Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

My wrists have been bothering me some this week, so instead of a written post today you get two video reviews this week (for the price of one!). Today it’s Nozbe – read on to see my notes or watch the video below.

Nice features:

• Lots of opportunity to get really fine-grained here. I haven’t seen another project/task management system with “contexts” done quite the same way, but there’s some cool ways you can use it – especially since you can create your own contexts and customize them. For example, you could create an “in a hurry” context that you put short/quickie tasks in (no matter what project they were associated with) and then when you only had thirty minutes or an hour to work before a call, knock out 2-4 fifteen minute tasks quickly by viewing that context and just getting started.
• It syncs with Evernote! (And also with Dropbox.) I have since tested out the Evernote syncing function and it works really well, with the one note that tags in Evernote correspond to project names in Nozbe, which is a bit odd (I’d have assumed that notebook names in Evernote corresponded with project names in Nozbe). I haven’t tested out the Dropbox compatibility out, though.
• Large, easy to see at a glance icons and text. No squinting required!
• It looks as though it’s geared towards solo users or smaller teams. This is pretty convenient since most things that have as many features as Nozbe do are intended for teams of at least five people, and require a bit of tweaking to work for solopreneurs. Not so for Nozbe – it can & will work beautifully for a team of one.
• Lots of drag-and-drop functionality. 
• It’s surprisingly flexible. Since Nozbe is based on the Getting Things Done system (which I find kind of overwhelming and intimidating, at least the way I’ve seen it explained), I expected it to be one of those tools that kind of forces its users to comply with that specific system. Not so! If you want to, you could use it for a GTD-type system; if not, you can just use it however you wish.

Other things:

•  It’s not super visual. The large text and icons make it a lot easier to see things at a glance than some text-based tools, but it still doesn’t have a “see tasks laid out on a calendar” function, the ability to customize backgrounds/color schemes, or color coding.

This is good for you if:

• You’re already a hardcore GTD user, or use a modified version of that, since Nozbe is set up specifically for that system.
• You’re a solopreneur or work with just one other person.
• You aren’t as picky about aesthetics as I am.

All in all, I like it a lot! I’m not sure if it’ll become my main productivity tool – I thought it would, and then when I actually started trying to use it, I ran into some speed bumps. I might give it a go again or try something else in the meantime. But if you fit the parameters above, definitely check Nozbe out. And let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

Producteev is something I actually found after I’d written this post, through total happenstance. Or, more accurately, I re-found it. Last time I had poked around Producteev was quite a while ago, and I seem to remember finding the interface bewildering and also being really confused as to why they had a beaver mascot. Things have changed since then, though! Watch the review or read the notes below to see my thoughts.

Nice features:

• Recurring tasks. It’s very easy to set up recurring tasks and in my experience so far, they work flawlessly.
• Really nice quick-add with smart deadlines. Yup. A quick-add feature that is actually quick and saves more time than it wastes. I can pop into the window with Producteev, type “Write email to x about y tomorrow” and it will automatically create a task “Write email to x about y” and assign it to be done tomorrow. AWESOME. I believe you can also tag people just as easily, which would be great if you’re working with a team. Also? The smart deadlines work just as well in the iPhone app. Score.
• Drag & drop calendar/week interface. Hallelujah! This is easily my very most favorite thing about Producteev. It alone makes Producteev a finalist for me.
• Overall intuitive interface. Drag & drop functionality, ability to switch between workspaces or view the overall view, and so on.

Things I dislike:

• I wish the aesthetics were a little better. This might be just nitpicky because overall it is pretty well designed. I just can’t put my finger on it, but something about the interface seems a little blase to me.
• I want color coding! Which is no shock if you’ve been following along so far.

Other than that, it’s GREAT & very well might become my task/project management app of choice.

This is for you if:

• You don’t require color coding.
• You want a drag & drop calendar and/or week view. Especially since Producteev is the only tool I’ve actually found so far with that feature. (Why don’t more tools have it?!)
• You need seamless mobile app/online integration.
• You really need quick-add that’s actually a quick add.
• You want to manage a team easily. Producteev is great for solopreneurs, but I think it’s also one of the very few project management tools I’ve looked at that would be easily scalable – I could see someone using it for just themselves & then as the business grows, using it for their small team as well with very little learning curve.

Any questions? Anything else you want to see reviewed? Let me know in the comments! 

