Office Productivity: My 20 Steps to Improve Your Productivity: Keep a Task List
Welcome back!
Ok, you’re probably thinking this is another “Captain Obvious” tip, but if it truly was, we’d be a great deal more productive if we all had one, dontcha think?
There are so many ways that you can keep a task list: on your mobile phone, online or the good old tried and true notebook. But within those three categories, there are a plethora of options! There are oodles of applications for mobile phones, and even more for online applications. There are a few that I like in the online arena, though. You know my love for clockingit.com but there are a few new ones out that look promising. Take a gander at Taskwriter and another one I played around with this week was Springpad.
Springpad is unusual in the fact that it uses free online notebooks that help you manage your life. You can use your springpad to keep track of notes, photos, maps, to-do’s, contacts, appointments & more. They have several built-in and readily available notebooks for you to use. I tried out the notebook that is for cooking the Thanksgiving feast. 
It is unique in my opinion, because it has different tabs at the top. The “Plan” tab is used for planning each day, the “Shop” tab is used to create shopping lists, and the “Cook” tab is used to add ingredients to you “Shop” tab from recipes that you have on the “Cook” tab. Springpad has search built within it, and you can add many different items to your notebooks straight from the web. Take a look at the video below.
Take a look at both of these – what do you think of them? Let me know – I’d like your opinions!
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I have to agree with TaskWriter.com – Very simple to use yet great filtering options = “Easy GTD” – or at least “Easier GTD”. I’m slowly moving off my own simple web app to Taskwriter since new features are on the way (mobile phone access, rss, etc). My comments re Taskwriter are here: http://blog.stephennolen.com/2008/11/gtd-for-you-taskwritercom.html
-Stephen
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Kris reply on November 25th, 2008 12:25 pm:
I think that Taskwriter has great potential. Very in-depth review on your blog – thanks for sharing!
And also, thanks for stopping by FFOP. Nice to meet and have you here!
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One of my favorites is Remember The Milk. I have it synchronized with my Google calendar and also hooked up to Dial2Do so I can phone in additions to my task list and they’re automatically added to my calendar (which is my home page when I start my browser every day).
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Kris reply on November 25th, 2008 12:26 pm:
Many people use RTM and love it. I tried it awhile back and wasn’t thrilled with it, but whatever works is everyones’ each individual thing.
Thanks for telling me about your task list setup – it’s great to take a sneak peek into the readerships’ lives!
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Hi Kris,
Arghhh….
What have you done to me?
Now I’ll have to face the difficult decision whether to make taskwriter or springpad my new main productivity/tracking service.
After twiddling around a few minutes, both of them look really promising.
Thanks for making me aware of both sites – they seem to be what I’ve been looking for the last couple of weeks.
Take care,
Marko
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Kris reply on November 25th, 2008 2:08 pm:
Oh boy!
GTD and task management apps are just like jewelry to a raven – nice and shiny and we want them ALL! I know how you feel. It’s hard to pick one and stick with it because the next one that you see looks nicer and fancier and better suited to what you want! With innovation happening as quickly as it does, it’s hard not to feel that way – so I empathize!
Nice to hear your thoughts – thanks for sharing!
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Marko Zirkovich reply on November 25th, 2008 10:14 pm:
The last few weeks I’ve been looking at various ways and methods to cope with all the new projects I’ve taken on.
Bloated stand alone apps or small, specialized programs/websites?
Nothing I’ve looked at (and I’ve looked at a lot) has come as close to my personal GTD holy grail as taskwriter.com
I just defined all my major current projects, the most importants tasks, and ported additional supporting data over from various temporary collection buckets – this evening. No manual needed, no confusion, a clean, pleasant interface, quick, snappy responsive website – in a nutshell: no cognitive friction.
To this raven, taskwriter is a true gem.
Thanks again for making me aware,
Marko
P.S.: Springpad is really cool, too.
While I won’t use it as my main GTD manager and for my tasklists, I’ll create some “static” checklists with it.
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Kris reply on November 26th, 2008 8:13 am:
Taskwriter is a good application that will go far in the GTD universe, I feel. They are responsive to suggestions and always want to hear their customers’ feedback.
Glad I could help – that’s what I like to do!
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Marko, your comments make me really happy :). I am involved in taskwriter development, and what you say really pays off for all those long programming nights….
Please do not hesitate to use the red “write back” top button for anything, we are definitely committed to “user driven development”. I would really appreciate anything that could point us on the correct direction with the future developments.
Katy,
taskwriter.com
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Kris reply on November 26th, 2008 8:15 am:
Thanks for stopping in Katy!
I think TW has a the potential for a long career. I hope that the post from myself and all the others gets lots of visitors to your site.
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Marko Zirkovich reply on November 27th, 2008 7:54 am:
Hi Katy,
I’ll definitely send in some more feedback (as well as well deserved praise) over the next few days.
Right now, all I can say to you and all the other programmers/developers is:
Thank you.
Marko
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