My secret to becoming more Producteev …

Posted by on Jun 24, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments

I admit it.  I’ve kept this one pretty low key now for a good couple of months.  

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it until I knew I was certain.  I haven’t endorsed a task-based app in a very long time, but I feel so confident about this one, that it’s about time I share my excitement.  

You know how we all get about these kinds of things, right?  We hear about a new productivity website, and we quickly abandon the old and go right to what looks new and shiny.  Not that I was keeping anything from you all, but I wanted to be absolutely certain about this one before I let you all know!  Bobby Travis over at 40Tech told me about them, I read his blog post (and his guest post for Producteev), and if you’ve been following along with my tweets, you’ll note I’m a bit enamored with them.

Here it is …

It’s called Producteev (wait, you figured that one out already from the title? :) ) …

… and I love it!
Here’s
4 1/2
5/12 (see update below!) indispensable reasons I’ve become more “Producteev“ with this app …
1. The right tool for the right job.
I’ve said this before in some of my comments on Evernote & Springpad posts (oh, and here, here, here, and here) and it’s worth repeating here – when it comes to productivity, you need the right tool for the right job.  I’m a big technology fan like everyone else who subscribes and follows my blog.  However, sometimes the tools that want to do 1,000 things right, sometimes gloss over the important details in their pursuit to become the Swiss Army knife of your GTD world. Therefore, having the right tool for tasks is mission critical because you don’t want to be in the situation where you’ve overlooked an important task.

Producteev has a gorgeous interface.  It’s beautifully laid out and easy on the eyes.  As I’ve noted before, the more user-friendly an app is, the more likely we are to use it more often.  Right from the beginning, you can easily see where you’re supposed to input your tasks: it looks like a large Google-like search bar and it aptly says, “Type here to create a task…”  
Underneath, you easily assign it to a colleague, schedule it for a specific date, label it (great for contexts & projects), set privacy, and attach files (yes, files!).  Hit the big green “ADD” button, and you’re done!  It’s really, that easy.

On the left, you have many easy to understand options.  Easy is the key word here – unlike what I’ve seen with so many other task apps.  First, you can create multiple “workspaces”.  In a nutshell, if you follow GTD – think of this as your different Areas of Focus.  I have a few setup – Work, Home, Blog, and some other joint ventures I’m working on right now.  Think about that for a second – how cool is that!  Depending upon where you are, you can easily filter all of your tasks by area of focus.  Love it.

Beneath that, you can search through all of your tasks (very awesome), and then limit what you want to see.  Do you want to see all of your tasks with all of your workspaces and then filter by label, what’s hot, starred, what’s due today, what’s assigned to me, team tasks, etc.  I can’t stress how important the ability to quickly and easily be able to navigate through all of your tasks in an easy interface that beautifully laid out.  

In the main portion of the screen, are all of your tasks, color coded by your labels, priority stars, due date, an ability to do batch changes, a nicely designed check mark to say you completed your task, and sorting.  Yes, you know by now, that I am a big fan of sorting correctly.  You can sort (and view in calendar mode!) by date created, deadline, label, modified, priority, title, etc.  Love it.
But, here’s the real ingenious part of the layout – notice on the right hand side the numbers? What is that you ask?  This is why you need the right tool for the right job.  This is a comment box where you or members of your team are actually adding comments about this particular task and adding files, if need be.  How great, right?  How would you use this?  Here’s two great examples: 1) I need to follow up with Joe Smith on whether he’s going to close a deal by June 29.  I put in the comment box, “6/10 left a voice mail.”, then hit post.  Comment 2: “Joe called, and he’s waiting on approvals from management.”, then hit post. That way, I always know what happened and how this task is coming along!  

Likewise, let’s say I’m collaborating with someone else.  Joe is assigned a task, “Review contract.” I can attach a file for Joe to review right here in the comments section – i.e., “Hey Joe, attached is the contract for your review. Please red line it and post changes.” Well,  Joe will automatically receive an e-mail notification from Producteev letting him know a new task is assigned to him and provides the hyperlink.  He sees the task and the file! He pulls it down, modifies the contract, hits complete, and voila! 

