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Apps with a focus on Personal and Business Productivity

by Filed Under: Digital Organizing, Organize, Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources Leave a Comment

People often ask me what productivity Apps I use and recommend. It’s been a while since I’ve included a roundup on the blog so as requested, here are some useful Apps with a focus on Personal and Business Productivity.

productivity apps

Apps with a Focus on Personal and Business Productivity

Asana
Created by Facebook co-founder, Dustin Moskovits, and fellow Facebook associate Justin Rosenstein, Asana allows teams to track their work through project and task assignments that have the ability to feature notes, comments, attachments, and tags without having to use personal email to communicate. Instead, when changes are made to projects by team members, a message is sent to the project manager’s inbox through Asana’s internal messaging system.

basecamp-calendarBasecamp
Since its inception in 2004, Basecamp has seen two new product launches in 2012 and 2015 of Basecamp 2 and Basecamp 3, respectively. This platform stores and organizes your work in one place through the use of team message boards and comment threads, real-time chat, automatic check-ins, to-do lists, document and file storage, a centralized schedule, reports, and a very handy search feature for digging up old docs.

*Evernote
This multiplatform app comes in  free or upgraded paid version. Evernote is best for note-taking, organizing, and archiving. Users create “notes” which can come in the form of formatted text, a webpage or excerpt, photograph, voice memo, or even a handwritten “ink” note. Notes can also includes attachments; be annotated, tagged, edited, commented on, or searched; and are exported as a page in a notebook.

goodreads*Goodreads
For the bookworm in all of us. Goodreads is an Amazon company through which “social cataloging” allows users to search and save books and reading lists. The platform is heavily driven by the use of its members who can create group book suggestions, blogs, polls, and discussion threads; generate library catalogs, and search through the Goodreads ever-growing database of books and reviews.

*Google Drive
Whether you are using it for business or personal purposes, Google Drive is a great option for accessible, user-friendly cloud storage. Google Drive features Google Sheets, Docs, Powerpoints, and a variety of templates that can be stored and edited by those they are shared with. Alternatively, users can upload their own files and images to the drive. One of selling points of Google Drive is that it is relatively low-maintenance and can be customized to meet the unique needs of each user through a variety of add-ons that can be downloaded from the Google App store.

our-groceries*Our Groceries
Few things are more frustrating than arriving at the grocery store only to realize you have forgotten the grocery list on the kitchen counter. Our Groceries is a free mobile app that will save you this grief by saving your grocery list to your smart phone or web browser. Features include a drag-and-drop component to allow you to move items on your list based on the layout of your grocery store, a tap function to delete list items, and optional categories to organize your list into aisles or food types.

LastPass
Internet security is a growing concern these days especially when every platform we use requires a login and password access. LastPass is a secure platform that uses a master password that only the user, not even LastPass, has access to in order to safely store their passwords. Additional features include cross-browser synchronization, secure password generation, password encryption, form filling, importing/exporting of passwords, portable access, fingerprint identification, and credit monitoring.

ovuview*Ovuview.
This app is great for all women whether you have a pesky period or are trying to conceive or simply want to track your menstrual cycle. Ovuview uses features like cycle statistics, tracking and reporting of temperature and symptoms, calendars, fertility awareness methods, and more to help women maximize chances of pregnancy, avoid pregnancy, track weight gain, headaches, and other PMS-related symptoms, and conveniently chart their cycle on their phones.

Prezi
Prezi is a cloud-based service that allows users to create professional level presentations with great ease. Unlike Powerpoint, Prezi utilizes a single canvas that can be zoomed in and out on to a single group of text or images making for a very dynamic presentation. The freeform design also allows Prezi to be used effectively as a collaborative whiteboard, great for teamwork in the office or with clients.

productivity apps

RescueTimeBecause we have all fallen into the great abyss that is Facebook or Wikipedia or Buzzfeed. RescueTime monitors and tracks how you use your time on the internet. Reports are then generated that allow you to see just how productive, or not, you are being. For a slightly pricey premium upgrade, RescueTime will also track phone calls, breaks, meetings and even send you notification reminding users to get back on track.

Slack
The name is more than just ironic. Slack is actually an acronym that stands for Searchable Log of All Converstaion and Knowledge. The cloud-based software allows for highly effective team collaboration through features like topic-centered conversation, private and direct messaging, task and project management, file storage and sharing, and a search feature. Additionally Slack also conveniently integrates with other platforms including Dropbox, Google Drive, Trello, and and GitHub to name a few.

