Category Archives: General Items

Just a category to put things which are not specific to a topic.

Auto Card Manager Simplifies Wallet Storage

ACMWalletIt may seem silly to consider a card managing wallet as a productivity gadget but the bottom line often is that if something can save time and remove stress then it’s usually worthwhile in this department.

Thus, the Auto Card Manager has been created in order to provide a hyper-organized alternative to the mess that can ensue when various cards are kept only in a wallet.

The Auto Card Manager sorts all of your most important cards into special slots which can be accessed through the simple press of a button.

Various credit card, debit and driver license slots are hosted through the width of the Manager (for up to either six or twelve individual cards) and a row of buttons are placed to correspond to each one.

Pushing the labeled button neatly ejects your chosen card and saves the hassle of rooting around in your wallet’s folds while a line waits behind you.

It is interesting technology and a fairly innovative take on productivity gadgets although the overall purpose is perhaps a little bit too specific to make it a great idea for the everyday user.

At $39.99 USD for a 6-card manager and $59.99 USD for a 12-card holder, the Auto Card Manager may be a bit too expensive to warrant now but will certainly be worth a purchase when the price levels out a little.

Check out the YouTube video of the gadget.

Now, I just have to find where to buy one in the UK!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 9th November 2008

The last week has been a great week for this blog. I have seen a steady increase in Feedburner subscriptions and a considerable increase in traffic.

I closely follow the analytics for this blog and it is good to see the average page visits per user on the rise, along with the new visitors brought in from the search engines. I have added a few cool WordPress plugins to help with this, all of which I will blog about in the coming weeks.

Don’t forget, if you are not already a subscriber, please subscribe to this blog with either your favorite Newsreader or you can have the updates delivered via email.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is from TechRadar.com and it is a collection of 50 time saving techniques for Ubuntu. I know from my stats that I have a considerable amount of viewers who use Ubuntu as their operating system of choice so I am sure this link will be useful.
  • My second link is a link to a Life Learning Device. Google Alerts are to thank for this one. It is like a little light that repeats words of wisdom when activated. Looks very quirky!
  • My third link is a link to a blog post about Getting the Most out of a Meeting from The Productivity in Context blog. This is a new blog for me and there are some great posts within.
  • My fourth link is a link to a new little App I have just began playing with called reQall. I briefly reviewed the application yesterday. As Jott is not available in the UK, this looks like the answer. I have to play fully with it and then do a more in-depth review.
  • My fifth and last link for this week is a link to the Top 5 Timesavers from Productivity501. Apart from the Blackberry, I do all of these tips.

Calling it a night now, busy weekend and another busy week ahead.

Thanks, Andrew..

Review of the Nozbe GTD and Productivity Application

NozbeNozbe is a great tool for both strict Getting Things Done adherents and those looking only to provide some better structure for their work and life.

The website and program are both well developed and feature a solid spin on David Allen’s teachings as a way to increase overall productivity while lowering your stress.

The site initially appears pretty cluttered but once you’ve navigated yourself into signing-up and getting into the heart of the system, Nozbe offers one of the best online GTD options currently available.

Everything is visually based to a degree not found in many competitors and this goes a long way toward maintaining functionality.

The only drawback to the entire approach is that it takes a little while to truly figure out the program and start really using it to its full potential.

While Nozbe has a lot of the bells and whistles often lacking in GTD sites or software, this positive trait is often something of a double-edged sword navigation wise.

Nozbe

Nozbe has a lot of great features worth taking advantage of however and, as mentioned above, it hosts some uses that other GTD-centered apps and sites lack.

Users can input their projects, to-do lists, next actions or group tasks as is to be expected but Nozbe also offers a little bit more than the usual fare.

Simple touches like the ability to share files among a group have a lot of potential for making the system far more viable than the more self-sufficient options out there.