Lastly, at the very bottom right, there is a clipboard.  If you click this, it will always keep you posted in real-time about notifications for you and your team activities about things added. Again, love it.

2.  Integrations with Email, IM & Google Tasks/Outlook sync – oh my!


One of the issues with so many apps out there is the inability to quickly add tasks no matter where you are or what app or device you’re on.  Producteev solves that challenge by integrating with e-mail, instant messaging, and Microsoft Outlook!  Seriously.  All of these options can be setup in preferences in the top right. Here’s my workflow:

E-mail: This is particularly helpful during my day job.  I receive an e-mail that requires my attention. I’ll forward that e-mail to task@producteev.com. In the subject line, I’ll change it to read, “Call Joe about the presentation. Next week. #work ##calls.”  Here’s what happens almost instantaneously - Producteev creates a new task for you, which has been scheduled for next week & synced with your calendar (see below) in the Work workspace and labeled Calls. Oh, and the body of your e-mail – yep, it went right to the comments section of the task. Honestly and truly, it’s nirvana.  Oh, and a PS: you can receive an email notification letting you know it’s been added.

Instant Messenger: I actually started using Google Talk more because of Producteev!  Whether I’m on my home laptop, work laptop, or on the go with my Droid Incredible, I can easily send a task to Producteev!  For example, let’s say I need to remember to buy some milk after work.  Straight from Gmail or the GTalk Chrome App, IM Producteev, “Remember to buy the milk today #home ##errands”.  I think you can guess what will happen by now – and you’ll receive an IM back letting you know it was successful!

Calendar: If you’re a big GTD fan, you know that tasks belong with tasks and hard deadlines should be scheduled on a calendar.  As David Allen says, a calendar is a holy place designed for appointments.  Well, I do like to know, when I scan my tasks, if there is a specific deadline coming up for something, so I do mark it accordingly.  But, the really cool thing here is that I can actually sync this with my Google Calendar (which is synced with my Outlook calendar) so I always know on my calendar as well when something is due.  This is crazy cool and I couldn’t be happier with this tight integration.

Google Tasks/Microsoft Outlook Sync: Producteev recently unleashed this monster of productivity goodness a couple months ago.  Here’s how this works:

Outlook Sync: After installing the Outlook plugin, you can enjoy the following awesomeness: 
  • Put Outlook tasks in the cloud and access them from all Producteev applications (mobile, desktop, web…)
  • Turn emails into tasks in 1-click
  • 2-way synchronization between Outlook to-dos and Producteev
  • Sync labels between Outlook and Producteev
  • Sync with Outlook calendar
Google Sync: If you are a Gmail user (which most of us are), you can now do the following awesomeness:
  • Turn gmail emails into tasks in Producteev
  • 2-way synchronization between Google Tasks and Producteev
  • Sync notes and deadlines in real time
  • Add more features to Google Tasks: collaboration, apps, multiple projects / tags

3. Daily and Weekly Reviews

David Allen is a firm believer in a Weekly Review to make sure all of your commitments have been handled, close any open loops, and determine your next actions for the following week.  Producteev can help in this very important process.  In your preferences, you can have Producteev e-mail you a Daily and a Weekly Review of all of your upcoming tasks, and late tasks.  I really enjoy the Daily Review e-mails I get because it helps me get my head focused on the mission I need to accomplish for the day.  

4. Collaboration with others

Collaboration is king.  We can all accomplish much more in life if we collaborate with our peers in accomplishing projects.  Producteev has you covered there as well.  As noted above, you can easily add people to one of your workspaces.  You simply need to click on “Add People” on the lower left-hand side.  By doing so, you can invite collaborators via Email.  Once they are invited, they will receive an e-mail request to have them sign up and join your workspace.

