Cloud Productivity

How to Set Realistic and Achievable Goals

2012-02-22T06:35:04Z

Whenever we look at making changes and improvements to our lives we need to set goals and it’s not as easy as it sounds. When I started wanting to change things I would pick what I wanted to change, ponder it for about 10 minutes and then nothing would actually change. The problem was that my 10 minutes of pondering left me with a goal that was so grand and unachievable that I had no hope of reaching it.

That’s not to say that setting grand goals is a bad thing, not by any means – we all still have aspirations of becoming millionaires I’m sure. But what it does mean is that we need to figure out a better way to reach those goals and understand that change doesn’t come instantly or easily.

I had a goal, at the beginning of last year, to set better goals. I bought a goal journal and everything. Great intentions, but zero execution. Why? Two reasons: 1) I rarely write things down any more. I’m at a keyboard most of the time now and my writing is close to illegible. Also, it was never handy when I thought of a goal. It’s harder than it sounds to sit down and think “ok, what do I want to achieve in my life”. 2) I didn’t understand and appreciate the way in which goals, and reaching those goals, truly worked.

So, after some more pondering and tinkering, I found the following solution. I’m sure it’s nothing new, but it’s how interpret goal setting and achievements.

Define Your Goals

The first thing that I found was to properly define what my goals were and why they were goals in the first place. It wasn’t enough to have a goal like “get a new car”. It doesn’t pull at your emotions and emotions is what forces us to take action. The goals you set need a reason, a motivation. What will it mean to your life if you achieve the goal? Try this: the next time you think of a goal, like “get a new car” add the words “so that” after it. Now you’re better equipped to define your goal – “get a new car so that…”. Now you have to define why that goal is important to you. You must be honest with yourself for this. If you’re not, then the goal loses meaning, will never get achieved, and devalues your other goals.

Divide and Conquer

Next, goals need stepping stones. Unless you’re already a millionaire, it’s next to impossible to set your goal, then get it done straight away. In 99% of cases, your goal will need a lot of work before you can consider it achieved. The Divide and Conquer approach says that you should break your goal down into what you need to acquire before you can achieve your goal, what you need to do, what you need others to do and an order each of these should be done. Then go through each one of these items and break them down even further. Keep doing this until you have a whole bunch of small, very achievable, tasks that each don’t take much time to complete. The sum of all these tasks is your goal and you now have your stepping stones to reach it.

Constantly Review and Refine

Things change. It’s the nature of the world. Life circumstances, financial circumstances, relationships, everything. Even your goals change! You need to move with these changes. Set yourself a schedule to review each of your goals and your stepping stones. Once a week, sit down with your goals and stepping stones and evaluate them. Have you made progress on any of them? If you have, great! Tick them off and make some comments on each. If not, write a comment why. This will help you to identify things that might be holding you back. Have any of your tasks changed in priority or responsibility? Update them accordingly. Do you need to add new stepping stones? Add them.

As you continue to evolve your goals you will start to see patterns in how you get through your stepping stones and what types of stones you can get through faster. Use this to craft your new goals and stepping stones to your advantage.

Track Everything

If you write nothing down, nothing will happen. We’ve all thought about goals and thought “right, I’ll get started on that tomorrow” only for nothing to ever happen. Tomorrow you wake up and do exactly the same thing you did yesterday. You need to write down your goals and every single stepping stone. As you jot down your stepping stones you’ll start to think of more and more of them, which is great. The further you can break down your goals into small chunks, the easier it will be to achieve them and to see real progress. It’s the progress that motivates you to complete more stepping stones.

I recommend two methods for tracking goals and stepping stones.

1. Evernote

Create a new notebook in Evernote called Goals. Then create a new note for each goal you have. Write down the goal in the subject and a description of what it means to you and how your life will be different once you achieve it. Below that, start listing all your stepping stones. Don’t be concerned with prioritising them just yet. Use the checkboxes for each stone. You can make these as simple or as detailed as you like.

The next step is to make sure you have Evernote installed on every one of your mobile devices, and, make sure that your Goals notebook is marked to sync as an Offline Notebook (this means you’ll be able to update your goals and stepping stones no matter where you are, even if you’re in a cave).

Now there’s no excuse for not reviewing your goals, adding new goals and stepping stones as soon as you think of them and tracking their progress as your tick each of them off.

As you review your stepping stones, the next one that can be done will become obvious. S you can easily find it later, make it bold. Now it’s prioritized. Yep, it’s as easy as that. When it’s done, tick it off nf un-bold it.

2. lifetick

lifetick, as the name might imply, is a tool that lets your track your goals and stepping stones. While you could use lifetick and not Evernote, I find using Evernote gives me more freedom to create and manage my goals and reasons why I have them more easily. I use lifetick to remind me to act on key stepping stones, especially when you set yourself due dates (which is a perfect way to ensure progress). Setup your goals and key stepping stones that have dates you want to stick to. lifetick will then email you before the due date and on the due date to remind you to take action. For example, I use lifetick to remind me, and reinforce, that I need to write these kinds of articles. I get a reminder each week if I haven’t written my target quota for the week. And that’s what helps me stay on track and provide you with all this content!

