The productivity tool kit
In the last year I’ve written several posts about self-improvement on this blog. It is a subject I find really interesting. One of the things I absolutely love about working in the IT industry is trying out new productivity tool configurations. What do I mean by that? Well, it is the application suite, online services and hardware that helps me do my job in the most effective way. Before I dive in to the various sections, I should start by saying this is certainly not rocket-science. I’m not re-inventing the wheel or revealing some incredible new method of working that will revolutionise your day! However, I hope this productivity tool kit might make you stop and think about the various ways you organise your day and deliver results. Perhaps there is something you don’t to, or have thought about trying and perhaps this might be the push you need to try. If that’s the case I would love to hear what you think in the comments at the end of this post.
Note taking
The first thing on the list to master is using a note taking application. It is vital in any productivity tool kit that you have something which allows you collate information. This could be product details, shopping lists, draft blog posts, ideas, meeting notes or anything at all. One of the key features of your chosen note takings apps must be that you can use it across multiple devices and synchronise your notes. There is nothing more frustrating that having to copy from a smartphone to a laptop, effectively doubling your workload. Luckily there are some great options available. I’ve used both Microsoft OneNote (which comes as part of the office package) and Evernote. Evernote is my current favourite and I used it on a laptop, tablet and smartphone. It allows me to take and organise notes effectively. Arranging notebooks means I group relevant information together but there are plenty of additional features allowing me to: share notes, present them as a presentation, clip webpages and set reminders. I am currently using the Evernote premium version which costs $5.99 per month (or $49.99 per year) and gives me some additional features and unlimited uploads.
To-Do List
Getting into the habit of running a successful to-do list has really helped me to get more organised. Planning effectively means setting dates for tasks and sticking to them. Once you get into a routine of completing your tasks on a daily basis, you can be so much more efficient. If you want to read more about the how and why, then I’d recommend the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. There were sections of it that I skimmed over, because it goes into quite a lot of detail. But the overall message is good and worth checking out. You could run your to-do list using your note taking application (I actually tried this for a while) but I found a dedicated app worked better. In my productivity tool kit I’m using Todoist. There is an iOS app for iPhone and iPad (it also runs on Google devices) and most major web browsers. In this case I am using the free version, but the premium upgrade gives you the chance to collaborate, build team task-lists, integrate with email and analyse statistics. All for under $30 per year.
Writing and Online Storage
Most of the work I do involves writing. Be it a blog post, a whitepaper or a highly detailed digital strategy document. Using a proper word processor is important as it speeds up the process and helps you use specialist tools, such as: spell check, thesaurus, word count, formatting etc. This part of my productivity tool kit is dominated by Microsoft Word. I’ve used several alternatives (google docs, pages and open office) but just find Word the best and most feature rich. It also has an iOS app which means I can use it on my iPad. I use multiple devices so I need online storage. My go-to service here is Dropbox. Now again there other options here: iCloud from Apple and OneDrive from Microsoft being two examples. I have not really tried others but I understand they all do pretty much the same thing. Some are better suited to specific hardware choices or integrate with particular apps natively, but for me Dropbox does what I need. Having things stored securely in the cloud means losing a device won’t mean you lose all your work and it is a simple way of backing up key files. I’m currently using the free version, if you want to try it out here’s a referral link that will get us both 500MB more space. For a paid version with 1TB storage you pay around $110.
Email and Calendar
When email started to become popular for personal use as well as work, a number of online services came along which you could use. These services allowed you to use a browser to access your mail without the need for your own server or client. One of the most widely used (and it is hard to measure) is Gmail from Google. Along with its associated applications you get email, calendar, document editing and storage all in one place and across multiple devices. If you commit to using the full suite you can probably use it as your entire productivity tool kit. I use Gmail for a number of personal accounts but use Outlook as my corporate service. I think this is quite a common split and brings up a good point, does it really matter? These days there really isn’t a huge differentiation across the largest providers and the choice may well be out of your hands for business use. Despite using both, I tend to prefer the calendar offered by Outlook. However, on my mobile devices I use the Apple mail and calendar clients and I find both satisfactory. It just goes to show that this is one area in which I use a number of services.
Hardware
This is something which comes down to personal choice. There are lots of different options on specification: device sizes, types, manufacturers and operating systems. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks. Over the years I have tried pretty much all of them, and I love playing with gadgets. As I have got older I have found my propensity to change has reduced, so for the last few years I have been primarily using Apple products. My smartphone is an iPhone 5s, my tablet is an iPad Air 2 and my laptop is a Macbook Pro retina 15”. They all work well together and I find I am used to them. Changing would be an upheaval. This isn’t to say I wouldn’t consider something different in future. My girlfriend currently uses a Microsoft Surface and I am tempted to replace both laptop and tablet. I generally use my tablet for meetings and note taking. My laptop is for other office based work. Finding a combination of devices that works is vital to your productivity tool kit but it really comes down to personal choice.
Other
When I started putting this list together, it got bigger than I anticipated. I soon realised there were tools which I use every day than I thought! I could have written a complete post about each section. So in the “other” category there are some other honourable mentions. For collaboration with friends and colleagues I use Skype and Slack for IM and video messaging. Both are great, cover all the platforms I use and deliver on functionality. I do find Skype to be a little resource hungry, but I have so many contacts who primarily use just that. As a browser I use Google Chrome. Again I have tried most of the common ones and find Chrome to offer a nice level of functionality and deliver great performance. I made the switch from Firefox about a year ago when I realised it was slower. I use the Kindle platform for eBooks on my tablet and also on a dedicated device. Finally for music I use Spotify Premium and SoundCloud to ensure I can listen to pretty much any genre. When I’m writing I prefer music without lyrics as it helps me to concentrate.
So there it is, the outline of my productivity tool kit. One thing that is worth mentioning here is security. Most of the applications I’ve mentioned offer the ability to have two-factor authentication. For me it is vital to ensure my data is safe, particularly if it is synchronised with a cloud service. The final point I would like to make is on cost. Most of these applications come with a free use tier and for most people with moderate to light use that will be sufficient. Using cloud based applications to make life easier and more efficient is easy. It is well worth taking time to plan and making sure you find a combination which works well for you. I would be very interested to hear your comments and thoughts on this topic – do feel free to leave a message below. Are you tied into a single suite of products from a certain provider or do you mix and match like me?
The post The Productivity Tool Kit appeared first on The Hosting Insider.