9 Tools for Increased Productivity

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• April 20, 2010
• By Alexis Grant
• No Comments

When paper and pen aren’t enough, check out these nine services, vetted by Brazen members, to help you with productivity and time management:

1. Toggl.com – Track Your Time

Ryan Paine: I’ve used Toggl a bit – just press a button and you’re tracking your time …

Kristina Summers: I just discovered this tool and I LOVE it! I often get caught up in time wasters – but this helps me to determine how productive I am actually being on a daily basis.

2. Outlook – Calendar

Lauren Burns: I keep a separate calendar within Outlook. I have my public calendar with meetings,etc and then I also keep a private one that is my “time sheet”. I add to it as I’ve been doing work, or at least at the end of the day # of hours worked on various projects. You can access this from iPhone too.

3. Tungle.me – Scheduling Made Easy
(Join the Tungle.me network on Brazen >)

Rebecca Thorman: Tungle.me – they let you mark when you’re open, and then others can schedule app’ts so there’s less back and forth, “scheduling made easy,

Ted Thonus: I could see using the Tungle.me app for some of my longer standing customer and partner relationships. But I might hold off using it for new relationships. I might lose control! : )

4. Teux Deux – To-Do Lists

Rebecca Thorman: Teux Deux mirrors the simplicity of paper and pen, but still has the usefulness of an app online. I also like the way it’s laid out by week/day – very much in sync with how I plan.

Lori Fagerholm: The “Someday” field on TeuxDeux is one of the best inventions of all time. Okay, maybe not, but it’s what’s been missing from every to-do list app I’ve tried. Thanks for the heads-up!

Alison Rayner: I also really like the someday field on TeuxDeux too. I constantly get ideas I don’t know how to categorize because they aren’t a “now” idea.

5. Remember The Milk – To-Do Lists / Task Management

Scott Keegan: Another good to-do site is Remember the Milk, much more configurable than Teux Deux.

Sarah E Sears: I like using Google calendar and I have tried using their tasks lists, but I found that I like Remember the Milk’s functionality a little more and it syncs up with Google calendar.

6. A Spreadsheet– Track Your Time

Morana Medved: I personally hate spreadsheets but have to track my time (per project and task) for client billing (I’m in architecture). I keep a notepad on my desk and just jot down time and a quick scribble every time I switch tasks during day, plus any immediate to-dos I need to work out that day. I can do this even when I’m swamped, my computer is saving or crashing so it’s always up to date. Every Monday morning I transfer notes into a spreadsheet. The log came in handy in a lawsuit situation before.

7. Action Method – Project Management

Rebecca Thorman: Action Method is productivity for creatives. You can use it for your to-do list or to manage products. Would be great for designers or freelancers. They have an online system as well as paper products that integrate.

8. Getting Things Done – Task Management

Michael Felberbaum I’m a big fan of Getting Things Done by David Allen (GTD) because he has a unique take on prioritization. I like how he de-emphasizes outdated thinking about A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 priority lists. Creating lists and numbering priorities never worked for me.

Mauro Pennacchia: “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. If you can master the initial set up and review of all the inputs that take your time, his system will enable you to sift through the muck, eliminate the time wasters and focus on the things important to you.

9. Evernote – Note-taking

Cameron Plommer: I’ve been working on this a lot lately myself. I too use Google Calendar. Mainly for events or meetings and use Teux Deux for smaller stuff that I need to remember. I also use a notebook and Evernote to make notes.

Find these tips and more in the Productivity & Time Management network >

How do you manage everything you have to do? Do you use a productivity system? What are your favorite services and tools? Are you intrinsically organized or do you need a little help?