WebedtecH

GTD and other systems have leveraged the concept of contexts for a long time. These are the places that actions should be taken, for example @home, @computer, or @phone. It makes it simple to find things to take off your to-do list in groups when you can filter them by where you are.

Evernote Mobile gives you the ability to add tags to your captured items and then search for those tags. If you are using Windows Mobile as I am and capture a text note you can tap on:

Then add a title by selecting Options and Edit Title.

Once you have added a title select Options and Assign tags to add your context to your note.

Now when you create your note and synchronize it with Evernote the context will be pushed up as a tag and can be reference from the desktop, searched from the web, or used to locate all the related notes while mobile as you see below:

You can see that by searching for the context “@grocery” I can find all the notes applicable to that location.  Yet another way Evernote Mobile can help you keep your information organized quickly and easily.  Love this tool.

Note – when searching from your mobile device the system won’t filter on the “@” so you will get back any notes containing the text part of your context.  Not perfect but way better than nothing.

When someone asks you, “What’s the best way to capture and organize my notes?”  I answer with a question: how do you want to use them in the future?  You see, capturing notes is a very personal process not only assisting in memory retention but requiring a method that matches the recorder’s way of thinking for easy recall.  Every major personal productivity guru on the planet dictates that one of the linchpins of success is the capture of information quickly, accurately, and efficiently.  This always raises the battle, “paper or computer?”  I do not believe the two are mutually exclusive and with a little introspection you can find a balance between the written and the typed.

As you can tell from some of my other posts I have been a long time pen and notebook fan.  Additionally I have used PDAs for years.  The shift back and forth between the two platforms has taken me to both extremes:  all paper to all digital and in-between.  Where I find myself now is in-between both solutions but this time I have done it on purpose.  Using Evernote I have found the way to write my notes and retrieve them too.

Here’s the dilemma.  Keeping your notes in wonderful notebooks like a Moleskine causes a problem with retrieving them when you need them, especially if you go through a lot of notebooks like I do.  So the question is how do I take prolific notes yet  keep them all at my fingertips?  That’s where Evernote comes in.  I use my home scanner to scan each relevant page in my notebook into Evernote and then tag and mark the record accordingly.  Having done that I can recall the information from my phone or desktop at any time without having to keep all the notebooks with me.  The added bonus is the notebooks act as a permanent record and backup of the information.

This model is pushing me towards the direction of notebooks with removable pages like the Rollabind line or ones small enough to fit two pages on an 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of paper.  In either case, I feel free to write as much as I want knowing I will be able to store and retrieve as I see fit.  This is liberating in the sense that creation of content on the computer can be transitive and linear, whereas pen on paper feels permanent yet fluid.

Would I choose between them?  If I were forced…I would have to go the paper route.  Beyond my own personal preferences it is easy enough to set up an organizational system on paper and retain the records as long as you need to.  Yes digital can do the same but paper never runs out of power.  With the right ink and paper they can be forgiving to water in ways bits and bytes cannot.

Do your teachers and staff have the tools necessary to work together as a team?  Considering building an intranet?  That’s what we’re doing and I’ll explain how.  The amount of power and functionality that a school has access to through a system such as Google Apps gives a great opportunity to build a collaborative workspace for teachers and staff with virtually no cost.  However the idea isn’t without it’s challenges.  When planning any sort of collaborative web effort, I recommend starting with three key questions:

1. What do you NEED to do?
2. What do you WANT to do?
3. HOW do you want to do it?

The first question is without a doubt the most important.  The second and third will change, even be discarded, if they don’t meet the requirements of the first one.  Our needs right now are simple:

1. A central location for forms and reference materials that can be accessed by any staff member on or off the network.
2. A shared location for policies and procedures (currently we use a network drive)
3. A simple way to keep said policies and procedures current for everyone needing access

Now this set of needs could be served by any number of solutions so we’re still at an impass.  On to question 2…what do we WANT?

1. A system that is easy to use
2. Integrated with our current email system
3. Available from anywhere
4. Reliable
5. Adaptable
6. Minimal (no) cost

Not much more specific, but it does point out some key requirements in narrowing the field.  For example, “integrated with our current email system” points towards Google Apps since it is what we have been using for email for two years very successfully.    Also, “available from everywhere” eliminates most network centric solutions and points us back to the cloud.

Finally we come to the HOW.  This can be a tough one since by this point you still have a couple of options left on the table and you need to do a critical analysis, cost-benefit comparison, etc.  For us this was made a great deal simpler by the last WANT…minimal (no) cost.  Looks like we’ll be building our intranet with Google Sites and Google Apps.

