Weekly Wrap-Up Thing 18: Productivity Apps

Following on last week’s Thing 17 on Evernote and Zotero. This week’s focus expanded to look at other productivity apps. However activities for this weeks topic – Thing 18: Productivity Apps have been rather quiet.

I guess the America’s Cup fever have taken alot of focus and time from many Kiwis. I know I’ve been studying up on the sport and following the race rather more closely of late. Go Team NZ!

Anyway, back to this week’s topic.

Discussion on the recent Google Hangout have prompted interests in Any.do and Pomodoro.

Karen Malbon ‏@KMalbon will be checking out these apps

and

Cath Sheard @KiwiLibrarian have used the Pomodoro technique for cutting big tasks down into managable chunks

While Maria Alenquer ‏@Maria_Alenquer is going to try the “Remember the milk” app.

Also mentioned in the hangout was Evernote, Dropbox and Google Docs. Check out Kate’s insight on how she uses Evernote to record all her saved RSS feeds and Kathryn’s time saving experience in using Google Docs:

While I’ve only used Evernote sparodically, I’m a huge fan of Dropbox and Google Drive. I’ve also found CloudOn a great app to combine both these tools together.

Another multi app manager I’ve been using regularly for my social media channels is Hootsuite. This app is great to help you manage, monitor and schedule your posts, messages and tweets from social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many more. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you should.

For more productivity apps follow the productivity board on Pinterest or check the productivity category in Google Play or the Apple Store.

Thinking points

I think productivity apps are invaluable in helping us become more efficient and effective in managing our work and time. However, I think some of us are not investing as much time and effort in learning to  use these tools effectively. Talking from experience, I know when I come across a couple of useful apps, I’m incline to just stick with them for a long time. The new apps I’ve come across this week has shown I need to expand and try new tools out.

In terms of using these tools for our work, I think we are still in the learning phase. Before we can effectively incorporate these tools into our work programmes, we need to understand all it’s potential and that’s by using and experimenting with it for ourselves.

Before signing off, I’ll leave with a couple of questions.

What is currently taking you alot of time to do at work?
Could you find an app to help you improve the way you work?

Signing off

Mark Huynh @E_venturer

Thanks Mark, Don’t forget that this week is a catch up week before we head into the final stretch of ‘Things’.  Enjoy.

It’s Hangout time!

It has been too long since our last hangout in June(!) so we are bringing you another one, this Thursday 19th September, at 8:00PM (NZ time), 6:00PM (AEST).

Join Abigail, Mylee, Kathryn, Jan (hopefully) and me as we discuss:

• What’s been happening
• All things ebooks
• Dropbox, evernote and productivity apps
• What is around the corner.

So tune into our video-channel at 8:00PM (NZ), 6:00PM (AEST), and 4:00PM(AWST) to join in. You can tweet us your questions using the #anz23mthings or ask them as comments on this post and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Click here to watch the live stream of the Google+ Hangout

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!

Photo Credit: hawkexpress via Compfight cc

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?

 

Don’t Forget to join us on Thursday for our next Google+ Hangout!  Check your email and back here for more details.