“Solutions,” photo by Mary Gow, applying the drawing app, Paper Artist
After hearing numerous endorsements from top bloggers such as Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income and Leslie Samuel of Become a Blogger, I decided to give Evernote a try.
To my delight, I’ve found it a tool too good to not write about. It reminds me of how I was using my address book to expound on various topics I wanted to find easily and instead Evernote calls these your Notebooks. A few things I enjoy about this software:
1. Whatever you write and save will be available on-line anytime.
2. Notebooks act like folders that can then add new notes inside of.
3. An efficient tool for composing a book or presentation since each new note can be like a new slide, section, or chapter.
4. You can sign on from any number of tools that connect with the internet, including your phone. Just remember to “sync” so your new content so it’s saved.
5. You can drag articles of interest into your notes.
Right now I’m using Evernote to store the variety of projects I’m working on. And it’s a place I can hammer out my new artist’s statement for a show I’m hanging at a coffee shop on Saturday, February 1st.
This like a virtual filing cabinet can create. Thank you Evernote for your superb product!
I Done This
Another tool I use is “I Done This.” I heard about it by tuning into one of the helpful workshops on Creative Live. As an aside, I hope you’ve discovered Creative Live‘s array of free workshops on tops for creative-types.
On The Art of Less Doing with Ari Meisel‘s workshop, he suggested many useful tools to help life flow more. That’s where I first heard about I Done This.
It was created by Walter Chen, Rodrigo Guzman, and Jae Kwon in 2011 in San Francisco, California. Walter and Rodrigo wanted a way to track their progress on their workouts. Now companies such as Zappos, Reddit, and Shopify use I Done This as a tool to increase productivity.
You can login at IDoneThis.com to record your daily dones or you can respond to an email sent to you (at a time of your choosing) each day. That email will also share with you some other days list of things you did – perhaps the day before or a week ago or some other day.
My Twist to “I Done This”
Another blog I enjoy reading is Early to Rise, edited by Craig Ballantyne. As a daily ritual he suggests ending the day with a gratitude process. See this blog post which has a YouTube video where he describes it.
Taking Ballantyne’s advice, I give thanks at the end of the day by writing out at least five things I’m grateful for. (There’s more to his routine than this). The twist I’ve added to IDoneThis is adding those five things at the end of what I’ve done that day.
There’s a myriad of other great tools available now, more than ever before, to get things done. At the same time, there’s more distractions that ever. I hope this helps you get more done even though tempting challenges are everywhere. It could be that the Universe is conspiring for your success.
