Indus Khaitan of The Morpheus sent me an interesting post on “How we waste time on email”.

The inbox, used appropriately, can be one of the most successful productivity tools of all time.  For most of us, however, it ends up being a huge time sink.

Yes, true!

We found there were a number of deadly pains of email, but probably the biggest one was trying to keep track of complex interdependent tasks where you have to contact other people and involve them in a network of obligations…

Yes, yes, yes.

One of the reasons such “networks of obligations” are so taxing, Bellotti says, is that crucial information may be in any one of the replies, and it’s difficult for the recipient to remember just where. Thus, copious amounts of time are spent scrolling through the thread looking for that critical project deadline or contact number. She estimates that about 20% of the time in email “is spent either organizing stuff of trying to find stuff.”

A messaging system (a.k.a email) that used to be a one on one tool has been transformed into a tool that project managers and teams love. True, it is easy to email tasks and project messages around but as the complexity increases, so will the frustration of finding things. They say time is money.

This was the whole point we created DeskAway and our one line pitch is still the same:

DeskAway is a tool to overcome the limitations of email and spreadsheet-based collaboration by helping teams organize, manage, and track their work from a central location.

Check out the article here.

This article originally appeared on GigaOM. I though you might like this since some of you’ll might be running virtual teams to get your work done and hence use DeskAway

When working with remotes teams there is less personal interaction and hence it is even more important to keep them extremely motivated. This article points out some things to keep in mind…

1. Have an open door policy. “I always make time for my management,” Chris explains, “My management fundamentally run my company for me, and I’m well aware that without them, I would have to come in and start working ridiculous hours every single day. If they need to speak with me, all they have to do is pick up the phone, and I’ll make time to speak with them.”
2. Provide opportunities for career growth. Chris says, “I never want to hire externally, unless I truly have to. I’ll always look internally to try to promote people, if possible. That creates a great culture within a company.”
3. Provide opportunities for education. “I think there [are] other things you can do,” Chris says, “not only spending the time with somebody and giving them career opportunities, but also investing in them. I regularly put my management on different types of courses, training and things like that. It’s developing them as employees, and it gives them the opportunity to better themselves, and they appreciate that.”

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DeskAway has been selected as a Top 20 business application for November 2010 by GetApp.com, the business software search engine.

The GetApp.com Top 20 Business Apps ranking is based on a composite algorithm that incorporates several criteria, including listing popularity on GetApp.com, number of reviews and comments, social media presence such as Twitter and FaceBook followers, volume and quality of integration points, and input from analyst reports. The ranking is updated monthly. You can view the ranking online at GetApp.com Top 20 Business Apps.

Here is my first article for the Business Insider. It is on why we chose SaaS (after I moved back from the U.S.) and the 5 things I learnt from my experiences in the last few years.

India is known as the land of outsourcing, so, when I landed here in 2005 to start a software company I was inundated with service and outsourcing  companies all around me - pretty much providing the same web design and  development services and fighting to retain employees. This is something I didn’t want to be a part of. In fact, seeing the dependency on people and the consequent issues that it creates, made me want to have a company that was system-driven, that had the right processes in place to  make it a dynamic, scalable, light and transparent organization, while providing value to others.

I turned to what I believe is the future of computing: Software as a Service (SaaS). Now, I often look back and try to re-learn from my experiences….

Read the 5 lessons…

This is a good article that we came across and thought you might be interested as well - especially, if you multi-task a lot!

Multitasking is the art of distracting yourself from things you don’t really want to do by doing many of them at once.

If you’re like most people, you think you’re getting a lot more done when you juggle a ton of to-do’s.

You’re not.

At best, you’re doing slightly less than you would if you kept your eyes set on a single task. At worst, you’re stuck running around the hamster wheel, and will be for a while.

Learn to stop multitasking and you will be able to do far more with the same amount of minutes, while maintaining the steady, gradual steps that will inch you closer to the life you really want to live.

8 Ways to Stop Multitasking Starting Today:

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