Nozbe allows file attachment to tasks and projects as well which is extremely handy for organizing the clutter which can be associated with different work into one place. Images, text documents or little scraps of information (like Notepad files) can all be grouped into one place, an invaluable feature to be sure.
Nozbe
Mobile options are also fantastic to see present here. Nozbe hosts support for iPhones, regular cell phones and a variety of browsers (for both Windows and Mac operating systems).

This attention to compatibility and ease of use is a great implementation of David Allen’s recommendation for portable, PDA-like organizing and Nozbe users should be able to get a lot of mileage from it.

The platform is a bit visually scattered compared to other GTD applications as mentioned before but anyone impressed enough by the huge amount of things done right at Nozbe should be able to get over this and take the time to find their way around.

In terms of a general criticism this should be made clear, although it also shouldn’t be taken as an entirely negative report on Nozbe considering how much it does right.

Perhaps the most enticing aspect of the platform is the innovation that the Nozbe team brings to their system. Although there are better options out there, none of them quite have the scope of vision presented in Nozbe’s mobility, sharing and file attachment details.

These alone make figuring out the sometimes muddy interface worth the time and effort in the end.
Nozbe
It’s difficult to recommend Nozbe for everyone considering how many other fantastic options are out there that succeed in aspects focused on in its overall service.

When you log in go the Nozbe system, there are a collection of videos showing you how to start using Nozbe right through to some advanced uses of Nozbe.

Just the same it is one of the more unique GTD applications currently available and its visual approach coupled with the mobility options makes Nozbe a system at least worth checking out.

For some, the site may be too much trouble to have any real, lasting worth but for others, Nozbe could be exactly what they’re looking for.

I am an affiliate for Nozbe, so by you signing up, you do earn me a small referral fee.

Nonetheless, it is worth signing up to a free account and seeing how you get on.

Do I use Nozbe?, No I don’t. OmniFocus is the GTD app for me because my profile does not really fit a web app.

Did you enjoy this review? What are your thoughts about Nozbe? I would love you to comment so we can start a discussion.

Review of the iPhone Task Managers

Just a quick note to promote a post over at Lifehacker, Battle of the iPhone Task Managers.

There are numerous task managers available now on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Myself, I use Zenbe as a simple Task Manager. The reason I like Zenbe is that it is quick, clean, and has a nice Web Sync so that I can use it on my Mac and on my iPhone.

The Lifehacker post compares the following iPhone Task Managers:

  • Remember the Milk
  • Zenbe
  • reQall
  • To Do’s
  • Easy Task Manager

Check out the post from Lifehacker and see what you think.

Mind Mapping Tool MindMeister Updates to 3.0

MindMeisterI 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.

Click on the Mind Map below to go the full size Mind Map in a MindMeister window that you can play around with.
Mindmeister

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.

Email Productivity Experiment – Update 4

This is the fifth post in my mini series about email productivity. For those of you who missed the first four I have provided links to them below.

Email Productivity Experiment
Email Productivity Experiment – Update 1
Email Productivity Experiment – Update 2
Email Productivity Experiment – Update 3

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post on the subject of Email Productivity. In my last post I had hit a few problems with my rigid system due to the fact that I was working on a news story and therefore I had a requirement to check email much more than I would have normally done as I was getting very important information via email that required immediate action.

Unfortunately, whilst doing this it also meant that I collected my other email at the same time as well, totally blowing my email productivity system out of the water.

What I had achieved so far was to reduce the amount of timed I checked email from 62 times to 4 times during a working day. I loosely worked out that this was saving me around 93 minutes in my working day. Now, that is a pretty nice saving!

The only issue was, if somebody needed to get a hold of me between the times I checked email, they couldn’t. Obviously if they had my mobile phone number they could try that but I do tend to screen mobile calls from unknown numbers (another good post topic). So, the system fell down during the time when I was receiving time sensitive emails that required my attention.

During my normal working day, there are not that many times when somebody MUST get hold of me as a matter of urgency. I estimate that this requirement may be once every two or three days, when my input is required at that point either to answer a critical customer request or to provide information to the sales team in order to close a deal.