Setup lifetick on your mobile device too. Just go to the application URL in your mobile browser then bookmark it.

So there you have it. Easy, manageable steps to setup your real goals and stepping stones and how you can stay on track to help you reach them faster. What goals are you setting yourself now?

How to Set Realistic and Achievable Goals is a post from: Cloud Productivity

7 Tips To Cut Your Meeting Times In Half

2012-02-22T05:26:40Z

How many meetings do you have in a week, or even in a day? If you’re like most people, you are probably involved in two or three meetings per day. Each one taking around one to two hours of your time. How much time in each of these meetings do you think is spent on the details, on what the meeting was called for in the first place? Not much, maybe twenty to thirty minutes! So what happens to the rest of the time? Firstly, a meeting rarely starts on time, so there’s about 10 minutes lost. There’s the introductions and laid back chit-chat at the beginning that might last for 10 to 15 minutes. Sidetracks and tangents happen about 5 or 6 times per meeting and can last a few minutes each (or take over the meeting if you’re not careful). Banter and jokes to make sure people are still paying attention takes up more time. And finally, there’s the thank-you’s and good bye’s at the end that might take another 5 to 10 minutes. In the time that’s left, you have to power through as much content and questions as you had originally planned for the full time the meeting was scheduled for. Oh, and let’s not forget how long your travel time to and from the meeting takes. That’s a huge consideration. If you have to go out for a meeting that’s scheduled for say two hours, you should probably block out at least four hours in your calendar right away – your travel time will be about an hour either side to be safe! It all seems like so much wasted time! Here are seven tips to help you cut your meeting times in half and be more productive!

1. Prepare an Agenda

The old say rings true – “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” Without an agenda the meeting can very easily go off course and you can end up discussing last night’s game instead of what you expected (unless you’re in the sports industry, in which case last night’s game might be ok). Make an agenda. Think about why you want to have this meeting in the first place. Then write about 5 points on what you want to discuss. Each agenda item should be very strategic. Each should lead to an outcome, or an action to be done by someone. Always make sure that whoever you’re meeting with know about the agenda in advance. Send it to them in an email after you’ve discussed it with them in person or over the phone. This way they can prepare whatever they need to before the meeting and make sure the right people are involved, saving everyone’s time. If you’ve been invited to someone else’s meeting, ask them to give you an agenda. If they don’t (or even if they do), make sure you have your own one prepared anyway and keep it in your pocket for when the meeting starts to go of course.

2. Don’t Travel

GoToMeeting has HD video! Share your face, view others and share a presentation all at the same time… without leaving your desk! Oh, and it has audio capabilities. So you can save on your phone bill too!

Travel time is dead time, so just don’t do it. Use an online meeting tool like GoToMeeting to host your meeting online. You get the same feel, response and engagement as you would in a face to face meeting, without needing to spend time getting to and from the meeting and you can avoid the horrible smell someone might have walked in with. While a conference call can achieve a lot of what an online meeting can, you can’t gauge someone’s engagement with phone only. Since everyone has a webcam now, and many boardrooms have them too, have everyone switch on their camera’s and it’ll be just like you’re all together. If you’ve never tried an online meeting, now’s your chance – get a free 30 day trial of GoToMeeting and experience the productivity gain. I’ve used GoToMeeting for years now and I get so much more done, I almost have too much time left over! Instead of spending time driving, or in a taxi getting to and from your meeting, use the time to prepare, review and revise afterwards. Also, only you (the host) will need an account with GoToMeeting to use it. Attendees can join your meetings at no cost and it only takes a minute for them to get started and join.

3. Start on Time

Meetings rarely start on time. People have now come to expect that they have some time “up their sleeve” before the meeting really starts. It’s time to change that thinking. Start your meeting at the time you said it would start. If people want to spend their time chatting about their personal lives, tell them to come early, especially if the meeting has a number of people involved – you don’t want yours or anyone else’s time wasted. Meetings that start late tend to finish late. This cuts into everyone’s schedule and doesn’t make anyone look good. Once you make starting your meetings on time a habit, you’ll find people start to respect your time a lot more and will turn up ready to meet at or before the scheduled time.

4. End on Time

Book other appointments, like phone calls, right after a meeting is scheduled to end. When you start, or get to the meeting, tell everyone that you have another appointment that you can’t miss straight after the meeting. This way you’re more likely to get through the agenda and keep the meeting on track. You might even finish early and get to say goodbye!

5. Keep It Short

Let’s be realistic for a minute. No one likes meetings. No one. They’re long, boring, not of interest to you personally and generally they’re un-engaging. Keep the meeting short and keep it moving. One hour should be about the longest meeting you should have. If you find that one of your agenda items starts to take over the meeting, that’s a big sign that it needs more attention than you thought. Stop the discussion, explain that this particular topic needs some more attention and immediately schedule a separate meeting, for an hour, to discuss it. Then move on to the next item on the agenda.

