Get More Done With Less Effort

10 Essential Items for a Mac Personal Productivity System

In this feature in-depth article for Small Business Lifeline Series, we will cover tips on choosing applications to make remembering and tracking information easier to manage. We will outline 10 essential areas to consider as you start a productivity system using software and mobile apps and provide a real life example.

This is the first of a series of articles that will focus on topics that will help you to use you computer and mobile devices to be more productive, get more customers, and increase profitability for your small business.

In this article, Jacqueline discloses her very own set up and the reasoning for choosing the components in it,  which may appeal to other small business owners or managers. It is also helpful for people who juggle multiple projects or roles. Your needs may differ, but this candid information is hard to get from busy people, and many won’t share their secrets!

Next article in this series will present ways to make website creation and website and content management easier for your small business with some cool apps and time-saving services that don’t bust your budget but many web professionals won’t reveal!

Motivation aside, personal productivity is remembering things at the right time and keeping track of information so it’s available to you when you need it.

Relatively speaking, our minds are expending more effort than they used to on just sifting information to find what is important out of lots of unimportant information coming to us from many more sources than there used to be. There are new terms invented to accommodate and describe these changes, such as information overload and communication overload. Most of the blame has been directed at the availability of, and access to, the Internet. We ask you to consider that it might go back even further in time as communication channels such as the telephone, radio, television and satellite tv with its hundreds of stations broadcasting round the globe, round the clock, have arrived.

The example we might most relate to is a person who watches cable TV news and reads the newspaper before going to work, listens to the radio and looks at billboards on the way to work, then gets to work looking forward to accomplishing the tasks for the day, only to find email and voicemail inboxes with dozens of messages to read, listen and respond to. There is no way of determining the importance or priority of these demands on their time without listening or reading them.

There is now a growing profession of productivity experts that write books, give presentations and teach workshops on how we can get stuff done despite the onslaught of communications and requests for our attention coming at us from angles unheard of a couple of decades ago.

Email, voicemail, instant messages, text messages, wall posts, tweets, friend requests, news feeds, RSS blog feeds, podcasts, video bogs, you tube, facebook, sponsored ads placed in the body of articles on web pages, are just some examples of modern sources of information that can lead to information overload and a real case of what we call “The Distractions.”

We leave the experts to tell you the new golden rules of staying focused including our recent favorite “don’t read email in the morning.” If you are absolutely in dire need of help with communication overload check out this article on How to Crush Communications Overload.

Our area of expertise is using Macs, so we’ll continue on topic. Mac users typically want to be efficient; we share a common desire for things “to just work.” That’s why we bought our Macs. They just work, most of the time (-;

Apple is just reaching it’s prime, in our opinion, after fighting nay-Sayers and negative opinions about its desire to create a computing ecosystem where things work better together. Lion, the upgrade to OS X, will be delivered straight to your Mac through the Mac App Store included in the current version of Snow Leopard. How much easier can an operating system upgrade be? (Look for separate articles regarding these upgrades in future editions of MacJuicy News.)

Speaking of efficiency… Let us now explore using our Macs and technology to get more done in less time.

If you currently have a personal productivity system, don’t use one, or are a Getting Things Done(TM) prodigy; there are great web based, mobile and desktop software tools to help you. Both iTunes and Mac App stores have exploded with choices under the category of Productivity Applications. Note that Apple recently announced several productivity enhancements coming in OS X Lion (July 2011) and iOS 5 (late 2011). (1)

SOME FOLKS JUST PREFER LOW OR NO-TECH METHODS. Many brainstorm better with pencil and paper. It is possible to create a combination of “tech-niques” when designing a system for yourself. However, keep in mind that efficiency can be gained by eventually transferring information to a computerized format.

Now, to get you started, Jacqueline has listed some tips to consider. After that, to give you a real life example, she reveals 10 essential things to address, and her secrets (Uh, her personal system).

She’s a big picture type that wants her stuff available in detail, but can’t focus on doing that herself. Her system has evolved over twenty years (starting with a Daytimer, then the PalmPilot, and so on…) to try to capture a piece of information once, and use it in many places, to avoid writing, retyping or having to remember anything.

She also places a priority on ease of retrieval, and multiple reminders at different stages leading up to an event. Most important is being able to access almost anything from any device. She currently depends on a late model iMac, an iPhone 4, and an iPad 2 with an occasional need to be on another person’s computer or Windows PC. This means she needs access to her stuff no matter what kind of computer is available.