5. One more thing …

Oh, and one more thing … If you’re looking to convert from other to-do apps, such as Remember the Milk (sorry guest poster, Kevin Tea!), you can easily import your RTM tasks to Producteev.
So there it is – my little secret now out of the box on how I’ve become more “Producteev”!  It is absolutely worth checking it out and signing up.  I do want to thank everyone at Producteev – especially Judi, their Community Manager, for all of her responsiveness.  Like Katin at Springpad, responsiveness to feedback is king in surviving in this space.
Let me know what you all think in the comments below!

5.5 UPDATE: Integration with Evernote!

Here’s just one more reason to really love Producteev – integration with Evernote!  Check this out – you can actually leverage the new note linking feature within Evernote to clip a link to your task. 

Then, create your task in Producteev, and paste the link from Evernote in the description! 

Then, when you are ready to take action on the task, you simply click on the link, and your computer will automatically open that note in your Evernote!  Genius, I tell you! :)

Here are the comments that didn’t make it over 
from the WordPress migration and add 
a whole lot of really great insight!
Gassumo (@Gassumo)

Submitted on 2011/11/06 at 8:49 pm

Hi Daniel, great to read your review on Producteev, I personally also moved from Remember The Milk there (remember comments on my SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk?). I am also big user of Evernote so I was inspired by you linking those two together and created my very own Producteev Evernote synchronizer at https://producteev-evernote-sync.appspot.com/ . It is still proof-of-concept right now, but I would love to hear the comments!

Keegan Santos

Submitted on 2011/10/12 at 7:16 pm

I have to say I was fairly disappointed in this solution. I tried it out at the recommendation of a co-worker to manage work-flow and assign and keep track of tasks for our field technicians. I didn’t even get as far as that, I couldn’t add anyone to it. However I was enjoying the Outlook sync greatly until it totally freaked out. It popped up today and said that I’ve been invited to join my own workspace, I clicked yes and it still has me listed as the admin but I can no longer complete tasks in my work space which i’m the admin of only because i’m assuming it thinks the admin is no longer the admin even though its the only user there and it says admin next to my name(hopefully your keeping up with this lol). And now since that happened the big selling point for me, which was the outlook synch, is gone, anytime it tries to update or add tasks it fails i’m guessing due to permissions errors

How To: View Your Google Tasks in ICal | | Aaron FoltzAaron Foltz

Submitted on 2011/09/02 at 1:40 pm

[...] My secret to becoming more Producteev … [...]

PRODUCTEEV VERSUS REMEMBER THE MILK « ProduSoul

Submitted on 2011/08/10 at 12:40 pm

[...] My secret to becoming more Producteev … (dangoldesq.wordpress.com) [...]

Producteev announcement for you OSX users out there « pakos.me

Submitted on 2011/07/26 at 1:07 am

[...] My secret to becoming more Producteev … (dangoldesq.wordpress.com) [...]

Applicom

Submitted on 2011/07/22 at 9:41 am | In reply to Daniel.

Hi,

Thanks for answering! I never got a notification by email about your comment… thanks for your tweet!

OK then, let’s do it:

1) Apollo includes project management and CRM. They are integrated — and they will be even more integrated in the near future

2) Apollo is all AJAX. It looks and smells like a native application. So, no reloads — it’s really fast

3) Apollo is actively developed. Have a look at our changelog:http://www.apollohq.com/changelog

Does this work? :D

Merc.

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/07/20 at 9:00 pm | In reply to Eileen.

Hey Eilieen! So sorry to hear about the PC freezing! I’d definitely reach out to Judi Huck over at Producteev – she’ll get you pointed in the right direction for sure!

You bring up a really great point. In fact, I just talked about something similar on my most recent Google+ post. Basically, I have almost the same exact situation as you, so here’s what I do: I create a label for my contexts and another one for current projects, which are usually client related. So if I wanted to look at all the tasks associated with a client/project, I’d just click on the name of the client and then see all of the tasks I need to accomplish. In the main body, I sort by label so that I can attack my list based upon where I am and how much energy I have to complete the tasks. So far, that seems to be working for me. Check that post I mentioned above as a lot of people have been giving their two cents as well.

