If you are new to productivity blogs, Web productivity tools and other things that are productive spin or "GTD" in them, you've surely heard about the concept of "minimalist". Idea uses the absolute minimum amount of material in order to get something done or live a life. Mostly all the additional things that "don't need" just clogging up your productive and should be deleted.
But, what if you want all the bells and whistles productivity tools and minimalist feels somewhat limited? This occurs when the idea of "maximum" productivity tools come in; Tools, provide the user with a ton of features and options to customize the tool in the manner they see fit.
One of the biggest complaints about sophisticated productivity tools is that they tend to get in your way, and won't help you get things done. This is certainly the case with some tools that throw in every function that comes to mind and do not have a clear way for you to just go in and start using the tool.
For example the Toodledo Web application is an extremely powerful task management application (not to mention one of my favorites), but can be quite difficult to look at and use in the first place. This is from Toodledo to mass user settings, filters, searching, etc. compare this with "easier" tool like remember the milk. Obviously, how to add tasks to RTM and user interface is clean and easy on the eyes. This does not mean that RTM is not powerful, it definitely adds smart lists and duty stations; He said that sometimes when user too many options can be mixed and divert them from actually using the tool to get things done.
The minimum productivity tools were extremely popular in recent years due to the needs of users something simple that gets out of the way. Some of the tools that come to mind Simplenote, Ta-da list, SimpleGTD, pen and paper and remember the milk.
On the opposite side of the coin is the biggest complaint about simple and minimal productivity tools that they are not customizable and they lacked the necessary functions such as marking, saved searches, different stylesheets, cross platform support, etc, some users believe that without these more functionalitythat productivity tools are not good enough.
When Mr. Allen, GTD guy himself, said systems and productivity tools, he stole a good quote from Albert Einstein:
"Do everything as simple as possible but not simpler."
This course, you can back up the idea of minimalist tools, but this makes me think that it takes a few complex tools to work with and help manage complex things like project planning, email address, etc. As mentioned above, Toodledo is a pretty application management tasks, and it has a ton of functionality that you can never use. However, the idea of providing the user with additional features, is appealing that you can "grow up" tool.
For example I am currently using OmniFocus (even if it's expensive as hell) and has a sweet feature that allows you to associate a location with the context. When you're out and about and check out your iPhone for you can do this, you can check the list of Location and OmniFocus uses GPS to give you the actions that can be completed in your area. At first I thought this feature was excellent, but sort of overkill that until I discovered that I quite a bit of travel per day and can use my location to find tasks that can be completed around me. Try doing that with Ta-da list.
Some of the most popular peak performance tools include OmniFocus, Evernote, Toodledo Outlook and OneNote.
The last thing I want to do is to use one or the other when it comes to rich tools against simple tools. What can I do, however, do some recommendation for those out there, don't know exactly what the camp, to settle in the minimum or maximum?
1. the best advice I ever can give is to love the tools you use. that it matters if there are a million or 10 parameters, if you don't love a tool that you use?
2. Not tools will make you more productive. just because you can make a list of actions and link them to your project and tell you what your next steps system does not mean that you will actually. Tools don't make you productive; You make you productive.
3. This is not ideal. believe me, I've been down the road, and it is a long and difficult. There is no perfect GTD tool; never will be. So now stop searching in Google.
4. to make a list of functions you need and a list of functions that you want in the performance tool. When you're looking for a new or better tool, compare your list of functionality of the tool. If it's close, then you can't totally hate it.
5. once you find a tool that works, stick with it. If your tools hitting the sweet spot and help you become more productive, to consider adopting them on Wikipedia, so don't fall into the trap of changing task managers, every timeWhen you hear the shiny new.
Which side of the camp you choose when it comes to productivity tools? You want to keep things simple and provide a powerful set of features that are in your possession?
Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiasts and husband. He is studying, MIS and computer science from Penn State Behrendt. Chris was also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to use technology to get more things done. Check out his technique of writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.
Last week we tried to help anwser the question, if you need to buy Apple's latest creation in the iPad 2. Even though I'm a tad bit skeptical iPad 2, that such a big upgrade from the first-generation model, I can in no way to say that this is not the best tablet on the market at this very moment, especially for the price. And with long strings and sell outs of iPad 2 on Friday, it seems that many users think is the best too.
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