Productivity, as a self-confessed geek, is something towards I take more than a passing nod. Having looked into many different ways to track what needs to hold my attention, I seem to have settled on David Allen’s GTD methodology. Whilst at first glance, this seems like a lot of hard work, once it becomes completely natural to your life, it really does pay for itself.
Whilst trying to pull my system together, I had several requirements that made things a little more awkward than most set ups. The following were my requirements
Productivity Requirements
- Needed to be able to keep my lists available to me wherever I am
- Couldn’t install any extra software on my computer at work
- Needed to be able to “inbox” tasks wherever I am – work, home, in town etc.
- Unlike most “geeks”, I don’t have a computer on at home 24/7, so turning my computer on would be an obstacle to overcome when at home.
It looks like relying on a computer program such as Outlook is ruled out, as whilst I have Outlook at work, I couldn’t sync my work computer to my phone or my home computer as I am on a secure PC. Several other mediums sprung to mind.
Potential Productivity Solutions
- Paper – a notebook is easy to carry round, however, it is yet another thing to carry around!
- Phone. Two ways to use this:
- App on phone
- Web app
The advantage of using a web app is that I can access my lists wherever I have internet (my own PCs, phone, library etc). However, having been caught in situations where I have no data on my phone, this method isn’t without it’s risks. Similarly, using a phone app means if I forget my phone, or the battery dies (which it frequently does!) then again I am stuck.
The solution I settled on was a combination of Android App Ultimate To-Do List synchronised with web app Toodledo.
Over the coming weeks I will talk you through exactly how I set these up for my particular needs and hopefully you will gain something from it.
Series Contents
- Introduction
- How I use Ultimate To-Do List
- Supplemented by Toodledo
- Improvements that could be made
Image by stock.xchng by Mattox