Stayfocusd
Whether it’s flashy ads or Facebook notifications, the internet often feels like it built as one huge distraction. Stayfocusd was designed to help users do just that – stay focused. The app has highly customizable features that block time-wasting websites, impose time limits on certain sites, and set times of day or days of the week to allow for a a quick web surfing indulgence or two.

swiftkey*SwiftKey (Android)
For Android users, SwiftKey swaps out your traditional keyboard for a smarter, more user-friendly keyboard. This multilingual app allows your fingers to glide over the board and tracks your conversational habits to better predict what you are going to type. If you choose to, upon installation you can give SwiftKey access to your social media accounts to even better understand your typing behavior.

To-Do’ist
To-Do’ist is much more than an app to stores lists. The app is functional across multiple platforms, devices, inboxes, and browsers and includes a number of features that allow users to share lists, collaborate on lists, set notifications and reminders, make comments, form sub-tasks and sub-projects, give priority to certain tasks and lists, and organize with labels and filters. On top of it all, To-Do’ist also tracks your activity and produces visual reports to help you gage how most effectively manage your tasks.

trello

Trello
Trello is a web-based project management tool that can be used on both a professional and personal capacity. Boards represent projects which contain task lists. Within each list are cards that, using the drag-and-drop method, can be passed from list to list or reassigned to different users. This system is meant to mirror the flow of projects from idea to implementation.

*Unroll.Me
Whether you signed up for them on purpose or not,  subscription emails and newsletters have a tendency to muck up our inboxes and distract us from the more meaningful messages that should take priority. Unroll.Me solves this issue by consolidating your subscription services into a manageable summary. This way instead of receiving 20+ newsletters a day users of Unroll.Me get one much more digestible email.

Apps with a focus on Personal and Business Productivity

Microsoft  To-Do, (formerly Wunderlist see alternatives here)
Similar to To-Do’ist, take task management and personal productivity to a new level. Features include sorting lists into folders, list-sharing and collaborating, synchronization across multiple devices and with Microsoft Office, notes and comments, reminder and due date notifications, mail and print functions, and an add-to feature that can turn things you run across on the web into actionable items.

*Items I personally use-please note which apps are available for (Android, iOS).

Do you use any of these Apps? If so I’d love to hear what you think and if there are others I’ve missed, please include them in the comments below. Happy Apping!

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Help kids set goals with guidance

by Filed Under: Kids & Family Organizing, Organize, Systems & Techniques Leave a Comment

Whether you call them goal charts, chore charts or habit trackers, it’s never too early to cultivate good habits. Home is the perfect place to begin teaching kids to make decisions about setting and keeping goals. Kids learn by observation, so set great examples by sharing your goals with your kids.

Help Kids set Goals

What to know when you help kids set goals…

1. Goals direct attention and effort toward goal-relevant activities and away from goal-irrelevant activities.
2. Goals have an energizing function. Goals create efforts.
3. Goals effect persistence. Goals prolong effort.
4. Goals rally us to bring task-relevant knowledge and strategies to the problem at hand.
—Edwin Locke & Gary Latham

Your children’s age is the first factor in helping them to set goals. Age appropriate goals for kids can include chores, tasks and good habits you want to help them cultivate. Schools and classrooms use goals as a motivational tool to teach kids how to work consistently as individuals or as a team to accomplish a task.

When you help kids set goals (for chores, tasks and assignments) you reinforce behavior leading to the creation of positive habits. 

Work with your kids to get them motivated and excited about using a goal setting system. If your kids are excited about seeing their accomplishments and tracking the benefits then it will be easier to begin implementing a new system.

Another very important factor you help kids set goals is knowing how your child learns.

Are they visual and creative? If so create a vision board or goal sheet that is colorful and visually exciting.

Do they love electronic’s? Search for apps or “games” that help you and your children set goals and track them via tech tools you can both access.

Do they respond well to auditory cues? Set alarms or use sounds to reward or track progress.

All of these factors will be helpful when determining what kind of system to set up. Take into account your own preferences as well. If your child is very tech savvy but you don’t have the first clue, don’t set up a system you won’t be able to monitor. Help create a system will be successful for them in the long run. This may mean trying a couple things until you find the right strategy, don’t get discouraged, ask around, look online and keep working at it. Consistency is key to setting goals and forming new habits.

Types of Goal Tracking Systems

  • Chore Charts can be assigned as appropriate by age, starting small and working towards more complex chores around the house, at school etc. These can easily be created for small children who can’t read with picture graphics and check marks, stickers or magnets to keep track of chores by day or week.
  • Goal charts are great for tracking progress on school projects and keeping track of goals for personal growth. If you or your children prefer ‘progress chart’ is a good alternate term.
  • Habit trackers are great for teaching kids to be consistent when learning new habits like brushing teeth am/pm, making beds, drinking water etc.

