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Productivity

10 Free Productivity Apps for the iPhone

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I’ve been using an iPhone for some time now and it’s become an indispensable part of my productivity toolbox. Here are ten free productivity apps for the iPhone.

  1. Evernote – Number one on the, without any question is Evernote. EN on the iPhone lets you capture any moment or idea as it happens, wherever you may find yourself.  Evernote takes notes in whatever format is best for you — text, photos, audio — and syncs automatically with your Mac, PC and Web. No matter where you are your notes are accessible. If you pay for the premium service ($45 per year) you can sync your files too.
  2. Dragon Dictation — With Dragon Dictation 2.0, you can dictate status updates directly to your Social Networking applications (Facebook and Twitter), send text or email your friends, send notes and reminders to yourself … all using your voice. The new Dragon Dictation 2.0 also features multilingual capabilities, giving you the option to switch between a variety of languages.
  3. iQue – iQue is the Forgetful Person’s FREE “Instant Recall Machine,” and it’s for forgetful people. Passwords, account numbers, personal info you wouldn’t want in a unprotected note? iQue uses associative memory, mimicking the way a normal brain remembers to help your brain work properly. It’s a way of tagging things you NEED to remember, so you can be more productive —even when you can’t remember what you were going to do next.
  4. YouNote – Another simple note-taking application. You can take the note in a number of formats (Drawing, Audio, Text, Photo,…) You can add criteria (tags, a color, the geolocation,…) which simplifies the filing and finding of the notes. There is also a paid version of YouNote which adds a number of useful features.
  5. VoiceNotes -is a voice recording application for iPhone that allows you to make short recordings and play them back later. VoiceNotes is perfect for making quick reminders of things that are inconvenient to write down in text.
  6. BugMe! Lite – Make quick handwritten ink notes and reminders on the fly… set quick alarms, save notes to your Home Screen and share your “sticky” notes by email or Twitter…
  7. Money & Bills – is the iPhone client for Pageonce. Pageonce merges information from various sources into one page. It lets you access personal information—for example, the status of your utility bills, recent online purchases, and credit-card transactions. PageOnce uses bank-level security to keep accounts from being hacked.
  8. LockBox – lets you store and protect sensitive data such as credit card numbers, bank accounts, passwords, private notes, etc. The data is encrypted and protected by a secret code.
  9. Dragon Dictation – Dragon Dictation for the iPhone is an easy-to-use voice recognition application that allows you to quickly speak and instantly see your text or email messages. When you are on-the-go, turn talk into type —from short text messages to longer email messages, and anything in between.
  10. Instapaper – Instapaper lets you create offline versions of your favorite Web articles you can read when you’re not connect to a signal of some type. To save a list of pages to read, you need to visit Instapaper.com beforehand using mobile Safari, choose your content, and then launch the Instapaper app to read it offline.
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Productivity

10 Tips to Help Keep Your Desk Clean

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This is one of the more popular posts at Ian’s Messy Desk. I’m reposting with some update information.

How much stuff do you have sitting on your desk or in your work area? A while back, Coopers & Lybrand (nowPrice Waterhouse Coopers) released data from a poll on personal organization. One statistic found that, “The average desk worker has 36 hours worth of work on their desk and wastes up to 3 hours a week just “looking” for STUFF!” Finding stuff on my messy desk bears out that statistic. Being disorganized is responsible for a lot of wasted time.

While there is a challenge in the initial cleaning of the messy desk, the regular maintenance often poses the bigger challenge. Here are some tips to help keep the desk clean:

  1. Sort your mail and toss junk as it arrives. Even with an in-basket, you need to process your mail dailyto avoid accumulating a stack of paper. Sort where you have places to put each category of mail: 1) garbage, 2) recycling, 3) bills, 4) etc.
  2. Get rid of sticky notes and scraps of paper. Round them all up and transfer their information tosomething a little more permanent, efficient, and user-friendly. Get a single notebook and use it torecord notes, phone numbers, web addresses, ideas, to-dos, etc.
  3. Create a list or binder of regularly referenced material, such as phone numbers, and keep it accessible in a desk drawer.
  4. Schedule filing time at least once per week. To be more productive, allocate 15 minutes each week. Initially it may take you longer to catch up if you have a large pile, but 15 minutes is manageable. We all can find this much time in our schedules.
  5. Add dated or calendar items to a tickler file system or a diary as soon as they arrive. anything you need reminded of on some future date goes into your tickler file. Every morning, pull out the folder for the day and place the contents into your inbox. Then it is right at hand when you need it.
  6. When you stop working on something, put it away until the next time you need it. Don’t leave half-completed projects sitting on your desktop.
  7. Keep nothing on your desk unless you absolutely need them. If you aren’t joining sheets of paper with tape, move the dispenser off the desk. If you want personal photos in the office, have only one on thedesk or better yet, hang them on the wall.
  8. Keep a reading folder for material you need to read. Put non–urgent “to read” items in file folder; use multiple folders if you have different to-read categories. As you receive new items, place them in the front of the folder. If the folder gets too full, toss the old stuff without looking at it. That way you always have current stuff that might go back a month or two. Schedule regular reading time to clear the material.
  9. Create a “waiting for” or pending file to hold items dependent on outside action. This is not the same as a tickler file. This is for actions waiting on an external response. I.e., you’re waiting on quotes before you can go ahead a get the office repaintied.
  10. Create a weekly appointment to clean your desk and this includes dusting or polishing. You might be less inclined to mess up a shiny desk. 

It doesn’t take much “neglect” for your workspace to fill up with things that eat at your productivity. A few simple and regular good habits can free up a bunch of extra time for getting things done.

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