That’s not much… (OK we do consider this an extreme example, but hey, learn from someone who is really using this stuff, right?)

Tips you can use when choosing the tools you can use on your computer, smartphone or iPad:

• Free does not mean low quality.
• Paid versus free in many cases will provide incentive for the software developers to enhance the product and provide better support to you.
• Some free app developers will take donations. Support them if you find value in their work.
• Outline what you need to track and how you usually do that. For example do you want calendar events and your scheduling to be part of this system?
• How do you categorize items on your to-do list?
• Do you prioritize your tasks? If so, how?
• Now is a good time to set some goals.
• Think outside the limitations of your knowledge of the technology you have at hand. Rather, think about “what ifs?”
• How do you prefer to be reminded of appointments and tasks?
• Would it help to have links or access to all related documents and other items in one place, included or not, with that reminder?
• Then, design a simple (at first) flow of information into your system and useful, timely and appropriately accessible information coming back out of your system. On your terms, of course, and by any media (drawing, sketching, typing, chalk on the driveway – just take a quick photo with your iPhone in case you lose your work!)

Important items to consider as you set about matching your ideal system to applications:

• If you’re attached to you current electronic calendar, such as iCal, Outlook or Google calendar, you’ll want apps that integrate with that. If you have to look in more than one place and can’t see a comprehensive view of your calendar, confusion could ensue or you might not use the system.
• If you just have to have a physical piece of paper for your calendar for example, look at applications that allow you to print calendar pages, lists of to-do’s, and other items important to you in a format to your liking.

Here are the 10 essential areas to start with and Jacqueline’s secret solutions:

1. The calendar is the foundation

2. Efficient and reliable communications tools

2.5 Professional virtual telephone and answering service

3. Remembering things to do

4. Managing projects for you and your team

5. Getting paid fast

6. Keeping records of your clients

7. Keeping notes and writing valuable stuff

8. Promote your valuable stuff in style

9. Capture those amazing ideas and organize them so they make sense to someone

10. Remote access to files on your Mac

1. The calendar is the foundation

Google calendar: by far the most flexible option available. It plays well with others. You can use it from the Google Calendar application web page and set your desktop iCal to synchronize with it so you can work from iCal. I use the built-in calendar application on the iPhone and iPad to directly use and edit my Google Calendar. (This can be done by setting your Google account up on your iPhone or iPad in Mail Settings by choosing the Exchange option.)

Google Calendar has tasks management however, my opinion is that it’s not fully developed. Definitely not good for making lists. A benefit of Google Calendar is that by defaults that I set, every appointment on my calendar sends me multiple reminders at a time intervals leading up to the event. (pop-up alert, email, SMS).

2. Efficient and reliable communications tools

Google Apps email is used to power email for most of my domains: applejuicetech.net, modflux.com, applejuicesupport.com and applejuiceacademy.com. It’s secure, flexible and just works on everything. Google licenses it for free to small organizations as Google Apps for business, and it includes many great collaboration tools.

2.5 Professional virtual telephone and answering service

Google Voice is a real gem. I’ve been using it since Google bought Grandcentral, at least 6 years now. It’s free, you can get a local phone number and through your account access on the web, control where calls go, which calls go where, ring more than one phone, or any phone where you are located. It’s the only (2 – I have one personal and one business) number I give out. So if my land line phone number changes because of a move or my cell number is changed, I never have to reprint business cards or notify anyone.

The real beauty is in its voicemail system. You can retrieve your voicemail in the online account, by calling, or as I do, from my email inbox. You can choose email or text message (or both) notification. The emails I get have a transcribed version of the message included (not perfect, but good enough to know who called and if it’s urgent).

I have disabled the carrier-provided visual voicemail on my iPhone. All calls not answered get sent to my Google Voice inbox. So I get all my messages in my email on my iPhone, iPad or computer. (Google proves clear instructions.)

As an added bonus, Google Voice provides free US long distance calling. I use the web app or iPhone app to make outgoing calls. I tell it who I want to call and it dials me first at a phone I specify, then connects me with my contact using my Google phone number as the caller ID. I have the free Google iPhone app set up to work with my personal number and a nice paid app called GV Mobile +. It was available before the Google app and it is better.

