Add Evernote to your productivity kit
Posted by Jered | Filed under Recommended
People talk about their productivity toolbox, but I find my productivity kit is more like a garage. Tools have a pretty unique use, but being a person who signs up for everything that comes out, I have a lot of tools that do the same thing, but each has their own unique style. Like having a garage full, two cars, a bike, maybe even a motorcycle, I can only ride in or on one at a time. That is how I feel about my productivity tools. It depends on how I feel. Most days I will use my car, but others I like to use my bicycle.
Evernote has made it past the 3 week tech trial and is now a car in my productivity garage. I am dumping a lot of information into it, via the web, desktop and email interfaces. Most of the notes I am adding are personal, but the ability tag and search are excellent. My wife and I have added questions for the doctors visits, blog post ideas, software I want to try, webpages I want to be able to keep and search.
The couple of reasons I would recommend Evernote include:
- The text search with in images is amazingly good. even cellphone camera shots are searchable, which means I can snap a photo of a business card and then search for it later
- The tagging feature lets me apply my personal taxonomy to my notes, which increases the chance that I will find what I want when I need it.
- The multiple vectors of entry are amazing! Being able to email notes and retrieve them on my iPhone (now in a fabulous iPhone interface) takes care of me on the road, while the desktop client lets me get everything the mobile does and then some. Adding check boxes and encrypting notes are slick features. The added ability to search on those check boxes, checked or otherwise, allows Evernote to be come a idea manager (checked for ideas I have blogged about).
Michael asked the question: “How may tags are too many tags?” I don’t think there can be too many tags. I don’t keep the tag sidebar expanded, I only do so when I am looking for something. The search is much more effective, and does the image search.
Pardon me while I go a fill up my Evernote car, I’ve got some more thoughts to capture.
Tags: capture, evernote, evernote.com, image search, search, taxonomy
RescueTime: Time sink or savior
Posted by Jered | Filed under Choice, Craphack
I stumbled upon Rescue Time, an app that lives on your computer and continually monitors what you do. This monitoring is sent back to a Web site where you can see how much time you spent on a given task, say, filling out that TPS report or surfing Wikipedia.
Rescue Time allows you to rate each activity you do on a scale from -2 to +2, setting how productive each task is. Surfing wikipedia is a -2 in my book, checking my email (as little as I might) is a +2. Rescue Time records only the “active” application, meaning if you have multiple applications open, it will not add time for each application open, only the one you are working on.
This productivity tallying is shown off in pretty charts and graphs allow you to see over time what you are spending wasting time on. But this comes with a price.
Having Rescue Time installed at work and at home really makes giving each Web site I visit a score difficult. The scores are needed in order to show your Efficiency and Productivity quotients. But the time it takes to classify, tag and score each Web site I visit, could be enormous.
So does Rescue Time define the term craphack?
Yes and no, if you plan on living and dying by Rescue Time, you are most certainly going to become tied up in the management, but if you use it as a background tool, checking in occasionally, noticing how much time you have spent on digg or wikipedia, it may be a refresh to get back to work.
Tags: Craphack, measure, measurement, rescue time, time, tracking
Andre Kibbe on “What’s the Next Distraction?”
Posted by Michael | Filed under GTD, Site
In terms of GTD, David Allen reminds us to always ask ourselves, “What’s the next action?” In a smart play on words, Andre Kibbe asks over on his Tools for Thought blog, “What’s the next distraction?”
Most of us make To Do lists that really aren’t so much about doing things, as they are lists of stuff without definition or context. We feel better knowing that we put everything on a big To Do list, but if my experience is any indication, I think many of us get “deer in the headlights” after we realize just how much “stuff” we have and no idea how to get it all done. In a 2003 interview by Management Consulting News, David Allen, states:
…what most people call a to-do list is incomplete and unclear, which is highly unattractive. Everything on your list is either attracting or repelling you psychologically. There is no neutral response: it’s either, oh boy, when can I mark that off or, get out of my face. If there are still a lot of decisions you need to make about items on your list, your brain glances at the list and says, I don’t have the energy to do all that thinking, go away.
Even if we can get out of the headlights and across the road, we’re still left wondering what to do next. This is a crucial moment of decision about whether to move forward (decide on next action) or stagnate / procrastinate / panic / etc. In his post, Andre Kibbe suggests that a common form of procrastination is what he calls “serial digression,” and he offers us the following example to illustrate his point:
Many To Do items that people write down are multiaction tasks, like “Set up Dell,” as opposed to a genuine next action like “Read Dell Quick Start Guide.” The aim of a next action is to keep your attention on the most immediate physical task instead of the outcome. A To Do like the one in the example is overloaded, conflating what needs to be accomplished with what needs to be done. Any project, no matter how large or complex, can be parsed into at least one next action that’s simple to do. Not everyone can get into Harvard, but anyone can download the admission form.
