Productivity is, ironically, a key to being able to relax.
By making the most of your time while working, this then allows you even more free time for:
- ▸ your own self-care
- ▸ spending quality time with loved-ones
- ▸ and other activities you’re passionate about
I remember as a child, coveting Batman’s utility belt from the television show. It seemed like that belt — and the tools it carried — got him out of a lot of scrapes and help his life to work better! Everyone needs a few productivity tools to help with the noble endeavor of becoming more self-efficient.
Your tools might be super high-tech, or they might be as simple as a kitchen timer or a clipboard. What’s important, is that you find tools that work uniquely well for you, and are fun for you to use.
the right productivity tools can help you to stay organized and efficient
3 Fun Tools to Enhance Your Personal Productivity
Having tools you enjoy using, will keep you using them time and time again.
Let’s take a look at three new tools that you might enjoy for optimizing your task management. These are potentially great little helpers and all very different: we have a neat piece of hardware, a cool new software, and a simple print-out for those want to stick to paper.
Productivity Tool #1: Digital Pens
The Zpen isn’t just any pen — it transcribes whatever you write onto a USB device so you can upload your notes to your computer!
You don’t need any special paper or an electronic pad like other digital pens, you just clip the USB receiver to the top of you notepad and write away.
When you’re finished with your notes you can plug the receiver into your computer and it transfers it to your machine. You then have options to catalogue, convert to digital text, or search your transcribed documents.
The Digital Pen is designed for:
- ⊙ management
- ⊙ group meetings
- ⊙ students
It allows for meeting rooms and lecture halls to go back to a simpler time — when we were without the distraction of laptops. Basically, the pen allows its user to concentrate on participating, which creates a more productive environment for everyone.
The pen does need to be trained to recognize your handwriting, which may be time-consuming — but it certainly sounds like a fun gadget!
If anyone has any experience with the product, please tell us about it in the comment section.
Productivity Tool #2: Sparkling Sheet
good productivity tools can help you feel like a superhero!
An interesting feature that makes it stand apart from other time management diaries is that it pairs up with your calender allowing you to see your tasks and appointments together.
This app is still in development, so the jury is still out on this one. Check out sparklingsheet.com for updates.
This may seem nerdy or frivolous, but the fact is that the most successful people periodically take an objective look at where their time is going. They are always fine-tuning their schedules and energy allocation. You can, too!
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-
▸ get organized
▸ manage your energy better
▸ improve your daily quality of life
▸ enjoy more free time!
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Productivity Tool #3: Time Monitor
A great way to get more out of your week is to become more aware of how you spend your time. By logging your week’s activities you can see what’s taking too much of your time and take more accountability for fitting in exercise or passion-projects.
My168hours.com is a website named after the amount of hours in the week which offers a simple time management spreadsheet for you to print out and log your hours. On the site they make a very good point:
“…if you want to lose weight,
you keep a food diary. If you want to
get out of debt, you record your spending.
Likewise, if you want to use your time better,
you should keep a time log”
~ my168hours.com
Using the free my168spreadsheet can help to make you aware of how much time you spend on each activity and allow you to see more clearly what is the best use of your time (creator Laura Vanderkam also has a book called 168 hours on freeing up your schedule).
Which productivity tools do you enjoy currently, and what tools are you excited about trying?
thanks to Sean Cameron for his help with this feature and video
The pen looks great. I had an acquaintance who was involved with something similar back in ’04-’05. If I remember correctly, the paper interfaced with with the computer, so you could write the name of a band…and the music would pop up on iTunes and the search engine would pull up info on the band…something like that. Sounds a bit chaotic in retrospect, but perhaps it evolved into something like this pen-system.
I used to find a USB key was essential for backing up my most important documents. I was also scared the computer would die and I’d have lost everything. Not productive at all. I just found out yousendit.com now offers 10GB of cloud space for free. Don’t know how long it will stay that way but a good tool if you work on multiple computers etc.
I love this little task management software called Things for Mac. You can even get it for iPhone and sync between both versions. It’s much prettier and accesible than OmniFocus.
But for project management, I do stay with OmniPlan. Even if you only want to create a simple timeline with tasks and milestones, it’s a very powerful tool.
Excellent blog. I am always looking for good productivity tools. Love the clipboard!
In my opinion the best productivity tools are the simple ones. I have tested, reviewed and worked with so many complex tools that try to do everything — that they fail completely.
I use EverNote, on all my devices. I used to use Omnifocus, that has too many bells and whistles. The focus should be on delivery and results. If the tools we are using take time from the project or delay delivering, I say: stop using them.
So, clipboards for you, evernote for me. The simple tools win!
However, I see that you actually print your paper sheets rather then writing on them with a pen! I will resist to comment on “why print when you can google-desktop all your content …”
As always, great content with an appealing layout and interface!
//Shahram
Shahram, I print out my checklists — it’s true. I don’t know why, but when it comes to all (but one) of my lists, I like them printed on a clipboard. Maybe because I’m on digital devices all day, every day, I give myself this one, tactile, old-school indulgence!
I have to admit, those digital pens looks soooooo kewl (and tempting!), like something Miss Moneypenny would slip inside James Bond’s coat pocket as he exited HQ.