There is a good paid virtual phone alternative that I’ve considered trying out called Grasshopper. I recommend a paid service only if you need a 800 number or very reliable service. My take on 800 numbers is that you don’t need one unless you are offering a critical public service or are a huge global corporation. Most people have unlimited long distance plans and/or cell phones, which won’t deter them from calling you for fear of getting charged.

3. Remembering things to do

Reqall is what I use to manage tasks and lists of things to do. It is a smart application in which I have input my frequent stops and locations, such as stores, post office, home, dog park. I can enter tasks or notes by voice or typing. Here is where it is most valuable- it is a web based application like Google Calendar, so I always have a tab in Firefox open to it, it’s an app in my iPhone and iPad with voice transcription and automatic categorization based on key words or phrases, so I can add while on the go, and it all stays in sync. It adds things with due dates to my Google Calendar, and from within Reqall I can see all thing due, including my Google Calendar appointments. You need a paid Pro subscription to Reqall for the calendar integration, otherwise it is free. You can also view tasks from within your Google Calendar web page.

Reqall also uses location, automatically determined by the GPS in the iPhone to know when I’m in proximity to the store and will provide all my to-dos related to the store. An often overlooked feature is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of all you Reqall todos, I have that set up in my Apple Mail so I can see a running list and refer to it there as a convenience.

A cool free alternative to Reqall that I’m currently testing is Producteev. It has a web accessible application page as well as a mobile app.

4. Managing projects for you and your team

For project management for software development and launches for my software development company, we use Basecamp, another web-based application with several mobile apps available. I use Sherpa for the iPhone. This is great for geographically diverse teams. When milestones are reached, tasks I’ve assigned to others are complete, or comments and questions are raised by team members in that system, I get a notification email (on my mobile device or desktop, wherever I am at at that time) with a direct link to the item in Basecamp. We also use a web based board for viewing our projects using the Scrum method of Agile software development. I’m sure that no matter how specific your tasks in your profession, there’s an an app for it. Just because there is an application doesn’t mean you should be using it. You can develop criteria that help you evaluate and decide if using the technology enhances or improves your work.

5. Getting paid fast

Invoicing and collecting payments is superbly performed by Freshbooks. I add new clients and their contact information into this web-based application database. Freshbooks makes for easy time tracking, estimates and invoicing. I have the companion iPhone application called Minibooks that allows me to look up or add clients and create invoices. With it comes the capability to instantly email the invoice for the client to pay online. Freshbooks has features to track time, expenses and income & create reports, eliminating the need for the more expensive Quickbooks Pro online subscription I was using until they had some awful online outages. It’s much simpler for a small service business.

6. Keeping records of your clients

Batchbook CRM it is the main place I track contacts, communications, information and followups. It integrates with Freshbooks very well, as well as Mailchimp (bulk email application mentioned below). It doesn’t directly add things to my Google calendar however I can subscribe to its calendar feed on each of my devices’ calendar app and in Google Calendar to view to-dos or events created in Batchbook. It also has social capabilities and lets me know which social networks my clients are on, so I know which networks to put marketing efforts into.

7. Keeping notes and writing valuable stuff

MacJournal has been my favorite desktop software for writing notes, reports and articles. I absolutely love the program for managing my notes by category. The desktop version is awesome and works well for professional writers and people who just want a place to organize their notes. That and OmniOutliner, for creating lists, are among my favorite paid third party applications for the Mac. The iPhone/iPad version is seriously lacking and I’ve been waiting two years for the publisher to come out with a decent mobile version. I finally gave up and now happily using Notability for iPad. There is no integration, but I have set Notability to automatically save my notes in .rtf format into one of my free Dropbox accounts so 1) have backups and 2) can access them at my desktop to work on them in Pages or create an online article. I can also copy and paste as needed to and from MacJournal on my desktop.

Notability is great for recording interviews or meetings and the audio file will be timestamped to coordinate with the notes you take. Great for reference when writing or for remembering items discussed in a meeting (it’s a great gift for students).

For pure writing without distraction, the text writing tool with the best features (for a minimalist product) is Writings for iPad. I hesitate to call it a minimalist product because it has some features I adore. It’s an amazing tool for writers without word processor fluff to distract you from getting the words out. Its got word, character and line count, but most of all special features that can only work on an iPad. It syncs with multiple Dropbox accounts and you can map to specific folders. Categorization, or grouping, of documents is a distinct feature not found in the other text writing apps. Here’s something special I wish I could do on every app on the iPhone and iPad: move your cursor either forward or backward to get to the spot you want, instead of playing the game of “try to tap on the spot with your big finger” or delete all the way back to the character you want to correct. The option of displaying extra punctuation keys on the main keyboard is another essential feature I wish was available on the standard keypad.

