“My New Year’s resolution is to get organised”. That’s not me speaking, you understand, I’m already organised! Along with losing weight, getting organised is one of the most-often quoted New Years resolutions. Here’s five applications that will help you to meet your Personal Productivity Challenge
Microsoft Outlook
Most people are familiar with Outlook as they use it at work or at home, However, many people only use the email side of the application. Outlook also has a fully-featured task list, a calendar and a “notes app”. You can even drag notes out of Outlook and save them on your Desktop – the equivalent of sticky notes! Throw in Categories (think of these as keywords or tags) and Views and you have a very powerful get-organised tool.
OmniFocus
OmniFocus is a stand-alone task management tool. It was originally written for the Mac, however there are now versions for the iPad and iPhone. It’s key features include location-aware task lists, GTD-style contexts and the ability to add audio notes and image attachments. If you have multiple devices, OmniFocus supports Cloud-based syncing to ensure that you’ll be up-to-date no matter where you are. More information
Evernote
“I have scraps of paper all over the place” was a comment that was made to me recently. “I wish I had a single place where I could store all my notes and have them with me all the time”. This is exactly what Evernote was made for! It’s free, versatile and because your notes live securely in The Cloud, they can be synced to, and accessed from multiple devices. As well as plain text notes, Evernote can function as a to-do list, store photos, web pages, voice memos, audio recordings, PDF’s and more. More information
1Password
Passwords written on sticky notes, Passwords written on scraps of paper. Passwords stored in unsecured spreadsheets…I’ve seen it all. Make 2013 the year that you organise your passwords using a Password Manager. the best Password Manager by far is 1Password. It’s available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android. Not only does it store your passwords, you can also use it to store credit card information, software serial numbers and much more. It’s safe. It’s secure and it integrates directly with your web browser to automatically log you into websites. More information
DropBox
“I really need that file and it’s on my hard drive at home”. There’s more to getting organised than making to-do lists. DropBox is a free Cloud-based storage service that has been described as “your pen drive in The Cloud”. With a DropBox account you can store all your important files in one place and have access to them any time any place anywhere. It is supported on Windows and Mac as well as iPhone, iPad and Android. In fact, if there’s no dedicated app available for your platform, or you work in an environment where you can’t install software, you can still access your files via a web browser. More information