying to convey your passion project and let people in on your entrepreneurial journey.

Utilizing workspaces to its full potential by adding common resources, apps, extensions and reports will make onboarding feel like a breeze. A picture can say 1000 words, and similarly, Workspaces can help tell the story of your vision. Add relevant Google accounts, bookmark resources, and integrate apps such as BambooHR, Kazoo HR, or CakeHR into your Workspace. Using a customized workspace that you can easily share with new hires will clean up the onboarding process.

Shared workspaces: Bring together investors, new hires, and potential partners

Workspaces is an excellent tool for collaboration but can also function as a simple way to update people outside of your company — such as investors or new partners — on the progress of your quarterly goals or projects. Share workspaces with new hires or partners and provide them with everything they need to get up to speed.

  1. Click on the blue "Share" button in the top right of your Workspace to open your Sharing options page. You can share via email or link.
  2. Choose the account you want to share from. All your email accounts in Shift will be listed in the drop-down menu under "Account.”
  3. Choose the sharing access and which tabs you want to share. If you want to keep specific tabs to yourself, be sure to uncheck those tabs before sharing them.
  4. Share! Generate your link or send your sharing email and start using your Workspace with others.

adding apps- workspaces

How serial entrepreneurs use Shift

New projects seem to grow on trees for many serial entrepreneurs, and juggling competing priorities can quickly turn into a complicated disaster. As email and app accounts begin to concentrate your workday, it can be challenging to make meaningful progress on your goals. Shift is designed to cater to the serial entrepreneur and provide a logical solution to browser chaos. Saving 10 minutes each day using Shift equates to an entire workweek in the grand scheme of a year, and as a serial entrepreneur, you know time is of the essence.

“Shift is a great uncomplicator. With 15 Google Accounts, I can't live without Shift.” - Jeff Solomon, Markup Hero

Related Post: Case Study: The Serial Entrepreneur

jeff solomon case study

Create personalized workspaces

In addition to a beautiful browser that encompasses all of your email accounts, apps, and extensions, Shift has many features that will lead you to organizational bliss, beginning with Workspaces. Work with focus by creating Workspaces with exact tabs, bookmarks, apps, and extensions, then share it with other stakeholders to bring your project full circle. You can customize Workspaces within Shift to meet the needs of a specific project you’re working on and easily distinguish between everything on the go.

How to personalize your Workspace

  1. Right-click on the Workspace in the sidebar and click "Settings"
  2. Change the Workspace Name, Description, Colour, and Icon as desired
  3. Navigate to the home page and add all of your desired apps, extensions, and bookmarks.

Use Unified Search to find resources

We all know the frequent pain point of searching for a specific document through all of your emails, google accounts, and messaging channels — that’s why Shift created unified search. Using the unified search bar diverts the 10 minutes you would spend searching for documents and allows you to dive directly into deep work without a frustrating setback. Unified search will filter through every drive, email, and calendar account that you have linked to Shift.

“I immediately saw the value in using Shift as it made me work more efficiently and I could access documents that I needed much quicker.” - Sabrina Chammas Doumet

Filter your search based on the inclusion/exclusion of specific email, drive, and/or calendar accounts. Include additional filters for...

  • Mail: 'Include/Exclude Words', 'From/To', 'Subject', and 'Includes Attachment'
  • Calendar: 'What/Who/Where' and 'Date'
  • Drive: 'Include Words', 'Type', 'Name', 'Shared With', and 'In Trash' or 'Starred'

unified search

Use in-app shortcuts

Shift is all about efficiency and optimizing your workflow, so you can take on challenging work and perform at your highest potential. Our intuitive, quick keyboard shortcuts will turn you into a Shift power user. There's nothing better than alternating between docs, apps, switching views, and much more with the click of a button. Follow our guide for Shift keyboard shortcuts and become a productivity pro.

A Quick Guide to Shift Keyboard Shortcuts

Integrate your favorite entrepreneurial apps into Shift

Slack: Instant messaging app for teams looking to streamline communication, cut down on emails, and get the answers they need, when they need them.

Sanebox: If you’re an entrepreneur that struggles to keep up with the daily influx of emails, Sanebox is your solution. With its advanced AI technology and intelligent algorithms, Sanebox will efficiently declutter your email so you can focus on the most critical messages.

RescueTime: As a busy entrepreneur, time is of the essence, and RescueTime will help you take control of your time, limiting distractions.

G-suite & Google Docs: G-suite is very useful when you’re sharing documents or reports with team members. You can create collaborative drive folders and locate everything you need in one spot.

Airtable: Airtable is a great project management tool equipped with an editorial calendar, product launches, and CRM features.

Evernote: As ideas flood through your mind, Evernote provides you with a logical and organized space to jot them down so you can keep track of your ongoing projects.

Todoist: Todoist connects to your Google calendar to easily plan your week, add new projects and update your current status. You can use Todoist as your digital brain and dump any new to-dos into your list.

Trello: Trello is a Kanban system for project management and is a great way to visualize your progress on significant goals while identifying any potential roadblocks along the way.

Asana: Asana is an excellent tool for both small and large teams. You can use Asana to assign tasks, provide project updates and keep track of your workload.

ClickUp: Click-up is your one-stop productivity shop, offering notes, reminders, goals, calendar scheduling, and an organized inbox.

Hubspot: Hubspot offers a fully equipped CRM software — marketing, sales, customer service, and customer relationship management — to help grow your business.

Try Shift Today

Shift is a desktop app that aggregates your email accounts, apps, and extensions, streamlining your workflow with an all-in-one browser. Shift is the ultimate tool for the busy entrepreneur, find your focus with Shift and begin building your business with optimized productivity.

Download Shift Now