Getting Things Done with Nozbe Blog

Send actions with comments from email straight to Nozbe!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:37:00 GMT

If you’ve followed Nozbe long enough, you know that our support for email in Nozbe has been constantly improving the way you get things done with email.

My last post is here where you can learn how to send actions and notes in one email to a Nozbe project

There is always a room to improve.

Recently we’ve been optimizing more and more processes in our company and we’ve been thinking how to use Nozbe for customer support.

We started with this – our customer support team is sending emails with special cases to our new “NozbeSupport” project with the problem content and the action required.

However, the action appears in actions section and the rest of the email in the notes section. Not that good, should be better integrated.

Introducing sending to email as a comment, if only one action in the email

So whenever you’re forwarding an email to a Nozbe project with only one action below it, just like this:

The action will be added to the proejct with the very email body as its comment:

Should the email contain more than one action, it’ll be saved in Nozbe just as it was before – actions to actions and email body to notes.

Conclusion?

if you’re sending email body with ONE action – the action is being added to Nozbe with the email body being added as a comment to this action.
if you’re sending email body with MORE actions – the actions are being added to Nozbe with the email body being added as a note to the project you’re sending this to.

Hope you’ll like this implementation of Email to Nozbe and it will help your group get more done and will help Nozbe serve you better.

Thanks for making Nozbe better and giving us your feedback!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:06:00 GMT

We’re always busy improving Nozbe and working hard on making it great, but I never on this blog emphasized enough how much you – our users – are giving us quality feedback.

We keep on receiving great emails from you every day that help us make Nozbe better. Thank you!

It’s just so great to have such an active Nozbe community where I can almost “rely” on my users that if we do something wrong, or differently than it should have been, I’ll surely receive an email from you.

You show you care and it’s the best reward I can get from my users! Thanks!

In this post I’d like to quote some of the great feedback we’ve recently received and thank to the contributors:

1. Mateo Carli

Matteo is a security expert (check out his blog linked above) and he pointed out a while ago we’ve had some XSS (Cross Site Scripting) vulnerabilities in Nozbe – nothing major that would get the data out, but something that could affect the way Nozbe performs and that could lead to a security hole in the future.

He pointed out exactly what the problem was and we’ve managed to quickly fix this.

Matteo – thanks for your help and for making Nozbe even more secure!

2. Countless Email suggestions (sent to our email: questions AT nozbe DOT com)

We’re receiving many suggestions, bug reports and feature requests via email and we’d like to thank everyone who sent them in!

Above all we’d like to thank:

Andy Barnes
Bart Epstein
Paul Dworianyn
Russ Broomell
John-Paul Bogers
Juan Viera
Surcy Peoples
and many more our users who keep on sending us emails with great feedback…

3. We’ve got a very active forum where you can talk to other Nozbe users and where our support staff is also active.

... and we’ve got great users very active in the forums and I’d like to thank among others:

Chris Shaul
Frank Martin
Reid Williams
Esther Gokhuke
and other great forum users – thanks everyone!

4. We’ve got our blog! that you’re presumably reading right now, and we’ve got great users commenting here and sending their feedback directly to us.

We encourage you to comment more and let us know what you think – we’ll try to make sure the posts will be more frequent (2 times per week) and we hope you’ll also comment and let us know what you think.

Special thanks to these guys:

Brian Tait
Paul Campbell
Juan Ros
Mickey Mellen
Dale McConkey
and many others for your comments and direct feedback.

If I missed someone, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to, and appreciate your feedback all the same!

Thanks everyone for being so active and creating a great Nozbe community and hope to all that we can get things done… together!

To finish this up, we’ve got great announcement for you for next week and I’m sure you’ll love it, it’s a special feature many of you will really love… keep an eye on us and let’s stay in touch! Thanks everyone!

Join the fans of Nozbe on Facebook!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:35:00 GMT

OK, Nozbe has been quite active on Twitter and we’ve got a great Twitter integration with Nozbe but I personally haven’t used Facebook all that much.

It was right about time to set up a fan page on Facebook and I’ve just set up one:

facebook.com/nozbe

If you’re active on Facebook and you like Nozbe, I encourage you to join our fan-page – over there I’ll be posting some cool stuff, also some fan-only special offers for Nozbe, so make sure to sign up as the fan of your favorite GTD web app.

Thanks!

