When I’m starting a new project I use 5 stages of the GTD planning model as a planning guide. I’ve created a template in PhraseExpress (text expansion tool) so when I’m ready to start I hit right key combination and high  level outline of each step appears in the note. Then I start working on a project one stage at a time.

Once I have my stages clarified and different elements sorted I assign relevant tags. At the moment I’m using Evernote as a project support tool. This means I will list relevant actions and steps I need to take to move the project but I will not track individual actions in Evernote. Since I use Remember the Milk for managing actions all project related actions are moved there. But if you are interested in using Evernote only please read excellent Evernote e-book by Daniel Gold.

There are two primary tags which I assign to a project note. First is a !!Project tag second is a @Current or @Closed tags. This way I can track my open or closed project lists with a saved search  instead of to navigating through myriad of notes.

If a project is particularly large, especially if it includes a lot of notes and other supporting documentation, I would create a notebook for that purpose. This way it’s easy to keep all related information in a single location. Once the project is done  I assign a specific project tag to all notes in that folder, move them to Reference notebook and delete the project notebook. I’m trying to limit the amount of notebooks I maintain and if I ever need to refer to some documentation I can always find it using relevant tag and search box.

Additional two features of Evernote that may come handy for anyone managing project are tables and checkboxes. These two can be quite useful for keeping track of progress of the different stages of a project.

Evernote is not a project management solution so trying to fit a large scale commercial project with hundreds of dependencies may not be the best choice. However for many home and small business user it can be exactly what you need.

I’ve been thinking about  this topic little further and realized that many of us would have two or more computers to consider in their setup. It’s often the case, that the setup is very different between each of the machine. One computer would be in the office, second is a home desktop or a laptop as it is in my case.
The former is a device managed by company’s IT team subject to various policies and restrictions. It has custom build applications and a predefined set of programs that can be used. If you want something new that is not on a company approved software list you have to go through a lengthy process. Most likely ending with "no go" response. They have their reasons.  Getting this machine to the state of being perfect is difficult. The scope is very limited and you need to learn all the tricks possible to make the most of this setup.
On the opposing end there is a home machine which, with a little tweaking and good and simple software lets you get job done, the way you want. But it’s not only about the job being done. What’s also important is the style, easy of use, friendliness and all encompassing cool factor of the application you’ve selected.

Freedom to  hack, experiment is the best way to find this perfect mix of various tool and utilities which make your computer life easier. There is no single list of ideal apps different people, different jobs will require something different. For me, at this moment the perfect computer looks like this.

Web browsing

Firefox/Chrome – Firefox remains my main browser due to a set of extensions I’m accustomed to it. I also use Chrome to check email and for other tasks where I use Google services.

Writing

Evernote – Evernote is my Swiss army knife. It’s a primary tool for writing, storing ideas, managing projects and reference information.

UV Outliner/Freeplane – Non-linear thinking gets done in Freeplane, which is an excellent mind mapping tool. For more structured outlining and thinking I’m using UV Outliner which is often called OmniOutliner for Windows PC.

WriteMonkey – I use it when I need a so called "distraction free" writing environment or simply black screen and white text. The beauty of WriteMonkey is its versatility, you can use the bare bone elements to just write or take advantage of all the different options available like bookmarking, versioning, referencing, multi-markdown.

Time Management

Remember the Milk  – I’ve settled on Remember the Milk as primary task management tool almost 3 years ago. It’s been serving me well. Although there are certain limitations, versatility and ubiquity of this app are it’s best features.

Google Calendar – gives me access to appointments everywhere I need. There is hardly a better calendaring solution.

Other essentials

Dropbox – for syncing and keeping backup of current work, for sharing files with family and friends.

PhraseExpress – this a fantastic piece of software that allows me to automate a lot of my typing. I have text snippets for almost anything from email addresses, mail addresses to numbers, tags, keyword combination and even few paragraphs. If you type a lot and prefer keyboard as main tool this program is definitely worth trying out.