6. Ban Distractions

Admit it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all reached for our iPhones, Androids or Blackberry’s or whatever while in a meeting. And as soon as your finger touches the screen you tune out to anything that is being presented or discussed. If you do this, please, don’t. Chances are you’ll later ask a question that has already been answered while you playing on your phone and will need it explained to you again anyway, hence wasting everyone’s time and drawing out the meeting. If you’re hosting the meeting, place a large bowl in the middle of the table with a label on it that says ‘Distractions’. Kindly ask that in the interest of time, you’d like everyone, including yourself, to drop their phone into the bowl at the beginning of the meeting. Explain that you’ll be able to get through a lot more with everyone if this is done. If anyone refuses, tell them your Tourette’s kicks in when you see the tops of people’s heads.

7. Know The Outcome in Advance

When you set your agenda, you should have a good idea of what you expect to get out of the meeting. It could be that you’ve learnt something. Or it could be that you need to find out something, or maybe someone else does. In any case, you should know what will come out of the meeting. Each of the agenda items should relate to an action that you, or someone else should take. It is incredibly important that these outcomes, or actions, are noted and agreed by everyone. The trick is to know the outcome, but to get to them in a collaborative way so that it “looks” like it was an action decided by the group. Meetings are like a game of chess – you have to know how it’s going to end as soon as you sit down to play. Know how to flow from one idea to another and keep the conversation on track by relating everything back to the agenda.

Have you experienced long, laborious meetings? What are some ways you keep meetings to the minimum?

7 Tips To Cut Your Meeting Times In Half is a post from: Cloud Productivity

How To Get More Done With Focus Booster

2012-02-13T23:14:10Z

Recently a friend introduced me to focus booster. It has changed the way I work. It helps me to eliminate distractions and get a lot more done in much less time, and it gives me more breaks!

Typically, when you review your task list you’ll pick an item on the list that “feels” like it’s ready to be taken care of. You then might set about actually doing that task. Normally you won’t have much of a deadline to work to, or if you do it’s not a short term deadline. This means that its importance doesn’t seem as high. Then there’s the constant barrage of distractions to handle. There’s the problem of your email client constantly reminding you of the hundreds of unread emails in your inbox. Your colleague pings you over instant messenger and asks you a question. Then you remember that you wanted to follow up something you noticed on the news in the morning. Before you know it half an hour has passed and you’re no closer to being able to tick the task off as having been done.

Distractions, not money, is the root of all evil. If we could all stay focused on what we want to get done the world would be a better place.

Short of the planets aligning, there is very little chance you can work through all those distractions and get your task done. At least that’s true for me. Well, it was true.

Enter Focus Booster

Focus booster is a small free application that is basically just a timer. After you’ve picked the task you want to attack, you start the timer. By default it’s set at 25 minutes. That’s it. You have 25 minutes to get as much done as you can before the buzzer goes off. It kind of turns productivity into a game as you constantly challenge how much you can get done in that 25 minute window.

You’ll want to give yourself the best possible chance to get your task done. So, turn off your email client (as long as your task isn’t something like “clear inbox” or “respond to emails”), set your instant message clients to Do Not Disturb and remove any other tempting distractions. In the event you remember that you wanted to follow up something you noticed on the news, when you remember it, quickly write it down on paper or in something like Evernote and put it aside, out of your mind. You can deal with that later.

You have to beat the clock!

When you give yourself so much focus and dedication to a single task you’ll astound yourself at how much quicker you get it done and the quality of the end result will be that much better.

When the buzzer does go off after 25 minutes it’s time to take a break. The timer will automatically restart itself from 5 minutes. This is your opportunity to get up, walk around, talk to whomever you need to, grab a coffee and get ready for the next focus booster session. After the 5 minute break the timer gets ready for the next session and waits for you to hit “start”. If you didn’t end up getting the last task finished, now’s your chance to complete it. Though, you might want to start making your tasks smaller, break them down further. The subtle satisfaction you get from ticking something off will help to motivate you to take on the next task. If you did manage to get your last task done, great! Now simply pick a new task and repeat.

I’m loving focus booster. When I hit the “start” button I go into “the zone”. Now and then I’ll glance up at the timer (which will stay on top of other windows) and start working even faster.

Now, by gaming my task list with focus booster, I can get more done in less time. I recommend you give it a try and see how often you can beat the clock! Once you’ve tried it, let me and everyone else know how much it improved your productivity levels and if you managed to eliminate distractions.

Get focus booster from focusboosterapp.com.

How To Get More Done With Focus Booster is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Join the Cloud Productivity Wunderkit Workspace

2012-02-03T01:05:02Z

Wunderkit has now gone into public beta. This means that everyone can now get to know and love the wonder that is Wunderkit.

One of Wunderkit’s unique strengths is the concept of public workspaces. Typically, you would imagine a set of tasks, or a project to be very private, either to an individual, or to a team. Wunderkit, however, has cleverly bridged together the worlds of productivity and social with these public workspaces with some amazing results.

What is a Workspace?

Before we get into the details of what a public workspace actually is, we better define a normal workspace.

A workspace is a bit like a project, or even a collection of projects. The Wunderkit intro site gives the examples of a creating a band, traveling the world, starting a company, and education. While very different from each other, each of these examples show how you can use a workspace to collect ideas, set actionable tasks to follow up and keep in touch with others involved in the workspace.