Nozbe’s Facebook badge:

nozbe

Promote Your Page Too

Invitation to my new personal blog - Internet Business Productivity

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:58:00 GMT

Just before the weekend I managed to set up my new personal blog at:

MichaelNozbe.com

As you can see I used the same domain name as my Twitter name:

@MichaelNozbe

Anyway, I encourage you to check it out and subscribe to my feed

This Nozbe blog will continue to be updated, but over at the new blog I’ll talk about three things:

Internet Business Productivity

- the three most important things I care about in my professional life – it’ll be a hub of all the things I do online and all of my work-related thinking.

The cool thing is that I’m using posterous service as my blogging platform which means I’ll be just sending emails to post to my blog. Sweet.

Anyway, hope you’ll drop by, subscribe and let me know what you think, my goal is to crank at least 2-3 posts per week. We’ll see how it goes.

Aah? And are you following me on Twitter? 4000+ people are already!

Video of powerful Drag and Drop features in Nozbe... for lazy & productive people?

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:34:00 GMT

Last night we shipped a few small enhancements and tweaks to Nozbe and after a demo I gave to the GTD Virtual Study Group I realized how much the Draggnig and Dropping in Nozbe is an under-valued feature and how “moving stuff around” helps me every day to get my list right.

I decided to record this short video showcasing the powerful Drag and Drop features of Nozbe:

Did you know all about drag and drop in Nozbe? Did you know you could drag and drop so much in so many places? Are you using Drag and Drop in Nozbe so much? Let me know in the comments below!

Video of Nozbe 2.0 Advanced Features - to help you get more done with Nozbe

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:20:00 GMT

Right after we launched Nozbe 2.0 I created and posted a video of Nozbe 2.0 in action which to this date resides on the Nozbe welcome page right when you click on the Nozbe logo inside your Nozbe account.

I think it’s time for a more advanced video uncovering the cool new features of Nozbe 2.0 as well as those that have been redesigned from 1.0:

Nozbe 2.0 Advanced features video

There you go – hope you like it and hope you’ve discovered something new in Nozbe that will help you get more done… and stay tuned for next weeks as we’ve got some great things cooking for you!

Wow! As seen on BBC News Television - Nozbe improves Kate Russel's productivity

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:47:00 GMT

I’ve noticed traffic stats of Nozbe went up since Saturday but only until today I had the time to have a closer look at this and to my astonishment our traffic almost doubled so I went ahead and checked it and it was because…

Nozbe was featured on BBC News Television program called “Webscape”!

Here’s the link to full video

Here’s what Kate said about Nozbe:

Altogether a great offering to the world of productivity software
neat, well-designed and to the point and free
there should be more stuff like this in the world

Wow, I blushed several times when watching this video – thanks Kate!

Kate even mentioned our introductory video to Nozbe 2.0 and said I had a lovely voice :-)

I’m really excited, besides from iCali show I don’t think Nozbe ever was on television before… yes, we’ve appeared on many high profile blogs and web sites but now Nozbe’s featured on international Television!

Nozbe Tiny Calendar - your perfect date-related drop zone!

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:04:00 GMT

Last month we redesigned our Nozbe Calendar to help weekly planning and weekly reviewing.

We’re still improving the calendar and decided to give you something more – a Tiny Calendar widget that can help you click to plan your week… and also to help you schedule your actions.

Introducing Tiny Calendar Widget:

The widget is on the right hand side of your actions – right above the Contexts list.

What does it do? It’s your Drop-zone!

If you want to schedule an action, just drag it over and drop it on one of the dates on the widget or “this week” or “next week” labels to schedule your actions accordingly.

It’s that easy!

Hope all scheduling fanatics will have a great fun scheduling their events.

How do you like new Calendar now? How do you like the new Tiny widget?

Plans for this week? Next week? New way of planning in Nozbe 2.0 Calendar!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:27:00 GMT

We’re rolling out some great new features to Nozbe Calendar in the 2.0 version and I think you’ll love them.

We’ve been inspired by ZEN to DONE, a spin-off methodology created by Leo Babauta based on “Getting Things Done (GTD)” by David Allen. In Zen to Done, you create rocks and stones – tasks to do for a specific day and for the week.

Introducing Weekly view in Nozbe 2.0 Calendar

together with scheduling for this week, next week, or whichever week you want!

Just have a look:

And of course you can drag and drop your actions between specific days and weekly scheduling. This way you can plan certain important tasks without committing to certain dates and later schedule them at the day you want.

If you don’t want to drag your tasks around, you can quickly change the date to “this week” or “next week”, like that:

Hope you like the new features of Nozbe Calendar and it’ll prove even more useful during your Weekly Review.

