tools

Review: WeekPlan

July 26, 2012 by Michelle 2 Comments

Review Summary & Notes

WeekPlan is based on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, so it uses a lot of terms specific to that system. However, it’s got a really great, intuitive interface, with drag & drop functionality for tasks across days/Someday/Backburner. Adding tasks is quick and easy, and there’s some extra functionality that you don’t usually see in task management tools (a journal, places for you to keep track of your weekly goals, a place for you to write your mission statement, etc.). They don’t have a mobile app but they do say that the mobile site works well on tablets or smartphones (haven’t tested that functionality myself).

This’d be great for:

Solopreneurs
People who want a task management tool with a focus on personal development
People who already use a project management tool for them/their team but want something lightweight that will let them view just their tasks
People who want people who want something like TeuxDeux but with more features
People who want a place to keep track of their personal goals and tasks
People who like to see a fairly “zoomed in” view of their tasks and projects (since you can only see a week at a time)

Not so great for:

People who need to delegate
People who like to or need to see more than a week’s worth of tasks at a time
People who like to see an overview of all of their projects in one spot (there’s different workspaces, but not a way to see tasks across all workspaces, AFAIK)
Anyone who loves color coding as much as I do

Do you use WeekPlan? Whatcha think?

Filed Under: Reviews, Tools + Resources Tagged With: reviews, task management, tools, video, weekplan

What a Las Vegas kiosk can teach us about tools + systems

July 11, 2012 by Michelle 2 Comments

Pre-large margaritas. Obviously.

Back at the end of March, I went to Las Vegas for a few days for my sister’s 21st birthday. Myy sister, my mom, my grandma, and I all convened in Sin City. It was a lot of fun & interesting too (they aren’t lying when they say casinos are easy to get lost in!), and the last night I was there was particularly interesting.

See, my sister and I went to the strip, because she was in search of these massive margaritas in novelty glasses that we kept seeing. We eventually found the right place and I was rather forcefully coerced into buying a 32 oz margarita. (Ashley left with a 48 oz one. Yes, indeed.)

As we were walking back towards the bus stop, drinking our margaritas in a hurry (you can walk on the street with it but not ride a bus with it – what kind of sense does that make?!), we came across this kiosk with convertible dresses. You’ve probably seen them or something similar – it’s a dress, it’s a skirt, it’s a magical top. You know the drill.

Long story short, I ended up buying one not only for me but for my sister as well (who is obviously better at coercing me in to things than I give her credit for).

And…the dress has sat in my closet, unworn but for once or twice on laundry day when I had no choice but to try and figure it out. I’ve never been outsmarted by an article of clothing before but I’m pretty sure this one is just too smart for me. I’m honestly not sure how I managed to get it off after consuming a margarita that large.*

There’s a pamphlet that came with it with suggestions for different ways to wear it, and there’s videos on Youtube, but I haven’t taken the time to actually read the pamphlet or watch any of the videos. It’s a cool souvenir, but I just can’t seem to get in the habit of actually wearing the dress.

What can we learn from this?

Don’t buy clothes when you’re drinking. If you have to put down the margarita to hand over payment, it’s probably a bad idea.
Don’t buy clothes that require work.
If you buy clothes that require work, actually do the work to make the damn thing wearable.

And now you’re all “Yes, Michelle, this is all very interesting, but please tell me how this is relevant to those of us who aren’t impulsive buyers when drinking?”

Okay, can do. No need to sass me.

I see people doing the same thing when it comes to choosing & using tools & systems, all the time. Like, all the time. People choose a tool that seems cool and has tons of flashy features, but then they don’t ever take the time to do the set up work (learning how to wear the dress, so to speak), so they end up frustrated and confused every time they do it. Or they get something they don’t need. Or they make it harder than necessary. Do not do this, people. Learn from my dress experience.

Instead, do this:

Take the time to set it up right.

I know. I know. You’d rather stab yourself in the eye with a dull spoon, but if you’re going to try and use a new project management tool, for example, make an effort – a for-reals effort, possibly with actual sweat involved - to get past the learning curve. Set aside a few hours to learn all the tricks, watch the videos, read the material, and input all of your information, tasks, & team members.

(Your time at a premium? You could always hire someone – ahem, cough cough – to do planning & input for you!)

If you don’t do this, you’re going to be limping along every time you use it, not using the tool to the full extent of its potential, and frustrating the hell out of yourself, until you give up and go back to your previously disorganized ways.