What do you think? Would that work for you? Thanks again!!

Eileen

Submitted on 2011/07/20 at 8:33 pm | In reply to Daniel.

Hi Dan

Really thrilled to advise you that the Producteev Outlook plug-in is working! The first sync this afternoon froze my Outlook completely. Had to re-boot my PC and hope that is not going to be a regular issue :-(

Otherwise starting to get the hang of things and have still gotta work out how best to setup labels. workspaces…

I want to be able to sort task lists by client… sorta having each client as an ongoing project!

Having an almost static client base (bookkeeping & payroll work) ….. thought I could use labels….BUT then where do I have my @computer; @errands; ,,,

Any suggestions most appreciated.

Take care and thanks for the introduction to Producteev!.

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/07/18 at 3:30 pm | In reply to Applicom.

Hi there – Thank so much for letting me know about your app. Typically, I like to handle solicitations through private messages, but I chose to approve your comment, because of your approach. We’re a tight community here on my blog, and I think we can all benefit from one another. So, in the spirit of communicating and collaborating, can you please provide all of us with the top 3 things that differentiates your app from everything else that is out there?

Thanks so much and welcome to our community!!

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/07/18 at 3:29 pm | In reply to littleoldladydoesgtd.

Hi there! It’s so great to hear from you again! GTD is definitely a trial and error process. The most important this is always getting to a routine that you are comfortable with for getting your things done – whether it’s paper based or electronic! I know of some pretty famous bloggers who can do their entire GTD task list with Notepad files. Producteev CEO, Ilan, shared with me that their biggest competitor is still people using spreadsheets, which completely boggles my mind!!

Anyway, with respect to your particular 64-bit issue and the Producteev plug-in, I’d definitely holler over to Judi Huck on her Twitter page or e-mail them at http://support.producteev.com.

Let me know how your blog is doing and when that video is ready – I’d love to see it!

Take care and thanks!!

Applicom

Submitted on 2011/07/18 at 11:37 am

Hi Daniel,

I would _love_ to know your opinion on Apollo, http://www.apollohq.com

We tried our best to create the right mix between project management and CRM, adding calendars, timers, cases&deals, and more.

If you need anything, we are here!

Merc.

littleoldladydoesgtd

Submitted on 2011/07/17 at 1:51 pm

Hi Dan :-)

Have started re-engineering my GTD and have downloaded Producteev. Seems great?? Don’t really know yet.

I have set up my Outlook 2010 as per David Allen’s white paper: tweaking the categories somewhat. My home is my office…. both a great thing and a BAD thing! More about that on my “blog-in-the-making” in the future.

Huge problem has loomed now. It seems I may well have the same issue with the Producteev Outlook Add-In as I had with the Netcentrics one! (See comment above to Andrew – the fellow South African on this thread)

.

Have downloaded and installed Producteev Outlook Add-In. And my Outlook has not blinked an eye!! No sign of a Producteev ribbon, button..nothing at all. Add-In not talking to 64-bit Outlook, it seems.

Am pretty devastated. You will see from my comment to Andrew that the 64-bit issue (was mainly the reason) my GTD derailed a year ago!

If Judi is reading this, PLEASE comment on my dilemma! Thanks!

littleoldladydoesgtd

Submitted on 2011/07/17 at 1:38 pm | In reply to Andrew.

Hi Andrew 

Sorry re delayed reply. Hectic here on this side of the mountain! GREAT to hear from you and hope to continue this dialog soonest.

I was doing rather well with GTD until a year ago when the wheels rather came off. Main reason: new PC and lovely new MS Office Professional 2010 – 64 bit.

And therein lies the crux of the matter!

The highly touted Netcentrics Outlook add-in will not ‘talk’ to 64-bit Outlook and they have no intention of rectifying that shortcoming either. The add-in can only deal with 32-bit Outlook.

Please see my comment below as well.

