Productivity Tools Review: Remember The Milk

In this post from the series of reviews of productivity tools, I'll review an interesting productivity tool called Remember The Milk (RTM).

Remember The Milk

Remember the Milk (RTM) is a task list tool made to quickly look at your activities in a day, without any hassles like scheduling time or place for each activity (unlike Google Calendar).

RTM is a simple to-do list

 You can quickly add new tasks using the textbox and some symbols (to inform RTM about the due date, recorrence, etc.). There are some interesting features like categories to group some tasks and priorities (which set some colors to your tasks for easy recognition). You can add tasks via e-mail too!

Mobile App Version, simple and useful at the same time

In the mobile version you can access the same features from the desktop version, but in a simple and clean interface (the downside is that the mobile app sincronizes once per day in the free mode).

Google Calendar integration

Another strong feature in RTM is the integration available to other services, like Google Calendar, Google Tasks. You can easily see your RTM tasks in these services and update then to reflect on your RTM.

Pros:

• Clean, minimalist and simple interface.
• Many powerful symbols to add features to your task straight from the textbox.
• Lots os integrations to other calendar-like services.

Cons:

• Free mode limits your sync in the mobile app (you will be limited to use RTM in desktop) and doesn't offer integrations to other services.
• It's hard to manage your task list when lots of tasks are overdue.

That's it! If you like to manage simple to-do lists, give RTM a try!

Different Ways to Approach Time Management (Part 4 of 4)

Finishing the series about the diferrent approaches to Time Management, let's wrap-up those concepts and discuss more about using each one in this post.

Conclusion

You don't need to use any of these different approaches everyday, try to see these as options to apply for some specific contexts.

There are some important guidelines to choose the right approach:

• If you have a regular or predictable schedule, you may find interesting to use a convergent approach, since you're able to focus on just one activity at a time.

• Otherwise, if you have a irregular or do have lots of interruptions during your activity, try to use a divergent approach, since you're able to do some quick activities with a short-term focus.

• And if you have regular interruptions, you may try the alternating approach, it's strongest point is to adapt to your context (with a small overhead for planning).

That's it! There are many other Time Management techniques to write about, I'll do it in another series of posts in the future!

Productivity Tools Review: Google Calendar

In this post from the series of reviews of productivity tools, I'll write more about a very cool and known tool, but not properly explored which is the Google Calendar.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a tool focused for scheduling your (and your team) activities with a agenda-like style, it presents your activities in a chronological and linear way.

Google Calendar main view

The desktop view provides a drop-n-drop interface style (I still can't understand why there isn't something like this in the mobile versions) which each calendar shows up with a different color in the screen, with an easy to see your agenda for the next days.

Task details and setup

Each task does have some interesting options, like recurrence, place to occur and invite people do attend the event. And there are some interesting integrations with other tools, like Google Now (it provides you some cards with traffic info and ETA to arrive into the place for the next event), Remember the Milk (it allows you to see the tasks from RTM via Calendar) and Google Tasks.

Google calendar mobile version

Both mobile and desktop versions are FREE to use, and there are only some restrictions when using their API (only developers must worry with these restrictions) and it works in offline mode (which is a huge plus when you're trying to manage your agenda while in the airplane, travelling or commuting).

Pros:

• Usability is awesome!
• Very simples and straightforward to use.
• Receive notifications in your desktop, smartphone or tablet.

Cons:

• When you don't check you smartphone or tablet for a while, it floods you with notifications.
• It can take a while to get used to creating tasks instead of writing in a notepad-like app.
• The integration to other calendars and some advanced functions have poor support.

That's it! Give Google Calendar a try if you need a flexible and online agenda!

Different Ways to Approach Time Management (Part 3 of 4)

Resuming the series about how to structure your Time Management Techniques, let's see more about the high level aspects from these techniques with the third way to do it: Alternating Way.

Alternating Way

In the Alternating Way of doing activities, you'll try to focus on doing some set of activities to reach a "mid goal" that accomplishes some minor objective, but spawns new activities and tasks. It's like a hybrid with the Convergent and Divergent Ways, Alternanting between them during your day.

This method is useful for people who work in various projects at the same time with a team, because there are some situations where it's useful to be concentrated in a subset of activities to complete a "mid goal" to delegate the next activites to another team member while you focus on another project (possibly with another team).