At its core, a workspace is a set of tasks, notes and people.

Lists and Tasks

Each workspace can have a number of lists. Lists are a way to collect tasks with a similar goal together. Tasks are what you, or someone else, needs to do. They can be assigned to someone, given a due date and tags, and marked to be a high or normal priority. If you’ve used Wunderlist before, then this tasks in Wunderkit will come naturally.

Notes

The Notes widget is a simple concept. You can add any bit of text you like. It’s an area to keep arbitrary notes, that relate to the workspace, collected together. Other members (not followers) of the workspace can edit and add notes. Consider keeping track of ideas and even using it as a place to store more detailed information related to a task.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is the main overview of the workspace. It shows what tasks are on your plate to action as well as the activity stream. The activity stream shows message updates, and when tasks and notes are created or updated.

What is a Public Workspace?

The public workspace concept is a little bit deceiving at first. Don’t think of it as all your tasks and notes being publicly viewable. This isn’t the case at all. It’s more of a Twitter stream or a Facebook wall than anything else. Members of the public (other Wunderkit users) can “follow” your workspace. What this does is make sure that when they log in to Wunderkit, they can see what you, and other followers, have publicly posted on your workspace profile area. Followers can’t see private message updates, notes, tasks or the dashboard. Any follower of your workspace can interact with you and your workspace by posting messages, or status updates, on the profile of the workspace. You, and other followers, can respond or show that you like a comment by clicking the heart icon.

So how does this help you?

The public workspace is now your one place for tracking, delegating and actioning tasks, while keeping in touch with those people who love your brand. You can quickly and easily let your followers know when you’ve had an idea, about to start work on a task, or when you’ve completed a something. You can even ask your followers what you should do next! You can do anything.

Wunderkit has already been using public workspaces very effectively as a support channel. Take a look at the Wunderkit Support workspace. The stream is flooded with questions, ideas and areas that might need attention. 6Wunderkinder can then respond to one comment and other followers can find it. It’s a great way to get feedback about how your brand operates and what your fans want.

Now, let’s give it a try in the real world

Hopefully by now you’ve signed up for Wunderkit and I’m confident you’re already loving it! Now head over to the Cloud Productivity workspace and click the “follow” button. Let’s keep in touch about all things business and personal productivity in the cloud (you can also join from the icon at the top of the page). Post a message and respond to others. I’ll be on there just about every day keeping in touch with everyone, asking you what you want to see on Cloud Productivity and answering any questions that come my way.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Join the Cloud Productivity Wunderkit Workspace is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Coffee. The Backbone of Business and Personal Productivity

2012-02-19T12:21:19Z

There are thousands of articles out there on the internet that tell you that if you want to be more productive in your workplace you should stop drinking coffee and drink more water. I’m here to tell you that is wrong. Incorrect. Rubbish.

Coffee, whether you like it or not, keeps economies, businesses and individuals going. It is the fuel for our minds, our creativity and ingenuity. It’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. It helps you get more done, in less time. Fact.

Here’s how…

Consider that you’re at your desk, staring at your computer monitor. You’re stuck. Your mind is either flooded with chaotic thoughts that need structure, or it’s empty and you’re having a “derrrr…. what the hell am I doing again?” moment.

Next you have an internal debate over what to do next and finally decide that your current state is crap and it needs to change, it needs a boost, it needs direction. So, you decide coffee is the answer. You stand up. Instantly blood flows to bits of your body that have been still and dormant for hours. Woooo, what a rush. You’re legs, arms, back and neck get the movement, blood supply and oxygen they’ve been craving and you straight away start to feel more alert. You’ve just give yourself an energy boost.

You look around you and take in your surroundings. Gaining perspective on your situation and environment and bringing you back to the present. Your workplace, your job, your colleagues, their banter, it all helps to take you out of your haze and bring you back to earth. The thoughts that were cramming your mind before are suddenly quieted, and filed away for later. You’re focused.

Time to walk to the coffee machine. More blood flows through your body. Wait… you don’t want a crappy instant coffee, you want the good stuff. You ask a colleague if they want to join you, after all, you’re doing them a favour by helping them become more productive too. The two of you head out of the office and to the coffee shop. You talk along the way. Ahh distractions… without them we’d be stuck in a place of no change. Without you even knowing it, the crazy, misguided thoughts you had before you decided to get a coffee are quietly organising themselves, sorting and prioritizing themselves and bringing the next most relevant and pressing action to the top of the queue. If your brain was empty, the tumbleweed that was in your head has found a place to grow and become a sprouting tree of ideas, but it’s still very quiet, waiting for the right time to surprise you.

You’ve stepped outside of the building. Ah… fresh air! A completely different sensation runs over your skin and invigorates you (though, if it’s a hot, dry horrible air, like it can be here in Australia, maybe it won’t). The burst of different air gives you another distraction and the change in environment further encourages your mind to sort out it’s mess of tasks.

With your coffee ordered, your body gets a chance to absorb and rejoice in the movement it has experienced and your mind delights in the quality conversation you’re having with your colleague.