Talk soon 

Bobby Travis

Submitted on 2011/07/07 at 5:05 pm | In reply to Bobby Travis.

Ahh you know we love you, man! It’s not everyday I call somebody a metahuman, either. Keep up the great work! 

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/07/07 at 2:37 am | In reply to Bobby Travis.

I love that I’m being talked about in the 3rd person on my own blog! You guys are fantastic and I really appreciate this terrific open dialogue … And what’s more, is that Producteev inspired such a great talk!

Bobby – I just don’t know where to begin! :) . Not surprisingly, I do very much like being regarded as Meta-human! To be fair, I did need to research it first (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metahuman) and I must say, I feel like superman now!

Yes, my job does require much of my time and attention, and as a result, I have very little mental RAM for other things. This is one of the very reasons I don’t combine areas of focus and why I try so hard to be distraction free. That said, I do love my career and the freedoms it does provide me in being able to have the time to work on this blog and help make a contribution in this productivity space.

Without question, this site has attracted lots of interest from folks literally across the globe who all share something in common – a way to be far more productive and efficient – and if that includes dabbling in awesome tools like Evernote Springpad, Producteev, Even better!

… And it has also allowed some unexpected friendships to happen along the way! Cheers!

Bobby Travis

Submitted on 2011/07/07 at 1:35 am | In reply to Judi Huck.

Great to hear, Judi! And much love, as always! 

Bobby Travis

Submitted on 2011/07/07 at 1:34 am | In reply to Bobby Travis.

Always nice to chat with a like-minded Vancouverite! And while I did work today, I had the pleasure of doing it outside, at a patio table. Can’t complain… 

I’m glad my rambling was of use to you, Sean — and I appreciate the kind words! And yes, Daniel is some sort of meta-human, I believe. The interesting thing is that I believe he would like to take a more holistic approach, but simply can’t due to the type of work that he does. I’ll be curious to see if his approach changes is he changes jobs or when he realizes some of his more entrepreneurial dreams.

Too bad about the Blackberry app. The iPhone app does have a few issues, but it is a pretty functional version overall — and has an overview, thank the universe! There is no iPad app yet, but the web app actually works pretty well there. As for Android — I hear good things and news about future updates.

I agree entirely on the internal nature of productivity. It’s a lifestyle, more than anything else. Good tools are important — but they are only tools in the end.

Judi Huck

Submitted on 2011/07/06 at 6:47 pm

Judi from Producteev here. This post gets more comments than the brand’s blogposts! 

@Sean global contexts are a top requested feature, and I’ll bring it to the team’s attention again. That, as well as your feedback about contexts. Thanks so much for sharing.

And thanks all for being fans of the product. Cheers!

Sean Kelly

Submitted on 2011/07/06 at 6:34 pm | In reply to Bobby Travis.

Wow, I’m really impressed by the depth and thoughtfulness of the insights here!

Bobby, we’re both Vancouverites, and today is a beautiful day, one of our precious annual quota of about 20 beautiful days, so I hope you wrote that reply while sitting on the beach!

Bobby I found the insights into the way you think and the way you approach life to be fascinating. I relate to the pressure of continuous overwhelm.

The overlap that you perceive between what’s going on in your various areas of focus makes sense and goes a long way towards explaining why in Producteev you’ve configured the workspaces to articulate your contexts. It seems to me that you’re taking a more “holistic” approach to everything, compared to

Dan, who takes a more compartmentalized approach, I think because he’s actually living the lives of at least 3 people in one body!

I can see that both approaches are legitimate and have pros and cons.

Also, having delved into quite a few GTD tools, I’ve seen that there are always architecture, feature and design constraints that rub against how you’d prefer to do things in your own perfect world. Examples in Producteev: labels not extending across workspaces, and inability to filter on a label within single workspace. (I’d encourage Producteev to add those features.)

