Productive Life

 
 
In last post J talked about How to Make A Good New Year Revolution. To stick to the plan and to track the status effectively, J made a 2010 yearly plan. And here J would like to share it with you.
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This template can be divided into 3 parts.

First part is introduction information of your plan, including your name, name of plan, objectives, summary, and completion time.

Second part is task list and time table. You can add rows for more tasks if needed.

Time table is next to task list. in calendar area, weekends are highlighted in orange, and public holiday is highlighted in light green.

Below the calendar there is daily plan and checking area. Due dates are in blue. If tasks are completed on time, then the cells can be changed to green accordingly; if not, you can use red to highlight them. Some tasks are not to be executed everyday, then you can just mark the due date cell blue and leave the rest cells blank.

The last part is monthly review area. It's very import to review regularly according to GTD. Here J set monthly review area for you to check your plan every month, summarize some achievements and tips, and to adjust the plan when needed.

In real practice, J uploaded the plan to Google Docs so that J can check and update the status everywhere.

First half of month of Jan 2010 has passed, and so far J feel very good with this yearly plan. Hope you can also benefit from it and enjoy a productive and happy 2010!

Download J's Yearly Plan Template HERE.
 
 
2010 is just ahead of us, everyone must more or less have some New Year’s Revolution in mind. However, J believes that many people would make a long revolution list at the beginning of the year while keep the wishes unrealized until year end.

How to change the situation? Here J would like to share some tips with you.
  1. Brainstorm: list your wishes as many as you can, in spite of possibilities or categories.
  2. Filter: choose a few wishes from the brainstorm list according to realistic conditions.
    ● Limit the number of wishes: better no more than 10. if most of your wishes are about changing habits, Leo from Zen Habits suggested limit the number to 6, so that you can develop 1 habit every 2 months.
    ● Expend the types of wishes: don’t do similar things all the time which may make you feel boring. And you may easily ignore other aspects of life if you only focus on one area.
    ● Mix easy and hard wishes: you may feel frustrated when you meet too many obstacles.
    ● All in all, when you filter your wish list, please consider both internal and external facts: importance of the wishes, your willingness to achieve them, your own capabilities, financial conditions, network needed, etc.
  3. Plan: Making a plan is not as easy as it sounds like. You should list all possible difficulties you may face, and plan it well to overcome them.
  4. Announce: Tell more people or important people around you, and ask for their help to check your progress. You can also share your plan with you interest groups online or offline.
  5. Implement: just do it. 
  6. Prizes: Give yourself some small gifts when you have made some achievements.
  7. Review: Regularly review your plan. If there are any difficulties, or any unexpected obstacles? if the plan needs to be adjusted according to the real situation? In addition, you will fell motivated when you see your progress during review session, and be more confident to achieve your goal.
This is the last day of 2009 today. Please move and make a good plan for next year! 

Happy New Near! And wish you a productive 2010!
 
 
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Tap Money Tracker is the first app J has ever paid for upgrading to Pro version, even which can only be used on a mobile phone. That's all because it is so good from J's point of view.

A good financial situation is the foundation of a productive life. And tracking expenses is the first step to it. Like most people, J felt it too complecated to make expense records. Think about it, Excel tracking can be only showed in computers, online tools are not convenient for tracking on the way, while most apps for mobile phones lack strong analysis functions. All these excuses stopped J from being more organized and productive.
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Tap Money Tracker became J's financial life savior as it was just designed for lazy or busy people.
  • Add, edit, and delete transactions without a computer or network;
  • It was designed user-friendly: if categories and payees are set up, it may take you only 6 to 8 taps to add one expense record without open either physical or virtual keyboard;
  • Report summary of transactions by category, account or group;
  • Budget for each category, and reminder supported;
  • Categories and subcategories assign to transactions.
Here are other useful functions:
  • Multi-accounts support
  • Transaction remind and can repeat it
  • Support multi-currency
  • Support password protection
The free version is enough for daily use. J upgraded it to Pro version only for backing up all the data to SD card. 
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QR Code
Tap Money Tracker is developed for Android by Josh Chang from Taiwan.
Free download in Android Market. $9.95 for Pro version.

Productive Life Rating: ★★★★★

Pictures from d.hatena.ne.jp
 
 
Working PC, personal-use PC, mobile phone, Windows system, Mac system, Symbian, Android etc. There are so many tools for different places and different platforms to take notes and plan tasks. How to get access and edit those tasks in another context? In order to solve this problem, J set cross-system synchronization as top priority when choosing task-management tools.

gTasks is not the best in Android Market, while Google Tasks, which gTasks is based on, is not the best task-management tool in every platform. However, good user-experience for cross-system usage makes them stand out.

Yes, gTasks is a simple app for Android which syncs with Google Tasks:
  • Sync to Google Tasks mannually
  • Offline usage
  • Add, edit, delete tasks
  • Show sub-tasks
  • Show multiple task lists
  • And, it's FREE
Of course there is large room for improvement：
  • Adding sub-tasks not supported
  • Adding new task lists not supported
  • Auto-sync not supported
  • No reminder
It's indeed an extremely simple app with a long way to go. However, for hardcore users of Google products, or people who have to switch between computers and cellphone, gTasks is a useful tool.
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gTasks - beta is developed by SSI for Android.
Free download in Android Market.
Pls refer to the right for QR Code

Productive Life Rating: ★★★★☆

Pictures from androlib.com
 
 
  • Set up and polish site Productive Life
  • Post personal list of best productivity tools in 2009
  • Review at least 3 apps I've ever used.