Taking a sip of your coffee now awakens your palate. You consider the smell, the flavour, texture and consistency of the contents of the warm cup you hold in your hands. All your senses are interpreting the coffee, feeling it and enjoying it. After parting ways with your colleague, you take your coffee back to your desk and sit down, closing your eyes and taking one more sip to complete the journey before you open your eyes and see your computer monitor staring back at you again, just the same way that you left it (sans any screen-savers or password prompts). But alas! What was it you had to do next? And after that? Instantly, the file of thoughts or tree of ideas jumps forward, showing you exactly what you need to do next and how it should be done.

Coffee is the backbone of our productivity, both at home and in the workplace. It forces us to get up from our desks, remove ourselves from a problematic situation and take a break, if only for a few minutes. Now, you could argue up to this point that you can replace “coffee” with any drink and it would have the same effect. To some degree that is true. But, coffee has added productivity super powers.

It’s packed full of antioxidants
It’s even more packed with caffeine goodness (a proven productivity booster)
It’s just plain awesome and super tasty

The refresher that you’ve just been on to get your coffee should keep you productive for a few hours. But the inevitable slump and energy sapping, mind-numbing, chaos of the everyday will soon rear its ugly head again. And when it does, you know you can dive into your productivity arsenal and defeat that unproductive, uncaring monster with coffee!

Now, let’s go grab a cappuccino…

Coffee. The Backbone of Business and Personal Productivity is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Introducing Wunderkit: Collaboration Reborn

2012-01-31T10:37:25Z

Wunderkit is here! Well, at least it is for the first round of beta testers. I had been thinking about the release strategy for Wunderkit for a while. In any case, I was fortunate enough to be granted a beta invitation a few days ago and am loving it! From the user interface, the experience and the exactly-what-you-need/none-of-the-fluff kind of functionality that we’ve come to love 6Wunderkinder for.

A few days ago I was sitting at my desk, smashing away at the keyboard when I see my Gmail notifier pop up with an email from 6Wunderkinder. I love getting emails from these guys – they’re always so well designed. Instinctively I opened my email tab and see the subject line. A few words instantly jump out at me: “Wunderkit”, “beta”, “approved”. I don’t think I could open the email quick enough. I, like a gajillion other people, had been waiting months for the chance to see Wunderkit in action and without any word on their website they had begun sending out beta access information. I clicked the link in the emai and logged in to Wunderkit through Twitter. I was then asked to confirm my details and create a password. The password simply allows you to log in using the traditional method as well as through newer social methods.

Wow. Thats all I could think when the main dashboard loaded for me. Wow.

In true 6Wunderkinder fashion the design is amazing. Down the left I see my Twitter profile picture and an option to add something else. It turns out to be Workspaces, but more on that later. In the middle I see an empty slate, a status message stream. Immediately I test it out with a public “Checking out Wunderkit” update. On the right is a message from 6Wunderkinder welcoming me to the program. And below that it gets really crazy – public recommended and featured workspaces and people!

But wait a second, isn’t this suppose to be a productivity application? What kind of productivity application goes social, or even public with your task list? The Wunderkit kind, that’s what.

Workspaces

When i first logged in i had one workspace, my personal one. However, I discovered that you can have what looks like any number of workspaces that you want. Simple moving my mouse to the workspace area made an “add” button appear. A workspace is a bit like a project. if you’re familiar with Wunderlist, consider a workspace to be a collection of lists, or, think about your Wunderlist account as one workspace. When setting up my new workspace I found that There are two types of workspaces in Wunderkit world: Public and Private. To be honest, it did take me a little while to fully understand and appreciate the potential of a Public workspace, but of course it’s awesome.

Private Workspaces

Private workspaces are your more traditional task list approach. They allow you and your team to collaborate on tasks without the prying eyes of the public. You can maintain your members (the people who should have access to the workspace), tasks, due dates and notes, all from the one workspace.

Public Workspaces

These workspaces can be looked at by anyone. That includes the message stream, tasks and notes. But why would you want anyone else looking at these things? Imagine the hype and anticipation should 6Wunderkinder develop another application. They could use a public workspaces to keep the public updated on their progress, respond to questions and generate even more hype! I would expect that they would also maintain a Private workspace, for those notes and tasks that may not be suited to the public eye, but hey, the public wouldn’t need to know that, nor would they care.

It’s Still Beta

After I’d logged in and poked around for a while I did notice a few things that didn’t seem quite right. But it’s beta after all and that’s what a beta is all about – having the public provide another level of quality assurance testing. Some things, like the number of open tasks in a list not appearing consistently, we’re resolved the next day, showing that the platform is still being actively developed. The speed of the system overall is a little sluggish at the moment, but it turns out that is to be expected – the team is putting the platform through stress tests. A couple of other things like subtasks, are still yet to appear, while features such as repeating tasks are there and ready. The only other thing that a lot of us are still hanging out for is a mobile application for iPhone, iPad Android and Windows, and rest assured, 6Wunderkinder have one (or probably many) in the works.

After a few days of using Wunderkit I have to say that it is shaping up to be a world-class group task management tool. It’s not a project management system, nor was it ever designed or intended to be. It will help you keep your team, and the teams around you focused on yours, or your customer’s objectives. One task list; one set of notes; one source of truth, and it’s damn sexy!

