Using AMP you will easily and effectively organise all the things that you need to do. The result: you will become a more productive and more relaxed.

AMP is for you if:

•    you do not need the comprehensive features of Life Manager Pro.
•    you want to keep track of all your actions and  projects in one easy place.

AMP has 3 basic sections  –

Actions
•    View summary and details of all your actions.
•    Easily filter actions to view just the ones that you want to focus on.
•    See all projects linked to actions.

Projects
View summary and details of all your projects
Find projects easily
See all actions linked to projects.

Calendar
View all your appointments and meetings in one place.

To view a video and screen shots go to
http://lifefieldsoftware.com/amp.html

You can also download a  30 day fully functioning trial of AMP at:

http://lifefieldsoftware.com/download.html

Maybe you do not need  all the modules  or the complexity of Life Manager Pro. You simply want to organize all your projects and tasks and get them done. If so, then Action Manager Pro is for you.

The program is very user friendly. There is no steep learning curve to use it and  there is no large manual to read – all the help you need is incorporated within the program.

Action Manager Pro is in the final testing stage and I hope to release it before the end of this week. I’ll let you know when it is ready.

One of the themes that has emerged is the syncing of data. Many people have access to different computers. You may use a different computer at home, at work or when traveling. It is important to have access to all your information whenever you need it.

You can install Life Manager Pro on a USB memory stick. It works perfectly fine that way. You can then plug the USB stick into any computer.  Things get a bit complicated if your home computer is a Mac and your work computer is a PC. Although both versions of the program use the same data file, syncing the two together is not straight forward.

Another solution is to save your data on the web and download it whenever you need it.

There may also be a lite version of Life Manager Pro which will basically a task manager but still based on the Getting Things Done approach to actions.

If you have anything that you would like to include in the next version of Life Manager Pro then please comment on this blog entry.

For Mac uses there are only minor fixes . The two notable ones are:

• In previous versions if you upgraded, the home page did not always display the correct version number.
• The quotes on the home page did not always change.

For Windows users this version is a leap forward from the last version. The interface has had a makeover to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

There is also news section which links to a web feed for the latest news and tips on using Life Manager Pro.

To download go to:

http://lifemanagerpro.com/download.html

You will also find that the web site has had a makeover. It is now easier to navigate and pages should load quicker.

The major improvement in this release is the integration with the Mac Address Book and Ical. Life Manager contacts and next actions can be exported and imported between Ical and the Address Book which means that Life Manager Pro information will appear on the Iphone or Itouch. Also Life Manager Pro contacts are now available in Mail.

One of the major omissions on the Iphone and ITouch is that any Ical to do’s do not appear. Why Apple has not included this facility is beyond me. It would have been fairly straight forward to export Life Manager Pro next actions to Ical as to do’s.

There are plans to create an Iphone app version of Life Manager Pro, but that will take some time to develop. What was needed was a solution to track your next actions on the Iphone before the app was ready. The solution I came up to was to create a mail note that will appear on your Iphone.

The review section on Life Manager Pro has a list of next actions. These are the actions that you want to do today or soon. If you press the make note icon, the Mail program is opened and a new note is created. The next action details are then written on this note. After an Iphone sync you will see this note on your Iphone which is a neat way to quickly check on what actions need to be done. Now there is no need to forget to do something because you are on the move.

Calendar actions and contacts can now be exported and imported to Ical and the Address Book.  A new calendar  called Life Manager Pro is added to ical. Any events added to this calendar can be imported to Life Manager Pro.

When you sync your Iphone or Itouch you will be able to access the Life Manager Pro events or the Address Book contacts.

The interface has also had some major tweaks.

This version of Life Manager Pro is finished, but it needs a few days of final testing before it is ready. It is planned to release it next week.

There will also be a dedicated Mac site for this version at http://maclifemanager.com

Version 2.3 adds repeating or recurring actions. This is a much requested feature. If you have a regularly occurring event such as a weekly meeting or a college class, you can set a repeating interval and the number of times to repeat the action. This is simply done on the action  detail page using the repeat button.

