Posts Tagged ‘google calendar’

New sync tool for Google Calendar and your phone

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Google has just released a new tool to sync your Google Calendar to your iPhone or Windows Mobile device, and it’s pretty slick!

For my iPhone, I had previously been using the excellent (but not free) “SaiSuke” app to handle calendaring.  The problem was that you had to manually sync it, and it took a few minutes to sync every time, even over wi-fi.  The Google solution does it via “push” in the background, so you’re always up to date!

In my case, this works out great.  I use Nozbe to handle my actions, which is tied to my Google Calendar.  Any action that has a specific due date shows up in Google Calendar for that date.  Now those automatically sync to my phone.  It’s working very well so far.

A few links to help out for you iPhone users:

The only issue I had is an iPhone limitation — you can only have ONE Exchange account on your phone, and this requires it.  In my case, my work e-mail was already connected via Exchange.  However, I didn’t sync calendar or contacts through it, so I switched it to IMAP and then install Google via Exchange.

Finally, here is a short video showing how it works:

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Don’t let your computer slow you down

Monday, January 5th, 2009

If you’re reading this, I can immediately guess two things about you:

  • You’re interested in or practicing GTD.
  • You use your computer more than the average bear.

If that’s the case, then don’t let the computer be your bottleneck.  If you are on your computer for four hours a day and you can speed it up by just 1%, that’s 14 hours you’d save every year!

With that in mind, here are some tips to make the most of your moments on the computer:

  • Leave it on and leave it open. When you are done with your PC, don’t shut down your programs and certainly don’t turn it off — just turn off the monitor.  That way when you sit back down, you’re back in the swing of things in about 15 seconds instead of a few minutes to boot up and/or open your programs.
  • Reboot once or twice a week. With a Windows machine you can’t go forever without rebooting.  It’ll slow down and start having problems after a few days.  If so, then take the time to reboot.  For me, a reboot costs me 10-15 minutes, because I need to get all of my applications and tabs running again.
  • Use a fast browser. If you’re on a PC, you should be using Firefox or Chrome.  If you’re using Internet Explorer, you’re wasting a lot of time waiting on that dinosaur to load pages for you.
  • Leave commonly used websites open in separate tabs. Learn how to use tabs in Firefox or Chrome and use them often.  If there is a site you visit a few times/day, leave it open in a tab for quick access.  Other tabs can come and go throughout the day.  In my case, I leave open (24/7, until I reboot):
  • Clean it up for maximum performance. Follow the tips on speeding up XP (or Vista) and save valuable seconds with every click.
  • Get a second monitor. If you can afford it, buy a second monitor.  Studies show productivity increases of up to 70%, and I believe it!  I’ve forced a few co-workers to do it against their will, and now they’ll never go back.  It’s amazing how helpful it is to be able to reference items on one screen while you’re working on the other, or to cut and paste from one to the other.  Again, a 1% increase can mean 14 hours/year.  Suppose this helps you work 5% faster.  That’s 70 hours.  Even at minimum wage, that’s over $450/year.  It’s a no-brainer.  Keep in mind that you will probably need a second video card as well, but your total cost is still way under $450.
  • Get some extra RAM. RAM is cheap, easy to install and can make a huge difference.  If you’ve got less than a gig, go get more right now.  There are no drivers to install — just shut down your computer, snap it in and start it back up.
  • Lose the virus scanner — maybe. If you know what you’re doing, you have no need for a virus scanner to be running 24/7.  Those things are huge performance drains.  Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just “catch” a computer virus; it needs a way in.   Gmail scans all of my mail before it gets here, and I don’t open things that I’m not expecting.  My browsers are always up to date and I check for new Windows updates every week or so.  Plus, my router has a built-in firewall (almost all of them do).  I don’t download random programs from the internet.

    So where is a virus going to sneak in?  It won’t.  I still run the free version of AVG every month or so just to make sure I’m clean, but I do NOT leave a scanner running all the time.  I’ve done this for about 8 years now, on the internet for 5-10 hours/day, and I’ve not had a single problem. I wouldn’t suggest this idea to my mom, but you know if you’re smart enough to handle it.

So there you have it.  My tips for saving as much time as possible on your PCs.

Any tips to add?

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Posted in Productivity, Software/Services | 2 Comments »

A good calendar is an assumed GTD prerequisite, isn’t it?

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

When you first start digging into GTD, most models assume that you already have a working, reliable calendar.  You have one, don’t you?

In a talk that David Allen gave a Google a while back, he told the audience that in their time together, none of them were thinking “Where am I going to be a week from Friday at 3:15?”.  The reason is because they trust that system.  They know that their calendar is updated and referenced frequently, so they’ll be aware of any items on their agenda for that day.  That’s what GTD tries to do with the rest of your life.

If you can get all of your tasks into a system, and your mind can trust that you’ll access the system often enough to avoid letting things slip through the cracks, then you can free your mind from worrying about those things.  It’s a beautiful thing.

I don’t think it’s worth getting deep into calendar specifics, but make sure yours is solid.  Most of you have a system that you use and trust, and that’s great.  However, if you’re looking for some ideas to improve your system, I’ll lay mine out and maybe you can get something from it.

  • Google Calendar.  Solid system, accessible from anywhere, easy to share data with co-workers, friends, etc.
  • SaiSuke for iPhone.  It’s $10 (though there is a free test version as well) and it does a great job of syncing itself to your Google Calendar.  Very handy when you’re on the go.
  • Nozbe and Toodledo.  I’m going back and forth between these two programs (more about that in a later post), but both can push your time-sensitive tasks directly to your Google Calendar, or a variety of other calendars such as iCal.
  • Jott.  You can Jott items directly to your calendar.  It’s slick, though I really don’t use it for that very often.
  • You can also SMS items directly to your calendar.  Send a message to 48368 (“GVENT”) with something like “meeting with sue tuesday at 3″ and it’ll put it on there for you.

The other key is to reference it often.  When I’m at home, I leave a browser open with tabs for Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader always open so they’re available for quick access.  Other tabs alongside them come and go, but those always remain.

Any other tips for making the best use of your calendar?

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