Posts Tagged ‘email’
Confessions of a (Highly Productive) iPhone Addict
(also read the update to this post here.)
I’ve heard people say many times that they don’t want an iPhone or a “CrackBerry” because they don’t want to be that connected. “People already have too many ways to reach me, I don’t want to have to be available 24/7.” My response is always the same: you don’t. Just because you have a phone, doesn’t mean it has to be on. Just because it’s on, doesn’t mean to have to answer it if it rings. The same goes for email on your phone. In fact, you can have all the advantages of a smartphone without email. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, people! It’s so handy to have all of the other features available, particularly on an iPhone because there are so many. But the fact remains, YOU can be in control. In fact, that’s the secret to productivity. Mastering control over the details of your life (including the technology they come in on) so that they don’t control you.
So let me share some details about the way I use my iPhone in a typical day. It’s a lot. But it’s for MY convenience, not other people’s. Everything mentioned below is done with no other technology besides the iPhone and Apps I’ve loaded, with the exception of my external portable speaker.
I’m often reading something, or listening to something, on my iPhone before I go to bed in the evening, so it’s usually on my nightstand overnight. However, it’s usually off, unless I’m out of town, at which point I put it in flight mode (no calls in the middle of the night) and then set the alarm to wake me in the morning to my music. When I wake in the morning, I’ll usually turn it on, check my calendar for the day’s appointments, check the weather (both help me decide what to wear), and then I’ll usually check my Twitter feed on Tweetie. All of that takes me less than five minutes. If there is a link to an article from Twitter that I think I might find interesting, Tweetie has a very convenient button that reads, “mail this link.” I can send it to myself for processing with my email later.
Then my phone comes with me, where I plug it into a portable external speaker so that I can listen to music, an audio book, or a podcast while I shower and dig through my closet to get ready for the day. It also has the time handy so that I can make sure I’m not running late, and oh yeah, let me call up the map to see how far away that appointment is.
Then it comes in the car with me, where I turn on my Bluetooth headset and make a few calls (this is not safe, and I’m trying to wean myself away. Did you know that talking while driving impairs your ability as much as drinking and driving?! Scary!). So then I plug it into my car’s audio system to continue the music, ebook, or podcast, or some mixture of all of them.
I arrive at the meeting where I am the speaker. I set up the timer on my iPhone to keep me on track (again, flight mode, ensuring no calls or texts come in while I’m speaking). Any follow-ups from the meeting I jott to myself on the way back to the car. Someone asks if I’m free next Wednesday; let me consult my calendar. Next meeting is with a potential client, so I’ll check for their website address from my contacts, and tap to review it from the parking lot before I head in. After that I head to lunch and while I’m eating I check my voicemail, email, and tweets. Really I’m just scanning email messages here for my convenience. And by the way, on my iPhone, my “Fetch” settings for email are set to manual. So my email only downloads when I instruct it to. I’ll “process” the important emails later at my computer. Twitter usually gives me great reading material for while I eat.
So then I head back to my office, and set the iPhone to play some classical music while I work for several hours. The phone rings and not only do I get a name and number, but also a picture so I can decide if I’m going to answer. When a text shows up the options are “close” or “reply.” Since I’m working, one tap on “close” and I’m back to my work, barely interrupted. Now I’m starting to think about dinner, so I check Grocery iQ to make sure I’ve noted everything I need, and I dash off to the grocery store, where I check them off as I shop. When I get home, I plug into the external speaker again to listen to an audio book, call up the recipe on Safari, and cook dinner. After dinner I walk the dog with my husband, snap a picture of the beautiful sunset, email it to a friend and post it on Twitter and Facebook using Ping.fm in Safari. I’m involved in my neighborhood association so I also snap a picture of a broken sign and email it to the chair of the maintenance committee. When we get home, we start talking about a movie tomorrow night, so I call up Movies to see what’s playing and maybe buy tickets.
I already mentioned how I use it before I go to sleep at night. All of these uses have one thing in common: they enable conveniences for me, not others. I manage all the features so that I am in control of my time, and I don’t let distractions interrupt me when I’m busy. I would suggest that there are two important things to consider when pondering a phone upgrade: how many conveniences will it add to your life, and do you have the discipline to control it, rather than letting it control you? This same logic, in case you were wondering, can also be applied to many of the other ways to communicate like instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Learn the benefits that are available in participating, and then learn how to incorporate them into your life so that you are in control.
Thanks for reading! You may also be interested in the update of this post.)
(Part 2) Are Your Productivity Tools Complicating Your Life?
(There have been new developments since I wrote this. Read the update to this post here.
Ok, so yesterday I discussed my personal productivity beliefs, and the tools I used before I switched to Mac. A couple of years ago, I became a convert, drank the Kool-Aid, and now I use a Mac and an iPhone. I have to say that personal productivity with Apple tools is not as good as using Outlook and a Windows Mobile device. But really,everything else is better on a Mac, so that fact did not convince me to go back. And I’ve found ways to work around the shortcomings. (Note to Apple Computer, Inc. programmers: I would LOVE to help you solve these problems!)
