These past few weeks have been very busy for me and I’ve been searching for different tools to help me get organized and keep organized. Now, I’ve been trying things like Rememberthemilk, EasyTask and Toodledo to help myself keep my todos and appointments kinda organized. The biggest problem that I have is that I run macs at home, use my ipod touch to organize myself and deal with Windows at school. What’s a guy to do?
Rememberthemilk – is great for getting my todos down and keeping them organized but their ipod widget costs $. Yeah, it’s only 5.99 but still. I like the interface and the way it keeps things organized and the fact I can access it online and on my ipod.
EasyTask – again, I like the interface and the way it works but the beta version of the Windows didn’t work well on my computer which kinda threw a wrench into the whole sync thing! I like to have my workday todo’s synced with my ipod and home so I can mix and match what I need to do at school versus what I need todo at home. The ical function, with the online me.com access allows me to see what is coming up but, as you ipod itouch/iphone users know, the todo’s don’t transfer!
Toodledo – worked okay but, again, there is the cost factor and with the number of todo widgets available for free, I don’t feel like shelling out $.
Google Tasks – I think that I may have found something that will work for me despite the fact it doesn’t have a widget that syncs with my ipod touch yet. Instead, I’m going with a todo widget from the Apps store that allows me to organize things in the same manner I do with Tasks. iProcrastinate Mobile sets things up in much the same fashion as Tasks. It means I have to add details but at least I know that I can get all my tasks at home and at school and in the same fashion as the Tasks.
This has me thinking that I really need to look into using Google Apps. It has all my things in one place and, wonder of wonders, syncs with both my ical and the wiki calendar we use at school as a staff to record meetings, events and other information. I already use many of the other features like the Reader and Docs. I mean, if it allows me to keep better organized then maybe I need to look into this a bit more. Now I know people use all sorts of different tools to keep themselves organized and together and I’m really like igoogle.com as my homepage too! I can access a number of different sites all in one place. Sure saves me opening 6 or 7 tabs. Now, I just open the igoogle page and there is twitter, plurk, gmail, gcalendar, tasks, reader, docs plus a few other widgets that I use. It’s all handy and accessible from either home or work.
I wasn’t always a big user of google and I’ve tried Netvibes and Pageflakes as other homepages. My second choice would be Pageflakes but it still doesn’t allow me access to as many of the things I use each day. I must admit that I did use to look to stay away from google because, well, everyone uses it. But, given the many different things going on in my life, it really does help me to stay connected and together. It isn’t just the todo’s but all the rest of the options that I have available all in one place that is selling me on using google. Because much of my work is online and need to be able to access it from multiple places, it is only reasonable that I look for the most efficient manner to do this. So far, Google is offering me that. With the additions of Tasks, I can now add them and be able to organize either at home or at work. I’d still like a ipod touch widget that synced with Google Tasks!
Why is this at important?
As an administrator, I’m finding that I have greater demands on my time and there is no more time being added to the day. We’ve 24 hours and that’s all. So, if the demands are growing, I need to be better able to prioritize what I do, make decisions about what are essentials and then proceed to make the best use of my time. Now, sometimes the best use is doing nothing but that’s another blog entry. Most of the time, there are decisions to be made about how to use those 24 hours.
The older I get, the more I realize that I need to make sure that I don’t overlook such things as: a full night’s sleep; exercise; diet; time with family; realistic time for accomplishing work goals and time with myself. You’ll also notice that work is no longer at the top of my list. Instead, I’m seeing that there needs to be a focus on me being at my best so that I can do my best when I am involved in school.
It also means that a person should be able to get things that work together without so much trouble. What’s the big deal? Besides I’m kinda cheap and don’t want to pay for applications for both my home and work computers. I know there are solutions out there that you can buy but it’s shouldn’t be that tough!
Google it is!
So, instead of continuing the search for the all-in-one, I’m willing to go the almost-in-one and work with what I have right now. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, Apple will round out their apps for the ipod touch and put the todo widget out so that this will all have been a learning exercise.