Thing 18: Productivity Apps

This week we are giving you Mylees’s post from23mobilethings.net.  Don’t forget to go to their site for more great information on all the things!

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What are your personal productivity challenges? Productivity is about being efficient and effective and some tools on mobile devices can help organise tasks and schedule activities, provide reminders and help with motivation and time management. In this Thing, we’d like to look at a few of these tools.

DISCOVER:

• Remember the Milk  is a task and time management app.  – There are apps available for Android, iPhone, iPad, and BlackBerry as well as a web app, sync for Microsoft Outlook, and Remember The Milk integrates with Evernote, Gmail, Google Calendar, Siri, and Twitter. You can even email tasks to your Remember the Milk account.
• Doodle  is a scheduling tool, great for coordinating times for meetings with a number of people.  It has an a mobile friendly interface and an iOS app.
• The Pomodoro technique is a productivity system that breaks work down into 25 minute chunks to improve concentration.  There are a variety of Pomodoro apps available for both iOS and Android.
• Lift   is a goal setting app, helping you to set goals, monitor progress and tap into support groups (iOS and web versions available)

EXPLORE:

• Find a timer app for your mobile device, you might choose a different one depending on the tasks you have in mind (eg. running a holiday activity game, timing intervals in an information literacy session or running a trivia quiz).
• Mashable recommended  the productivity app CloudOn  for access to Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on your tablet or smartphone.
• 30/30 is a combination of task manager and timer (Android app and iOS app )
• There are more things to explore on the Pinterest board.

THINKING POINTS:

• Could you use a tool like Remember the Milk as a mobile project management aid?
• Could you display a timer on a tablet to count down during games as part of a holiday activity program?
• Would you be able to coordinate meeting times for your teen advisory group or book club members using Doodle?
• Are there some repetitive tasks that require focus and regular breaks (like stocktaking and reshelving) – could you Pomodoro them?
• Could Lift   be used as part of a lifelong learning library program for adults allowing them to set their own learning goals and monitor their progress?

 

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