Life

By Michelle

I’ve moved a lot in my adult life. Like, an honestly ridiculous amount. (Just did a count in my head & the tally is at six times since I turned 19. That’s a little more often than once every eight months on average. Part of me thinks this is a little hilarious since I lived in the same house my entire life before moving out after high school. Maybe I’m making up for lost time?)

Anyways, point being: moving screws everything up. Everything. It disrupts your routine, it makes it hard to find things necessary in every day life (and things that aren’t absolutely necessary for survival but are, you know, a good idea, like toothpaste and shampoo). If you have a “normal job”, you can at least escape to some structured same-ness during your work hours, but if you work at home you have to handle totally tanked productivity during & after the move, too.

So…what the hell do you do?

I’ve got some ideas. (Surprised? Didn’t think so!)

As with almost everything I suggest, these are focused on prevention before the event instead of trying to fix things afterwards. I’ve got some tips for afterwards too, though, especially in situations like our latest move where there’s not a lot of prep time.

Before you move:

•  Investigate your new neighborhood. Spend an hour or two driving or walking around it and getting a feel for where everything is. Note the bus stops. Do some googling and find the places that do take out or delivery near your new place, that suit any dietary restrictions you might have. Also check nearby grocery stores. If you’re feeling the need to be especially prepared, write all of this down and save it (or even better, put it in Evernote or Springpad so that it’s accessible from your phone/tablet/computer without digging for a slip of paper in post-moving mess). Having that list of good take-out places can save your ass in the first few days after moving.
• Create an oasis kit. This is something we started talking about on the last Idea Round Up call. The idea being that you figure out what you are most likely to desperately need in the days after you move and put it there. Not necessarily in a “survival” sense, but in more of a self-care sense. For example, my oasis kit would probably have chocolate, tea, a good book, and maybe a heating pad for sore post-move muscles or some wine. And then you do something smart like pack the oasis kit in a bright purple box so that you can easily find it after the move.
• Make a list of priorities. What’s most important to get unpacked quickest? My list would probably go like this: kitchen stuff (gotta eat), laptop (gotta work), bathroom stuff (gotta stay clean & smell good). Just making this list will help you out when you’re staring at the mountain of boxes to unpack and trying not to hyperventilate.

After you move:

• Use your oasis kit! Self explanatory.
• Find your list of priorities & use it. Get the important stuff unpacked first, consciously and on purpose, instead of waiting until you really need it – there’s nothing worse than digging frantically for toilet paper when the need to use it is incredibly imminent. (I have some level of authority on that, so just trust me.)
• Make time for self-care. It’s going to seem silly and frivolous and like a big waste of time when you have so many other things pressing on you, but really. Do it. You’ll sleep better, if nothing else.

When you can’t really prepare:

• Before you panic, make a list of everything that needs to be done before you move. Just getting it all out of your head & on to paper will help immensely. Of course, there’s also a good chance that you’ll look at the ensuing list and still feel the urge to panic – turn that big list into things that need to be done in a specific order, things that can be done quickly (think in an hour of spare time – like packing up the bathroom or your workspace), and things that you can do right now. Start working. And then…
• Ask for help. There are people you know who are not only ready but willing to help you in your hour of need. I’m totally one of those people who hates asking for help (out of a combined sense of pride & not wanting to be a burden to anyone else), so I get it if you don’t want to. But get over it and do it anyways. People love you and want to help, speaking as someone who’s been on both sides of the “need moving help” equation.
• Above all, be kind to yourself. Moving sucks. Moving with little to no notice is even worse. You will probably not do everything perfectly and that is okay, it’ll all turn out fine. (Trust me, if my “finding an apartment with two weeks notice and then using movers you found on Craigslist the day of the move for the big stuff and moving everything else by yourself until 5 AM” story turned out okay – albeit exhausting – your move will go fine.)

Those are my ideas. Now – I want to hear your’s! How have you survived and thrived during + after moves in the past? Any tips you can use ahead of time to make things better afterwards? 

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

Today I’m reviewing HiTask, another great project/task management tool. Watch the video or read the notes below to find out my thoughts!

