If you are in the market for a new way of organizing your tasks look no more.  Below are three videos for three very different ways of organizing your tasks or next actions.

Orchestra

Pros

• Web and iPhone app
• Speak-to-text feature for entering new tasks
• Ability to set reminders and recurring tasks (daily, weekly, monthly and yearly)
• Ability to add tasks by email
• Ability to assign people tasks and chat within the app

Teux Deux

Pros

• Web and iPhone app
• Great design
• Simplicity
• Weekly layout for easy daily and weekly planning
• Ability to save tasks in a “Someday” category

Workflowy

Pros

• Web and mobile web app
• Ability to share lists with others
• Easy exporting to plain text
• Unique design for bullet-point lovers
• Lot’s of keyboard shortcuts
• Ability to manage lots of lists
• Great search feature
• Ability to create tags to organize lists

The Verdict

The app I would suggest depends on your personal quirks and goals for task management.  For personal tasks I use Orchestra because it has a great iPhone app (which is the main way I manage, I rarely use laptop) and I think the voice-to-text feature is super slick.  The only thing that is missing is tweaking it to manage projects better (for project management at work I’m currently using Asana)

Are you using one of these apps, or something else to manage all the stuff on your plate

I’ve been meaning to change the structure of my Evernote notebooks and tags for a long time.

The previous structure wasn’t really working for me, thus I didn’t really use the tool that much; especially after discovering Workflowy.

Below is a screenshot of the new organization.  I’m sure it will evolve like the previous structures I’ve had, but for now it seems to work for me.

How do you organize your Evernote?

My newly redesigned Evernote organization structure

Need help with the mechanics of tags and notebooks? Check out this video tutorial I did on notebooks and this one on tags

1. Systems and processes are freeing not constraining.
2. Focus on what you are doing, shun distractions, practice deliberately and do the hard work others will not.
3. If you have a nagging problem focus on putting more energy into it and caring more. The tactics, or how to solve the problem will come naturally.
4. Information that isn’t actionable is more of a burden than beneficial. It’s a nice-to-know.
5. Invest time to set things up at the beginning.
6. Fight shortsightedness; think long term.
7. Energy is the biggest influencer of productivity.
8. Great execution over great ideas.
9. The role of management is to help workers automate tasks.
10. The most productive organizations are able to take care of their employees best.
11. Time is money and productivity saves time.
12. If organizations were more productive they would grow more and fix the unemployment problem.
13. Write everything down, you will not remember.
14. Carrots and sticks do motivate, but employees that care are the most effective.
15. Verbs > Nouns.
16. Quality wins over quantity pretty much every time, for every thing.
17. Lifestyle change over dieting.
18. It never hurts to ask.
19. Leverage your strengths, ignore weaknesses.
20. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate. Always be searching for a more efficient and effective way to get the same results.
21. Do now, ask for forgiveness later.
22. Always perform at your best re: Joe Dimaggio quote, “There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.”
23. Nothing (a product, company, service or yourself) is sold without marketing and promotion, no matter how good that thing is.
24. Ignore Everybody. Don’t waste your time comparing yourself to other people. Everybody has a unique situation.
25. Be Curious, Be Resilient, Be Creative.

What principles do you go by?

Here is a great talk from all-round smart guy Scott Berkun.

In this talk Scott covers the following:

1. Idea Journal (20:02)
2. Escape – Subconscious Thoughts (24:18)
3. Inversion – Solve the opposite problem (27:58)
4. Partners/Rivals (31:30)
5. Fail (32:57)
6. Switch Modes (37:10)

For more on Scott check out his website and books.

Source

Have an iOS device (iPhone, iPad) and hate having to enter your email addresses over and over and over and over again?  Me too!!!

Below are instructions for a handy keyboard trick to help you save time entering your email address or making shortcuts for any phrase you enter frequently.

Instructions

1. Go to “Settings”

2. Go to “General”

3. Scroll down to “Keyboard”

4. Scroll to the bottom and click “Add New Shortcut”

5. Add a Phrase and the Shortcut.  The phrase is the word that will expand into the shortcut.  Here I chose “emaill” and my email for the shortcut

The Shortcut in Action

Below you can see that when I type in the phrase “emaill” my shortcut will pop up.  Hitting space or enter will then insert the shortcut word.  You can also hit the “x” to not have the shortcut insert.

The Finished Product

Wrap Up

This little trip has saved me countless seconds that I would have otherwise had to type in my email.  I hope this trick helps you and save you time.

This or any other shortcut you create can be entered into any text field in any iOS app and work beautifully.

Has anyone else used this trick?  What phrase do you create shortcut for?

I watch this video frequently but still not enough.  If you are doubting yourself right now and your ability to make something good (let alone great), I think this video is just the ticket, regardless of your creative pursuits.

Source

Forget everything I’ve ever written here. The three keys to success from John Gruber on the latest Talk Show:

1. Hot, fussy coffee

2. Over-carbonated water

3. Clicky keyboard

I don’t think there is a man, women or child on the Internet if they were armed with those three things that they would not be a success

Check out Gruber’s podcast he does every week with Dan Benjamin. It’s truly great.

http://5by5.tv/talkshow

Been putting pen to paper a lot more lately and have been feeling far more creative and clear. The example above is my thought process for reporting on a current project.

Another friendly reminder to step away from the screen.

“The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas. There are too many opportunities to hit the delete key. The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us — we start editing our ideas before we have them.”

Austin Kleon, “Steal Like an Artist”

Yep

“Living for the 5 p.m. bell, the weekend or retirement has not made sense to me after I watched a close friend suddenly die one year short of retirement, which almost assuredly wouldn’t have happened had he made different choices about his life and work. Yes, he made a ton of money, which his heirs will now spend, but I’ve shifted from the belief that ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’ to ‘the person how had the most fun in life wins.’”

Building a Great Place to Work