IntroductionIn this post i'll be describing the way technology helps organize my life.
These are the tools i chose:
- Remember the milk for task assignment
- Google calendar for important dates
- Gmail for email and contacts
- Evernote for note taking
And now i'll describe how each tool will help me on a daily basis.
Remember the milkWhy- Because of the ammount of interoperability builtin the app(tons of apps for every plataform imaginable)
- The task categories: i love them and i need them to keep up with the different aspects of my life, i think its a good practice to separate work from family and personal projects, not just for organization but also for mental sanity.
- The date recognition capabilities i like that i can write "get more apples next friday at 3 pm" and ANY remember the milk app will set the date appropriately, its just so flexible what you can write and the system will understand what you meant.
- Its free
What will i use to access remember the milk:
- For my mobile needs i'll use an ipod touch app.
- When i'm in Linux i'll use Tasque : wich has an awesome integration with the gnome desktop.
- On Windows i'm still not quite sure, but maybe nothing since i'll be using windows mainly to play games and develope, no wait, i do need an app, googling now... oh Ok best choice is the Prism app , will go with that.
- When i'm not on my computer i'll update it using twitter integration and twittea.me, wich is a mexican service to twitt using sms.
HowEqually important is the human system, the dicipline i'll be imposing to use remember the milk, ok these are the main task i want to get out of my head using RTM:
- Things i have to get and i will set the hour to the most probable time i'd have to go out shopping.
- Homework to do
- School and work deadlines
- To complete steps in personal projects
Google calendarWhy- Because i use gmail and calendar is just a click away
- Because the good synchronization capabilities, i can sync this baby with everything i can think of, using the wide arrange of open formats and standar protocols google built in it.
- I like the repetitive tasks options, to set continuous dates and appoinments.
- Because i can publish some part of my calendar letting people know when i'll be available.
What will i be using to access google calendar
- An app for my ipod touch
- On windows i'll use: Outlook synchronization and it will serve as a backup
- Online of course: everytime i'm not my computer.
- Gmail synchronization with remember the milk
How- I will be updating remember the milk and it will automatically fill my calendar, so thats 2 birds with one shot.
- I want to use the public publishing of my calendar to share my available times with the people i work with, but i'm not sure it will work for them, i'll label it as a trial.
- To keep important birthdays and important dates, so i don't have to remember them(i'm terrible at this anyway)
- To have a quick look of my schedule for the day, i will use it to know how bussy is going to be my day, and set the appropriate scheduling to manage it all.
- To track the time i spent on my each project.
- To never miss a deadline again, and prepare my self for the exams.
GmailWhy- It's the best e-mail application hands down, Outlook is heavy and not portable, hotmail has horrible spam detection and i never cared much for yahoo.
- Keep all my contacts centralized in one single place i love this.
- Integration with google docs.
- I just love using it.
What will i use to access gmail
- The default mail app in my ipod touch, i havent researched this but i think it would suffice.
- Chrome or Firefox everytime i'm on a computer, i keep an updated portable version of these guys using Liberkey(topic of another post).
- Maybe my kindle: i'm not sure how good or bad it is, i'll let you guys know when i get it.
How- As my main tool to communicate with the serious world(for fun i have twitter =P)
- I'll keep all my contacts in google and sync' them with outlook and my ipod touch for backup purposes, i plan to spend an afternoon wiping my contact list into shape.
- As a cheap substitute of SMS, i'll just email the shit out of my family and friends :P nowdays everybody is an e-mail checking maniac.
EvernoteWhy- Mainly popularity, all the services im choosing are not going to be going away anytime soon, using popularity as basis for that argument, i want an stable digital enviroment to get a nice integration with my offline life, so this is important.
- Its free
What will i be using to access evernote
- Like the other tools mentioned in this post, there are apps for everything to use evernote, i haven't researched the best ones, but since what i basically need is a notepad online, i don't think there will be big differences on my experience with the different choices.
How- I'll use evernote primarily to keep notes of medium sized bodies of data that i don't want to memorize, like linux commands and python's functions, and maybe jokes i hear(i suck at remembering them and its a source of frustration in social meetings).
ConclusionsWith all these tools anybody can manage in a pretty strimlined way its life, for me it's all about saving time and mental resources, with these tools i'll get ride of the stress of remembering things that are not important in the long term, so i can concentrate on the ones that are. As you saw if one of the interfaces fail(i don't have internet) another takes its place(my ipod is with me all the time) so i'll never be unplugged from my system for long time.
Its also important to note that even thought it seems that i will need to spend a lot of time just to get organized in reality is not, because all the apps interconnect with each other and do automatic synchronization without me having to do anything, this means that i can have an organized life spending the minimum amount of time required to do it, with the options the current world offers and i can easily migrate to better options if they presents them selves in the future, for example when i get a smartphone all these apps are covered in Android or iOs, and since i keep an offline backup of everything i will never miss my precious information.
