Did you have a little trouble getting started this morning? It may have more to do with your work environment than a lack of caffeine. Whether your morning commute takes you across town or from the kitchen to your home office, at some point we all sit down, boot up and launch a software tool. Back in the day all our apps were neatly organized under a start menu or arranged (not so neatly) on our desktop. With the evolution from desktop to web-based software, today your morning started with a web browser. The problem is that although installing a desktop application includes the creation of a Start Menu shortcut, opening a web-based business account does little to organize your digital toolbox. Using web-based tools means you're stuck trying to remembering how to spell the URL or trying to find a bookmark in a haystack. Once you finally arrive at the right site you still have to jump through hoops to get past the login screen (Now where did I put that sticky with the password?) All of this frustration was brought into focus for me by an attendee of last weekend's OSAP Symposium in Tampa, Fl when she said, "I can't spend my whole Friday on Social Networking". Sound familiar? If you find your mornings starting at a crawl, consider investing a few minutes organizing your browser instead of springing for that double mocha latte. All it takes is two steps:

Setup your Browser

• Choose a Browser Start Page - I start each day with my web-based calendar and contacts organizer (SugarCRM). Choose your "Go-To" web app and set it as your browser start page.

• Create a Favorite's Bar Folder - Create a folder on your browser Favorites tool-bar. Create bookmarks for your top five web destinations like Skype, Facebook, your shopping cart and blog login. Need more that five? I've created sub-folders for Research, Social Networking, Writing, and Reference and add bookmarks to your web-based tools.

Organize your Web Logins

• Stop carrying that huge digital keyring in your head. Ditch the yellow stickies and go digital instead. I use a secure password vault called SplashID because it provides both AES and 256-bit Blowfish encryption. It allows me to sync my logins between my computer and smart-phone. Now I only have one password to memorize.

How do you kick-start your computer in the morning? Post a comment below to let me know how you make technology work for you.