Thunderbird – email client from Mozilla, I’m using it to keep a backup of all my email.Run it once a week or so and all emails will be pulled for storing on my laptop. This gives me access to my email on and offline.

Lastpass/Keepass – password management becomes critical, using easy memorable words is no longer an option so best way to solve this is to resort to an application that can store this information securely and generate passwords for you. Keepass is an standalone open source application whereas Lastpass is web app with Firefox and Chrome extensions that lets you sync passwords on all your computers. I’m using two programs solely for backup and security purposes, having two encrypted copies gives me a safety net and ability use my data regardless of the situation.     

Notepad++  – This is very powerful text editing application with syntax highlighting, making coding a great experience. Although I don’t use it very often it’s indispensable at times when I need to update WordPress theme files or edit a piece of CSS code.

So this is my current setup and as I’ve been finalising this post I realised that almost all of the above tool have been in my arsenal for a good while. I take it as an indication that majority of my computer needs are now solved. Although it’s more than likely I will be looking at other tools and introduce new tweaks the skeleton  of my perfect setup is here.

As many of you may know RTM is not the best project management solution it’s great web app for managing tasks and actions but connecting projects and creating nested solutions is not it’s strength. Sure you can try to hack it in many different ways but none would appear to be too intuitive or straight forward.

Evernote is great for taking notes of ideas, plans, sketches. When working on a project you can gather all backup and supporting documentation in it. Evernote is so versitile application

that its possibilities go way beyond that but I wanted to focus on the implication for projects.

In recent weeks team behind Evernote added new feature called note links. This allows you to create a link to your note which you can share in many various ways. Send by email, tweet include in other application.

My project list and many other action lists live in RTM. I prefer to keep it their so I have a single point of reference. RTM is good for tasks but not very good a project support solution. This is where Evernote comes handy.

When I launch a new project I create a new entry in RTM project list. Then I move to Evernote where I create a note for that project.

Next step is to create a list of next actions that allow me to complete the project. If I want or need I can supplement that with any thoughts, possible ideas, alternative solutions. All this gets saved into my note.

Last element is connect the information collected in Evernote with RTM project list.

This approach lets me do three things.

1. I have quick access to project support material straight from my task application.
2. When I decide to work on a project than I can either schedule it in calendar or RTM and simply press the link to focus on those project related tasks.
3. Having a list of actions ready I can import them to RTM and by adding a proper syntax for tags, due dates, priorities. This is especially useful for project that may have a large number of moving parts and dependencies . So rather than refer to Evernote I can do what’s needed based on the RTM task list.

You can’t call it a deep integration like the one offered by folks behind Zendoe app yet the existing options allow me for creating quite nice and simple workflow.

Big thanks to Dan Gold for highlighting the usefulness of note links in his post.

The applications Michael uses are for a Mac computer but if you want to use his post as an inspiration for creating your perfect mix head over to altrnativeto.net.

This site will help you find almost any alternative for Mac, Linux, Windows applications.

So what’s your perfect computer?

Evernote is tremendously useful and versatile platform. Over the last number of months it became my go to place for filing almost anything.
After reading Evenote ebook by Dan it got me thinking about different areas of responsibility. One of those is keeping up this blog. It involves making sure I have a post ready for each week. One post a week sounds easy right and perhaps it’s for many but for me it’s not always. Having a structure in place which lets me focus on different aspects of writing is great aid. As result of some tinkering and reading few different articles I came up with this little writing/blogging workflow.

1.Make a template for a blog post

List key elements/sections which you normally would include in every post:
     * text
     * links
     * photos
     * sharing platforms
     * mentions of people/blogs that influenced the post

Writing in the spur of the moment is great for capturing that moment of inspiration but more often than not writing is laborious process. Creating consistent and attractive looking posts makes better impression on readers and site visitors. This templates allows me focus on writing and when I’m done with it move to other elements of blogging that otherwise could be forgotten. As result my writing efforts can reach more people (hopefully).