For a while I used Entourage, which is basically Outlook for Mac. And actually Entourage is better than Outlook, mainly because it has the very powerful “Project Center.” However, I was warned that it was unstable, and not easy to back up, and I found this to be true. It crashes, and it takes forever to get back up and running, even if you’ve backed up. That was a deal-breaker for me. So I switched to the Mac-native tools, which are part of the operating system: AppleMail, iCal, and Address Book. I don’t think it’s quite as convenient, because of the whole “everything in one place thing.” So now I have to use at least three, and even these aren’t comprehensive enough, so they need some help. The first problem is that creating a task from an email is very clunky and not easy. So I’ve added on a program called MailTags. Well worth the $29.95 download cost and solves that problem.
Next problem: I think the ability to color-code my calendar, and categorize my to-do list, is essential, and iCal requires a little bit of overkill. You can’t just add a tag or color to a calendar event, or just select a category for your to-do’s. But I’ve found a workaround for this as well and it works fine. I created a main calendar for calendar events, with sub-calendars for every calendar category I wanted. Then I created another main calendar for Tasks, and created sub-calendars for all my Task categories.
- iCal categories
As I mentioned, it’s more complicated than it needs to be, but until iCal gets better at event and to-do list categorization, it’s necessary for me.
Notes are another problem. They aren’t very user friendly in Mail, but it leads me to the BIGGEST frustration for me with Apple tools: neither To-do’s nor Notes sync to your iPhone. What’s the matter with those Apple programmers?! Upon searching the web to see if there was a way to do this that I just couldn’t figure out, all I found was people complaining that it couldn’t be done.
There are many, many workarounds for Tasks but for me they are all lacking in one way or another, plus I’d prefer not to have to use YET ANOTHER program. But here’s what I’ve discovered: when I am away from my computer, I don’t need my tasks. If I’m away from my office/computer, it’s because I’m at a meeting, speaking, delivering training, etc., so there is no reason to be consulting my task list. Before you jump to a web-based program for task management because you can’t sync with your iPhone, consider whether you really need your tasks on your iPhone or not. If you absolutely have to have that feature, there’s Remember the Milk, Vitalist, Toodledo, and Todoist, among others.
It IS vital for me, however, to be able to sync my Notes and have them with me. I use Notes for all kinds of lists and reference information, so I need them often. Since there is no easy way to use Notes in the Mac-native suite, nor do they sync with an iPhone, I was forced to include yet another program into my personal productivity arsenal. I chose Evernote. It has a desktop application and an iPhone application, and it’s very powerful in that I can take text notes, video notes, audio notes, web clippings, etc. And they sync, via the web, where I can view them on my iPhone. But the one thing I don’t like is that they don’t reside locally on my iPhone. I can only access them when I have an internet connection on my phone and that’s not always convenient. So while it’s not a perfect solution, it’s one I can live with for now.
Using Mac native tools for productivity now has one big advantage for those who need to share things with others: you can publish to the web via MobileMe and share calendars, contacts, and view your emails online. This also allows you to keep them synced with another computer. Still doesn’t include notes and tasks, however, but most people don’t need to share those things.
So there’s my rant about Apple and productivity. If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, I’d love to hear them. You can also follow me on Twitter @mnthomas, where I try to post useful productivity information.
Are Your Productivity Tools Complicating Your Life?
Being a productivity trainer, I get asked about my personal productivity tools a lot. There are a few rules for tools which I think are true, and valuable:
- Everything in one place. Some people look at the “one place” as their computer, but I think if you can drill down more than that, it’s better. If everything is on your computer, but in 5 different programs or documents, that’s not as efficient as if everything is in ONE program.
- You need to consider FIVE things for comprehensive productivity: calendar, to-do list, contacts, email, and notes. If they all can’t be in one program, then the programs should at least play nicely with each other (the ability to easily create a task or calendar event from an email, for example.)
- You are most productive when you can refer to your system on the go, meaning a handheld device will increase your productivity. However, your handheld device shouldn’t be your only tool, or even your primary tool, unless you are a true road warrior and are almost never in front of a computer. Handheld devices are not designed for convenient entry of data. Do the entry on your computer, accessit on your handheld device when you are away from your computer.
Another thing that’s really crucial to personal productivity is an effective methodology. (I use my Empowered Productivity System. But I’ll have to discuss those specifics another time). So, given those rules, I used to use Outlook with a Palm handheld, then later with a Windows Mobile phone. If you are a PC user, Outlook syncing with a Windows Mobile device is a very powerful combination. (If you are a Mac user, come back tomorrow when I will continue the post). Outlook plus a Windows Mobile device handle all five things very well, and it is very easy to integrate each of the five things together in Outlook (creating a task from a to-do, or birthdays in the contacts appearing in the calendar, for example.)
A single installation of Outlook does have some drawbacks, however. It’s not a project management tool, but I think there are many ways to get around this shortcoming that work just fine. I’ll have to save those for another post. One of the biggest drawbacks is the inability to share calendars. Because of this, some people abandon Outlook and use only Google Calendar. I think this is a mistake, because Google doesn’t yet handle the other four items at all, or as well as Outlook does. I have two suggestions if you need to share calendars. One is to consider a hosted Exchange solution, like from MailStreet.net. The problem with this is that it’s not free, but for a small business it’s inexpensive and easier than hosting your own Exchange server. An easier (and free!) solution for an individual is to just use Outlook as your primary calendar, but sync it up to Google calendar to share with others.
IMHO, that’s the best solution in personal productivity tools for a PC user. A couple of years ago I switched to a Mac. I’ll explain what I use now in tomorrow’s post.
Have thoughts? Comments? I’d love to hear them. And you can follow me on Twitter where I try to post lots of productivity-related information @mnthomas.