Many of these terms are interchangeable and some households may prefer one term over another or a combination of these for different activities. The idea is to keep kids motivated and accountable to learning new habits, setting goals and doing what they are asked to do.

A Note about rewards…Some parents love to reward their kids with tangible praise by way of allowance or “Screen-time” like games and TV. Other parents prefer reward charts and coupons as an alternate way to track of goals, habits or chores with visual cues rather than tangible items. 

Help kids set goals that are SMART!

When kids are 9-12 yrs old (earlier if they are mature and it’s appropriate), you may want to introduce them to the concept of S.M.A.R.T. Goals to teach them how to set and successfully reach their goals with accountability.

S. pecific-What exactly is the goal or habit you want to track, change or set?

M. easurable-How will you know you have accomplished your new goal?

A. ctionable-What are the steps needed to achieve this goal?

R. ealistic-Do you have the skills, time and supplies needed to achieve your goal?

T. imely-What timeline or deadline do you have and how will you break the goal down into time chunks to accomplish it by the deadline? (school year, monthly, weekly etc)

Talk to your kids about how and why they set goals. Why does this matter? It will help them to understand how setting goals empowers them to create success by their own definition.

When we create keystone habits, they can become routine and no longer require as much effort. This process becomes a catalyst for other positive goals and automatic behavior. This is a simplification of forming habits, but if you’re interested in learning more, I recommend the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. 

Keep your kids charts for tracking goals and habits someplace easy to see, either in their room or incorporate them into your household Command Center. Check Pinterest for tons of free printable downloads or make your own on a whiteboard, blackboard or clipboard with printouts etc.

Goals are guidelines and should not be so rigid that they are make us unhappy so don’t forget to just enjoy life!Help kids set goals

Successful paper sorting

by Filed Under: Organize, Paper management, Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 1 Comment

A couple weeks ago, we identified three steps to get paper piles under control, this week we will create a simple paper sorting system! If you missed that post, please go back and spend about 30 min’s preparing for these next steps. To recap, we start by identifying what overwhelms us about paper piles and how or why things are so out of control. This is a mental step but feel free to journal about it if that helps! Next, we list the categories of files and papers we need to keep. Finally we create a working space or staging area where we can spread out with our supplies gathered.

paper sorting

Many people suggest the first step to paper sorting is to gather all your papers in one place. I don’t start with this because I believe before we dive into paper sorting, we need to identify how we got here and where we want to be! I’ve written about setting intentions in several past posts. This step can be easy to overlook and seem like it’s unimportant, but it can make all the difference in creating lasting change.

[bctt tweet=”Setting our intention is a valuable part of creating successful and lasting change. ” username=”hkpowerstudio”]

Now, we are ready to gather all our papers to our working area. If you have a lot of papers in an existing office, it might make sense to start in that area. Gather everything to a table or desk where you can go through your stacks (or files or bags) and begin paper sorting into categories. In a prior post, I go through several kinds of filing systems, including the Tickler, binders and color coding. Before you commit to one filing system, take a look at some alternatives. This paper sorting process will work for any type of filing system!

*A quick note about shredding and sensitive papers. If you have a lot of papers to process at once, hold off on shredding and put papers to be shredded into a LABELED bag or box. If a piece of paper only has your name and address, you might want one of these great ID Blocker stamps so you can mark out your info and recycle.

With all your supplies and your staging area set up, let’s begin paper sorting!

  • Gathering papers is like a treasure hunt, you probably have papers hanging around over the place. Don’t forget to look in the kitchen, bedroom (nightstand drawers or surfaces), dining room, office or den and your car!
  • With your list of categories nearby, put each of your categories on a sticky note. If you come across a category you don’t have, just add another sticky note! We will review later. Don’t forget an “Action or To-Do” category and a “Delegate or refer to someone else” category. Common filing mistakes I see are overly complicated or very vague systems. See this post to review your categories.
  • Pick up your first stack and begin to sort into recycle, shred or one of your categories. If you have a lot of categories it can help to set up hanging folders in an empty box or file drawer. I prefer to start with a blank slate and work through old systems and stacks, sorting into the newly created system.

Continue the paper sorting process for a set amount of time, taking breaks every 30-60 min’s. If you’re unsure about items, set them into an “undecided” area to look back through later. Though I can’t advise on what specific papers you will need to keep, a helpful retention guide is available on the IRS website. For anything related to taxes and finances, you may also want to check with your accountant.