2. Use tags to manage different stages for writing process

     * draft current/on hold
     * idea
     * published
     * to be published

When it comes to writing and blogging there are different stages of the process. In short you start with an idea/rough outline, then you work on developing it, then you publish it or leave it in a queue for later. Tags are perfect way to manage this aspect of flow. Rather than look at all your ideas and half written posts you can select a specific tag.
Splitting different stages of the process allows for greater focus and navigation between elements. Rarely or never you have to look at at published post and ideas at the same time. However at different times you will look at very specific stage. If you look for something new to write simply select "idea" tag, when you want to continue working on something that was open for a while you will select "current" tag.
Easy to manage and configure. I find it quite effective. Rather thank keep a bunch of text files (a good option too) I prefer to have it all in Evernote.

3.Bigger writing projects

Novels or serious post with lots of research and support documentation use a separate notebook or even a stack of notebook.

     * gather what’s needed in one or more notebooks
     * once project is done you can move all the data into single place or assign one tag to find it later.
     * keep a small amount of notes (master note) or combination of notes and tags to manage to final result (copy)

Sometimes using tags to separate the content is not best solution, a physical separation may bring better results. When working on something complex which requires a large number of supporting documentation separate notebooks will allow to divide the research from writing and drafts and notes

Additional stuff

Couple additional tips and features that make Evernote great writing tool:

Full screen mode is great for focusing on task at hand. It so easy to get distracted by other things happening on you monitor, twitter feed. Full screen might be overwhelming especially when it’s just white space but once you start filling that space the sense of progress is encouraging

Inspiration and gathering ideas are very important elements of writing process. Evernote offers simple yet useful ability to record and store voice memos and pictures of thing s that caught your attention.

Often times you will want to share your drafts or finished articles with other people to get their feedback and opinion. To do that you can avail of note links which allow your to send a link to a note via email. You can also use shared notebooks if they are Evernote users too.

One feature that I would like to see in Evernote is a black screen editor for distraction free writing. Sounds odd as it should not matter what you use but somewhat it does. Personally I find that writing on black screen with nothing else on it does really help to keep focused and push that writing forward. Perhaps there will be someone looking at API and thinking of designing a simple and nice editor. For now I’m sticking with WriteMonkey  and coping to and from Evernote. Slightly awkward but WriteMonkey seems like a better tool for writing.

photo by Bright Meadow

Lots of productivity advise is geared toward geeks and people willing to play with software. You can hear about using macros, scripts, auto text solutions which automate a lot of your work. But those solutions require at least some computer knowledge and willingness to explore.

At the same time if you work for a big corporation, use of non-approved software is not permitted. It’s more than likely that use of applications like textExpander or PhraseExpress will not be allowed for security reasons or simply because it’s easier for local IT team. You could push the limit and try to install something on your own but it’s risky and there may be consequences.

So how to improve your productivity where you can’t use latest software, your are not a geek and can’t create macros? Start with exploring three options: keyboard shortcuts, templates, checklists.

Use keyboard

Easiest way to increase speed on your computer is to learn keyboard shortcuts. Rather than patiently navigate through different menus and options use key combinations to get your stuff done.
Most certainly you’ve heard about ctrl+C, ctrl+B combinations. There are hundreds more,  almost every application has them. You don’t need to learn all of them at once start small and build up as you go. Here is how to do  it:

• Define your key applications. Figure out which programs you use the most, there is no point in spending time on learning a tool you use once in a while.
• Check the list of shortcuts and print those you think will be most useful. Any time you do something check if there is a keyboard shortcut for it.
• Keep the list in front. Pin in on the wall or tape to your monitor.
• Refer to it as much as possible and try to memorise them.

Once you’ve learned the shortcuts and used them for couple weeks observe how smoother and faster your are at computer.

