I am a great fan of Mind Mapping and I have followed the MindMeister online Mind Mapping tool since its first release.
The guys at MindMeister invited me to preview and test their new release, version 3.0 of MindMeister which I am happy to say is now live so I can tell you all about it.
MindMeister version 2.0 was pretty hot, and a great showcase for Web 2.0 application technology. Version 3.0 brings some great new features that really make it the best online Mind Mapping tool.
So, what extra do we get in MindMeister v3.0? Well, as so much has changed the nice guys and gals at MindMeister have created a Mind Map showing you all the new features.
I have managed to get five premium accounts from MindMeister.
The next five people to sign up for my newsletter (sign up form is the top right of this page) will be emailed a voucher code over the next day or so. – UPDATE – These went very quickly, I will see if I can get some more but why not sign up anyway!
Thanks, and be sure to check out MindMeister as it really is a good tool.
Jens has created a great 15 minute video showing how he uses OmniFocus to Get Things Done. His workflow differs from the way OmniFocus is meant to be used and he does a great job of showing how he has shaped OmniFocus into the application he needs to fit his adaptation of the GTD Methodology.
I think this is another great example of user generated content that can help us all in our journey towards productivity!
What are your thoughts on this video? Do you know of any other videos like this or do you fancy doing one? If so, be sure to contact me and let me know so I can review and promote it!
Just watched Lewis Hamilton win the 2008 Formula One Grand Prix Championships. What an amazing grandstand finish. Lewis only needed 5th place to take the title and he was fifth right up to the last lap where he was overtaken. He managed to pull it back on the second to last bend, around 10 seconds before the end of the race to provide a real nail biting climax to a great F1 season.
Being proud to be British when it comes to sport is a rare feeling, so I will savor it..
Here are my collection of links for this week.
My first link for this week is from the 7Breaths blog and it is about how to set up Microsoft OneNote for Getting Things Done. I do not use Microsoft OneNote as I have a Mac, although the article does provide a good series of posts about how to integrate OneNote to a GTD system.
My second link is a good link from Productive Flourishing about why GTD Contexts are not right for the editor of the blog. This is a new blog discovery for me and there are some great posts on it worth a read about GTD and general productivity.
My third link is a link to a blog post showing Task Management on Windows Mobile and iPhone. Now the post is more geared towards Windows Mobile than the iPhone, the phone that I use but it still makes a good read.
My fourth link is a link to a post about tweaking your OmniFocus Workflow form the Poder.dk blog. I use OmniFocus as my current productivity application and I love any little nuggets of information such as this.
My fifth and last link for this week is a link to a great post over at GTD Times about how to perform the great GTD Balancing Act, the Weekly Review with Kids. Now, I have four children and I know how having children makes productivity and time management essential if you do not want things to slip, or kids that grow up not knowing who you are. The work/life balance with a large family is one of the hardest challenges that I have had to face and this post is a good read for everybody else, and there must be a lot of you in this situation.
That is it for this week. Looking forward to some more good posts next week where I will be revisiting my little Email Experiment!
Evernote have just released version 1.4 of their fantastic note taking application for the iPhone.
The biggest feature for me is the ability to mark a note as a favorite and then view it when offline. This means that you can now use the power of the desktop client to utilize the file storage capability of the Evernote iPhone application.
I tend to add a lot of documents to Evernote from the Mac client, so the ability to mark these as favourites and always have them on my iPhone is a feature within Evernote that I have been waiting for.
There are so many ways to use Evernote and it seems that every time I speak to another Evernote user they enlighten me with some great way of adding another little trick to my ever growing arsenal.
With the local file storage capability it may replace my need for the file syncing applications on the iPhone as I will be able to do pretty much what I need on the iPhone.
As well as this, version 1.4 also brings:
Tips and suggestions on creative ways to use Evernote
Signifcantly faster loading of notes, searching, and filtering
I have been at the A4U Expo for the first half of this week and this gave me a well needed break from work to recharge my mind. Listened to some great search engine marketing talks from people like Joost and Mediadonis. Had a really good cruise down the River Thames on the Silver Sturgeon and generally enjoyed myself with old and new friends.
Oh well, back to work and here are the links for this week.
My first link for this week is a great post from fellow Blogger Chris Garret about overcoming your own constraints. Another great post from Chris and his blog is one that makes great reading, especially if you are a blogger.
