Productivity 101

It happened. I have switched to the iPhone 3G. When the first iPhone hit the market I resisted because I couldn’t imagine that the new shiny gadget from Apple could help me out in the daily tasks I was so accustomed to with my Treo. I have been a palm user ever since I can remember.

My latest Palm device, the Treo 680, was a perfect combination of a phone, a calendar and task manager. I could read email, read my news feeds, view documents. In short it suited my needs.

When the iPhone 3G was first announced I was still under the impression that it wouldn’t meet up to my daily needs. I love gadgets but I am a very practical person. The device itself isn’t enough, it has to help me out in my workflow. When the device was announced in the Netherlands I had to wait several weeks due to heavy demands for the device. The news about bad coverage and other problems made me doubt for a while but when the call came that my reserved iPhone was waiting for me I just went ahead. Mainly because I wanted to buy a mobile internet solution anyway and the deal here in the Netherlands is very atractive (30 euro for 150 minutes and 150 text messages and unlimited data (3G and when available tmobile Wifi))

One of the main reasons to switch now is that my life isn’t that packed with projects that a failing system would hinder me. I have enough on my plate (12 projects and about 60 next actions), but there have been busier times. So I could take the risk of having to fiddle a bit fitting the new iPhone to the way I work best.

Whenever I get a new computer, phone or whatever gadget I prefer doing a complete cold-turkey switch. That is: bring over the data and turn off, sell or destroy the old device. In this way I am forced to figure the important things out and not take the easy fall back scenario to the old and trusty one.

In short, the transition has been great, the iPhone feels like a glove. It took me less than an hour to be up and running with my email, calendar, tasks and contacts. I will blog more about my iPhone experience but here are a couple of noteworthy things I have encountered:

1. Smooth transitions between the different aspects of the iPhone.
When I listen to a podcast in the car and someone calls, I just make the call, end it and I am taken back to the podcast. I never have been able to get the Treo do that.

2. Visual voicemail
This is so handy. I used to hate voicemail. For the simple reason that calling your voicemail and going through the silly voice response system is ugly at best. Now I have a list of voice-mails and can see instantly who left a message.

3. The screen
Surfing the web, reading email or documents is so much better to do on this screen in comparison to the Treo screen.

As with all technology there are things to wish and problems/errors to live by. That is also true for the iPhone. It’s not perfect. Humans aren’t perfect so the things humans create aren’t perfect either. That is just a given fact. I am happy with the result.

The thing I miss most is the ability to edit word or excel documents preferable in Google Docs. I won’t be using the iPhone to write long articles or an ebook. But being able to edit or proofread texts and fill in a spreadsheet for expenses for instance would be a great addition. For now I have created a workaround for a couple of documents with the Google Forms option.

More on how I use Evernote and other workflow things will follow, write a comment about what you would like me to cover about the iPhone and GTD.

written by Fokke \\ tags: apple, iphone, iphone 3g, ipod

Unless you are living on a foreign planet and not connected to the internet in any way you may have heard about Gmail being down. During the time of this post Gmail has been down and the reactions I have read here are puzzling me.

I have had a gmail account since early 2005. Free of charge. I have been using it to send and receive thousands of mails. Free of charge. Gmail outlived a couple of my computers and a windows osx switch. Free of charge.

And now they are (partially) down for a couple of minutes and hell freezes over. For some.

Not for me. So Gmail guys and girls. A big thank you and keep up the good work. I am sure you will find the problem and fix it. In the meantime, I will go and take a good night sleep.

written by Fokke \\ tags: Gmail, Google

I was planning this blogpost for quite some time. An incident during my last visit to my local library yesterday made me finally write it. But more on that later.

I visit my local library on average two evenings in a month. Don’t remember when I started with this habit. I do this for a couple of reasons:

1. It is refreshing!

Breaking away from the daily routine makes a great day. It is a real treat to just pick a subject and do some browsing to get an overview of a specific topic. The library I visit has a big collection of books, cd’s and dvd’s as well as audiobooks. There is also a reading corner with magazines and papers. And most important, they have a coffee machine!

2. It is cheap!

The library enables me to read books, listen to music and audiobooks and see movies without investing a lot of money. I also make use of a trick I learned from someone to just list a couple of topics that I want to know more about.  I have lists of books I want to read, cd’s I want to listen to and a list of movies I want to watch.

3. Try before you buy! 

The library doesn’t replace the joy of possessing books, cd’s and movies. But with my regular visits to the library I can try things out and only buy those books, cd’s and movies that stand out.

So if you haven’t been to your local library in a while, go there and see how it can help you become more productive! I know that you can find a lot of info on the Internet but sometimes just browsing through books and magazines is just better.

Now back to what made me finally write this post. Last Tuesday I experienced the one drawback in all the years I have been doing this. My bike was stolen during my visit to the library. The bike was only 4 weeks old. I guess it was just too new…

written by Fokke