Like Dan, I configured my Producteev workspaces for areas of focus. Works great for me when I’m using the mother ship website. But I thought hard about moving to Bobby’s approach when I realized what my configuration produced on my mobile app, which is Taskee for Blackberry. Taskee opens with a list of workspaces, but, bizarrely, without the Overview view, and no ability to filter on labels (contexts). This sucks because when you’re on a smartphone, you really want to see your tasks listed according to contexts. But with Taskee, if I want to see all my @calls at once, well . . . I can’t. I have to “manually” scour every workspace. That’s poor. I hope the Producteev apps for iPhone and Android are better.

Since we’re going deep here, I think it’s important to emphasize that good productivity tools don’t by themselves provide the energy for a good life. That energy comes from within, from deep within, from a place where apps don’t reach! What’s important is to have insight into who you are, what inspires you and fires your passions, why you were put on this earth, and what your best contribution to the world is. No productivity tool will produce that insight for you or replicate the effects of that insight if you are living inauthentically.

Clearly, Dan and Bobby, you guys get that, and you’d both be inspired and passionate people even in a world where GTD and digital productivity tools hadn’t been invented!

Bobby Travis

Submitted on 2011/07/06 at 4:41 pm | In reply to Sean Kelly.

Hi Sean, Danny Boy!

Dan and I compliment each other very well when it comes to our approaches. What it really comes down to in the differences, however, is personality-directed personal preference in the way we handle information and deal with potential overwhelm.

Daniel has an extremely busy job that has forced him to be creative in managing the “ooh shiny” parts of his personality, demanding the utmost focus in his workday. From what I know of him, and his methodical approach to things, he likely began using the area of focus approach concept long before he ever discovered GTD, as a means of compartmentalizing his thinking and separating his work from his day to day life. Correct me if I’m wrong there, Dan.

I’m a freelancer, and very busy as well. I’m also an artistic type, though I have an analytical bent to my thinking, and my life has been defined by my need for creative expression. It’s simply how I’m wired. I generally have several projects on the go and/or incubating at the same time, including a whack of personal projects, and they can combine to be somewhat overwhelming, even when business is slow. There is also a good deal of overlap, especially in my creative projects, as they are often of equal importance to me, inspire actions and ideas in each other, or can be defined by “flash in the pan” epiphanic moments. Those things, by themselves, however, don’t necessarily dictate my approach. For me, it was a combination of the following (if you’re not interested in my personal bits, skip past the three points to see the technical reasons for my choices in Producteev):

1.) With all of the things floating about in my head or on little notes and recordings, combined with my tendency to be “project obsessive” and lose track of time, I needed to find a way to compartmentalize my thinking based on where I was and what I needed to get done, as opposed to what I was doing. Areas of focus were too broad for me, due to the aforementioned overlap and the fact that I would get so involved in what I was doing within a certain area of focus, that I could blow deadlines or forget to do something.

2. I’m a visual thinker. I can absorb and disseminate information in other ways, but to be truly effective — and not be overwhelmed when inundated — I needed to be able to see the information in some sort of a pretty (or at least visually well-organized) package, first, and then be able to visually relate things to each other as needed.

3.) I realized that the only way I was going to be able to manage the recurring overwhelm I was experiencing was to approach tasks under the umbrella of life management, as opposed to work management. This way I could manage the needs of the first point, and could view my entire life visually, as per the second, driving ever onward and upward.

When developing my GTD implementation in Producteev, I tried the label approach first, but found that it was limiting in two key factors: Labels did not work across workspaces, and more importantly, I couldn’t sort the Overview mode by them. That last was a key issue for me, as I needed to be able to get a visual snapshot of my life as a whole so that I could be a better judge of what was important and where I might be lagging. This had to happen above all else, broken down by context of where I was and what I needed to do. Thus, the areas of focus needed to be more of an organizational header (label) within contexts, as opposed to a definitive part of the process; their purpose being to allow me drill down, as needed.

Ultimately, GTD and its tools need to be worked into something that fits you and the way you handle information. If I wanted to boil all of the above detail into a sentence, I could simply say that Daniel and I differ in our approach because our personalities and life experiences have left us with different ways of processing things effectively. Both ways are as good as the other, really, but completely dependent on what works for us as individuals.