Great things:

• There’s a lot of awesome functions like recurring tasks, time tracking (with the ability to also estimate how long you think a particular task will take, I can see how this would be useful for comparing real life to estimates), and reminders sent via phone app or email or both. You can give priority tasks a star and see them first, too.
• There’s also lots of room/functionality for scheduling tasks hour by hour if that’s how you roll (it’s not how I roll, but it might be the way you like things).
• COLOR CODING. For the love of chocolate, finally a productivity tool that has color coding and does it right. There’s so many ways you could use this – color coding by project is the obvious one, of course. You could also  have “stoplight” color coding for tasks. For example, green tasks are okay to go full steam ahead on, red tasks are paused or on hold for some reason, and yellow are tasks that are waiting on something from someone else. You could also color code your top three priorities to see if how you’re actually spending your time across all of your projects is aligning with the things you view as a priority. (I’m sensing you could probably use the time tracking for that, too.)

Other things:

• It can be a little slow to add tasks using the web app. This is a problem for me as I often want to pop in just to add a quick task without interrupting my flow or stream of thought on another project I’m working on at that moment. (Example: I’m writing a blog post & suddenly think, “Oh shit, I can’t forget to do x!” I need to be able to get in, add it, and get back to working preferably in under 30 seconds.) I couldn’t find any way to ‘quick add’ tasks in HiTask like I’ve seen other places; I might have just missed it though.
• It would be really cool if you could sync the reminders and task scheduling with Google Calendar, but I didn’t see any options for that anywhere.
• There are a lot of options with the tasks – which is great if you need that functionality but can be a little overwhelming if you don’t. It’s actually a little too structured for me because of the additional options.
• It’s not quite as visual/well designed as something like Wunderlist.

Great for you if:

• You want to be able to schedule tasks to a specific hour.
• Color coding is an absolute necessity.
• You don’t need or want to see things on a calendar or week view (as opposed to the drop down menu options of today, tomorrow, next 7 days, etc.).
• Good design is a priority, but you don’t have nigh-impossibly-high standards (like, uh, me).

Closing Notes

A lot of these things are going to come down to sheer preference. I know that my quibbles/quirks will not necessarily be everyone’s, and if someone doesn’t have my quirks, I feel like HiTask is a really, really great project & task management tool with a lot of functionality that you don’t usually see, especially in free versions of things. I’m not sure if I’m beating a dead horse by reiterating the fact that I’m really effing picky and have very specific wants/needs, I just want to make it clear that just because I don’t end up using a tool doesn’t mean that it’s not your productivity soul mate.

Any questions? Anything else you want to see reviewed? Let me know in the comments! 

Creativity

By Michelle

This is a guest post from the brilliant Tanja over at Crystal Clarity Copywriting! If you want more of her unsticking help, check out Write the Damn Blog Post.

Could journaling get your project unstuck?

Journaling is the process of regularly recording your thoughts, ideas, experiences, insights and feelings. It’s most often written – but for some folk, it can involve lists, mind maps, art of almost ANY kind, audio, and even video.

Journaling is a mainstay of personal development and of many types of therapy.  It’s an unequalled tool for helping us to understand ourselves more deeply, and exploring and discovering what we think or feel about a given issue. But it can also be perfect for solving the kinds of practical problems that end up grinding our progress to a halt in the middle of a project.

A step-by-step approach to problem solving

There’s a lot of research and theory on problem-solving methods. I’ll acknowledge that I’m not formally trained in any of them, but I have figured out what usually works for me. My favourite process involves breaking down problem-solving into four distinct steps:

1. Clearly understanding the problem
2. Identifying potential solutions
3. Evaluating the options and choosing best one
4. Implementing the solution and assessing its success

I’ve also found that specific journaling techniques can help me with almost all of these steps.

Step 1: Understanding the problem clearly

Clearly understanding a problem is sometimes easier said than done. Granted, occasionally something is every bit as simple as it appears on the surface… but some issues have a vast array of contributing factors. A technique that works wonders for me in figuring out what’s really going on with any given problem is Stream of Consciousness writing. To do this:

• Write the problem (as you initially understand it) as a heading at the top of your page.
• Set a timer for however long you’re willing to spend writing.
• For the duration of that time just… write.  Write whatever comes to mind: no editing, evaluating or judging. Follow your mind wherever it wants to go.
• When the timer goes off, read back over what you’ve written.  What insights does it open up for you?

Step 2: Identifying potential solutions

Once you clearly understand the problem, the perfect answer may well jump right out at you. If so, go straight to Step 4 and start implementing!  But if not, it’s time to identify a few potential solutions.