So, I needed a solution that allowed me to check email less frequently, but still provided a way for urgent emails to get through.

As a matter of sheer co-incidence, I was contacted via Facebook by a reader of this blog about a new web application and servie that he was launching called AwayFind. Sounded very interesting so I checked it out.

AwayFind is based on a principle from the Four Hour Work Week book by Timothy Ferris. I have read this book and loved it, although a lot of it is very impractical in my opinion I still picked up some great snippets from it. The review of the book has been in draft post format and I am just waiting for my third copy of the book to arrive as it is that good I keep giving it away!

Here is the blurb about AwayFind from their website:

AwayFind is a communication tool that bridges the gap between emails and phone calls. AwayFind enables people to reach you with critical information via a web link to your AwayFind Contact Form. Just place this link in your “out of office” auto response message or your email signature. This Contact Form routes messages to your cell phone or delegates them to your co-workers. When traveling with limited cellular or internet access, you can also quickly login to AwayFind and read only your critical messages.

I started to use AwayFind but must admit that I expected a few people to hate it. We were in the middle of migrating company email from IMAP to the Google Apps cloud services so it was a perfect time to start using AwayFind.

Now I am not going to go into too much depth about AwayFind as I am drafting a full review that I will link to from here once the review is ready.

The service from AwayFind auto responds to people who send you email letting them know that you do not check email frequently. There is a URL provided in the auto responder that points them to your branded AwayFind page.

From this page users can send you a message that can be delivered to you in a number of ways such as Email or SMS Text Message.

I have been using this system now for the past three weeks and it is fantastic. People have commented on how good it is as they do not expect an immediate response but they have a mechanism of getting a hold of me with their urgent requirements.

I now check email two to three times a day, when my schedule permits. Email does not control me, I control it..

This pretty much wraps up this mini email series. I went out looking for a solution and I think I found one that fits my working life and practices. I am going to attempt to write a little email productivity eBook that I will provide via this site covering my problems and solutions. I am also going to review AwayFind in great detail along with the way I have implemented it.

I hope you have enjoyed this mini series, please let me know your thoughts and comments.

Thanks.

Tweaking your OmniFocus Workflow

I provided a link in my last Productivity Links post to the Poder.dk blog covering tweaking your OmniFocus Workflow.

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!

Thanks,

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 2nd November 2008

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!

Thanks, Andrew..

Positive Thinking – Morcambe and Wise Style

Found this on YouTube whilst looking for productivity related videos and I though that since it was Friday I would share it.

Morcambe and Wise were a great eighties comedy duo in the UK. Their Christmas Specials were legendary but I am guessing my US readers will have never heard of them?

Well, it is Friday afterall…

All have a great weekend.

Did I Get Things Done 2.0

SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOGIf you are not already, now is a great time to subscribe to this blog in your favorite RSS reader so you can keep up to date with all the posts.

After a few tweaks here and there the new theme is a go and I am happy to say that I now consider the new site as fully live. I still have to add a few plugins and add some content to some more pages but I guess this aspect of the site will be work in progress.

I have never had a Contact or Advertise page on the site before.

Please use the Contact page to contact myself for any matters relating to the site. I am also looking for guest bloggers so please use this page to contact me if you have an interest in writing for Did I Get Things Done.

This site is for its readers so if you have any suggestions or criticisms, please do let me know so I can improve the site to benefit the readers.

I am also starting to take related adverts from sponsors in order to help fund the site and the ever growing hosting and management costs. If you have a product you would like to advertise, please let me know via the Advertise page and we can hopefully work something out.

I have quite a bit planned for the blog. I am trying to widen it from just a GTD blog to cover my main focus areas of Productivity, Motivation, and Self Development. GTD will always figure high in these as it is the methodology that I started to use over two years ago now.

I thank you for being a visitor to my site and I look forward to achieving my goal of becoming the number one blog for Productivity, Motivation, and Self Development.

I am currently hovering around the 2400 RSS Subscribers and I am trying to get to the next goal of 3000.