If you haven’t already signed up for the beta I strongly recommend you do. It really won’t be long now before you too can become more productive, the 6Wunderkinder way. Sign up for the beta here: http://www.wunderkit.com/8Sc8TR

If you do have access, what are your thoughts on Wunderkit? Leave your comments below – it’s a social thing.

Introducing Wunderkit: Collaboration Reborn is a post from: Cloud Productivity

My Best iPhone Apps for Getting Things Done

2012-01-06T03:12:53Z

There is now two clear leaders in the market for smart phones – Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Both are amazing platforms. Their strength comes from their ability to have any number of additional applications (apps) intalled. This is made incredibly easy with the iPhone App Store and the Android Marketplace. It also helps that apps are mostly free or only a few dollars.

As it turns out, I’m an iPhone person. In fact, I’ve gone just about completely Apple with everything. I’d like to share with you my favourite iPhone apps and how and why I use them for productivity.

Wunderlist

Wunderlist is simply task management. And that’s what makes it great – it’s so simple. I fire up the app, pick the list I want to add a task two and simple type in the task. If I want to I can easily add reminders and due dates after the task has been added. Wunderlist let’s me “star” a task to clearly mark it as a high priority and it moves these tasks to the top of the list.

It goes where I go too. While I’m out and about I use Wunderlist from my iPhone. When any change is made, the app will synchronise my lists up to the Wunderlist service. That means that when I’m at my desk I can use Wunderlist and keep my task list open and in front of me. Also, if I’m at a computer that isn’t my normal on, I can jump on to the Wunderlist web app and again all my lists and tasks are there for me.

There are a ton of “todo” and “task” management tools out there for iPhone. I’ve tried a whole bunch and I always end up coming back to Wunderlist. It’s just so simple, and synchronises with all my other devices (Mac, Windows, web, iPad and more) via the Cloud. Beautiful!

Oh, did I mention that it’s free? Get it from the iTunes App Store or Wunderlist.com.

Evernote

I keep going on about Evernote, but that’s because I love it, and you should too. There’s no simple way to describe what Evernote is or what it does, except that is and does everything. It’s your dream journal, diary, cookbook, photo album, research diary, sticky notes, filing cabinet, scribble pad, etc. Everything.

If i had a good idea that i wanted to explore Prior to using Evernote, I would try to make “mental note” to think about it again when I had more time. Apparently I had forgotten how forgetful I was and the idea was never pondered again. Now, using Evernote, any idea or thought I get, at any time, gets quickly entered in my iPhone either by typing it in, or recording me speaking it. It takes all of about 10 seconds and I’ve instantly captured that idea forever.

Also, just like Wunderlist, Evernote syncs my thoughts and memories to every other device I have. Imagine doing research for a new project on the web at your desk, clipping (storing) some useful web pages into Evernote to be further reviewed and then easily being able to review, and even edit, those clipped web pages from your phone or iPad!

Just today I was in a meeting and the discussion was getting pretty technical. My handwriting is terrible at best and I can hardly read it. So, having my iPad on the table, I fired up Evernote, created a new note and hit the “record audio” button. At the end of the meeting I had the entire conversation captured allowing me to review it and hone in on key areas, and even assess people tone of voice looking for points of interest!

There is a big philosophy surrounding the Getting Things Done methodology presented by the David Allen Co. GTD is a big scary monster when you’re first presented with it, but Evernote makes it easy because it works the way you want it to, not the way some tools or methods force you too. Check out Daniel Gold’s unofficial guide to getting things done with Evernote for a practical guide on helping you setup and maintain a productive life with Evernote.

Oh, did I mention it’s free? Go get it from the iTunes App Store or Evernote.com.

feedly

There is just so much content out there on the Internet that it’s hard to keep up. I follow a whole bunch of blogs many of which post a few times a week. Between working, writing and being with my family I would never have time to read all the blog articles that I want to. Enter feedly.

feedly shows you the latest content from all the blogs you subscribe to and arranges them a bit like a magazine and in a way that shows me the articles I’m most interested in first. It keeps the whole experience clean and free from distractions and makes browsing articles and headlines a joy.

With feedly I can easily get to the articles that are most relevant to me when I have the time to enjoy them. It synchronises with my Google Reader account so I can manage my subscriptions like I always have and easily enjoy them on the go. It also has a web app so you can read from your desk. The iPhone app is great, but I do like the iPad app just a little bit more, probably just due to the larger screen.

Oh, did I mention it’s free? Get it now from the iTunes App Store or feedly.com.

BillMinder

I hate bills. But I hate it more if I miss a due date and get chased with phone calls and late fees. BillMinder tracks all my upcoming bills and reminds me twice before a bill is due.

As soon as I get a bill I do two things.

Enter the details into BillMinder – this takes about 30 seconds
Take a photo of the bill and file it in Evernote

BillMinder also supports recurring bills and even automatic payments. It lets you store your account numbers and contact details for each company that is billing you. And, it backs up your bill info to the Cloud. That means it stays in sync between the iPhone and iPad apps.