Use templates

Do you write standard letters or email communication? Do you have to print the same form everyday?
If you find yourself creating the same type of documents time and time again. Rather than re-type the same content each time and think what to put in it try creating a template for each type.
Create a folder with all your templates and put a link on your desktop for quick access. Then each time you need to send an email or some other document refer to that folder and use the template. Fill the blank with client specific information and your done.

Use checklists

Another way to deal with standardised and repeating tasks is to create a checklist to describe the stages of the process. They can save you a lot of time and reduce chances for mistakes. Couple ways in which checklists can help you increase productivity:

• Don’t have to re-write sub tasks every time.  Being able to see all the sub-tasks makes it easy to complete the work 
• Don’t have to think what needs to be done. Some tasks are complex and lengthy with lots of moving parts. Having to re-think every step of the process would be time consuming and very risky.  Think of plane mechanics, there are thousands of parts in engine so if each mechanic would have to remember what to do when servicing it would make it easier to forget about this or that element.
• Easily deal with distractions. It’s not uncommon that someone interrupts our work. Having a checklist at hand makes it easy to know where you were and what to do next to complete the process.

Are you a non-geek? How do you improve your productivity?

Hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful. I would appreciate your comments and opinions.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been discovering how well projects and mind maps work together.

I subscribe to the GTD based notion that anything that takes more than two steps is a project. As result my project list grows at a very fast pace. For the moment I’m fine with that and using a mind map to manage that really makes a difference.

Also projects from a key element of my work so it’s easy for me to think and work “in projects”. As in my workplace pretty much everything is a project setting up my workflow around this makes much more sense.

In the last couple years I’ve been using Outlook to manage projects and actions. Outlook is great for creating action lists, unfortunately projects don’t fit into it well.

I’ve tried many different approaches to handle projects but was not very successful. Unless you buy a special add-on (not possible in my workplace) your choices are limited. Finally, I’ve settled on using categories to separate actions and projects and waiting for’s. Project details were recorded in the notes section. That was sufficient but not great.

I had my project list in plain view but nothing more, unless I’ve opened each project I couldn’t see what’s next, where the project was, etc.

Recently I’ve discovered that I can get installed a Mindjet’s MindManager Pro on my work computer. I immediately requested access and began transferring all my stuff into a mind map.Thanks to embedded Outlook sync I’ve exported all my projects and tasks into a single dashboard like map.

Initially I thought I’ll be using a single map for everything, projects, actions, ideas, calendar etc. Unfortunately I quickly discovered that this only lead to visual overload and makes managing tasks more complicated. I’ve settled on creating a dashboard like map which includes my current, future and closed projects. In addition I’ve added links to other maps which include my current goals, someday/maybe items etc.

My projects reside in mind map however actions are synced/inputted to Outlook. It’s purely practical reason. Outlook is open whole day for me so it’s easier to focus on the actual things to do in there.

Why I moved from Outlook to MindManager? and

Why MindManager or any other mind mapping software will work?

• Single place. Having all in one map provides better overview of my commitments. I can see straight away how many projects are there and what’s their weight. In addition projects can be broken up by tasks so I can see how big is the project or what’s involved in it.
• Focus. I can select a project with it’s sub tasks and move to new branch This way all I’ll see is that one item I should be focusing on. There is no distraction from seeing other items on my list.
• Defence against distractions. Having an outline of tasks necessary for each project makes it easier to jump in and work on it for 15 to 30 minutes. And when ever someone interrupts I always know where I was and what’s next.
• Tracking. Adding a quick update to mind maps is very easy. Something happened, an idea occurred, new task I can simply add those things when needed. Very often projects change direction and so the related tasks. Using mind map allows to capture all these things so that your list is current and up to date.
• Archiving and reference. Once project is done I file away with all it’s notes, completed subtasks etc. If there is a need to go back and check what was done I can always do that and have a clear overview.