Next…functional requirements.

One of the challenges I have faced is keeping all of the facets of my schedule synchronized. Between work, family, and other interests, maintaining multiple schedules can take as much time as the activities on the schedules. No matter where I am I need to know my work, family, and school schedule on demand. One step towards solving this has been getting all the calendar information to one calendar…in this case it’s Google Calendar.

Since all my events now filter to one calendar it just became a matter of getting that calendar onto my phone in a regular, reliable manner. In came GooSync to solve the problem and address my contacts and todos as well. Here’s how it works for me:

GooSync is a two part application. One part is loaded on the phone to schedule the connection to the web based account and control the sync on this end. The second part is the web account that is connected to my Google Calendar, Google Contacts and GooSync task list (they don’t support Google Tasks yet because there’s no API, but I’m sure they will when it’s ready.) The GooSync application runs on a scheduled sync to pull and push events from my Google Calendar. Now there are other applications out there that do similar but I have found the GooSync app to be exceptionally adept at handling multiple calendars from Google. My entries on my phone begin with [Fam] or [V95] or [CCS] for family, crew, or school events. Even better if I want to enter an event to show up on one of those calendars (which are shared with other people) I can create an entry beginning with one of those tags and it is pushed directly to that calendar. Definitely a time saver for shared group calendars.

My contact listing, while not miles long as many people have, is a vital part of my communications and organization. I like to keep only one list and have it accessible from multiple spots. GooSync channels my Google contact list to my phone and back again. It’s a simple enough concept but at least now I know when I email from Gmail or through my phone, I have the same list of people and addresses.

Finally…my task list. I was a user of Remember the Milk for a long time, but experienced a disappointing letdown in their sync support so I abandonded that ship. I use GooSync’s task manager now on the web side and my phone when mobile. The GooSync solution is effective because it meshes well with the category functions on the phone as well as offering a new Google gadget for my iGoogle page to manage my tasks from the computer.

Lots of moving parts that need to be kept working together. Sounds like the story of most of our lives. In this case, GooSync is the solution I’ve found that keeps the wheels turning for me.

I have been a strong advocate of Evernote for quite some time now and the addition of Evernote Mobile as an extension of the web solution makes it that much more a vital part of my organizational toolbox. Evernote Mobile can capture text, pictures, and voice notes and synchronize them with the web account and the desktop. Using this you can capture whatever is necessary and send it right to your inbox without giving it a second thought. Now combine those functions will the option to search your posted notes and retrieve them anywhere and you have a one-two punch.

You can read all the details about how the application works at the Evernote web site, so how about I give you some ideas as to how I put it to use. Here’s a normal day of Evernote Mobile usage for me:

Start of the day:

Each morning I’ll pop open my Evernote Mobile and jot down anything that has occured to me during the night or over coffee that needs to be addressed. A simple text note takes care of this. (I know, GTD says handle everything only once so it should be going into my Task List right away…but it takes way less time this way.) Finish the morning routine (other steps I’ll describe in future articles) and I’m out the door.

Morning commute:

I have an hour commute each way so I have plenty of time to think. It’s not safe to text while you drive (I’d never do that ) so I frequently use the audio capture function to record short and long notes to myself and store them in Evernote. Blog ideas, discussion topics, problem solutions, research topics, whatever comes to mind.

Listing to my satellite radio there are many times when I will hear an artist I haven’t heard before and want to track down their works when I get to my computer. I tried using the audio recorder on Evernote, but that proved unreliable for this aspect (though I could probably just record the artist name and song title). Instead I use the photo capture to take a snapshot of the radio display to get the artist name and song name quickly.

At work:

This is where Evernote Mobile really shines. I’m in and out of conference rooms and buildings all day long, many of which have questionable cellular coverage. By switching my Evernote Mobile to “pause” I can capture information without any connection at all. If I have a connection it’s that much better since then I can search for information just as easily as I can capture it.

Evening commute:

See “Morning commute”

Back home:

Grocery lists, to do lists, snapshots of birthday party invitations, event schedules, you name it…it goes into Evernote. I use the mobile app to speed up the capture and move onto the next item. No reason to waste time, just capture and go.

As you can see, my main input into my system is Evernote and Evernote Mobile. Mind you, they are not the only way into the system, but they have proven their worth time and time again in capturing and holding all the random information I would normally be writing down and struggling to retrieve.

Application Number 2 – Keeping things in sync