Think in Projects » Blog Archive » Remember the Milk and Evernote integration

Submitted on 2011/07/01 at 9:01 am

[...] on integrating Producteev todo app with Evernote. (If you are a user of Producteev app head over to Dan’s blog to see [...]

Rafal

Submitted on 2011/07/01 at 6:07 am

Dan, tip number 5.5 is fantastic.

Since I’m Remember the Milk user I decided to see if this works here too and indeed it is.

It’s a very simple: click on your Evernote note to creat a link, go to Remember the Milk and press “t” for new task, type the name and paste the link and press enter.

All done your task has been added and the link available on the panel to the right.

Fantastic! Thanks Dan for great tip.

Eileen

Submitted on 2011/06/30 at 10:44 pm

Dan, greetings from the southern most tip of Africa! The Mother City to be exact!

By jove, I think you’ve got it! The Producteev I mean!

Suffering from serious overwhelm, a sometime GTD fan,I have been astounded and confused at all the action on the www surrounding productivity and esp. GTD.

I’ll let you know how I get on – I have a bookkeeping & payroll services business with dozens of clients. So MANY projects and tasks stressing me out big time. As a little old lady I should be sitting in a rocking chair with some crochet work.. or something …

If anyone reading this has any input to offer me, you’re so welcome!

Best regards, Eileen

Andrew

Submitted on 2011/06/30 at 5:27 pm | In reply to Daniel.

Hi Daniel, I am still working on my workflow and methods but I have three main catogories of to-dos.

Firstly my to-dos, that is jobs/tasks that I have to do. As I spend over 50% of the time in deep rural area with little or no infra structure my Blackberry is vital. I just need my cigarette lighter charger and I can be away for a few days from the office in the bush. ReQall has a todo list which I keep just for my tasks. As I mentioned the voice recgonition is good fun, I sometimes enter text and other times by voice.Sometime it garbles the message up which I enjoy , brings some light relief to the stress and pressure of work.

My other category of todos is following up on clients and sub consultants.For this I normally send an email or sms from the Blackberry reminding them of the task or info I need. After it is sent you can ReQall the message and it will automatically go into a separate list under people and under the persons name on the Blackberry.When the task is done and I delete the task it send an automatic email to the person notifying them that task has been withdrawn. At first I thought this was a bit corny but I have had some feedback and I think people do appreciate getting recognition that a task was done.

So I have three main lists

My list of todos on Reqall

And second list of tasks for other people which I can follow up on easily by looking at the person category in ReQall

And then my staff todos which I am using Producteev

When I am back at the office I have just started using a outliner software ( there are so many ,I am trying Treepad ) I use this for managing work that involves reports,letters anything with text. For my minutes I am using a brilliant on line application minutebase.

As I said above I am trying to fine tune and get the work flow I am happy with and works for me. I enjoy reading other peoples views and see how they tackle their workflow

regards

Andrew

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/06/30 at 10:35 am | In reply to Andrew.

Andrew – thanks so much for the comments! I’m so glad to hear that it’s working out for your staff members! That’s fantastic! I tried reQall and Dial2Do – I felt I couldn’t get a lot out of it. Do you have any best practices in using it? Thanks for sharing!!

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/06/30 at 10:30 am | In reply to John Goering.

Hi John! Thanks for the great question. I’m a big believer that getting things done is all about comfort – it’s about finding balance, a rhythm. Being a tech geek, well, that can sometimes disrupt that rhythm as we’re always looking for the next shiny new app! :) But, to answer your question – yes, I have decided to use Producteev strictly for managing all of the tasks. That said, I strongly believe you can still use SpringPad with Producteev in harmony. How? Leverage SpringPad for all of the awesomeness that it has for storing, sharing, planning, etc. You can benefit from Producteev in helping you get things done. I’m all about the all-in-one’s, but sometimes – especially for tasks – I want one tool that is awesome, beautiful, and easy to use. In fact, SpringPad and Producteev share something in common: they both have gorgeous designs that make you want to go back and use it again and again. I hope this helped!