Question: How will you use “weekly” scheduling? What are the actions you’ll be “scheduling for next week/this week?

My Team - Business features migrated to Nozbe 2.0

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:31:00 GMT

We’ve been working very hard on porting new and new and newer features of Nozbe 2.0 and we’ve got great stuff coming to show you.

I’ll start with new “My Team” section inside Nozbe:

This is the old “What’s New?” section from Nozbe classic that we’ve ported to Nozbe 2.0 – now you can manage your team members and post messages and browse your recent activity all in one place, quicker than ever and Nozbe 2.0 style.

Hope you like the new features and this will help you invite more users to share stuff with you!

Important: This new section is available to users how either own or are part of Nozbe Multi-user plans like:

Family (up to 6 users)
Team (up to 15 users)
Business (up to 40 users)
or Max (up to 100 users!)

Thanks to these cool plans you can set up Nozbe accounts for your friends and colleagues, here are some examples:

A mother can set up Family plan and thanks to it she can set up Nozbe accounts for her husband and her two sons and they can get stuff done together
A project manager can set up a Team plan and thanks to it he can create Nozbe accounts to each member of his project team and they can use GTD to collaborate more effectively together. They can share messages, track recent activity, etc.
A company owner or CEO can set up Business or Max account for his entire company and thanks to this solution he can stimulate evangelizing GTD methodology among his employees.

Try new Nozbe Team Accounts for 60 days and you’ll see how Nozbe will help get all of you more done.

Question: If you’re already using any of Nozbe multi-user accounts, how are you getting things done together with your colleagues or family? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. We’re rolling cool calendaring features tomorrow, so stay tuned… :-)

Small things matter - automatic scroll up when switching projects

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:59:00 GMT

The cool thing about new Nozbe 2.0 is that after it’s already out in the open we can now focus on making it a really great app by adding small tweaks and touches here and there.

We’re also working on big stuff like the new calendar, inbox and new collaboration features, but in the meantime we take our time to make sure all the small details are not forgotten.

Today I decided to share with you one of these small details that make working with Nozbe a breeze – and this feature has been suggested by you – our users – so keep the feedback coming!

Automatic scrolling up, when switching between projects – just have a look at the video:

Hope you like these small fixes that make the big difference – keep the feedback coming and watch out for more updates as we make Nozbe really perfect for you!

Two weeks after Nozbe 2.0 launched - a lot has happened!

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Two weeks have passed after the Nozbe 2.0 launch and and in my response to your comments I made it clear we want Nozbe 2.0 to be the best GTD app on the Internet.

We’ve been very busy making sure most of the ported features are there and most of the issues have been fixed and resolved.

This is what we’ve done so far:

- Added “Project names” in the Next action and context views

- Introduced filtering to Next Actions just like in Nozbe v.1

- Improved Calendar and due dates and added quick action button to the Calendar (more calendar enhancements are coming!)

- massively improved “Review” function of Nozbe – now even with hundreds of projects the review should load quickly and there should be no problem with scrpt not loading entirely

- added lots of other small fixes and improvements based on your fantastic feedback

Having said all that, we’re not 100% there yet with Nozbe 2.0 – there are still many refinements we’re working on this week and next week and we’ll introduce them gradually.

Again, thanks for your great feedback and keep it coming! – we’re listening and making sure that we really make 2.0 the best GTD productivity app on the Internet – and thanks to great users like you we’re making this happen.

P.S. To all the GTD (R) black belts there, we’ll be introducing a real proper Inbox soon, so stay tuned!

First Video Demo of Nozbe 2.0 in action!

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:42:00 GMT

We’re busier after the launch of Nozbe 2.0 than before I guess, but it’s a good thing :-)

Today I decided to quickly record a quick 5-minute screencast showing how Nozbe 2.0 works in action – just the basics, I’ll post a screencast with advanced features later. Enjoy!

Embracing the feedback after Nozbe 2.0 release - thanks everyone!

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:46:00 GMT

Wow, what a day, after almost 24 hour marathon to make sure we launch Nozbe 2.0 on time, I’ve received quite a few critical comments after the launch.

I’d like to thank everyone who commented and I welcome more feedback and comments!

I’m very proud and happy to have users so passionate about the product we’ve created.

Thanks – we’re doing this for you!

Let me address your comments and concerns:

1. New Design

The new design is different from “beta” design and you’re right I should have given you a chance to play with it beforehand.