For me, the ideal journaling technique to generate ideas is Brainstorming. Brainstorming works on the basis that the more ideas you come up with, the more likely ONE of them is to actually solve the problem.

To brainstorm you again set a timer, then try to list as many ideas as you can that even peripherally relate to solving your problem. Again, no editing or judging: write every idea down, regardless of how weird, crazy or impractical it may be.  The aim is quantity, not quality – you can explore and evaluate your ideas in the next step.

Step 3: Evaluating those solutions

Next it’s time to check through the potential options you’ve generated, and figure out which one’s most worth trying. Here, I like to use the Question and Answer technique.

To do this, I start by shortlisting the three solutions that seem most likely to solve the problem and get my project moving again. Next I figure out a set of 3-5 questions to ask myself about each option. Example questions might include:

• What are the benefits of this solution?
• What are its drawbacks?
• What would I need to do/have/organise to implement it?
• What other problems might it solve for me at the same time?
• What extra hassles might it create (and how could I avoid those)?

Then, for each shortlisted option, I try to answer each question as fully I can.  The act of writing helps me to explore each potential solution from far more angles than I could if I repeatedly chased it around in circles inside the walls of my mind.

Sometimes I’ll discover a solution that initially looked ideal would probably create more problems than it would solve. Other times, I’ll realise I have a perfect answer – but I need to do or get something else before it’ll work.

Ideally, by the end of this step, I’ll see a clear “best option”. But even if I don’t, I’ll still have a better idea of what implementing any given solution would involve.

Step 4:  Implementing a solution and assessing its success

After I’ve chosen my solution, I try it out for a while before assessing whether it’s worked for me.  If so – great – I pat myself on the back, consider my problem solved, and move on with the project.

If not, I go back to one of the previous steps: either picking a different option to try, brainstorming more ideas, or trying to get a better understanding of the problem overall.

And even though I don’t use a specific technique here, it can still be seriously valuable to journal my thoughts, ideas and insights.  For example, I can:

• write about what I’ve learned: about that specific problem, about what worked and what didn’t,  and about problem solving generally. That can help if I want to share my knowledge later, or just remind myself that I’m better at this stuff than I think.
• vent my frustrations during the process: especially useful for keeping me sane if I have to try several solutions that don’t work before I find one that does!
• celebrate and acknowledge myself: for the progress I’ve made and for being willing to take responsibility for moving my project forward, not just staying stuck.

How about you?

Do you have a specific problem-solving process that you kick in when your project comes to a grinding halt?

If so, how could you use journaling to support you in that process? If not, how could journaling help you with more freeform problem-solving?

About Tanja

Tanja Gardner is a professional copywriter, word weaver and story spinner at Crystal Clarity Copywriting Ltd.   She helps difference-makers like you write with concise, creative clarity that your readers intuitively “get”.  That means they understand EXACTLY what you offer – so you can make more of a difference in their lives.

To connect with Tanja, say hello on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, sign up for her monthly newsletter, or follow her blog.

Plus, you can now download the first four chapters of her e-book, Write the Damn Blog Post!, totally free of charge.

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

While it isn’t my perfect productivity tool, Wunderlist is a pretty amazing task management app that I wanted to share with y’all. Watch the video review & see my notes below:

Bonus: Because I’m feeling frisky & easily entertained, the first 3 people to email me telling me what each of those tasks was referencing gets free goodies. (Preferably without using Google, but obvs I won’t know if you do or not. Joe Strummer’s watching you from the afterlife though, & he won’t be pleased.*)

What it does really, really well:

• The design. Every time I log in, I want to send a screenshot of Wunderlist to all of the badly designed, clunky productivity tools out there. Hey, ugly, hard-to-use thing. Check out Wunderlist. It mocks you with its prettiness. 
• Ease of use. Drag and drop, intuitive interface, easy to jump in and just start using. (I suppose this kind of goes under good design but it bears repeating.)
• If all you need is basic task management, Wunderlist has that in spades. Just go sign up now, don’t even look at anything else. You’ll thank me later.

What doesn’t work for me:

•  This is all me and doesn’t have anything to do with Wunderlist itself, but something about the way it’s set up makes it really easy for me to overload myself. I think that if I could see the days of the week with how many tasks were assigned to each day, in an at-a-glance manner, it’d be easier to prevent that.
• If you really need to handle multiple projects at once, Wunderlist might be a little too simple for you. And I’m not sure how it works for collaboration since I haven’t tested that aspect of it.