John Goering

Submitted on 2011/06/30 at 9:23 am

So are you using SpringPad or Producteev now? I’m confused… or is there some way to efficiently use both in harmony?

amy

Submitted on 2011/06/27 at 3:01 pm | In reply to Daniel.

Thanks for your response, Daniel.

I will play around with Producteev and see how I like it till the Android app comes out but I got started with Springpad and it’s so nice! Maybe Proacteev will be for my work projects and Springpad for other things. I am not sure.

Business Contact Manager is an add-on for Outlook, made by Microsoft. I used to have Plan Plus for Outlook (the desktop version) but it would crash routinely and I was looking for something that was non-cloud which is why I never used PlanPlus Online as well as it had a monthly fee.

BCM has the ability to organized projects, contacts, sales, etc. and it’s highly sophisticated. But the BCM projects and tasks are created in a way that they don’t just show up as regular outlook exportable tasks unless you specifically copy them and make them regular outlook tasks. This makes them non-exportable to any sort of smartphone device that I know of unless you take the extra step to create them as regular tasks and then export it like with DejaOffice or Toodledo to Got To Do app (which was my workaround).

This was fine but just not as simple as I like.

Like you had said, we can spend so much time on the planning, we aren’t getting to the doing. Here’s the link for BCM: http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/outlook/outlook-2010-with-business-contact-manager-features-and-benefits-HA101808863.aspx

I love this stuff.

{BTW, I started this quest for a simpler to-do app that was a little “prettier” after I had taken a great productivity course by Chalene Johnson http://www.30daypush.com and she had used Evernote with Awesome Note and it really drew me in to a new way of organizing. I fell in love with the Awesome Note app for the phone, but they don’t plan on making it for Android.}

Think in Projects » Blog Archive » Weekly links for 27th of June

Submitted on 2011/06/27 at 9:01 am

[...] My secret to becoming more Producteev … [...]

Daniel

Submitted on 2011/06/26 at 8:43 pm | In reply to amy.

Thanks for the update, Amy!

RE: Android – Funny you say that about the Android devices. I actually own an Android device myself and I know I’ve been asking for a native app for awhile. So, the good news is that Producteev will have a native app this summer! In the interim though, I’ve been using a real easy-to-use app called “Task List – ToDo List“. I’ve found it to be a great substitute for a native app and allows me to take control of my to-do list while I’m out and about. In fact, there are different “lists” or “tabs” in this app that you can sync with each of you “workspaces” in Producteev. I’ve been told the native app will be out in July – but in the interim, this is a great substitute!

Talk to me more about the Plan Plus for Outlook comment. I know that with a free account you can get the Outlook sync.

I haven’t used BCM before, do you have a link to it?

Looking forward to hearing back, Amy, and thanks again for all of your enthusiasm!!

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/04618723039703388322 Bill Drout

    I am still evaluating Producteev for use in my GTD workflow, but I’m thinking you can use Astrid in combination with Producteev to give you a crude equivalent of labels which span workspaces. “Lists” in Astrid map to “Labels” in Producteev. Astrid also allows you to assign a task to a Producteev workspace. If you reassign an Astrid task that is part of an Astrid list (a.k.a. a Producteev label), then the label stays with the task when it changes workspaces, and Astrid will create the label in the new workspace if it doesn’t exist. I have only tried this once or twice, so I’d be interested in knowing if anyone is using Astrid to do this as well.
    Granted, it’s not as good as Producteev implementing the functionality for labels to span workspaces, but it’s a stop-gap until it arrives.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/07921859081225785732 Daniel Gold

    Hey Bill! Thanks so much for your comment! I’ve tried using Astrid/Producteev combo and it does in fact work well. It takes some tweaking, but it does work! Hopefully, Producteev will re-release their native app soon!