Thing 13: Productivity tools

I've been using the iGoogle start page and Google calendar for about two years now. You can see my iGoogle page here Username is uu.andrea.23. I have temporarily changed the password to <23things>.

My family uses Google calendar and it is wonderful for us. My son J works retail and goes to school, and he posts his schedule. I post my substitute schedule with a phone number for each library so the kids can contact me in an emergency. (No cell phones on the reference desk, s'il vous plais. Evan has left for Loyola University in Chicago, but he recently sent a calendar link so we'd know when he's in class. Their dad, my Ex, adds his travel and meeting plans; and posted all the high school calendar items (band concerts, no-school days, graduation.)

This would be a wonderful tool for a work group but if people have opened their Outlook calendars to each other, it wouldn't be worth the extra effort.

In the past I also set up a Yahoo home page, but since our family calendar and my Blogger blogs are on Google, and I use GReader for my feeds, it doesn't make sense to use Yahoo.

I liked the local aspects of PageFlakes, the local news and pictures, but much of the page seemed geared for younger users, so I'll stick with iGoogle.

I posted earlier about GTD (Getting Things Done)aps, and I'm eager to develop a GTD package for myself. It sounds like it will be easier on Remember the Milk than on Backpack, so I didn't spend a lot of time on Backpack.

I've connected with LifeHacks before, but now I know how to add an RSS feed! and did!

I'm not sure that a top-down implementation of these tools would be pleasant, but if a critical mass of people sign up for LifeHacks, or start using Remember The Milk or Getting Things Done, these concepts and vocabulary (and in the case of GTD, attitudes; and overall, an overall of finding fun and peace of mind in productivity tools) they may spread virally, which would be fantastic!