Another interesting use is to do some parallel activities to reach short-term objectives along the day, like checking and keeping up with your e-mail, where you could wait until some e-mail's are in your inbox to read and answer them in batch instead of interrupting your focus or concentration in every e-mail received.

Pros:

• You can get the better from the Convergent and Divergent worlds.
• Allows you to have a somewhat quick response to an interruption than using the Divergent Way.
• You don't get easily bored since you're changing methods in your day.

Cons:

• You can get confused when alternating between the Convergent and Divergent Ways.
• In some situations, like in short deadlines, this method creates a considerable time overhead.
• You need to plan carefully the amount the time allocated for every group of activities.

That's it! In the next week I'll post about some considerations about using these three methods and wrap-up this topic!

Productivity Tools Review: Trello

I'll be posting some reviews about productivity tools which I find interesting to take notice and maybe use it in your routine or work.

Please experiment these tools first and see if it works for you, because the tool needs to adapt to you, not otherwise.

Trello

Trello is a tool focused for project management with a kanban-like style, it's very interesting to use in collaboration with your team.

The first interesting thing is the mascot called Taco (a cute dog) which informs you about the updates and major changes in the Trello platform.

Taco

The interface itself is very clean and functional, with a drag-and-drop way to manage your activity cards (every task is treated like a card). This graphical mode can be used with the categories as lanes or steps to see the progress in your team activities in a visual way.

Trello's main screen

Each card may have owners or subscribers (and you're notified for every activity you're subscribed to), specific colors and a wide range of details.

Card customization

And the main thing: both desktop and mobile apps are FREE! Only some options are available in the premium mode.

Pros:

• Usability is awesome!
• Simple to use, just drag-and-drop and some typing in most cases.
• Receive notifications only for activities you subscribe to.

Cons:

• If your team updates lots of cards everyday, the app will flood you with notifications.
• You need to persuade your team into updating and using Trello.
• Cards can get too confusing and difficult to track changes made if you add lots of details.

That's it! Give Trello a try if you work on a team!

Different Ways to Approach Time Management (Part 2 of 4)

Resuming the series about how to structure your Time Management Techniques, let's see more about the high level aspects from these techniques with the second way to do it: Divergent Way.

Disclaimer: This way isn't entirely the opposite from the Convergent Way!

Divergent Way

In the Divergent Way of doing activities, you'll try to focus on doing only one thing at once, to archieve multiple goals (either totally or partially on each one of these goals). The name says itself, you try to do one activity that diverges into multiple goals.

There are some interesting aspects about using this time management style:

Pros:

• If you like to focus in only one activity at a time.
• Doing one of these activities can have some synergies with multiple and different goals.
• You just have one start-up time per activity.

Cons:

• You can get easily bored.
• If there are external obstacles in your activity, you may have to wait until they are fixed or resolved to continue working.
• There are situations where doing multiple activities creates an atmosphere of completing things smoothly.

Like the earlier post in the series, try to identify if the Divergent Way is your style, there are one other style I'll write about in the next post with is a hybrid from the Convergent and Divergent Ways.

Different Ways to Approach Time Management (Part 1 of 4)

Most of the readers from this blog have seen some different (and often conflicting) Time Management approaches and techniques, but in many cases, there are some questions like: How do I mix these different approaches? Is there a way to do this?

And yes, there is a way, but first we have to think about some higher aspects of these techniques (in a strategic way) and that involves some analysis about your thought patterns when trying to achieve a goal.

There are three main different ways of approaching your goal and I'll present the first one in this post: Convergent Way.


Convergent Way

In the Convergent Way of doing activities, you'll try to do many things at once (either in parallel or in a sequential mode) to archieve just one goal. The name says itself, you try to converge many activities into one goal.

There are some interesting aspects about using this time management style:

Pros:

• If you like to do some activities in parallel.
• Between one task and another, you could have some useful insights about the goal itself.
• If some of your tasks do have a natural delay to be completed, you can use this idle time to tackle another task.

Cons:

• You can get easily distracted.
• Too many tasks in parallel creates a considerable tax on your body and mind.
• There are situations where the important thing to do is just act and focus in doing one activity, instead of being "busy" doing lots of tasks.

Try to identify if the Convergent Way is your style, there are two other styles I'll write about in the next posts.