{"id":9945,"date":"2014-05-21T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=9945"},"modified":"2014-05-21T07:11:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T14:11:53","slug":"productivity-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=9945","title":{"rendered":"Productivity Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"evernote-illo\"<\/a>I used to have a near-photographic memory, and it’s one of the main things I miss from my younger days. I rarely had to write down anything and spelling bees were a snap. Then, around my early twenties, I started to forget. Little things here and there evaporated quietly and mysteriously, and I started to delve into all sorts of organizational and productivity systems. I tried the Franklin<\/a>, the David Allen<\/a> method, you name it. Nothing really stuck. Eventually, I settled on the age-old and simple written to-do list.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, I’m pretty much a doddering amnesiac and can’t remember anything to save my life. Plus I keep losing my paper to-do lists. It seems that lately, my days fill up with more and more appointments and meetings and a plethora of to-dos that I’m constantly tracking. On the one hand, I work hard at being conscious of keeping busyness for busyness’ sake at bay, but on the other hand, there are non-negotiable events and actions that I just can’t offload. In other words, I need a lot of help in the productivity and organization department.<\/p>\n

Enter Evernote<\/a>. It’s mind-blowingly awesome, and I’m barely utilizing its infinite capabilities. Much like the assertion that humans purportedly only use about 3% of their brain, I’m probably only using about 0.5% of Evernote’s functionalities. I had been using ToDoist<\/a> and to a lesser degree TeuxDeux<\/a> for the past year, but when I heard that Uppercase Magazine<\/a> basically produces their entire publication using Evernote, well, I had to find out what that was all about.<\/p>\n

The best part is that it’s free! I’ve only been using it for about two months, and it’s definitely increased my productivity level. I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of its features since there are about a million tutorials\/books\/youtube videos out there, and I’m barely scratching the proverbial epidermis as far as the app goes, but I thought I would post a snapshot of how I currenly use Evernote. I’m curious to see how my usage will evolve over the months. I’d also love to hear how other folks are using it or what other go-to productivity tools are out there.<\/p>\n

\"evernote-screenshot\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The basic structure of Evernote is based on “notebooks”. I have about twenty notebooks for various needs, but through trial and error, I learned that I only use about five regularly, which I place in a “Shortcuts” section to the left, where it’s black.<\/p>\n

In the screenshot, I have my “to do” notebook selected, and the middle panel shows all the content in the notebook. So the middle section corresponds to pages in your notebook.<\/p>\n

The far right panel shows the content of each page, and in this case, you can see my to do list for Tuesday, 5\/20\/14. This was my actual list from yesterday. On days when I don’t complete something, I move the unfinished item to a future date, usually the next day. I found that I enjoy doing this manually rather than the automatic function of other to-do list apps like ToDoist. Every Sunday, I plan for the week ahead and combined with my calendar on my ipad, it’s become an indispensable tool.<\/p>\n

My “to do” notebook is the one that has revolutionized my life, but I also have notebooks for planning blog posts, ideas for my book, weekly dinner menus and illustration projects. I have a “big picture” notebook for farfetched notions and big goals.<\/p>\n

It has handy features that allow you to record audio reminders (e.g. I could record myself saying “don’t forget laundry detergent” in my to-do notebook), take screenshots from websites\/blogs, add images, etc. And everything<\/em> is searchable, which is very cool but for me, it’s the checkboxes that got me hooked.<\/p>\n

I just utterly love this app (I’m not affiliated in any way, by the way). It feels seamless with the way my mind works, and it’s pure genius that I can keep everything in one place. The one beef I have is that the syncing doesn’t work all the time for my various devices, but it makes a valiant effort.<\/p>\n

I want to learn more to become a better user, but for now, I’m already making major strides in the productivity department. What about you? Do you use Evernote or something like it? What do you think of it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to have a near-photographic memory, and it’s one of the main things I miss from my younger days. I rarely had to write down anything and spelling bees were a snap. Then, around my early twenties, I started to forget. Little things here and there evaporated quietly and mysteriously, and I started to delve into all sorts of organizational and productivity systems. I tried the Franklin, the David Allen method, you name it. Nothing really stuck. Eventually, I settled on the age-old and simple written to-do list. Nowadays, I’m pretty much a doddering amnesiac and can’t remember anything to save my life. Plus I keep losing my paper to-do lists. It seems that lately, my days fill up with more and more appointments and meetings and a plethora of to-dos that I’m constantly tracking. On the one hand, I work hard at being conscious of keeping busyness for busyness’ sake at bay, but on the other hand, there are non-negotiable events and actions that I just can’t offload. In other words, I need a lot of help in the productivity and organization department. Enter Evernote. It’s mind-blowingly awesome, and I’m barely utilizing its infinite capabilities. Much like the assertion that humans purportedly only use about 3% of their brain, I’m probably only using about 0.5% of Evernote’s functionalities. I had been using ToDoist and to a lesser degree TeuxDeux for the past year, but when I heard that Uppercase Magazine basically produces their entire publication using Evernote, well, I had to find out what that was all about. The best part is that it’s free! I’ve only been using it for about two months, and it’s definitely increased my productivity level. I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of its features since there are about a million tutorials\/books\/youtube videos out there, and I’m barely scratching the proverbial epidermis as far as the app goes, but I thought I would post a snapshot of how I currenly use Evernote. I’m curious to see how my usage will evolve over the months. I’d also love to hear how other folks are using it or what other go-to productivity tools are out there. The basic structure of Evernote is based on “notebooks”. I have about twenty notebooks for various needs, but through trial and error, I learned that I only use about five regularly, which I place in a “Shortcuts” section to the left, where it’s black. In the screenshot, I have my “to do” notebook selected, and the middle panel shows all the content in the notebook. So the middle section corresponds to pages in your notebook. The far right panel shows the content of each page, and in this case, you can see my to do list for Tuesday, 5\/20\/14. This was my actual list from yesterday. On days when I don’t complete something, I move the unfinished item to a future date, usually the next day. I found that I enjoy doing this manually rather than the automatic function of other to-do list apps like ToDoist. Every Sunday, I plan for the week ahead and combined with my calendar on my ipad, it’s become an indispensable tool. My “to do” notebook is the one that has revolutionized my life, but I also have notebooks for planning blog posts, ideas for my book, weekly dinner menus and illustration projects. I have a “big picture” notebook for farfetched notions and big goals. It has handy features that allow you to record audio reminders (e.g. I could record myself saying “don’t forget laundry detergent” in my to-do notebook), take screenshots from websites\/blogs, add images, etc. And everything is searchable, which is very cool but for me, it’s the checkboxes that got me hooked. I just utterly love this app (I’m not affiliated in any way, by the way). It feels seamless with the way my mind works, and it’s pure genius that I can keep everything in one place. The one beef I have is that the syncing doesn’t work all the time for my various devices, but it makes a valiant effort. I want to learn more to become a better user, but for now, I’m already making major strides in the productivity department. What about you? Do you use Evernote or something like it? What do you think of it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9945"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9954,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9945\/revisions\/9954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}