I came across Spark Mail while searching for a replacement for Newton (my previous email service which suddenly went belly-up this past year); and OMG, I am so, SOOOOO happy that I found it!! ​

Spark is AMAZING! It does everything my old service did (except for read receipts, which does bum me out…I am really hoping they add it in the future???), but it also does so much more!

First of all, I absolutely LOVE how intuitive it is, and the features they do have are simply incredible! In addition to Geek Girls in Vegas, I manage several other business (my solo jazz career, Dangerous Curves vocal trio, the Shades of Sinatra show, and all the performing I do with my husband), as well as a couple of different websites/groups (Gluten Free in Las Vegas website and the Las Vegas Celiac Support Group), which all had out-of-control email counts. But now, with a little help from Spark Mail, I have somehow managed to organize it all and actually get to INBOX ZERO for the first time in years!!

They make it so easy to file away emails (even moving messages to other email accounts from right within the app), respond quickly and easily with helpful shortcuts, add messages to Omnifocus so I can respond later and file away, write a response and schedule for later sending, create templates for responses I write often, etc, etc. I particularly LOVE the layout and the "Smart Mail" feature, which makes it incredibly easy to know what's important and what isn't with just a glance. A few other features I love:
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• I can quickly create custom signatures for every email account
• I can specify which inboxes I get notifications from and which I don’t!
• They have an awesome snooze feature (which I can completely customize for quick processing)
• I can quickly PIN important messages so I can get back to them later and not forget.
• It automatically suggests where to file an email (based on previous filing habits), along with 3 or 4 other options right at the top.
• I can view my calendar right inside the app!!
• And so much more…

And here’s the kicker…all of those features are FREE! No subscription. Can I get a “what-what??” 

I seriously, I love, love, LOVE this email service! I have it on my Mac, my phone and my iPad, and it all syncs seamlessly!! Thank you Spark Mail...PLEASE don't ever, EVER go away!!! 

Okay, if you are anything like me, you probably copy and paste a MILLION things each day...on your laptop, on your desktop, on your phone...wherever. Simple copy/paste can be a HUGE timesaver...that is, when I can be completely focused, and I always do things in the right order, and I don't ever get distracted when I'm working. HA!!!!! Yeah, right. ;-/ More often than not, I will copy something I want to paste, but the I forget and end up copying something else, like a link to go along with the text, then I have to go back and try to find the original text...and what if I want to copy more than one item, but I don't know the order I want to put them in yet? Or what if I copied something last week, but now I want to paste it again, but I can't remember where I found it...OMG, I am getting a headache!!!

Well, no more worries. Enter, PASTE...a truly incredible, cloud-based clipboard manager that lives right on your desktop and works flawlessly!!!

Not only does it work on your desktop, but it works across all devices!!! I can actually copy something on my phone and, as long as I am on the same network, it will automatically add it to the clipboard manager on my desktop...um, so freakin' cool!! It has a search feature and tons of options/preferences  to choose from. At only $9.99 from the Mac app store, it is absolutely WORTH IT!! You can read a great review from the website 9To5Mac HERE or you can visit the PASTE website by clicking the button below...

According to a recent study, the average American spends somewhere around 3.5 hours of every 8-hour workday ACTUALLY being productive. Less than 4 hours a day...seriously?!?!?! Now, I consider myself to be a really dedicated person (it's truly hard for me to just sit and do nothing). And I really do feel like I work hard on my business every single day. But I'll admit that at the end of the day, I OFTEN feel like I barely made a dent in my to-do list. What about you...sound familiar? Then take a few moments to read this excellent article I found on Medium called "12 Productivity Hacks to Get Stuff Done." It has tons of great tips that I've already started implementing. Hey, if nothing else, it gave me something to post on the Geek Girls website for August and helped me get another thing off my to-do list! LOL

Are you a Mac owner? Need a faster, easier way to check your calendar and add appointments while working on your computer? Then you gotta check out Itsycal by Mowglii. It sits, unobtrusively and beautifully, in the menu bar at the top of your desktop/laptop screen and is instantly accessible whenever you need it. Just a quick tap and you can see all your appointments, and even ADD appointments, right from the menu bar. And the best part? It's totally FREE!!!! I downloaded it a few days ago and absolutely love it...I promise, you will too. ;-)

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a SUCKER for productivity apps! I absolutely LOVE trying out new apps in the hope that they will somehow make me oh-so-much-more organized today than I was yesterday. Well, I gotta tell you, I am completely in LOVE with the all-new Things 3 app, for IOS and Mac!! It seriously does EVERYTHING I want it to...flawlessly...and it is absolutely gorgeous on top of that!! Check out this great review by Ryan Christoffel at MacStories.net...he does an excellent job of explaining the main features and reviewing all the pros and cons:

Business at GEEK GIRLS has been booming lately...new clients and awesome new projects that have us really excited!! But along with all that "busyness" comes the need to stay super organized and on top of things so none of these fabulous new projects or clients accidentally ​slip through the cracks. ;-) And while searching for ways to automate and streamline some of our more mundane but necessary tasks, I came upon this awesome article from our friends at TRELLO...check it out!

Have you thought about what you'd like to accomplish in 2017...what are you business goals? Are you looking to garner a bunch of new clients, or go through a re-branding, or create a brand new website?? Or maybe you are even starting a whole new business!! Goal-setting and "resolutions" can be a tricky thing...too often we set these incredible, lofty goals, but we don't know how to go about achieving them...and then we get frustrated when we fall short, and we just give up. Here's a great article that can help get you pointed in the right direction...

Then, when you've decided what you want, and you are ready to get started, get in touch with us here at Geek Girls...we're here to help!

​Join the 6 million+ people around the world, including us gals at GEEK GIRLS, who are using Todoist – the beautifully simple, cross-platform to-do list app built to help you do more and stress less!!!