8. Promote your valuable stuff in style

Email newsletter campaigns are simple and automated with Mailchimp (the free version is plenty for me). New clients’ email addresses are pulled from Freshbooks to Mailchimp with ease and any new entries to macJuicy News on the website are automagically pulled (via RSS feed) into a mailing to go out on the day and time of the week I specify. I can also create a special list of clients or prospects in Batchbook and instantly send that list to Mailchimp to send them a super-looking email for a special purpose.

For event promotion and registration, Eventbrite is the best I’ve found. It has social integration and takes registration fees.

9. Capture those amazing ideas and organize them so they make sense to someone

One last productivity & creativity tool is a mind mapping application or app. I’ve used Omnigraffle on my Mac for many years. I can create visual representations of a workflow or concept and create mind maps. Mind maps are hard to explain, but they are great for organizing thoughts in a visual and logical order. They are fun to create and nice to look at. Mindmaps have come to the rescue when trying to get a new idea across to someone who has difficulty with my style of communication.

I’ve not found a mobile mind map app that I truly like on the iPad or iPhone. This is important because most of my best brainstorming (and probably yours also) is done when you are away from your computer. You want to capture those ideas. The mobile version of Omnigraffle has a high price tag with poor reviews. I’m not going to pay fifty bucks just to try it out. I’ll keep trying out free or less expensive apps until that rating goes up.

Evernote and Instapaper help me to save information, web pages and notes for later reading or organizing, so I can stay on task. Both have desktop and mobile versions.

10. Remote access to files on your Mac

Being able to share files between your Mac and mobile devices is important. I like to have access to the most current version of a document no matter if I am at my Mac after making changes to a proposal on my iPad, or if I want to review a document on the iPad but created on the Mac. I use Dropbox and Sugarsync web-based applications with a component you install on your Mac to choose folders to keep in sync with your web based folder. (I have the upgraded service from Sugarsync that gives me 30 GB of storage at a good price.) That folder can then be accessed securely from any computer via a web browser, or the mobile app for the iPhone and iPad. If you make changes or create a new document away from your Mac, the new version is made available on your Mac. This capability is also useful for transferring items to your mobile device. My 32GB iPad is almost full, so I rely on being able to store items in my cloud accounts. Note that Apple recently announced its iCloud service. This would perform essentially the same functions I just described, but with tighter integration and ease of use.

One more way I access things on my Mac remotely is using a remote control app to get into my Mac and use it as if I were sitting at it. I use iTeleport for this. I can keep an eye on something I am processing on the Mac and control it from either the iPhone or iPad.

Those ten items should give you a good start to thinking of areas where you might save time or effort by using technology. The applications I describe are just the applications I rely on for business and productivity. There are so many others that I use regularly for streaming news, educational and entertainment content to my devices either from my Mac or from an Internet service. There are apps to help you filter all that information to save time and I encourage you to explore new ways to use your computer and mobile devices.

We hope you found this article insightful. What systems do you use? Please share in the comments below the article. We can all learn from your thoughts and experiences!

Join us for the next in-depth article along this topic, which will be new ways to make website creation and website and content management easier with some cool timesaving apps and services that make you look a pro!

Jacqueline Monroe is the founder of applejuice tech (applejuicesupport.com), macjuicynews.com, applejuiceacademy.com and founder and President of Modern Flux, a firm dedicated to developing enterprise SaaS (Software as a Service) applications that scale to be affordable and available to Small and Medium Businesses.

After over 20+ years working for software companies that catered to large businesses as an MBA management consultant, her passion is to bring productivity enhancing and cost-saving enterprise-quality applications to these companies in order to put them on a level playing field with large companies. You can reach Jacqueline via email Jackie (at) applejuicetech (dot) net.

For help in designing and implementing a productivity system personalized for you, contact us at www.Applejuicesupport.com.

Now get out there and try some new apps from the Mac App Store and the App Store!

Footnote (1) On our mobile devices (when I use the term mobile, I am usually referring to iPhone, iPad, iPod touch- the devices that run the apple mobile software iOS), the new iOS 5 upgrade is to include a better mail application and several new features to help us be more efficient. Adding your own words to the built-in dictionary, task management and a read-later application similar to our favorite, Instapaper.