Friday, October 9, 2009

Stick#13 - Online Productivity Tools

This section provides very helpful, practical information about tools that you will definitely want to check out. I was familiar with the ability to customize a home page, but have I taken time to do it? Of course not. I set up an iGoogle home page. I liked the clean look of the the page compared to other competitors. I customized it with information I look for frequently plus some fun items. I think I will need to add more information over time, for example RSS feeds. In addition, I can see the need to customize a home page for personal use at home and a slightly different version for work. I like seeing information at a glance.

I set up a calendar on Google. My biggest concern about using this tool is due to the difficulty of using more than one calendar and at work, Outlook is the calendar everyone else uses. I would need to have an Outlook calendar for work and a Google calendar for home. It's too confusing for me.

I LOVE the list capabilities of Remember the Milk! And, what a fun name, too. I think this tool would be VERY helpful to me. Some of the features I think are good is the inclusion of maps if your list includes running errands, etc., being able to print your lists, allowing reminders on email and having a mobile version. I make lists for lots of things, and I think if I could train myself to put them all in one place, it would make my life more productive.

I looked into Backpack as well. This is an interesting and very broad site. I can see it being especially useful to people who travel for their jobs. The ability to add various types of information together with your to-do list makes it very useful and makes Microsoft Outlook appear VERY out-of-date (at least my version). The calendar and task list in Outlook is very segmented, and the user cannot customize much as compared to a tool like Backpack.

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