Put another way, David Allen remarks in the MCNews interview that, “You don’t usually see specific actions on to-do lists because most people haven’t forced themselves to sit down and finish their thinking about what has their attention. They collect items in their in-basket or think they have made a list, but there is another level of thinking that is required to move forward.”
What we’re left with are what Andre Kibbe defines as “Next Distractions” noting that, “Procrastination is more than not doing priority tasks; it’s doing non-priority tasks.” In terms of what Kibbe calls “Crutch Activities,” he argues that, “No task exists in isolation. A key consideration of any activity is not what the activity is, but what it leads to.”
So, whenever we go to check our RSS readers just before starting a project, fire-up our browser to find something on Wikipedia, or even write that next blog post (ahem…), be sure to remember the suggestions and quick tips that Andre Kibbe offers in his post. And watch out for the deer.
Tags: David Allen, GTD, productivity, To Do
Thanks for the praise and constructive feedback on the podcast!
Posted by Michael | Filed under Site
Just wanted to thank everyone for all the feedback you’ve provided us over the last few weeks. As we discussed in our previous podcast, we’ll be doing one or two short clips during the week, and then a full-length show every other week. Also, I’ll admit that my audio editing skills aren’t yet top-notch, so apologies all-around if the last podcast was a bit, shall we say, off? We appreciate your patience and continued support, even though it may hurt your ears a bit while we get things figured out. Definitely keep sending us your comments and suggestions.
KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid or Keyboards In Simplicity Success
Posted by Jered | Filed under Recommended
Michael and I started the Simplicity Habit to break through the “top 10 list” syndrome that permeates the lifehacking ethos. While this post will have numbers and will be a list, it is only because these are programs which have been very helpful in my quest for productivity. Please consider this not a “top 10 list” but a series of personal recommendations.
- Mail Act-On
I am a keyboard shortcut guy. The less mouse work I can do, the better. As a Mail.app user, I want a way to manipulate my messages without having to drag-and-drop them to my Archive folder (yes, just one folder).Mail Act-On, from indev software, allows me to hit the ` (reverse tick, just below the Escape key), followed by a letter or other key and my mail is moved, colored or added to my GTD application.
Setup is simple, just create Mail.app Rules with special prefix and best of all, Mail Act-On is free.
There is a difficult Windows work around using Outlook and some scripting, if you want to try it out, go here: http://justgeeks.blogspot.com/2007/04/outlook-keyboard-shortcuts-or-button-to.html.
- Quicksilver
Being a keyboard shortcut guy, Quicksilver is invaluable. I can get to or do most of the things I need to do on my computer by simply invoking Quicksilver by a two key combination, start typing and abracadabra, I’m getting that though completed.Quicksilver can / is a huge program, it feels like I am continually just scratching the surface. The best way to learn about it is to read some of Merlin Mann’s posts or go to the developers website: http://www.blacktree.com/
Quicksilver is free and now open-source.
Launchy is a Windows alternative: http://launchy.net/
- OmniFocus
Michael and I went back and forth a little bit about the use of a dedicated Getting Things Done application. OmniFocus, from the OmniGroup is my application of choice. I have tried a lot of them. GTD Apps are like breakfast cereals, every person likes a different one. I could write about why I like OmniFocus, but it all depends on how you want your system to work. The ability to invoke a “Quick Add” window with a keyboard shortcut, makes it very convenient.OmniFocus is $79.99 from the OmniGroup: http://omnigroup.com.
The closest windows alternative to OmniFocus would be David Allen’s Getting Things Done Outlook Integration from davidco.com.
- 1Password
I have hundreds thousands of passwords to remember, email, logins, etc. A password manager is really useful and for the Mac 1Password is the best. 1Password allow me to automatically fill and sign into sites with a single keyboard shortcut (sensing a theme?).The added ability to fill forms, sync to multiple computers and putting those same passwords on my iPhone in a simple list and login script makes 1Password in valuable.
1Password costs $34.95 from http://1password.com/.
Roboform is the suggested Windows alternative: http://roboform.com
Tags: 1password, GTD, keyboard, keyboard shortcut, launchy, Mail Act-On, Mail.app, Merlin Mann, omnifocus, omnigroup, quicksilver, shortcut