Going digital might be a consideration for information you can access online. If you’re not comfortable but want to try it out, pick one category like “Utilities” and begin to convert each account to paperless and see how that goes! If you like it, consider other categories such as banking, investments and insurance.

Once your through the paper piles, that’s it! The only thing left to do is label your final categories and make sure your files are in the drawers, binders or the file box you want to keep them in. There are some downright gorgeous file cabinets in a variety of styles, check out my previous round up here. Now that you have an awesome system in place, maintain it daily or weekly so you don’t end up with a backload of piles ever again!

Creating Intentional SPACE

by Filed Under: Organizing Projects, Paper management, Systems & Techniques 1 Comment

Creating Intentional SPACE is something that most Professional Organizers do regularly with their clients. Many of us use the SPACE system or something similar when helping clients with the organizing process. This system and the acronym was created by Professional Organizer and Author Julie Morgenstern and it’s a tried and true system that I follow with all my client organizing projects. I’m happy to share how what the acronym stands for below because I find it can be useful in understanding the steps and process that can help lead to a more organized and intentional SPACE.

Creating Space with Intention

Sort-This begins by gathering everything in one category together. By doing this you know what ALL you have and can move on to the next step.

Purge-Only when you know what you have can you start to make decisions about what to keep. Purging is really DECIDING what is needed or if you can get rid of it (donate, recycle, trash).

Assign-Now that you have decided what to keep, give it a home.

Contain-You know what you’ve got and where it will live, what would make keeping things in order easier? Do you need containers? Take measurements, make labels…commit these items to live in this space.

Equalize-What this really means is Evaluate…after living with your newly organized system, take the time after a week, a month and beyond to make adjustments as needed. This means setting an intention to maintain the system (and from time to time going back through the SPACE process).

Before you even begin this process, I believe it’s equally important and valuable to set your intention (my WORD for 2019) or reason/goal for the space! Most of us have heard the statement: nature abhors a vacuum (horror vacui) by Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides that a void or vacuum, in nature, cannot exist, so be careful what you create, or what you leave open…which can quickly get filled with clutter (in your mind and your physical space).

Once you decide, set your intention and go through the SPACE process of implementing this system, use it to support your effort to succeed in maintaining as well! Organizing isn’t a one and done process but it is a Process that’s worth investing in and worth maintaining. How’s your SPACE? Will it be filled by something of your choosing or with clutter? Need help going through this process? Please fill out the “Help me Get Organized” form.

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Travel Tips for a Happier Holiday

by Filed Under: Organize, Systems & Techniques, Tips & Resources 1 Comment

More Tinsel Less Bristle-Travel Tips for a Happier Holiday!

travel tips for a happier holiday

All too often we hear about the chaos and stress of the holiday season. The holidays are an opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, but between long road trips and TSA merriment is often overlooked. This season we’ve put together a list of travel tips for a happier holiday so that the only frosty part of your holiday is the snowman outside.

  1. Keep in mind who you are traveling with. With kids? Make sure you have extra games or activities and maybe a few healthy snacks – the more spill-proof the better. This will keep the little ones entertained and cut down on grumpy roadside snack stops.
  2. Invest in quality luggage. Nothing is more frustrating than dragging an oversized, tearing at the seams suitcase with a couple of busted wheels. If you are traveling by plane, double-check that your carryon or checked luggage is within size and weight restrictions.
  3. Pack light. You may be bringing things back, and you do not need 5 pairs of shoes for a 4 day stay. And don’t forget! If you are taking gifts with you by plane be sure to save the wrapping for after your arrival.
  4. Before you leave the house – tidy up things up a bit. After long hours on the road or in the air, the last thing you want to come home to is a mess.
  5. Before you drive – consider leaving in the early morning or late night hours when traffic is at its lowest, aim for 2-digit interstates which provide the most direct routes through cities, and make time to stop and stretch your legs which will keep your body from assuming constant chair pose and give your mind that much needed second wind.
  6. Before you fly – check in online ahead of time to save yourself from unnecessary kiosk lines and arrive early. During the holiday’s airports are packed and subject to cancellations or delays, so a minimum of two hours before boarding time is ideal particularly if you are flying into or out of airports like JFK, LGA, or O’Hare to name a few.
  7. Remember to breathe. While you are sitting in traffic or waiting in line at TSA take a moment to monitor your breath. Avoid getting caught up in the hectic energy that makes us feel like we are rushed. Unknit your brow, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath, and take your time.

Most importantly, remember to pack a good attitude. We all know plans don’t always go exactly as expected. Be ready to roll with the punches and if your patience begins to slip remember that in a few hours you’ll be surrounded by the ones you love so you can eat, drink, and be merry.

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