Mottainai (pronounced moht-tai-nai) is a Japanese word meaning "a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilized". There is no direct English translation, but it is similar to the idea of 'waste not, want not' and making proper use of resources.

In my Toolkit workshops, I often come across people who are already using some of the digital tools, platforms and apps I recommend. But rarely are they using them to their full capability.

Today, in the spirit of Mottainai and using things properly, I wanted to share 5 lesser known functions of 5 popular tools to encourage you to make the most out of your digital life.

1. TweetDeck: New Followers

TweetDeck is a third party Twitter application that you can use to manage all your social networks from one place. Whether you are using TweetDeck on your phone, your desktop or on the web, TweetDeck is a time-effective way of staying up to date.

A little know feature of TweetDeck is the ability to set up a New Followers column. By default, when you set up a Twitter account, you're sent an email every time you have a new follower. Exciting at the beginning, annoying when you start to have more followers. By setting up a New Followers column in TweetDeck, you can view the person's photo and bio and decide whether to follow or block (if they are spam) them straightaway.

To set up the column go to Add New Column > Core > New Followers.

2. Dropbox: Getting More Space

Dropbox is a neat tool that creates a 'mini-server' for your documents accessible from your desktop, the cloud and your phone. Your free account comes with 2GB of storage and you can increase this (250MB each time) by using your referral code to invite friends to join the service.

But did you know that there are other ways of easily increasing your storage? This article from LifeHacker suggests ways of increasing your storage by 768MB by social sharing on Twitter and Facebook, following Dropbox on Twitter, and by giving feedback to the Dropbox team.

To sign up for your free account, visit Dropbox today.

3. LinkedIn: Get Introduced Through a Connection

I am sure you are familiar with LinkedIn - the social network of choice for professionals. There are too many great features of LinkedIn to mention here, but one underused feature I wanted to flag up is the ability to get introduced to someone through an existing connection.

To contact someone through LinkedIn, you either have to have worked with them or know their email address. However, if the person you wish to connect with is connected to one of your 1st connections, you can ask your connection to forward a message to them.

I have used this successfully in the past to contact potential speakers for events I have run. I think that if a request comes through a trusted connection, this can be much stronger than an unsolicited email.

First search for the person you wish to connect with in the People Search box. If they have a 2^nd connection beside them, have a look at who connects you to them (see screenshot).

Then click on ‘Get introduced through a connection’ and fill out the required details. You can also leave a message for your LinkedIn contact so they know why you are trying to contact this person.

The more you build your LinkedIn connections, the more potential people you can have access to, and the more useful this feature becomes, so start building those connections today.

Start by connecting with me - I know lots of people ; )

4. Gmail: Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail is my email platform for choice because of its powerful features that allow me to get through my Inbox super fast and get on with my important work.

An often overlooked feature of Gmail is the extensive keyboard shortcuts. Using these shortcuts and my computer mouse allows me to process email quickly and get on with more important things.

The shortcuts I use the most are:

# = delete. Use this shortcut to read/delete quickly.

e = archive. If you have set up Filters to add Labels to your emails as they come in (recommended), than use 'e' to quickly read/archive.

! = marks as Spam and removes this email from your Inbox.

s = stars the conversion.

To turn shortcuts on, go to the Gear icon > Mail Settings > General > Keyboard Shortcuts On.

5. WordPress: Schedule Posts

WordPress is the powerful content management system that allows you to build static and blog based websites like my website 8fold. (Do check out the free WordPress eCourse on the website if you want to know more.)

When you write a blog post, it is dated by default on the day you write it. However, you can use the date function in WordPress to schedule posts to run in the future. This can be incredibility useful if you know you are going to be particularly busy one week and miss your posting schedule; or if you have a run of inspiration and write three posts at a time; or if you are going away on vacation.

What are your favourite 'hidden' features of these popular tools? Do share in the comments.

At a Personal Branding workshop this week at City Business Library, the discussion, as ever, turned to social media.

The presenter, an advocate for using social media for self promotion, was asked how she kept track of hundreds of followers in her Twitter account. (For anyone who is following more than a handful of people on Twitter, a twitter application is essential - TweetDeck is my application of choice). The presenter enthused about Hootsuite, a Twitter application that sits in the 'cloud'. But she had found one small problem - Hootsuite only allowed her to set up 5 columns to 'group' those she was following into categories. When I suggested that TweetDeck might be a more appropriate solution for her, this suggestion was dismissed. Instead she planned to set up multiple Hootsuite accounts as her columns grew. (On further research Hootsuite does actually allow up to 10 columns in one 'tab' - multiple tabs can be set up to host more columns).

This is a text book example of how using the wrong tools, or not using them fully, can hamper your effectiveness. It a waste of time setting up and managing multiple accounts of a tool when the functionality you seek may be there but you can't see it. Or perhaps there is a more appropriate solution altogether for your situation. Hootsuite is great for teams for example and heavy social media users. Of course the potential benefit of any tool must be weighed against any potential loss. This is why blogs such as Mashable and Lifehacker are invaluable for comparing and contrasting tools.

This week I have been re-reading Leo Babauta's Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction. He talks about the Tao concept of 'wei wu wei' often translated as 'action without action' - something Leo takes to mean in today's context as 'effortless action'.

For much of our working day we are struggling. We struggle with finding focus in a day full of digital distraction. And how we struggle daily with our digital tools - who amongst us has not spent hours trying to fix something on our website or trying to send a bulk email? Every new tool brings a learning curve. Last night I spent hours playing around with different ways of uploading footage from the Enterprising Women event onto my YouTube channel. Frustrating because the software with the camera (a Kodak Zi8) is supposed to upload automatically to YouTube but kept failing. I specifically choose the camera as the most appropriate tool because of this functionality.

By using appropriate tools (when they work!) we can really see the power of effortless action. Just like water flowing, we can calmly make our way to where we are going. When the water finds certain pressure points, moving forward takes very little effort. If we can find these sweet spots of maximum effectiveness with minimum effort, we can truly start to reclaim our time and work effectively.

Using an appropriate tool for a particular situation is a perfect example of a 'pressure point':

Why struggle with sending bulk email through Outlook or Gmail Contacts when you can open an account with a mailing list provider such as MailChimp or my favourite MadMimi in seconds, import in your list in a few minutes and be sending out great looking emails with opt-out capabilities for your subscribers within the hour.

Abraham Maslow famously once said: “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This is called the 'Law of the Hammer' - an over-reliance on a familiar tool. Email, as an example, is an incredibly useful tool but we use it inappropriately to have back and forth conversations. Why not see if there are more appropriate tools for communication that will allow you to get out of your Inbox. For external conversations Instant Messaging (IM) is excellent. So is the amazingly disruptive, but much neglected technology, the telephone. For internal communication between teams a free tool such as Yammer is an easy and effective way of grouping all the shared conversations. 

My request for you today is to have a think about what digital tools you are using in your business and how appropriate and fit for purpose they are. Please leave any ideas in the comments below and I will be happy to verify or suggest alternatives.

[Image with thanks to Horian Varlan via Creative Commons]