Who this would be really great for:

• People who appreciate good design & the ability to customize their tools.
• People who want something that’s always accessible via mobile apps. (I can’t speak for the Android app, but the iPhone app has been totally glitch free & easy to use for me.)
• People who don’t need to manage multiple projects at once.
• People who don’t need a visual layout to keep from getting confused and/or overwhelmed.

*That was a hint. I’m being extra-plus generous today.

Reviews

Tools + Resources

By Michelle

You might have heard (or experienced for yourself!) that Springpad just released its next version last week. Curious to see how it stacks up? Watch the video below (or just keep reading).

How I use Springpad

Obviously, my opinion on the changes is going to be heavily colored by how I use Springpad (which has changed a bit since the last video I made), so here’s a quick overview of the main ways I use it:

• References. Anything that I want to make sure I can come back to later, I bookmark and/or note in my “references” folder. This is for tattoo shops I want to check out later, notes from books I’ve read, or really absolutely anything that I want to make sure I can find later. (I have this horrible habit of finding something, skimming it, thinking “Hmm, that’s interesting!” and then forgetting about it until some later point, at which I don’t remember enough to effing find it again. This notebook prevents that – anything I find remotely interesting, I stick in here.)
• Taking notes and cataloging bookmarks relevant to various projects. I have a notebook for each project I’m working on (and start a new notebook every time I start a new project). I use these kinds of like the creative boxes that Twyla Tharp talks about in the Creative Habit – I’ll bookmark any site that seems remotely relevant to the project, so that I can find it later, and probably leave a comment on the bookmark about why it inspired me or how it was relevant to the project. I also use the notebooks for brainstorming, keeping track of random ideas, and outlining ideas (for example, I have a running note with blog post ideas, and another note outlining a specific course idea in more detail). Occasionally I create a checklist of action items related to a specific project and put that in there, too, but I prefer to keep all of my action items in one place elsewhere.
• Recipes/shopping lists. Arguably not productivity related but still a major use of it for me. We’re big foodies around here so the ability to easily search through all of the recipes I’ve bookmarked is a big bonus for me (and Springpad works better for this than Pinterest does). As far as shopping lists go, it’s nice to be able to easily create a shopping list on the go and add to it as ideas strike me, or if I’m at the computer, create a shopping list while referencing bookmarked recipes.
• I also have a running stimulus queue notebook, which is an idea I got from the Accidental Creative. I bookmark videos, podcasts, or long articles so that I can come back and consume them later when I’m in the right headspace. I also have a running note of books to check out at the library. As I actually go through and consume the media, the original bookmark either gets deleted or moved to “References” if I found something in it particularly interesting.

The changes

• The design is unarguably better – prettier, slicker, & you can set backgrounds for specific notebooks. Also, if there’s an image that it can automatically grab, it’ll show up in the home screen (although this doesn’t happen for me since the way I use it means there’s little to no images for it to find, and when it does happen it doesn’t look very good).
• There’s now a quick add functionality, which means that you can, for example, type in “finish presentation by 2PM on Friday” and a task will be created with a deadline of 2 PM on Friday. You can also copy/paste in a product or web site URL, or just type the name of a new note to get it started quickly. (In theory. The product/task feature didn’t work in the video. Although after further inspection it seems maybe I was supposed to hit the “search the web” option for the product.)
• There’s a lot of improved social functionality, making it easier to see and follow public notebooks and collaborate on a notebook with other people.

How this affects how I use it

• As you can see if you watched the video, the change to the layout means that the color coding with notebooks is not near as useful as it used to be. The colors for the notebooks is now nothing but a thin strip across the top of the notebook icon, which means that it’s hard to see at a glance from the home screen, but shows up much more prominently when using the clipping tool or when assigning a note to a notebook after creating it (so if you do something nitpicky+designy like I did, it’ll come back to bite you later; but having an assortment of colors would look sloppy on the home screen).
• I wish I still had the option to set a background for the home page. I know that’s a little bizarre of me, but still. (And it seems weird to me that they would actually remove that feature instead of just leaving it in.)
• I like the quick add, but it’s not a huge improvement with how I use Springpad. It’s cool, but that’s it. The increased social functionality and product adding functionality doesn’t mean much to me since I don’t ever use it. And I was having a really hard time figuring out how to add checklists from the iPhone app, which I just figured out as I was working on this post. (Go to the “add” menu and hold down on the plus sign.)

