simplerich

Let that long tail wag! It started with TechCrunch then went to TalkingStory and then here. I’m pretty far out there so if you haven’t seen this topic covered already I’d be surprised. I’d also recommend you go read the source material that inspired this one.

I’ll break it down into Use Daily, Use Weekly, and Mean to Use But Forget. I almost included a “Can’t imagine a use for” or “Never use” but that just seemed mean. I’m going to include things I use for work and personally.

Daily:

1. Android Phone – I switched from Blackberry to Android the day it came out for Verizon and was in love immediately. Personally and professionally it’s changed my work flow completely. The syncing with the Googleverse made using it immediately easy and seamless on and offline. I couldn’t imagine using a different phone. Just like TechCrunch‘ commented on it’s seamless integration with Google Voice was a huge plus. The transcription of voicemails to text messages and e-mails, even when not perfect, and it rarely is, is a huge time saver. Aiming it at whatever phone number I want to aim it at is a huge plus as well.
2. Gmail – I really don’t understand how anybody would use anything other than Gmail for their mail. I use it to grab my work e-mail from the work servers and still act as if it were coming from our work domain when I send mail. My bosses don’t know I’m not using their godaddy web-interface, they just know that I can find any e-mail they’ve ever sent me in seconds. They believe I’m very organized. I just know how incredibly useful the search function is on Gmail. The huge mailbox size is also a huge help. While my work mailbox could fill up (It doesn’t due to Gmail gobbling the e-mail out of it) my Gmail box doesn’t. Co-workers get full e-mail boxes. I don’t.
3. Kindle – Technically a kindle2, but that’s splitting hairs. The e-book reader from amazon has changed the way I read in the less than a year that I’ve had it. For one thing I read a lot more often now and a bigger variety of books. Now that they’ve added PDF support to it I have an even larger selection of reading material to choose from. I can carry enough books for months of reading in my backpack on a work trip. I can get more books while I’m in my hotel room without having to get out of bed. I can bookmark, annotate, search, highlight, and mark-up a book from within the kindle and nobody accuses me of tearing up a book.
4. iPod nano (and itunes)– I know I finally sold out completely and don’t just refer to it as an mp3 player. The features of the iPod and itunes together, and it’s the magic of the two of them together that I love mind you. One of the things I like personally about the iPod is that it works with the Nike+ site and the iPod doo-dad that helps me with my running. No other mp3 player does that for me. Audiobooks, audible.com, and podcasts are what I primarily use the iPod for. I have music on it, but I’m mostly a spoken word person and itunes is excellent at grabbing my podcasts and managing them for me on the iPod.
5. Dropbox – This one is surprising to me when everybody doesn’t use it. It’s a small program that sits in my taskbar and syncs some folders I aim it at with a site on the web. I can then choose to make those folders on the site public, private, or share them with only certain people. The default is to make them private. I recently went from a Macbook Pro to a PC Laptop and it was the easiest transition I’ve ever made. I had all my work stuff in a folder in Dropbox already (called “Workrap” respectfully enough lol.) Now, imagine if you have multiple computers… you install Dropbox on all of them, log onto them with the same account and suddenly your “Workrap” folder is on all your computers and if you update a file at work it’s automatically updated on your home computer and on your laptop as soon as they get on the internet. If you update it while you’re offline, when you get online it’ll sync up just fine. Seriously changed my workflow. Using another person’s computer? Log onto dropbox online without installing anything and get the file you want to show them and you’re set.
6. Evernote – My brain. I’m not exaggerating. I store everything on Evernote. It’s similar to Dropbox in that it’s “in the cloud” and I can keep things synced across multiple computers and my phone. I store all my information in there. Online, offline, on my phone. If I need to find Mom’s Gumbo recipe and I’m in the grocery store I fire up Evernote on my phone and grab it. If I’m on my laptop and someone calls I automatically open Evernote as my capture device.
7. OpenOffice.org – I haven’t paid for Microsoft Office since the early 90s when I bought Works. I’ve used the free open source alternative for Word, Calc, and Presentations. I love OpenOffice, couldn’t be without it.
8. Laptop – I use it every day but I don’t love it. I loved my Macbook Pro but it wasn’t working out for me at work. I found myself running in parallels all the time for stuff so I’m back to Windows. Now, I prefer Windows 7 to Vista, but it’s hard to come back to a PC after being a Mac user.

Weekly:

1. Google Docs – I should use this one more than I do. I use it weekly to save work documents that I get e-mailed to me by my boss. I open them with Google Docs to make sure there’s a copy out there in the cloud as well. Since I’ve started using Dropbox I’ve used Google Docs less and less. I use it primarily when I’m on the net tracking something a lot and don’t want to wait for OpenOffice to open up. I track my fitness stuff on Google Docs but other than that and the one work document that’s about all I use it for.
2. WordPress & Blogger – I’d like to say I use these two blogging platforms more often than weekly, but I’ve been a little slow lately. I’m getting better, but I love my blogging and both platforms offer something that makes me keep them both.
3. Digital Camera – I love my Canon Powershot. It’s not the biggest, fastest, most megapixels thing out there but it fits in my pocket and allows me to get the shots some of my friends with fancier cameras can’t or don’t get because their camera takes too long to prep for the shot. I enjoy taking pictures, and while I took fewer this year than previous years it wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy it as much as it was because I wasn’t as happy. Work was/is affecting my quality of life and one of the measures of how happy I am is how many pictures I take. The quiet months are unhappy months. I know, more than you wanted to know, but it’s an interesting observation nonetheless.

