[Day 98] Services I use for my productivity management

  Hey there! Have you ever gotten stopped in your tracks when trying to work on a project due to a huge chunk of clutter literally popping out of nowhere leaving you puzzled, wondering how could it happen? Certainly, everybody had that happen to them, and I am no exception. Finding oneself in a state of utter chaos, frantically trying to put all the essential pieces together - to resume one's optimal workflow -  is undoubtedly very uncomfortable and exhausting as hell.

  To tackle this issue in particular, I devised a system that helps me cope with managing high amounts of uncertainty life can unload on any individual when he expects it the least. Upon finalising my system, I encountered an unforeseen issue: Its maintenance is tedious. This was a huge red flag. When the creator considers his own system tedious or hard to use, something has gone terribly wrong. To add an insult to injury, the practical part of it (the services I used) wasn't working smoothly at all. Acknowledging all of that, I had to take a step back and simplify the maintenance of it by finding the services that facilitate it. After about 10 iterations, I was finally satisfied with the portfolio of productivity apps I've decided to use. Two months have passed, and I haven't yet felt the need to switch out any of the services for better ones because, in my opinion, they work marvellously. In this post, I'll give a quick rundown of 4 services I use to avoid clutter and to simplify micromanagement. 

Google Keep

  This service is fairly well-known. What I find particularly compelling about it is its versatility. The basic premise of Keep is that you can quickly write down anything that is on your mind and get back to it later. You can create various types of notes (plain text, a bulletin point list etc.). You can also sort, colour code, pin and archive these notes afterwards which is very convenient.

  The way I use Keep is that I basically create a couple of lists such as "task dump", "priority list for this summer" or "resolution for the day" which I pin on the top of the app and place some relevant information there. For instance, throughout the week I continuously add lots of low and medium priority tasks do the "task dump" list. Once a week I empty the list and integrate the tasks I've written in there to my schedule. Another example would be my "resolution for the day" list to which I add all the tasks I should be working on the upcoming day, so it's easily accessible, and I do not forget something and as an icing on the cake, when I get struck by a muse, I can always just turn on Keep and type in the idea I currently have on my mind, then I can get to it afterwards without any fear of forgetting it.

Wunderlist

  Wunderlist is essentially a platform in which you can write down tasks for various projects and assign a date by which they should be done plus attach some notes to them if you want to further elaborate on them, so your future self won't feel completely lost after reading the name of a task you put in there 4 months prior.

  For me, Wunderlist is my go-to tool when it comes to micromanaging my productivity and life in general. The interface is smooth and user-friendly. In addition to that, it offers many useful features such as an alarm for each task or daily/weekly preview that lets you see - from the bird's eye perspective - what precisely lies ahead of you in the next couple of days.

Save My Time

  This app is a bit geeky. You open the app and the first thing you do is that you write down and colour code the types of activities you think you will be engaging in throughout the course of your days. After the initial setup is completed, each time you unlock your phone, an elegant pop-up will appear asking you how did you spend the last X minutes since you last unlocked your phone. It takes no more than 5 seconds to distribute the time to the types of activities you spent it on. 

  At first, it can be a little bit tedious to think about how did you spent your last X minutes each time you unlock the phone, but the output you receive from this app is worth it. Who does not want easy to comprehend and detailed statistics on how exactly one spends his time on a daily basis? After a while, you will start to see a certain pattern in the way you utilise your time and it gets much easier to improve the use of your time throughout the day because you know, precisely, how much time you spend on each activity and if that activity is desired or not (either in the context of achieving your goals or in the context of improving the quality of your life). I use the premium version of Save My Time since November of the last year, and it's, in my opinion, currently the best tool for tracking and managing your time on the market.

Loop

  A very clear, simple and straightforward app that helps you to keep an eye on how well do you stick to your schedule in terms of habit completion. You can colour code the habits to your liking and look at the relevant stats concerning a particular habit in the blink of an eye. In addition to that, it's extremely simple to maintain (my entire daily habit-tracking routine takes no more than 2 minutes).

  To sum it up, over the course of the last few months, I tested tenths of various productivity apps. Most of them fell flat because they were either too complicated to use or lacked some crucial features I was looking for. From the considerably numerous palette of apps I tried, these four stood up to the test, and I integrated their usage into my daily routine, so if you are either looking for the right productivity apps or you are sitting on the fence, wondering if these types of services might help you to increase the quality of your life, I recommend you to give them a go and see for yourself.

  Hope you are having a great day.

  Cheers.