I’m still at a stage of refining the whole setup and workflow but the results are very encouraging. I can see that I’m handling a lot of stuff. This is good for two reasons I can show that I’m doing a good job and juggle a lot of projects. On the flip side if I struggle to keep up rather than let things slide I can ask for help and pass a well defined project to a colleague.

If you have access to any mind mapping software my suggestion is to try it out, see if you can improve on your work performance.

photo by  Ernst Vikne

Why/What you need

Before you can start building anything you need to know why are you doing and and what do you need it for. Simple answer to question why is to be more effective, to be more organised, to get the right things done, to have more time. You might have other reasons but above would be most common.

What you need in your system will depend on the methodology you’re subscribing to. Perhaps like me you may be a practitioner of David Allen’s Getting Things Done method or you might prefer Steven Covey 7 Habits of highly effective people, maybe Mark Forster’s Do it tomorrow has a greater appeal to you.

Regardless from the method you choose there are certain elements that are mentioned in every approach. They may appear under different name or in different combinations yet they all are referring to the same. The key categories include following items.

- actions/task list

- projects and project plans

- reference material

These three categories cover full spectrum of tasks you may encounter. Simple one off items get added to task list. More complex thing are broken down on project list. This way it’s keep stuff in control and don’t loose those multistep items. Once you are done and want to keep a record of your process and achievements you can save them in reference files along with interesting articles, ideas  etc.

There is a great number of applications used for managing this type of content.I’ve decided to use following services and programs.

• Remember the Milk – tasks and lists that I use on regular basis.
• Freeplane – project list, project action plans, goals, multi-step endeavours.
• Evernote – reference material, project support documents.

Why I’ve chosen these products?

First off all they are simple to use and setup. Because they are good in their particular areas I can get better amount of focus. For example if I’m in Evernote I know there are no tasks for the to look at as any active action/task gets logged to Remember the Milk.

All applications come for free and provide enough features to make you a very productive person. If you want to support developers you can go pro and add couple more features which make the products ever better.

All programs are completely cross platform is some shape or form. This means I can access my tasks, reference material on my Android phone when ever I need. If I have new idea I can always add it to one of my lists. Remember the Milk and Evernote have great mobile clients. My Freeplane maps are compatible with ThinkingSpace application on Android which makes my projects fully accessible from any where.

What’s also important for me is the information flow between these application. Although there is no sync between these services thanks to email I can push some data from one service to another. Alternatively I can take snaps of my mind maps and add to my project files.

These there relatively simple applications allow me the create a system that’s simple, accessible anywhere and free*.

If you use different setup or can recommend other applications please share them in the comments section.

[*Just a little note of disclosure: I’m using a pro version of Remember the Milk and will be subscribing to Evernote Pro in next couple of weeks. I’m paying for both on my own.]

Wakoopa

Many people consider productivity tools as applications like task managers, reference databases, calendars, diaries etc. they good for making us more organized more focused but not to produce any work, not to design presentations and writing reports.

When you look at the usage patters the primary productivity tools are not calendars or task managers but word processors,  spreadsheet applications, presentation design tools.

These are the programs that allow us to produce something. These are our tools that allow us getting the work done. We use them everyday, we write reports, read emails, compile data. Word, Excel, Keynote are our basic tools.

Office applications developed for over 20 years grew in features and became more sophisticated. Today’s workplace tools have hundreds of features and functions. User guides and tutorials have thousand and more pages. There are countless websites and forums devoted to answering all sort of questions about them.

Despite the availability of information and training many knowledge workers simply don’t know the tools they are using. Most people spent hundred of hours every year using those tools yet they never go beyond the basics they have learned in their early years of office work.

Not many see the link that being proficient with the software helps get the work done.Many businesses are all about finding efficiencies and increasing productivity yet they look at software proficiency as one of the elements of their strategy. Perhaps they think that it’s enough what they know but is it really, can you really tell that you know everything about your field of work, can you really say that you don’t need to learn.