Mean to Use But Forget:

1. Pandora – I love this music streaming service but I always forget it. Then I’ll remember it for a few days and then it falls off the radar again for another couple months.
2. Stanza – I’ve gotten so hopped up on using the kindle that I really like reading e-books now but sometimes I have my laptop and not my kindle and I sort of stare at the wall wondering what to do next. It’s only later that I remember I have Stanza on my laptop which will allow me to read many e-book formats. (It also converts between formats so I can get some things on the kindle that I couldn’t before.)
3. Windows Widgets – I keep meaning to turn them back on but I forget. Then I remember and turn them on for a while and then turn them back off. I want to like them but can’t find it in me to stick with them. I’ll try them every month or so.

So, what technology do you use to make your job/life easier.

I recently noticed how Evernote had become a part of my work flow while I was on hold. I had a stack of papers in front of me and had the phone on my shoulder and was entering the information into Evernote. I hadn’t had to remind myself to do it. I just took a couple free minutes to do it.

I’ve gotten very used to importing PDFs to their website that my boss sends me. (Everything he scans winds up a PDF and from there it goes to Evernote so it will be searchable later.) Between the two of us we’re really going paperless. It’s becoming very handy for tracking down open loops and is increasing both of our productivity.

I got finished entering in the information into Evernote. I tagged it with a couple tags  and closed it up. The next day the meeting time came round and I opened up Evernote, and all my first meeting’s notes were tagged so they’d all be there in one place and we banged out that meeting, with dates, times, numbers, and all the pertinent bits in no time at all without me having to shuffle papers or look things up. Between the scanned PDFs and the tagging I had all my information at my finger tips with no pausing to look things up.

Second meeting went exactly the same way and the best part for me was the lack of stress in between the meetings. I wasn’t shuffling papers into order, high-lighting, or making sure I could find whatever they might ask for at hand. I KNEW it was at hand because it was in Evernote as either a PDF or as a file I’d generated myself. And in any event I could get to it with a mouse click without waiting on some viewer to open or file to open.

Evernote really has become my one place repository for information.

This application is the first time I’ve wanted an iPhone. It’d allow me to use it all the time instead of just when I had my laptop out. But down that road lies madness! I still use my moleskine cahier for those times, and honestly, it’s probably the fastest, easiest, most streamlined method of capture while on the road and in the field.

Chris asked on twitter about how people are using Evernote for GTD. I’ve read some ways people are using it and some tips, but none of them to me seem like more than just “Hey! Lookit what I can capture and how.” But that’s entirely unfulfilling as it just amounts to more STUFF.

First off, in case you don’t known. Evernote is a great web application as well as desktop and iphone application for capturing information and storing it in a central location. As such it’s my new inbox. I put PDFs in there, pictures, text documents, and notes.

I’ve got 3 files I use all the time that are always current.

1. Screaming Baby file
2. Big Ole Project List
3. Some Day Maybe

My Screaming Baby file is my immediate capture file or things that I jot down (I open it while I’m on the phone and capture things we talk about and them either do them, file them in the appropriate slot, or store them in a reference file at the end of the day and as the day goes on. If I have a second I open and process this screaming baby file. A screaming baby always needs attention to make it stop. This file should not be more than a screen long. If it is you’re not processing enough. You’re just capturing. Take a minute to organize or you’ll get overwhelmed and nothing will ever get done.

My Big Ole Project List file is where my next actions go. I hate not having what the next actions are associated with being there so I tend to have projects with the projects’ next actions indicated. I indent if I’m waiting on something and if I have next actions after the wait and want reminders I indent that as another indent. Once I’m no longer waiting I move the indent over back to the left. Once a project is completed I move it to another file, it would be a 4th, but it’s not that important, I just hate deleting anything. The 4th file is called “Done Done Done” I copy/paste the completed project over to there at the bottom, and add the date to the name in parenthesis so I know when it was completed in case later someone wants to know. This list gets gone over thoroughly at week’s end. Some projects can sit for a while, but if it sits for 2 weeks with no action I scratch it. Obviously it wasn’t important. It goes to my Some Day Maybe file from here. I want it capture, but want it off my mind nagging me. This works for me. But, I have to do it weekly or it gets big and unwieldy and I start to have anxiety attacks.

The Some Day Maybe file is just like in GTD except where I mentioned above I put things from my Project List on here if I’m not moving on them. Sometimes priorities on a project change and things go from really important to back-burner. I don’t want to forget them, and if I get caught up (lol) then I have my Some Day Maybe list to check on, and I DO check it on my weekly review, to see if any of the priorities have bumped back up.

Otherwise I use it as a huge dump bin. I file all sorts of stuff in here and tag the snot out of it. I also have folders where things should belong, and I put things in multiple folders. In the above example is a PDF of our Safety Meeting topic for June. I tagged it with  Safety, work, Safety Meeting, meeting, stress, and HR. Then I filed it in Work. Where I file it doesn’t matter as much because I use the tagging a LOT more than I use the folders. I have 2 folders total, Work and Personal. I try and keep my main folder, my collection folder empty and uncluttered, just like we’re supposed to do with our inboxes. Periodically, if I’m bored I’ll click through my “stuff” that I have filed and throw out the garbage that I don’t need any more.

So, that’s how I use Evernote as my implementation of GTD. It’s working pretty well for me so far. It keeps the stuff there once I check it off, and that’s helpful. It’s searchable which is helpful, and it’s fast for me. It also allows me to play with whole projects and not just “next actions” which to me has never been entirely satisfying. I like projects as well as next actions.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I REALLY like the screen capture and “Copy to Evernote” parts of it. I grab webpages that way for reference all the time because it keeps the links and is searchable. Even pictures/photos are word searchable after they’ve been marinating in Evernote for a while.