Get reallyreally clear on what you want + need and avoid extra fluff.

As people, we almost always tend to think “more = better”. I’m sure you’ve heard the news, but just in case: more does not, in fact, equal better. In fact, I purposefully avoid tools that have more than I need (one reason I don’t use Basecamp or CentralDesktop). If something has way more features than I need, I’m going to log in, look at the interface, get confused trying to get to relevant information, and then walk away in a huff. And then nothing gets done that day because I have no idea what to do and I can’t find my effing task list.

If you’re a team of one and you don’t want or need a visual interface, use Paprika. If you want something more visual, go with Flow. But whatever you’re looking for – a time tracking tool, a CRM, a project management tool, whatever – before you start looking, make a list of what you need and what you want. If, while you’re looking, you come across a feature and you think “Wow, that’s a great feature that I would use regularly”, then it can be added to the list. However, if you’re a one person biz, chances are you don’t need a massive all-in-one project management/CRM/wiki/time-tracking/invoicing tool that also makes a mean sub sandwich. Don’t be seduced into paying for one by a slick video.

Make it easy. Braindead zombie easy.

I’m not doubting your intellectual prowess – I know you can do something that’s hard and requires thought and effort. But, here’s the thing: thought, effort, willpower – they’re all very finite resources. We only have so much for the day and then we run out and kaput, we’re done. So if you choose systems or tools that require a large amount of them? Chances are, you’ll find it incredibly difficult to stick with them in the long run.

Here’s a question to ask yourself: whatever you’re trying to do here – how can you make it as easy as possible to do it? How can you make it easier to do it than to not do it? (This isn’t always possible, of course, but thinking that way can help you come up with good ideas.) Want to get start doing weekly planning dates for your business? Take yourself out to Starbucks with nothing but your planning tools and bribe yourself with sweet caffeinated beverages. And when it comes to tools, this circles back to point #1 – after you choose something that’s as easy as possible, actually take the time to learn it.

And that, ladies & gents, is how we avoid having the system or tool equivalent of a convertible dress in your closet that you’ll never, ever wear.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Post ‘em in the comments, I want to hear!

PS: I’m doing a free class next week on how to stop being reactive & start being proactive with your business planning. You can sign up right here.

*In case you’re wondering, I do know how I got it on – that was the kiosk lady. (Smart lady. Once I had it on I didn’t want to leave without it.)

Filed Under: Systems + Streamlining, Tools + Resources Tagged With: stories, systems, tools

Review: Flow

May 25, 2012 by Michelle Leave a Comment

Overview:

Well designed – more of a minimalist vibe than I’m usually down with, but it’s at least apparent that they gave design/color schemes some thought
Looove the calendar functionality!
Love that everything is so easy to use and that there’s multiple ways to do anything.
I really like the added functionality of being able to create task lists under a certain list. Makes it easier to map out complicated projects.

I don’t really have any complaints with Flow. It does cost $10/month after the free trial is up, but in my opinion, it’s worth it.

However, like I said in the video, I won’t be using it because I’d like to keep the option open to bring people in to my project management tool – and at $10/user/month (if I’m understanding their pricing structure right), Flow could get pricey quick. After I did a bit more poking around, it appears that there’s a discount of 30% for teams of three or more – for three people the price would be $20/month. And when the team gets up to 10 people the discount goes up to 50% (a team of ten people would be $50/month). So the price isn’t quite as disproportionately high as it appears on first glance.

I’m testing out another option right now that’s built with teams in mind and has a few things that I really like (CRM functionality and a color-coded calendar view, namely), and I’m really liking it, but if I change my mind Flow would definitely be the tool I’d switch to.

If you’re a solopreneur and want something streamlined, simple, & easy to use, with mobile & drag/drop functionality and a calendar view, I would wholeheartedly recommend Flow.

What do you think? Used Flow before? Anything else you’d like me to review?

Filed Under: Reviews, Tools + Resources Tagged With: flow, organization, project management, review, task management, tools, video

The new Springpad & what it means for you + me

April 19, 2012 by Michelle 7 Comments

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

Filed Under: Reviews, Tools + Resources Tagged With: organizing, productivity, springpad, tools

In Search of the Perfect Productivity Tool

April 13, 2012 by Michelle 10 Comments

(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!

Filed Under: Avoiding Overwhelm Tagged With: organizing, planning, productivity, tools