A few weeks ago, I realized I had reached a point of diminishing returns in terms of my usage of productivity tools. Finally my quest to find the perfect mix of tools to simplify my life and increase overall productivity had failed. Or at least taken a significant step backwards. I’m a gadget geek and feel compelled to use gadgets such as my iPhone and iPad to run my life. So of course I’m continually searching for all the right apps to organize, remind, list, communicate, etc. Here’s a list some (there are more!) of the various tools I use…
The basics
- gmail for personal email (I have 3 different accounts – 2 domain specific and 1 gmail)
- Outlook at work – I have no choice so am constantly trying new ways to sync my work with the rest of my life. I use all the features, including email, calendar (prescribed by work), tasks, contacts and notes
- xobni – to organize things in Outlook and make it all searchable
- google desktop – same as above – sometimes just works better
Note: I used to put all my emails into folders but now everything goes into one and I use search to find things. I never delete anything except stuff I know there is no way I’ll reference again – a digital pack rat of sorts.
- google calendar sync – to keep things in sync between my google apps calendar and Outlook at work (xobni and google sync don’t play nicely together so I’m trying to decide which one I need more)
Other stuff
- reQall – I love the voice conversion technology, allowing me to speak into my phone and (almost) perfectly convert what I say to text, including creating appointments, tasks and shopping lists using keywords. I hate almost everything else about this app but feel I need the core functionality… This also generates a lot of my other problems with syncing items so that everything exists in one place (Outlook)
- Evernote (I’m actually typing this out right now on the iPad Evernote app). No complaints about the service but always have an issue where I take notes and never refer to them again. I’d like the same concept as reQall where keywords could be used to generate tasks/appointments that are sync’d through the cloud to my Outlook exchange server (or at least Google calendar). I also find myself saving certain things to read in Evernote which conflicts with my use of instapaper and google reader (that’s a whole other problem and maybe worthy of separate post).
- Note Taker HD – I’ve tried about 10 different note taking apps for the iPad since I got it a few months ago. It was my goal to remove the one remaining thing that I felt was inefficient – a notebook and pen which meant I would have to transcribe any necessary actions or info coming out of meetings onto the computer (somewhere). I’ve been successful in getting rid of the notepad and pen and now do it all on one of three devices: laptop, iPad, or iPhone. Still, the new problem, much like Evernote, is getting everything into one place for review. Once I take notes in this app, I can only email them to myself as a PDF and will ultimately have to type out certain things.
- tungle.me – this is what causes me to use google calendar sync as the sync between tungle and google is much better than the outlook plugin they provide. I hate almost all Outlook plugins – they invariably create problems with Outlook or conflict with other plugins.
Note: as I type this out I realize that the majority of my problems are caused by Microsoft Outlook which always requires these clunky plugins to play with other services. Microsoft, can you please start using some web services and APIs! Still, this is the one tool I really have no choice but to use.
- Dropbox – I love this service and it tends to integrate quite well with everything else although you can’t really call it a productivity app. It’s on the list because of how I use it on the iPad/iPhone along with the other apps mentioned so far.
Aside from determining that I’m crazy and really just using technology for the sake of playing with all the latest toys and apps, can anyone help me please! I’m determined that there is a good mix of stuff to use to be fully organized and productive. Not the perfect mix but a pretty good one. Clearly I’ve reached a point of diminishing returns.
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