Overall, I’m fairly neutral on the changes but I almost have to wonder if it’s a step backwards, as now something like Wunderkit is almost closer to what I need/want as far as organizing notes & ideas for specific projects & task/project management. Springpad can still do that, but Wunderkit is specifically tailored to do so and, after my cursory review, is probably superior for that purpose except for when it comes to bookmarking relevant websites for reference to a project.

With these updates, Springpad seems like it’s aiming for somewhere between Evernote and Pinterest, and that’s simply not what I use it for or need it for. I’m not sure if I’ll continue using it, switch over to Evernote (which I’m loathe to do), or find a different service altogether. I was previously quite the evangelist for Springpad and now I’m unsure if I should continue to recommend it to people, as it looks like they’re planning on moving to more of a sharing/collaborating platform and less of an organizing tool.

Have you tried it? What do you think? (And of course, these are only my impressions after an hour or two of playing around with the new Springpad, so if you have different impressions, I’d love to hear them!)

The updates to Springpad as covered elsewhere: Lifehacker, VentureBeat

Productivity & Organization

By Michelle

(Quick side note: I know I’ve been a little AWOL lately, part of that was just…March – SXSW, moving, and travel, all back to back – and part of it has been a few other things that I talk about in this video. Check it out if you’re curious. Back to our regularly scheduled programming!) 

Some people search for the Holy Grail or a giant whale. Me? I just want my perfect digital planner, dammit!

This has been something I’ve been lusting after for a while, I’m not quite sure what reignited it; probably a random bout of frustration the other day after once again attempting to find something like this.

Here’s the features I want & why:

The ability to sort tasks by project or by date assigned. Example: I can select “Let’s Radiate” from the projects menu & see all of the tasks there, or do the same for “Bombchelle” or “Three Wishes Industries”. Or I can choose a week view and see this week laid out M-F in vertical columns, with the tasks that are assigned to specific days in the column for that day.

Why I want this: I have a lot of projects going. At any given time, I need to be able to see where those individual projects are at, and assign tasks from those projects to a specific day for me to work on. But, if I don’t have a really clear (like, I can see it with a half second’s glance) way to gauge how many tasks I’ve already assigned to a specific day or week, and how those tasks fit in with my already-scheduled appointments, then it’s really easy for me to overload myself with tasks, leading to not getting them all done and feeling woefully unproductive. This is easily my most important feature and I’m surprised at how many tools/services just don’t have it available in any way.

Color coding & customizable appearance. Why I want this: Because aesthetics are important. I’m an incredibly visual person (part of why I want the specific layout I described above) and it gives me a thrill every time I use something that’s well designed. We all know there’s that learning curve associated with incorporating a new tool or system, and something being well designed & easy to use means that I’ll enjoy using it enough to get past the learning curve. I also like feeling as though my tools are tailored to fit me, and being able to color-code things or customize the appearance (even a little!) gives me that feeling, which, again, makes me more likely to stick with it past the learning curve.

Ability to create repeating tasks. Why I want this: So I can put “inbox zero” on every Monday, or “schedule tweets”, or whatever, instead of having to create new tasks for things I do on a weekly or monthly basis. As is, I end up never crossing off a task and just reassigning it to next week, which doesn’t give me the same sense of completion (and is an unnecessary PITA, to boot).

Ability to have it send reminders to my phone/email, and syncs with iPad/iPhone/Gcal. (Also, it preferably has an Android app too so I can recommend this to EVERYONE EVER.) Why I want this: This is fairly self explanatory, I should think! I like to be able to easily access my tasks wherever I’m at or if there’s an internet outage at home, enabling me to still get some work done. The whole reason I want to not be using a paper planner is so that I’m not dependent on any one thing, so having a productivity tool that is just an iPad or iPhone app also defeats the purpose.

Drag & drop interface. Why I want this: Because it’s easier that way. (No, this is not an absolute must-have, but I really like it!)

And…that’s actually pretty much it.

Though this seems like a fairly short list to me, I can’t find anything like it. But I have found some things that are close – the three closest contenders I’ve found so far are Wunderkit, Nozbe, and HiTask.