However we’ve tested the new design and I’m sure after a few hours you’ll love it. Of course it’s a personal thing, but I’m sure you’ll find it really pretty and nicer to work with – and as we’ve learned from Apple Inc. – aesthetics is very important when you’re using a tool every day.

Having said that – we’ll be introducing several themes to choose from, different colors, etc. so you’ll be able to fit Nozbe to your liking.

2. Bigger fonts

We are still debating – maybe we’ll make it an option to change the font size or one of the themes will let that – we’re still not decided – but one thing is certain – my experience is that it’s good to see “less” on the screen – if you see too many projects at once, you’re not focused on getting them done, you’re focus on reading all that’s on the screen, with bigger fonts you can focus on getting stuff done that’s in front of your face.

There was another aim with the new design – to make sure you know where your focus is – on your action list in the middle of the screen – and to put everything else a little outside.

Sure, you have to scroll a little more to manage the tasks, but it’s less clutter, more focus, and eventually – more GTD :-)

3. No project indication in “Next Actions” – it’s there now!

Sure, we didn’t get this one right and I’m sorry for that – it’s there now. – please refresh your page.

Now you can see project in both Next Actions view and in each Context view in Nozbe 2.0 – hope you like that we’ve included this one so quickly.

4. No filternig in “Next Actions”

We’re porting the filter as I write this – it should be there in a week at the latest. Sorry for this delay, but we’re on it.

5. Review – it’s there, too!

The much appraised view “Review” is still there and it’s better than in 2.0 but we’ve decided to hide it a little to make sure there is less clutter on the screen.

Just click on the “Projects” link

If you click on the “Projects” link you’ll see all of your projects – makes sense, huh? :-)

It gets even better!

When you have a label active, it’s showing only review of the projects from this label, it’s really useful, just have a look:

Hope you like the new, improved “review” feature and I think it belongs where it is.

And there is more – we’re working on the “review” version for contexts as well so stay tuned – it should be out in a week.

6. Colorful projects

This feature should be also available in a week or so – your current colors of projects in Nozbe classic will be ported, so you won’t lose them.

7. Where is Nozbe classic? It’s there!

At the bottom of the page there is still a link to Nozbe classic (version 1.0) so you can revert to it if you like, especially if the above items are crucial for you, so just use Nozbe classic for a week before all the features will be ported. Or if you have IE6, you need to use classic.

8. Calendar – where are new features?

As I wrote in one of my last posts we’ve got great enhancements for Nozbe Calendar 2.0 but we’re still developing them so we decided to re-schedule the launch of new Calendar – but it’s in the works.

9. Speed

We’ve done our best to make the release as quick and as snappy as possible – I live in Europe and the servers are in the USA and I have a “normal” Internet connection in my home office and I’m noticing great speed improvements although I’m so far far far away from the server.

However speed depends also on the computer, the browser and operating system you are using – so if you have problems or Nozbe is not as quick as it should in some areas – please let me know with exact info on your system settings and we’ll keep on optimizing!

10. And now what?

And now… hopefully you’ll fall in love with the new Nozbe and you’ll understand that we’re doing Nozbe for you and we’re doing everything we can to make sure you’ll have a great experience using it.

So please bear with us as we implement the last missing pieces of the Nozbe classic puzzle and keep sending feedback and your comments!

Again, thanks a million for your support and let’s make Nozbe 2.0 the best productivity tool out there and out here! :-)

Nozbe 2.0 launched! Your faster and prettier tool for getting things done

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:59:00 GMT

Wow, what a day – we planned to launch by noon EST and now it’s already past 6 pm!

But it’s there, Welcome to Nozbe 2.0

Now when you log in, you’ll see a different yet familiar interface:

Everything works smoother, faster and easier than in Nozbe “classic” and nicer than in “Nozbe beta”.

We’ve even redesigned the main web site a little:

OK, so there you go, Nozbe 2.0 is live for you to enjoy. Please let me know what you think

I’ll blog about more details soon, it’s past midnight in Europe and we’re all totally exhausted but we’re very excited about the launch!

Thanks for your support guys, if you happen to find bugs or problems (there might be), just email them to us directly and feel free to post your overall impressions in the comments below.

Feel free to Tweet about @nozbe

Thanks!

(Nozbe 2.0 video preview) Converting an action to project for max GTD productivity

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:33:00 GMT

It’s Nozbe 2.0 Eve and we’re launching tomorrow.

