First off let me start by admitting that I am a Google addict. Over the last few months I have been moving more and more of my life into Google’s hands.

I started off with Google Reader. Up until 6-7 months ago I never really used readers much. That was because I never took the time to understand them. As an information junkie I used to spend 3-4 hours a day visiting my favorite websites looking to see what was new. Now in about one hour I get double the information I used to get in four hours.

After I became addicted to the Reader I made the transformation from Outlook to Gmail for all my email needs. I never knew you could use your own personal address to send and receive email, but you can. Then I started moving all my scheduling to Google Calendar. Now I think there are still some advantages to Outlook’s calendar, but I am slowly getting used to Google’s version.

Recently I started using Google Docs to replace Office. While there are still some bugs, this service is great. Imagine you are at home working on your spreadsheet or a report on a document or some type of presentation. Then you jet out for a few meetings. Your first meeting ends a little early and you have 45 minutes to kill. You can take out your laptop and keep working on your presentation. Opening your laptop and realizing you didn’t bring it, or you did bring it, but it was not the latest version can be frustrating. However if you had done your work on Google Docs you can sit down at Starbucks, log onto Google and while drinking your Venti White Chocolate Mocha you can pick up right where you left off. And you can’t forget about the sharing feature. You can share your document with a friend or associate who may double check your work and make edits. No need to keep emailing it back and forth, it is right there for both of you to see.

Then there are other things like Google Books, Maps, Finance, Earth, Talk, Toolbar and all types of helpful applications for web developers. Not to mention two newer great features like the free GOOG-411 and new web browser Chrome.

I thought my Google phase had finally peaked, but last week I started playing with iGoogle. iGoogle is a Google homepage you can customize with all types of Google applications and widgets. On one page I can see my Reader, Gmail, my calendar, weather, local gas prices with GasBuddy and what is on TV tonight. That’s not all, there are dozens of widgets you can add to iGoogle. This new application again has saved me time as I don’t need to switch back and forth between applications.

Has Google taken over my life? Probably not yet, but they seem to get closer to doing so each day. So how do I find out about the newest and latest from Google? From their Official Google Blog which I have loaded into my Reader of course. By saving time with iGoogle and all the great Google applications it has allowed me more time in the day to be productive in my real estate business.