Do you have a technology budget? You ought to. Technology is and should be separate from your office supplies budget. If you don’t plan for how and when to spend your technology dollars, you’ll likely end up spending too much on things you don’t really need on not enough on the things you really do need.

You should plan on spending about 2/3 of your technology budget on infrastructure, hardware and software. That ranges, depending on your needs from computers and printers to firewalls and MS Office to switches and cabling.

So what about the other 1/3? Training. If you take the time to learn how to  use your technology, you’d be surprised about how much more effective you can be. For example, Microsoft Office 2007 is coming out soon. With an hour or two of training on how it works and what the new features are, you could increase your productivity considerably.

Or even in your operating system. Take some time to learn how your files are organized so you can find them quicker. The internet is a big learning tool and a creature that needs some training to help you understand how to use. Invest in some time (and not necessarily paying for training) and you might be surprised. Most new software products  have introductory tutorials and advanced tutorials. Take some time to poke around and see what you can learn.