I’m loving the new Nozbe and I’m hoping you’ll love it, too. To make sure you know what I’m talking about I prepared a quick video screencast of Nozbe’s cool new feature suggested by many of our users – convert task to project:

Make sure to spread the word about it and stay tuned for Nozbe 2.0 tomorrow! I can’t wait, can you?

What do you think about the new one-click feature?

Nozbe's up and running, faster than ever! (though not yet 2.0)

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:16:00 GMT

We’ve successfully migrated Nozbe 2.0 engine to our production server and we’re getting ready for the Tuesday’s launch!

We’ve optimized our production server as well (this is why we needed the downtime) and we’ve added cool technologies for speeding up the code execution on Nozbe.

Right now even Nozbe Classic or current Nozbe beta should feel snappier and quicker… but the real speed boosts will be noticed in Nozbe 2.0 once it’s been introduced on Tuesday.

Thanks for your support and let’s soon launch the 2.0!

Now we’ll enjoy a little of Sunday…

Tomorrow Nozbe Scheduled Downtime 3am-6am EST - in the meantime read Productive Magazine

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:09:00 GMT

As promised in the Nozbe 2.0 schedule tomorrow we’ll have to bring Nozbe down for maximum 3 hours (between 3 am and 6 am) to migrate Nozbe 2.0 from the development server to the production server.

We’ll try to keep the downtime as short as possible but the migration can take up to 3 hours.

In the meantime read Productive Magazine

Tomorrow is Sunday so instead of working in Nozbe (who works at 3 am?) I recommed a good read and I’ve provided one for you – and it’s the newest issue of the Productive Magazine:

It’s a free PDF download with great interview with Michael Bungay Stanier and articles by top productivity bloggers, so make sure to grab your copy and recomment it to your friends.

If you’re curious how Nozbe 2.0 will be introduced – well, tomorrow we’ll migrate the new Nozbe to the production server, but you won’t be able to see it yet… we’ll test it and tweak it on Monday and it will be launched around 12 noon EST on Tuesday.

Keep your fingers crossed!

(Nozbe 2.0) Getting ready for next week's launch

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:19:00 GMT

What a busy week, together with my chief developer Tom we’ve been busy making Nozbe 2.0 happen and we’re feeling very confident about the Nozbe 2.0 release.

What will happen on Tusday, Nozbe will be:

twice as fast as current Nozbe 2.0 beta
very beautiful, I mean, really really nice
featuring greater collaboration with nice task delegation
more intuitive and easier to use – meaning less clicks to get from A to B
still similar to good old Nozbe you’ve accustomed to love and rely on with your Getting Things Done® process

Because we wanted to have this realease out of the door and meet the deadline, Nozbe 2.0 will not have a handful of really cool features we’ve been cooking for you like: updated weekly calendar, stand-alone inbox and some cool team-oriented features we can’t wait to show you.

All these features are half-ready and we just decided to first roll out Nozbe 2.0 in the stable form and introduce these throughout rest of August and beginning of September.

This will be a busy weekend for us, but we can’t wait to show you the new cool Nozbe.

Hope you’re as excited as I am, thanks for your support and patience, I really believe we’re taking productivity apps to next level with this release.

(Nozbe 2.0) How the new Nozbe will be introduced - August release schedule

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:15:00 GMT

We’re finishing up the Nozbe 2.0 implementation. I’m very excited to see how new Nozbe looks and works. It’s a lot faster than Nozbe 2.0 beta and it’s sooooo beautiful!

This week we’ve been finishing up the new design implementation and we are still performing tweaks and improvements to make sure it’s stable and works as advertised.

Here’s our release schedule:

Next week (August 3-10) we’ll be testing the interface, tweaking and checking the performance, I’ll be posting updates on the blog
Tuesday August 4th we’ll launch new issue of the Productive Magazine announcing new Nozbe
Sunday August 9th at 3 AM to 6 AM EST will have a scheduled downtime as we’ll migrate Nozbe 2.0 to the production server. We’ll try to keep the downtime as brief as possible.
Tuesday August 11th will be official Nozbe launch date!

I’d like to extend my thanks to our chief developer Tom Kapelak who’s done a great job writing Nozbe 2.0 and integrating design with the app.

Anyway, mark August 11th in your Calendar – you’ll see a totally new productivity web application that hopefully will set new standard for this kind of apps!

Thanks for your support and for your feedback – I’m sure you’ll love the new Nozbe, can’t wait to have it online.

For updates before the launch date, subscribe to this blog and follow me on Twitter