Wunderkit has customizable backgrounds (though not quite to the extent I wish they did, since they don’t have my default-wish of a damask or Baroque-wallpaper patterned background), and is obviously designed with aesthetics in mind, but I’m not sure if I can view tasks by day AND by project, or just by project. It was also created with a lot of social/team functionality in mind which is something that I’m not so much interested in, as someone who works largely on their own. I’ve dipped my toe into it, but haven’t fully tested it out yet.

Nozbe is a new discovery and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it before. I’m not a fan of the mint-green default color scheme, but you can have your choice between three themes (green, blue, or gray), and blue is my favorite color (if you can believe it, given my hair 😉 ), so that’s better than nothing. It has a lot of features that I haven’t seen regularly before – the ability to assign tasks to a specific context (Home, Computer, Errands, Waiting for), time tracking on tasks, and turning a task into a project. It also can sync Evernote items associated with a specific project, which would be REALLY cool if I used Evernote.

HiTask, I actually used to use fairly regularly about a year ago, and for some reason left it by the wayside. Looking at it again, it has most of the functionality I’m looking for, including – gasp! – rainbow color coding and the ability to view by today/next 7 days/project. It’s not quite as visual/pretty as I would like but it’s obvious that they did give some consideration to how it looks, which is more than you can say for a lot of tools out there.

What about Springpad?

I still love Springpad to an intense, slightly obsessive degree, but after using it for a while, I’ve found that for me, it isn’t as useful for task management as it is for storing notes, ideas, bookmarks, and references. (Plus recipes & shopping lists.) They’ve recently done an upgrade (which I’ll be doing a video review of soon, including talking more about how I use it) and I think with some finangling, I could make Springpad work as my task/project management tool of choice, but I’d rather just use it for what I already use it for.

The plan:

This random urge to create my perfect digital system (no more depending on my paper planner!) is actually coming at a fairly ideal time since, with all of the unusual-ness of the last month (SXSW, moving, travel), I’m having to re-create most of my systems anyways. (Little secret, just between you & me? I’m not sure I could find my paper planner right now even if I was keen on using it, as we’re still not fully unpacked.)

What I’m going to do is, for the next little while, try out each of these tools (and maybe more, if I find them) for 1-2 weeks, to get a feel for them and see how close to ideal they are, and then do a video review (like I did for Springpad or Trello or is coming soon for Wunderlist) with how I’ve been using it, how it stacks up, & what uses I’d recommend it for.

Stay tuned for my thoughts, the review of Wunderlist next week, & a post on staying sane + productive while moving – and if you have any suggestions for more tools to review, leave ’em below!

Life

By Michelle

Yeah, so I’ve kind of fallen off the map lately. If you want to know what’s been going on & what’s been going through my head, I have a handy little video to help you out:

(I mention tech errors at the beginning of the video, and true to form, there are several spots where the video randomly pauses but the audio continues. I decided to post it anyways in the spirit of not editing. Still figuring out why that happened.) 

Totally unrelated to anything I actually talked about: I can’t believe Giles is back there chowing down on that plant! No wonder it’s been looking a little haggard lately. BAD CAT.

Mentioned in the video:

Limitless Megan

Dyana Valentine/Woke Up Knowing

Shanna Mann

The Puttytribe (opening membership soon! you’ll want to get on that)

Baba Yaga

Perchta (an article written by my very own self)

Shenee

So…what do you think? What do you notice yourself tamping down on or suppressing about yourself? And how did you start that noticing? How do you keep from editing yourself? I’m genuinely curious and want to hear your thoughts!

Life

By Michelle

Helen is one of my favorite ladies! She’s smart, funny, and always willing to check you on your assumptions. So when I saw that she’s doing a program (that looks amaaazing), I knew I had to get her on the phone so that we could talk about beating self sabotage & noticing + breaking out of old patterns. (Bonus topics: why a lot of self-help is actually not all that helpful & why affirmations never worked for Helen.) It’s about 30 minutes long, and totally worth a listen!

Download/listen to the call here

Find Helen at the Cause Effect.

Resources mentioned: 

Bryon Katie, “Loving What Is”
Dr. Helen Schucman, “A Course In Miracles”
Ariel & Shya Kane, “Working On Yourself Doesn’t Work” (she didn’t mention that book specifically, but says it’s a good starter)
Wayne Dyer, “Real Magic”

What did you think? How do you notice when you’re self-sabotaging yourself, and break the pattern?