The Tools We Use

[TesTeq]

Recently I nearly forgot a password for my notebook.

no tablets for me yet though I keep considering ...

Get iPad mini. Recently I nearly forgot a password for my notebook.

 

[OF user]

Meg and One Note

I was wondering if Meg Edwards could briefly share how she sets up One Note for her lists.

 

[megedwards]

How I use OneNote

I was wondering if Meg Edwards could briefly share how she sets up One Note for her lists.

Thanks for asking.

I personally use OneNote and think it is the closest thing to using a paper based system. It synches nicely to my Iphone.

Here are my settings- I think the only changed I made to the defaults setting were to Page tabs appear on the left.

Go to File- Options and Display.
Check off the following boxes
Place OneNote icon in the notification area of the taskbar
Page tabs appear on the left
Show the floating New Page button near page tabs
Navigation bar appears on the left
Show note containers on pagers

Hope that helps.

Meg

 

[OF user]

OneNote

Thanks Meg. I want to try something that links to outlook and the iphone but I do not like outlook by itself. I also like the similarity to paper.

 

[LEAJ4]

Here are mine:
List Manager: Outlook with NetCentrics add-in (Deja Office sync to mobile)
Calendar: Outlook (Deja Office sync to mobile)
Email: Yahoo, Gmail (I don't bring them into Outlook); experimenting with IQTELL
Digital Reference: TheBrain, Evernote, Outlook Notes
Mobile Devices: BlackBerry Z10, BlackBerry Playbook

Leslie

 

[MarkW1]

Whats David Allen uses

Hi,
i would also like know what tools David Allen uses. I only know he uses Lotus Notes

 

[kelstarrising]

Hi,
i would also like know what tools David Allen uses. I only know he uses Lotus Notes

David Allen uses:

List Manager - Lotus Notes with eProductivity
Email - Lotus Notes
Calendar - Lotus Notes
Digital Reference - Lotus Notes, Evernote, Dropbox
Mobile Devices - iPhone, iPad, (analog) Notetaker Wallet

 

[MarkW1]

David Allen uses:

List Manager - Lotus Notes with eProductivity
Email - Lotus Notes
Calendar - Lotus Notes
Digital Reference - Lotus Notes, Evernote, Dropbox
Mobile Devices - iPhone, iPad, (analog) Notetaker Wallet

Thanks!

 

[jon]

I've noticed the majority of folks posting use a combination of list managers/calendars and it's something I'm struggling with. I see " Tool A @ work; Tool B @ home/personal". But does everyone sync the 2 separate calendars? In making personal appointments for a part time business, I need to make sure there are no conflicts with work.

List manager: Outlook @ work; playing with Evernote, IQTell, Colornote (Android)
email: Outlook @ work; Yahoo and Gmail @ personal
Calendar: Outlook @ work: Google Calendar @ personal
Digital Reference: Starting with Evernote, Colornote, Voice recorder - all on my Android phone
Mobile device: Android phone

 

[kelstarrising]

I've noticed the majority of folks posting use a combination of list managers/calendars and it's something I'm struggling with. I see " Tool A @ work; Tool B @ home/personal". But does everyone sync the 2 separate calendars? In making personal appointments for a part time business, I need to make sure there are no conflicts with work.

That's definitely the huge challenge with managing two systems. David Allen uses one system only. I used one for years as well, but in the past year moved to separate systems for work and personal. Since my work calendar doesn't sync to a mobile device, I am hampered trying to book some personal appointments (which does sync to my iPhone) without knowing my work schedule. There haven't been too many collisions, but it does occasionally happen where I book something personally like a dentist appointment, when I'm at the dentist's office, and come back to my work computer to realize it's in the middle of webinar I'm presenting. Best workaround I've found is for any short-term appointments personally or professionally, that are the most likely to collide, I wait to book those when I'm back at my laptop and have access to both calendars.

Some colleagues of mine who also have two systems carry both a BlackBerry for work calendar and a separate mobile device for personal. I didn't want a BB, so I opted to go without having access to that calendar.

Might be more than you wanted to know, but hope it helps!

Kelly

 

[jon]

Might be more than you wanted to know, but hope it helps!

Kelly

No that was great. Thank you, you hit on my point exactly. While I want to know exactly what I need and get it implemented, I need to let it morph into what fits for me. Having lived in chaos so long it might take me some time, but well worth it.

 

[MikeP]

Dueling Calendars

That's definitely the huge challenge with managing two systems. David Allen uses one system only. I used one for years as well, but in the past year moved to separate systems for work and personal. Since my work calendar doesn't sync to a mobile device, I am hampered trying to book some personal appointments (which does sync to my iPhone) without knowing my work schedule. There haven't been too many collisions, but it does occasionally happen where I book something personally like a dentist appointment, when I'm at the dentist's office, and come back to my work computer to realize it's in the middle of webinar I'm presenting. Best workaround I've found is for any short-term appointments personally or professionally, that are the most likely to collide, I wait to book those when I'm back at my laptop and have access to both calendars.

Some colleagues of mine who also have two systems carry both a BlackBerry for work calendar and a separate mobile device for personal. I didn't want a BB, so I opted to go without having access to that calendar.

Might be more than you wanted to know, but hope it helps!

