Yesterday, I touched on the idea of doing things right away as a sure way to not only stay organized but also make sure you don’t forget anything. But what about those things like taking your car to the garage. That’s not something that can done right away. But yet you just thought about it. Sure you can write it down, but as I said before, I have a terrible memory. What if I write it down and then forget where I wrote it? Or write it down and then lose the book? Or just forget to write it down cause I’m driving at the time? Doing things ASAP is definitely a way to clear a lot of stuff off your plate, but there comes a time when you need some kind of scheduling system.
Some websites will swear by Moleskines, while others pimp out Google Calendar and Gmail, while STILL others go about using things like text files and command line utilities. But all of them claim the same thing, so I will as well – because it is terribly important. You need to find a system that fits for you. If you don’t spend a lot of time on a computer, don’t get a system that’s based around it. If you don’t have a lot of paper or pens around normally, don’t bother with things that deal with writing. Don’t try and change your life to fit your new tool, instead make sure that your tool fits your currently life. If it doesn’t, it’s not right for you. Sure you may have to make a few sacrifices here and there, but hey, if your end result is being productive, that’s all that matters.
For me, the right tool for me is a webapp called Producteev.
The task manager that works the way you do
Producteev is, at it’s surface, a simple task management web application. And of course you can treat it as such – it has all the base features and a lot more!. You have a common “inbox” that lets you house all your tasks. Of course for each task, you can easily add a due date or categorize it via a label. You can even go so far as setting up custom notifications for certain items through email, google calendar or a number of instant messaging services.
Producteev takes it a step further by allowing “workspaces”. You GTD folk can think of these as contexts, but that’s too limiting. Basically a workspace can be anything you want it to. It’s simply a way of grouping tasks. For me I just have the one workspace labelled “Personal” but Producteev doesn’t limit the number of workspaces you can have. If you want to see some better examples of workspaces in use, Producteev has a VERY useful Use case section outlining how different individuals (or companies!) can use their product.
Where Producteev’s power really lies for me, is in it’s capturing interface. Not only can you visit the website and add and manipulate tasks directly, you can do the same through a simple task@producteev.com catch all email address. Basically, anything you send to this address from a registered email address is automatically added to the inbox of the default workspace. Few task management applications offer this ability, and as a BlackBerry user, it is probably the most important for me. I always have my BlackBerry with me and remembering the email address is never an issue. In fact, I just made a contact for Producteev on my phone and I can easily email new tasks to the service. And just to make it EVEN better, you can set up new tasks through an IM service that supports MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM and even Twitter (just to name some of the more frequently used ones)
As an added bonus, I can even label it, assign due dates, or swap it between work spaces ENTIRELY through email. That means if I’m stuck in traffic and remember something that I need to do, I can easily fire off a quick email task to Producteev.
I’ve even set up daily digests, outlining all the things that I need to do for the day, to be emailed daily.
Producteev is definitely one of those applications that isntantly found its way into everyday use and definitely one I would suggest you check out. Like most web applications these days, they employ a Freemium model, so that individuals (At the moment) have free accounts limited to two users.
If you are interested (and you defintiely should be) check out the video below.
