Black Belt Productivity

I have lately started to work on getting back to basics with my system. David tells us often that the most important needs are a hard landscape (Calendar) and a good list manager.

I actually utilize a hard landscape and two list managers.

Recently, I have taken note of the simplicity of the system. For me these days, my projects are managed in a web-based application that does a great job of organizing my projects and allows me to view the actions related to any project (there are several solutions out there that accomplish this…Michael is currently reviewing several candidates…stay tuned).

I manage my hard landscape in Outlook. This is not necessarily because I love Outlook above any other. Calendars in my corporate job are managed in Outlook. If you are like me, you can’t stand dual entry (can you say non-value added?). So it is easiest to put all of my stuff in Outlook. It is nice that it syncs with my BlackBerry…so the hard landscape is portable. In some form, it also serves as a tickler for me in that I put all time sensitive stuff in it.

The Notes function in Outlook also syncs well with BlackBerry. So I use this to manage lists. MAN!!! Having notes in my BlackBerry is priceless. Nice to be able to pull a quick list at the grocery store…or Lowe’s.

My friend Jamie Phelps has turned me onto Jott. I commute to work about 60 miles round-trip a day. A lot of “stuff” pops into my head on those commutes. Jott allows me to hit a speed dial key that calls a toll-free number, leave a voice message to myself (or anyone else in my contact list). Within minutes I receive an email with a transcribed version of the message. The recording of my voice message is included…just in case the transcription was not perfect. Since Jott is still in beta, it is free to use. Great tool for those who want to be able to capture via voice when away from your computer. I will soon give a through review on Black Belt Productivity.

These elements of my system keep me moving. Now if I can get my reference system up to par…

OT: On a personal note…after a long hiatus, I have resurrected the personal blog.

- Jason