Office Productivity: My 20 Steps to Improve Your Productivity: Jot Down Those Ideas!
Welcome back!
What solution do you have in place to jot down those absolutely wicked ideas that come to you from outta nowhere?
*…hears crickets chirping…*
WHAT? You DON’T have a plan? *smacks your forehead* You NEED one! Get with the GTD will ya?
Seriously, though. We can’t let those wicked ideas just come and go and not be noticed. You never know which idea that comes through will be the next idea that will create the means for you to be independently wealthy (if you aren’t already). So let’s get planning and make sure that those ideas are well-kept.
For me, during the day when I am around a PC, I keep clockingit.com open, ready and waiting to take all those great blog post ideas that pop into my head. But if it’s not for the blog, I have a project for home that I can also use to jot anything into as well.
But for those times when I’m not near a PC, I
carry a Circa Micro PDA in my purse. Once I get to a PC, I can transfer it over. But since I purchased a BlackBerry Curve, I can just type anything in there, in Notes or the Task List, and I’m good to go. One the weekends, though, my BlackBerry is off. So my Circa Micro PDA is always within reach.
But there are many things that you can use to jot down your thoughts. As we all know, there are several note taking applications, both desktop and cloud.
Desktop Apps include:
Evernote (portable)
Microsoft OneNote
Fruitful Time NoteKeeper
Cloud Apps include:
axiope (Scientifically geared note-taking)
Google Notebook
Zoho Notebook
In researching this article, I took a look at quite a few of the online note-taking applications and was not impressed whatsoever. The three I’ve listed are the best of the bunch.
You know what? Now that’s you’ve read this article, you have absolutely no excuse not to have some sort of plan in place to catch (and not release) those ideas that come into your head.
Do you currently have a plan in place? What it is? Digital or analog? Cloud or desktop? Share with us please. If you’ve found a way that works for you, more than likely it will trigger a method that works for someone else.
Tell us in the comments, please!
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I call Dial2Do from my cell phone. Voice to text app sends me an email and my email program automatically filters these items to a separate folder. I also have it hooked up to my Remember the Milk account so I can prioritize there and to my Google calendar if anything about it needs scheduling.
One speed dialed call, item posted three places. Sweet.
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Kris reply on December 8th, 2008 8:42 am:
That is indeed sweet! I’ll have to check out D2d – as a matter of fact I’m going to go do that now!
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Whoa! Another thing to add to my list! Dial2Do sounds cool.
I use analog myself. I carry a Franklin/Covey Daytimer. I’ve added a tab for Notes and a tab for Projects. The ideas written in Notes can get transferred to my To Do or Delay entries on the calendar. If the idea pertains to a particular project, I can add it to the project sheet under its tab–the project would already be in my To Do or Delay list.
I prefer analog because I’m never out of range, have bad reception, need a power outlet, or have to dE mN T dE pqR (“ENTER” using numeric touchpad). Also, I never have file compatibility errors or lost formatting. And I can get a whole year refill for less than the cost of 1 month’s service. Plus, I have places to hold a pen, pencil, and business cards or other analog input that is still the common format for so many people/applications (even better than .txt). YMMV
Answer back...
Kris reply on December 11th, 2008 8:23 am:
It’s great that you’ve found what works for you. As long as you are happy with it and it gets things done for you, then you have found your nirvana!
Thanks for the interaction, Dave. I appreciate it!
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