Last year I tried a lot of different productivity tools. There was the now defunct “I want Sandy” which I like, but then used less and less. There’s 37signals’ Backpack which I actually pay for, think is really cool, and don’t use much. I keep Evernote around on my iPhone but generally forget to use it (though it was helpful when I bought a camcorder). Oops, let’s not forget Jott – again, it’s on my iPhone and I never use it.
I’m sure there are more I’ve tried and not kept around, but what do I use?
Frankly the only tool I use on a regular basis is criminally simple. Joe’s Goals. You can see I have a graph in my sidebar showing how I’m doing on my goals. I keep it very simple – did I ride my bike? Did I show up for work? And it works. When I see that graph going down I check and see what it is I should be doing.
My only complaints about Joe’s Goals are pretty tiny. I’d like the badge to say Bob’s Goals instead of Joe’s Goals. Thanks Joe, I’m Bob, I hope you are doing well (and from his blog, it generally seems he is, but I want my name there, not yours. And as I live in Hawaii, I want a time offset that works. It seems that every evening my graph looks I did nothing today when in fact it’s showing I’ve done nothing tomorrow. Admittedly I don’t want to do anything tomorrow, at least not today, but still… 🙂
There is a reporting feature in Joe’s Goals that I’ve never actually used (other than in noting it exists). I guess it just gums up the works for me. I just want the simplicity of seeing at a glance how well I’m doing.
On the whole, I’m doing pretty well. 🙂
Aloha!
Slower, cheaper, less useful…