Kelly

My solution is to manually keep them in sync. Yes, it takes a minute longer for each apportionment and I have had to get into the habit of making sure next week is the same on both systems when I do my WR but it's worth it to have my entire life in the Palm of my hand and to ensure that I don't get double booked.

Also, I find there is less volume on the calendar where I have two systems vs my lists where I have One System to Rule Them All.

Mike

 

[SiobhanBR]

Calendar on Blackberry is definitely its best feature!

I greatly appreciate having my work calendar on my (work-issued) Blackberry for that very reason - when booking next appointments I can at least do a quick check that I'm not out of town or in a very-important-meeting.

I think your selection of tool(s) for work vs. calendar will depend on the type of work you do. For me, I very rarely have work in the evenings/weekend. The odd travel and an occassional evening meeting but in general I'm pretty safe having personal separate. And appointments/vacation (mine or the daycare!) are really the only personal items that must get scheduled on my work calendar. If you work from home or have a very flexible work schedule where personal/work are going to overlap frequently, I would think you'd want one calendar you can rely on.

That said, I use my work calendar for everything since it syncs to the Blackberry. I do have to keep in mind that I do not own the Blackberry or the data on my calendar - for some that might be a problem.

 

[jon]

My solution is to manually keep them in sync. Yes, it takes a minute longer for each apportionment and I have had to get into the habit of making sure next week is the same on both systems when I do my WR but it's worth it to have my entire life in the Palm of my hand and to ensure that I don't get double booked.

Also, I find there is less volume on the calendar where I have two systems vs my lists where I have One System to Rule Them All.

Mike

I have toyed with forwarding all my work stuff to my personal calendar, but haven't made that a hard habit yet. Thus the frustration. Sounds like the "manual syncing" option is a good work around. I'm trying to avoid the paper calendar, but I suppose that's an option too. Thanks, Mike.

 

[ryanirelan]

• List Manager
• Calendar
• Email
• Digital Reference
• Mobile Devices

What are yours?

List Manager: OmniFocus (Mac, iPhone, iPad)
Calendar: Google Calendar is the engine, but I use Fantastical on Mac and iPhone.
Email: Apple Mail
Digital Reference: Evernote and DevonThink Pro Office
Mobile Devices: iPhone 5, iPad Mini, iPad 2

I use a Field Notes notebook for capture on the go, when it's not appropriate to whip out my iPhone to drop something into OmniFocus (directly or via Drafts app).

 

[pjaugust]

Calendar: outlook (work) iCloud (personal)
NA’s, Projects, Waiting, Someday/Maybe List Mgr: apple notes
digital reference: company drives (work) iCloud files (personal)
capture: apple notes

 

[PeterByrom]

List Manager:

personal = Todoist, with projects as tasks within areas lists, next actions as tagged sub-tasks attached to projects.

married life = Todoist lists shared with my wife. Projects and next actions all as lists.

work = Things 3, as per intended setup, not as per the gtd guide.

Calendar:

personal = ICal

Married life = ICal with a synced shared

Work = office 365 outlook

Email:

Personal = gmail
Married = joint gmail
Work = office 365 outlook

Digital Reference:

personal = Todoist alpha lists, Mac & gdrive
Married = Todoist alpha lists, g drive
Work = Things 3: alpha projects with tags for list and topic types.

Mobile Devices:

Todoist app
Things 3 app
Outlook
Gmail app
G drive app

 

[Steve_Dunn]

Digital
Capture: Braintoss / Google Keep
List Manager: Nirvana.
Email: Gmail (home) / Outlook (work)
Calendar: Google Calendar (home) / Outlook (work)
Digital Reference: Nirvana / Google Drive / Obsidian
Mobile Devices: Dell Inspiron Laptop. iPad Mini 2, Motorola G6 Play

Analogue
Paper: Field Notes / Leuchtturm 1917 / Cambridge Jotter A4/A5
Pen: Cross ATX Basalt Black Ballpoint Pen
Pencil: Cross Classic Century Classic Black Pencil

I've been a real ditherer with setting up a system. I honestly think I've spent more time dabbling with a system than I have done with actually getting work done.

Once of the things I've enjoyed this year is discovering Nirvana and Obsidian. Nirvana handles the nuts and bolts of my productivity system ($49 for the one-off Lifetime Pro plan). Obsidian provides a mechanism for me to create simple Markdown files within a folder structure (that syncs with Google Drive). Certainly all I need for my project support and reference material. (PDFs and other attachments will just sit in Google Drive).

 

[Jorge Green]

List Manager
Todoist (added integrations using IFTTT, Zapier, Integromat) - these basically allow me to tickle things and keep routines actions on lists.

Calendar
Google Calendar (sync with Todoist)

Email
Gmail - I forward all my emails to my Todoist inbox. In fact I try and keep any digital notifications forwarded to Todoist so I can process everything from there.

Digital Reference
Google Drive

Mobile Devices
iPhone

 

[JenniferOrigami]

List Manager:
Evernote, an A6 slice of paper for my shortlist, and e-mail - with physical boxes in my office for non-digital support material

Calendar:
Filofax Heritage A5

Email:
Outlook for most things, Gmail for random subscriptions

Digital Reference:
Evernote, e-mail, and several large external hard drives

Mobile Devices:
iPhone 10s