Smartlife

Finding a way to organize all the receipts, business cards, and other papers you collect can be difficult. Many people manage their finances and address books on their computers, along with other files, practically guaranteeing that someone is going to need to transcribe each little slip of paper or scan it in individually. Neither approach is particularly appealing, especially considering how few scanners have the optical character recognition software to automatically translate printed documents into something a computer can translate. The NeatDesk, from The Neat Company, offers a…

When it comes to managing your career, you likely have a lot of information to deal with. All the information on your professional training may be in one file, completely separate from the information on your references. Just locating everything you need can add an hour to any career management task or project you work on — a time sink that’s repeated with each new one you embark on (e.g., filling out an online job application or career profile, completing federal background investigation forms, etc.).

There just aren’t enough days in the week, which is confusing for some workers who think they can cram about 35 into each. With every online or electronic accessory attempting to become your essential assistant (and hold you hostage from then on), some people have to coordinate a quintuplet of calendars: their laptop, mobile device, online reminders, work schedule, and even a bizarre sheet of “printed paper,” which sits on their desk like some dark relic of ages past.

Some virtual assistants are more than happy to handle tasks for you that require personal information. But is it really necessary to go around handing out information like the password to your email or your credit card number?

How personal is too personal?

You may want your virtual assistant to purchase something on your behalf. Most assistants will want your credit card to make the purchase. Perhaps you want your virtual assistant to respond to emails for you — but she’ll need to get into your email account to do it. Most of us aren’t comfortable handing out that sort of information, for good reasons.

A few months ago, I wanted to make what I thought would be a simple Mediterranean pasta salad. As fate would have it, I ended up spending several non-planned hours flipping through cookbooks and magazine clippings looking for the recipe. Once I finally found it, I drove off to the local grocery store to acquire the requisite ingredients, only to discover that I’d forgotten the recipe at home. Rather than drive back, I decided to shop from memory, carefully analyzing each item stacked along the aisles so as not to forget anything. But I did. When I returned home, I found something missing among my recently-purchased Mediterranean pasta salad ingredients: THE PASTA!

The other week I posted a review of Pageonce, and recommended that you sign up and use it. If that post didn’t prompt you to hand over your Internet keys to Pageonce just yet, perhaps you need a little more information. And I’m here to supply. As part of my original research into Pageonce, I took a look under the hood so to speak to understand how it integrates with various Internet account providers and how it secures your personal information.