The BillMinder app categorises each bill/account I can view reports on bills paid over the last few months and look at what categories are costing me the most. But better than this, I can get a month view of when bills are due and what the total cost of the month is expected to be. This is always an eye opener.

This app isn’t free, but I recommend it. Get it from the iTunes App Store or billminderapp.com.

There a many apps around and many that tackle tasks, notes, rss and bills. I’ve personally tried a number of each of them and have found these to be the best. If you’re an iPhone, iPad or Mac user like me, I would highly recommend giving these apps a try.

What’s your favourite app to be productive on the go? Leave your thoughts below.

My Best iPhone Apps for Getting Things Done is a post from: Cloud Productivity

How to Track eBills with Evernote

2011-12-21T08:56:15Z

Are you registered for a bunch of services and utilities that you get eStatements, or eBills for? I recently switch phone companies and elected to get a PDF bill each month sent to me via email (email is so much easier to track and organize than paper… urgh… I hate paper). Today I received my first statement from them via email and, I couldn’t have down what I’ve done in the past when I receive a PDF via email that I want to keep safe and download it, then add it to a new note in Evernote, but instead, I took what would have been a repeatable task and automated it.

Here’s how I now get my eStatements delivered directly to my Evernote inbox using Gmail.

1. Setup Evernote As a Forwarding Email

First, you need to set up your Gmail to be able to forward to your Evernote email address. It’s actually really easy to do and you only need to do this once, no matter how many eStatements you want to get into Evernote.

In Gmail, go to Mail Settings under the cog in the top right corner.

Then find the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab and click the ‘Add a forwarding address’ button.

Gmail will then ask you to enter the email address you want to forward things to. This is where you enter your Evernote email address. To find your Evernote email address, click on the ‘Current Monthly Usage’ bar inside Evernote. You’ll see a screen like the one below. Copy and paste (or type) the email address under ‘Email notes to’ into the box that appeared in Gmail, then hit Next.

Gmail will send an email to that email address to confirm you own it. Wait for it to appear in your Evernote Inbox and follow the instructions to validate.

2. Find the Email

Now that your Evernote email address is tied to your Gmail account, open your Gmail account and open your eStatement email. Then, click on ‘More’ at the top and then ‘Filter messages like these’.

Gmail will open an advanced search popup. Just click on ‘Create filter with this search’, you don’t need to change anything else on this screen.

3. Create the Filter

Now we getting to the good bit. On the filter setup screen, tick ‘Forward it to’ and then select your Evernote email address from the dropdown list. You can set up any other rules you want to at the same time, just as long as that forwarding option is ticked. You don’t have to tick the same options as I have, this is just my personal preference.

And that’s it! Now, the next time you receive an eStatement, it will also automatically appear in your Evernote Inbox. If you have other eStatements you’d like to send to Evernote, just repeat the above from Step 2.

Using Daniel Golds methods in his unofficial guide to getting things done with Evernote, I monitor my Evernote Inbox and something new turns up I tag and file it. For me, I tag it with ‘bill’ and ‘todo’ and then move it into the folder for bills of that type. You can also use saved searches to easily find any bills you have that need to be paid.

Have you setup a cool way to get things into Evernote automatically? Share your methods in the comments! If you’d like to know more about how to be productive with Evernote, I highly recommend Daniel Golds eBook. It puts the potential of Evernote at your fingertips.

How to Track eBills with Evernote is a post from: Cloud Productivity

How To Relax When You Miss Your Train

2011-12-19T20:36:53Z

A few days ago I was at the train station near the city. It was peak hour in the morning. As my train arrived at the platform I stepped in (along with hundreds of other people). As the doors began to close I noticed someone running as fast as they could down the stairs to the platform and when they realised that the doors had closed, I could see them curse through the windows.

It got me thinking… what’s the rush? What’s so important?

It was peak hour at a busy train station. 99% of the people there were going into the city. The next train, as indicated on the platform signs, was due in two minutes. Was it really worth that person rushing to get to the train or getting so upset when the doors closed in front them when, if they had casually walked down the stairs, they would have been able to wait comfortably for about thirty-seconds for the next train?

I think that a lot of people in today’s society are so caught up on being somewhere they don’t need to be at some specific time that doesn’t really matter. They are missing the train bigger picture. Instead of rushing to catch the train, or bus, or taxi or whatever, it’s worth taking those few extra minutes and cherishing them. It’s these moments you get to take in the world around you, and you realise just how small and insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things.

I’m not saying that your life has no purpose. On the contrary. I am saying that when you rush from place to place and are so concerned when those two minutes slip by that your tension and anger increases, you miss out on an amazing opportunity to gain perspective.

The moments that I am waiting are not wasted. Looking around I take notice of the leaves on the trees, their branches and the perfect chaos that has formed a single tree. I look up to the clouds and remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing at that point in my life, and if it’s the right thing to be doing. Even just being with your thoughts is a beautiful thing. With all this rushing and running late for things we no longer get a chance to internalize thoughts. We spend so much time “doing” that we miss out on “creating”. To imagine is to invent. We need time to create in order to visualise where we want to be and how we want to get there. Without time to imagine, we will always be stuck in the same old day-to-day routine, with no variation from what we “know”.