My third link is a link to a GTD Competition from GTD Times. Enter the competition and fill out a simple survey for the chance to win a full days executive workflow coaching from the David Allen Company.
My fourth link is a link to a Windows Mobile GTD post from JeffKirvin.net. Now I am a Mac user but the post gives some great easy insights into using Outlook and Windoes mobile to achieve a GTD system.
My fifth and last link for this week is from the Tools for Thought blog about how to maintain separate GTD systems for home and work. Personally, I use the same system for home and work. I tried with multiple systems but I found that my life pretty much intermingles. Maybe this is because I have my own companies. Anyway, read the post, I found it good.
My new theme for this blog has now gone to coding so hopefully I can release it to you all in the next week or so. Looking forward to this as it is a well needed relaunch of the blog. The past few weeks have been very busy and I have a busy end of the month.
I recently did a review of MindMaker, the first Mind Mapping tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch. My review outlined a great concept but it was lacking some key features such as the ability to import and export maps and work in landscape mode.
I was very happy when i received an email from the creator of iBlueSky asking me to take a look at their app that provides competition for Mind Maker. I got the app installed and working right as I was leaving the house to attend the A4U Expo in London.
I was planning on writing the review when I got back from the A4U but I did get the chance to try it in the very first session of the A4U Expo. The first session was from Joost de Valik and was about Search Engine Optimization for WordPress.
Rather than take notes for the session in my trusty Moleskine, I decided to give iBlueSky a live test and use it to take the notes in what was an excellent session.
iBlueSky is very similar in operation to Mind Maker, it is after all a Mind Mapping application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The entry was working out a treat. You are able to use landscape mode and the addition of branches is very straightforward and anybody who has used a Mind Mapping application would be able to pick ip up in no time at all.
There is a default map already installed for you to play around with. The map I created got quite big, quite fast and I found it easy to add new branches, sub branches and also to navigate around the map.
This is in my opinion the best Mind Mapping tool to date for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There were a couple of little niggles which will hopefully get sorted for the next release. These were that the addition of new branches to a busy map sometimes overlapped existing branches. This made organization a bit cumbersome.
The branches were also quite difficult to move as it required an extremely accurate drag to move the branch and not the entire map. Some way of selecting a branch in drag mode would be great. The only other niggle is that when moving a branch, the sub-branches stayed put, creating a nesting overlapping issue.
All of the issues do not distract from what is a great app. Landscape mode works great, although the screen is restricted by the bars at the top and bottom.
The killer feature that really separates this from Mind Maker is the ability to email the maps. Once the Map was created, I emailed it to myself.
The map arrives in four formats:
PNG Image
PDF Document
OPML For Importing into various mapping and flowchat apps
Freemind MM Format for use with Freemind, the Open Source Mind Mapping app
How cool is that!
Great app, and look forward to seeing more of these cool apps arise for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Oh, and for those of you interested in the session from Joost, which was fantastic as usual. Feel free to download the map by following the links below.
Well, this is the only blog post I have managed this week but there is a good reason. For the past four weeks I have been writing a new ebook for Cisco Press entitled Securing Networks with ASAs Fundementals.
My deadline for the ebook was today, 12th October. I had a slightly delayed start to the project as I needed to free up one of my ASAs so that I could work through the configuration and make screenshots etc. So, for the past week I have been working on the ebook in every spare minute I have had. I have had around 5 hours sleep per evening and really put in the hours. Turning out 20,000 words and 82 figures for the ebook which Cisco Press will launch in a month or so.
Being so busy and so focussed has given me some ideas for some more posts, which I will hopefully get done this week as I am away for the next few days at the A4UExpo in London.
Oh, I also eventually got a 30″ monitor this week. Wow, how much better is working with so much screen real estate!
Here are my links for this week, although I have not has nowhere nearly as much browsing time as usual!
My first link for this week is has to be AwayFind from Set Consulting. AwayFind is a great new web application aimed to help you adopt an email practice where you check it twice a day but still get notified of urgent messages by other means, such as a text message to your cellphone. I have started using this and I love it as it fits in with my email productivity series perfectly. There will be more to come on this in the coming days. AwayFind is currently in private beta but be sure to check it out.
My third link is a link to a students GTD#1 – Collect. I always enjoy picking up on these lesser known blogs where real people are learning and writing about GTD. I like this purity of this one.
My fifth and last link for this week is How to Use Parkinson’s Law to your Advantage. Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Check out this post and see how to use this to your own advantage.