I think when you look are the obstacles that prevent you from moving forward ability to use software might be one of them. Think of this, if you were a writer would faster typing skills and better knowledge of word processing program not improve your chances or if you are an analyst would better understanding of spreadsheet and database software not improve your chances. 

By learning the ins and outs of the software you can save yourself a ton of time and use it on developing your knowledge and other skills. You can create custom phrases, improve the speed at which you operate, make thing more appealing, and finally go beyond simple ctrl+c or ctrl+x and abandon that mouse.

There are over 500 million Microsoft Office users worldwide that use Word, Excel and Outlook on daily basis. Therefore I’m listing just a dozen of various resources which help you increase your knowledge of above applications.

Keyboard shortcuts:

Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Word

Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Excel

Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Outlook

Functions, tips & tricks, how-tos:

Officeusers.org

Bnet.com/Microsoft office

MSOfficegurus.com

How to Geek/Microsoft office

Ultimate List Of Office 2010 Tips & Tricks

PC Unleashed

How to Outlook

MSoffice.us

What should you do with letters, invoices, bills etc where some action is needed but it’s in the future?
Where should you keep those items so they don’t get lost?
Getting Things Done system suggests to use a tickler file.

What’s tickler file?

It’s set of 43 folders where you store items that you need to be reminded of in the future. The main categories would include invoices, bills, leaflets, coupons , air tickets, hotel confirmations, various forms etc.
There are 31 folders for each day of current month and 12 for every month. Then each day, respective folders are reviewed to check what is for today.
As with many GTD behaviours the key to success with tickler file is to review it regularly and keep it updated. A one tip that has been mentioned by David Allen and Jason Womack to make using tickler more fun was to put randomly some money into folders. You would get those surprises where 10-20 dollar bill would pop up so you could buy a nice coffee or something.

Tickler in the age of bits

For many people tickler file would be the most physical element of GTD implementation. There is a bunch of folders, there are some trays or box to hold those. However in today’s age less and less things come in paper format. We can opt for email delivery of bills, scan invoices, coupon codes from favourite shops, etc. All this makes setting up a full blown tickler not practical.

With advent of digital solutions for managing tasks and calendar setting up a tickler file in an electronic format is very simple. Just create calendar in Google Calendar or Outlook and call it "tickler" and your are done. Every time you will need to set a reminder for bill or a invoice  but don’t want to clog your main calendar view leave the memo in that special calendar.

The problem and a solution

The problem arises with the few things that still come in in paper form. Probably there isn’t a lot of them, perhaps a handful in a  year maybe a dozen or two. Setting up a 43 folder cabinet to simply manage occasional letters and leaflets would cause more hassle that benefit and would quickly be abandoned.

However to keep things organised you shouldn’t left stuff lying around even if this is just a couple of letters or forms. It’s quite likely that when you need that bill or that invoice you wont be able to find it. Still you need some sort of solution.

Why not making the most out of electronic and paper by supplementing first with the second .
Use an electronic calendar to record dates and setup reminders. Every time you get a reminder from your tickler calendar go to your folder (see below) pick up the item and complete the necessary action.  You should leverage your current approach so there is no need to change your behaviours.

With the papers put them in a folder that will serve as a storage solution for all items you need to keep track of. Anything you would need reminder of later is stored there. 

Depending on the number of items coming your way you can setup 1 or more folders to be able to find things easily enough. If you need more folders you could use: two for every six month, three folders for every four months and four folders for every 3 months.

With this limited number of folders the whole system is simple and there is very little overhead  – it’s just maximum of four folders.

If you find that four folders is not enough to handle the stream of papers consider one of the two things. Either set up a folder for each month to divide those documents or examine ways to reduce the number of things that reach you in paper form. Perhaps some things can be eliminated completely or simply be send as .pdf file.

Tickler file is a useful way to keep track of bills, coupons, vouchers and invoices. Although it’s very much tied to the physical world of paper it can be successfully adapted into the world where electronic calendars and devices dominate.

Special Thanks to  AMcDermott for inspiring the idea for this post.