The alternative to using this time to be creative is to be cleansing. Simply clear your mind of your daily troubles, of your agenda and everything else. Take note of your breathing, of the air around you and what it feels like. If it’s a cold day feel the coolness of the air on your face. If it’s a warm day, feel the sun warm your blood. Be present in whatever you do everyday.

Waiting for something? Try putting down your phone for a few minutes and look around. You may see an opportunity that takes your life in a whole new and positive direction. Look around, feel, imagine and relax.

When you do eventually arrive at your destination, you’ll find you have more energy and enthusiasm to take on new challenges. After all, new challenges lead to bigger and better opportunities.

Don’t be the guy that cursed in frustration after missing a train. Enjoy the time you have just created to just be. Take what you’ve just discovered on how to relax your mind and be present and put it into action today. It does take some practice, but it’s well worth it.

How To Relax When You Miss Your Train is a post from: Cloud Productivity

5 Tips To Save Time In Evernote

2011-12-20T22:46:13Z

Evernote is a cross-platform application that helps me remember everything. Whether it’s a photo, a reminder, a place, a bill I need to pay, a diary entry, a tweet, a web page… anything. I use i a lot. For work, blogging, family and as a way to keep paperless. My friends and family are always being told how amazing it is and that they’re mad if they don’t go and set it up right away. I have an Evernote Premium account and use it on my Mac, iPhone and on the web from my netbook that is running Ubuntu.

I’d like to share five tips that I use to speed up my Evernote workflow. There are a lot more tricks than just the ones below, but they can wait for another post.

1. Strike Through

I always want to show that an idea has changed by striking out the old and writing the new next to it. This allows me easily reference the old ideas to see how they have evolved over time. On the Mac version of Evernote, there’s no button to strike through, which is a shame. But, once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite easy to do.

Here’s how to easily strike through text using Evernote for Mac.

Highlight the text you want to strike out.
Hit CMD+T
Click the second button from the left at the top of the popup box.
Click the strike through that you want – Single is normally enough.

You can close the popups, or leave them there for easy access to strike through and other formatting tools later.

See it in action…

2. Tagging

Tagging is great. It means I can associate a note with an idea or an action. I use notebooks like a filing cabinet, sort of. For example, I have a ‘Family’ Notebook and a tag for each person in my family.

You don’t have to remember what tags you have or scroll through them to apply them to a note. When you’re creating or editing a note, simply start typing a name of a tag. If you’ve used it before, it will automatically appear. If it’s a new tag, just finish the word or phrase and hit Enter. The tag can be used again on any other note.

3. Saved Searches

If you find yourself searching for the same types of notes over and over, then using a saved search gives you the notes you’re looking for with a single click. For example, I have a saved search for blog articles I’m working on. I can then pick the article I feel like adding to and type away. Without saved searches I would need to guess some phrase in the notes I’m looking for, or browse through notes inside a Notebook, or click a tag to filter, or a combination of all these.

To setup a saved search, first do the search you would normally do. Then, click the ‘New Saved Search…’ option under the File menu. It will ask you to give it a name. Mine is called “Blog Todo’s”.

You can do some really cool things with the search bar too (before you save your search). For example, I can search for everything in my Blog folder that has been tagged with “todo” or has a checkbox that is unticked by first clicking into the ‘Blog’ Notebook and then typing this into the search bar: tag:todo todo:false.

Then, in the Search Explanation, changing the “matching” dropdown to “Any”.

Then, saving the search means I can easily bring up anything in my Blog Notebook that needs my attention. As I action them I can tick them off and/or remove the “todo” tag from them.

4. Print to Evernote

I’ve recently discovered the ability to print something straight into Evernote. Previously I would print a page or document to a PDF and save it to my desktop, then create a new note and drag the PDF into the note.

Now, I can select the ‘Save PDF to Evernote…’ option from the ‘PDF’ dropdown in any print popup box and the page or document will automatically appear as a PDF document in a new Evernote note. Lifesaver!

5. Email a Tweet

I often go through Twitter on my iPhone when I’m riding public transport. When I find a tweet with a link or anything that I want to keep, I use the option in Twitter for iPhone to email the tweet somewhere. Then, I just type in “ev” into the address book search for my personal Evernote email address and hit Send. The next time I open Evernote, that tweet, who tweeted it, and the link is sitting in my Evernote inbox ready to be processed.

You can send anything to your Evernote through email. This works best when your Evernote email address is in your address book so you can use it readily. If you’re not sure what your Evernote email address is, click on the “Current Monthly Usage” bar at the top of the desktop version, or in Evernote on your iPhone, hit “Settings” then the “Evernote email address” option. You can actually add this address into your iPhone address book from here too!

These are just some of the things that make my Evernote experience amazing. If you’d like to find out other ways to get amazing results out of your Evernote account, I would highly recommend Evernote: The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done – 2nd Edition by Daniel Gold. This eBook gives you awesome ideas on how you can set up Evernote to match exactly the way you work so that you can maximize your productivity. And… you can keep the eBook in your Evernote so you’ll always be able to reference it… from anywhere!

5 Tips To Save Time In Evernote is a post from: Cloud Productivity