So, off to London tomorrow for three days and the A4UExpo. Should be a great conference as the line up of speakers looks amazing and it is always good to meet fellow bloggers and affiliates to share knowledge, and of course a beer or two!
Another busy week, mainly due to the fact that I had a news story published by the BBC in the UK and it got a lot of coverage. Sometimes things happen that change your planned work week and this week definitely was one of those weeks.
Here are my cool links of the week for all things GTD and Productivity related.
My first link for this week is a great post from upcoming GTD Blogger John Kendrick. The post is titled Journaling your way to GTD and is well worth the time investment.
My second link is a guest post by Leo from ZenHabits.com on the Four Hour Work Week blog. The post is titled How to Never Forget Anything Again and it is a great post that goes through some of the great tools that are available for running our busy lives.
My third link is a great post about Ubiquitous Capture from Freelance Switch. This is a great blog with some fab guest bloggers who write about a whole host of topics aimed at the freelance worker.
My fourth link is a collection of GTD Wallpapers from Smart Productivity. These are aggregated from other sites but brought together in a neat post. Gives me some ideas for my new rebrand which is coming soon..
My fifth and last link for this week is an old classic, but one that I just re-read recently. This is the getting started in GTD post from Merlin Mann at 43Folders.com. This is flagship content from Merlin Mann and a great post for anybody looking to get started with GTD.
I have a crazy week ahead as I have a book deadline for Sunday the 12th so I am going to be busy evenings this week writing away. I also have a new brand coming for this blog. All exciting stuff and I cannot wait to get it out there.
GTDAgenda is a Web Based application based around the GTD philosophy. One downfall is the fact that you need an Internet connection in order to use this system so you cannot easily take it with you. GTDAgenda.com is a website designed to assist individuals in increasing their productivity through David Allen’s Getting Things Done model. It does an admirable job of shaping the foundation of his advice into a practical, easy-to-use system that could easily change people’s lives through regular use.
The site’s aesthetic are plain but well conceived and goes a great length toward marrying functionality with a myriad of useful features. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the design is found after playing around with categorization tools and discovering exactly how deep the system actually is.
Seemingly nothing has been overlooked by the GTDAgenda team but the entire page never comes off as overly complicated or confusing. GTDAgenda instead chooses to let users dive into the various functions at whichever level they desire. It’s perfectly possible to use the page as nothing more than an electronic calendar, checklist or broad planning tool but for those who look deeper there is also a ton of great details to take advantage of as well.
The layout of GTDAgenda is in itself worth taking the time to discuss. The simple design and ease of use mix together very well. Although the page is relatively plain looking, there is nothing so offensive as to keep users from wanting to use GTDAgenda as a frequently viewed hub for their planning activities. Much like the Word document ‘to-do’ lists which Allen displays in Getting Things Done, GTDAgenda allows for an immediate response from users simply through its simple, upfront look.
All of the features are designed with Allen’s GTD model firmly in mind and go a long way toward allowing the site’s users to fully embrace the productivity system. GTDAgenda hosts a header which lists key organizational points (such as Goals, Projects, Tasks and Next Actions) along with appropriate sorting options within each one of these categories. For example, clicking on ‘Tasks’ displays a sub-category wherein users may prioritize their work to fit different criteria.
Each header keeps a few features the same so they may be referenced no matter what you’re concentrating on at the time. A handy calendar hangs on the right-hand side of the page and opens scheduled tasks and action steps by clicking on a given date.
The context menu is also an excellent implementation of core GTD philosophy as it allows users to sort their various work into categories such as @Computer,@Home and Errands. A checklist feature goes even further toward allowing for the kind of satisfaction Allen recommends from crossing off completed work and visualizing what must still be done so it can be taken off one’s mind.
GTDAgenda is difficult to criticize as it does perform a fantastic job of offering a productivity system styled upon the core principles and tools purported by the book. Nothing at all presents itself as ineffective or worth taking the time to negatively address in a review. The bottom line perhaps is that, like every organization tool, GTDAgenda will work for some and not for others.
Anyone even remotely interested in the GTD productivity model should at least check out GTDAgenda. The site and application does a great job of providing a system that allows for as little or as much customization and organization as any user could hope for.
Please note, the links to GTDAgenda are affiliate links so anybody signing up will result in myself getting paid a referral feed. This has not tarnished or influenced my review of GTDAgenda.
I am a great fan of Mind Mapping and I have followed the MindMeister online Mind Mapping tool since its first release.
