I recently re-read Scott Belsky’s great book “Making Ideas Happen” and thought I would share some thoughts on personal productivity tools that I have been using lately. As a testament to it’s teachings, its been a while since I have seen a book loosely categorized under “self-improvement” have over 4.5 stars from 89 reviews on Amazon. That being said, I wanted to share some thoughts and tools that I have been using to help me with my productivity and to make sure that I continue to iterate and execute on my ideas, rather than just sit on them and wait for something to happen.

Remember The Milk
While they have been around since 2005, I recently heard about this app through a friend and read more about it on the app store (I have an iPhone). Within about 20 minutes of using the app, I was sold and paid up front for 2 years of “support” for the product (I believe their pricing model is a freemium version that then unlocks a pro version with additional syncing features across devices once you have donated some money to them). Realistically, there isn’t much difference between Remember The Milk and the built-in iOS to-do list app, but there are simple differences that set it apart: the ability to add multiple notes under a single task and the capability to sync across both mobile devices as well as have access to your lists on the web (a big one for me). I do a lot on the road and on my phone or iPad, but there are plenty of times where I am sitting at my desk and need to reference my to-do items. Being able to open a new tab in a browser and access those to-dos while having them sync to my other devices was a key factor in me supporting the app.

Evernote
At first glance, Evernote really isn’t that special. Or so I thought when I first started to use it. I am one of those people who have ideas about every 5 minutes; many of them are not worth writing down but others could lead to something in the future. My first system for taking down notes was to always just have a pen and paper ready on my person in case some idea popped into my head that I wanted to remember. Then came the advent of Gmail and the ability to access email from my mobile, in which case I would just compose a new email and save the email as a draft, being able to then reference it later. The key here, and something that I think Evernote picked up on but may not have realized it, is that I used Gmail not because it was an email client, but because Gmail has an incredibly powerful search filter. This then helped me find old drafts/ideas/emails that I had written, as I would “tag” those “ideas” with strong keywords to make sure I could find those ideas down the line. Evernote effectively takes care of all of that. I have organized numerous “notebooks” and all of my ideas include tags that I can then easily reference down the line. It’s simply a great way to jot down notes, remember items that you may like, and perhaps even provide inspiration for new ideas down the line. Their mobile app integration is great as well.

Penultimate
I recently bought a stylus for my iPad specifically because of this app. Interestingly enough Evernote recently purchased Penultimate because it was such a great note taking app for the iPad. I think it’s a great app to use when you want to draw out a diagram or remember a specific concept or idea, and having a stylus for the iPad definitely helps when making sure you want to have crisp and clean images, drawings or sketches to reference later.

Basecamp
I have been using Basecamp for almost 7 years now. As a project management tool, I believe it provides the amount of flexibility needed to manage various projects within a small organization, while also still providing enough necessary structure so that you are not presented with a blank canvas. The team at 37Signals have done a really great job to iterate on their base product, staying true to it’s original form while also ensuring that the product changes with the needs of it’s customers. It’s a great product for small teams who need to have some structure to their project management, but don’t need a massive project management suite.

Zoho CRM
This may sound odd that I use a CRM suite to manage my personal life, but I do. I quickly found that, while the iPhone’s address book is great for keeping static contact details, it’s really not good at making sure you manage your network and keep up with the contacts that you want to keep up with. I believe Apple has a huge opportunity with the address book, to make it the center of everyone’s life in terms of managing their network of friends, colleagues, coworkers, prospects, etc. but it still hasn’t fulfilled that promise (hint to Apple: integrate with LinkedIn somehow, directly, please…I know I can do a data dump via the LinkedIn iOS app, but I want an integration akin to Twitter in iOS). Their recent integration with Twitter in the iPhone and the use of iCloud to now sync your contact data between iPhone, iPad and Macbook is absolutely awesome, but I still think it represents just the tip of the iceberg. I specifically use Zoho CRM because it is free and simple to setup; their base package even allows you to have a few users under a single account and up to 100,000 contacts/leads within it. I do a number of small projects through my small design firm for various small business clients, so it’s also great to track progress and work there as well.

Any questions or comments about the products above? Feel free to leave a note in the comments section below and let me know if there are other tools that you use that I could potentially take a look at.

Thanks,
Raj