The next major update will add calendar and address book integration on the Mac. There are also plans to develop an Iphone program so that you can take your information with you on the Iphone. This again will probably be a MAC only feature.

To download version2.3 of Life Manager Pro go to:

http://lifemanagerpro.com/download.html

This has been a hectic week.

Sometimes it seems that there is just too much to do each day. Do you lead a hectic busy life? What does it take to just slow down and relax whilst still getting things done?

The secret is to only concentrate on only what needs doing now. If you have a hundred things to attend to then break them down into smaller sections. The two main categories that actions fall into are those that need doing next and those that can be done later, perhaps in a day or two. You then divide your next actions into contexts. A context can be a location such as your home or office, or equipment such as the computer or your telephone.

If, for example, you decide to do call actions you then sit with your telephone and look at the list of people that you need to call and dial the number of person one on your list. As soon as you start dialing, forget about everything else that needs doing. There is only one action that needs doing now. Simply relax and make the call.

A great deal of stress can arise from a feeling of being overwhelmed. Remember, you are only ever able to do one action at a time and that is the only thing that need occupy your attention. The rest is on a list. When you have finished one action cross it off the list and move onto the next action. Forget about the 99 other actions that need doing.

Obviously you need to system to take care of all this. The simplest way to start is with a pen and a piece of paper where you write down all the things that you need to do. Then you divide them into next and later actions before allocating contexts to your next actions.

If you try this system and it works for you then you will find yourself under less stress. You can then expand the system and really find out how easier life can be. Life Manager Pro is a simple yet effective software solution to organising all the things that you need to get done.

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• Low
• Medium
• High
• Urgent

I then would start with my urgent to dos followed by my high to dos and so on down the priority list.

There is a problem with this approach. No matter how I arranged my list I was always hit by overwhelm – the vast amount of things on my list. I would read and re-read the list then consider my available time and think that there was no way that I could complete the list by the end of the week.

The difficulty  with low priority tasks is that they tend to be done after everything else had been completed – and if your time runs out then the low priority tasks may not be done at all.

The Getting Things Done approach to organizing your life, tackles both the priority problem and the overwhelm problem.  In later posts I’ll go into how this is achieved.

Getting Things Done means that you become more productive and efficient in your time management. Because of this many more of what would have been low priority tasks get done in a week.

By labelling a task as low priority it diminishes the task, gives it no importance, so therefore it does not matter if low priority tasks get done or not.  But how do you judge whether a task is important or not?

Often simple and straight forward tasks can have extremely beneficial effects that you cannot predict. For example, a courtesy call to announce a new service to a client who has done little business with your company, may result in that service being exactly what that client needs. The result: the client spends lots of money for your service and this significantly affects your profits for the current year.

There is something known as the Butterfly Effect which, simply put, says that small minute actions sometimes have significant effect on the outcome of a situation. An example of this is choosing to stand in the centre of the platform at a station rather than stand at the beginning or end. It seems unimportant what end of the platform you stand if the train is half empty. No matter where you sit you can get on the train and easily find a seat. So as an action, choosing where to stand, could be seen to be a low priority one.

The train arrives and you get on the middle carriage. All the seat rows have at least one person on them, so you sit down next to a woman, a complete stranger. By the end of the train journey you have chatted to the woman, then you go for a drink together, and six months later you find yourself  getting married to her. Would any of this have happened if you had stood at a different place on the platform?

The point of this story is to illustrate that you never really know the outcome of a given action until later. By neglecting the low priority actions you could be missing out on a wonderful opportunity in your life.

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This update is free to all registered users and can also be downloaded as a 30 day trial.

Release notes:

• Updated interface – slicker look
• Home page now becomes review page
• Collect module replaces Headbox
• Minor bugs fixed
• Overdue events now highlighted in red
• Vision chart re-designed to show more action links

There will be some new videos uploaded tomorrow to let you have a real feel of how the new verfsion operates.