Written on February 2nd, 2012 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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As our lives get busier and the world gets faster, our workload seems to be just too much some times.
Web apps are getting faster, better, with incredible user interfaces and maybe similar or even better than stand alone local applications.
These two statements above seem to have nothing in common, but in my view they both led to the increasing number of quality web-based task management tools.
Being a fan of David Allen’s GTD methodology, I’ve always tried to apply the method using software tools that could be better than the old pen and paper.
Just a few years back, finding a task management software was a quite hard task itself, especially on a Mac.
Today, I think that choosing the “right one” for you has become a stressful experience because there are too many!
When I started using these task management tools I basically didn’t have much choice. The first ones I’ve used where:
- OmniFocus
- Things
- Remember The Milk Read more…
Written on June 23rd, 2011 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Since efficiency and productivity is almost always measured in time, optimizing our time is one of the most challenging adventures of our days.
I’ve been using several different project management applications in the last few years, but I must say that their learning curve and usability benefits is not always worth the price.
On the other hand I’ve discovered several low cost (or free) apps the are excellent companions for your time management needs.
Being a Mac guy, I’ve used Omnifocus and Things for a while. They are great tools but lack cloud computing and collaboration features. That’s why I went back to the nice and clean Remember The Milk web app, with excellent versions for mobile devices. Using it to its full potentials, with an intelligent tags and lists organization, I believe it is a great GTD and productivity enhancer.
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Written on September 22nd, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Whan I was young and romantic, I loved my to-do lists made with my best pen and written on my elegant agenda. They were fascinating and useful but I do remember I had some productivity issues. First of all I wished all not completed tasks could magically shift to the next day..
Probably less romantic or fascinating, electronic to-do lists definitely changed the productivity levels of my working day.
Which tool you use really does not make much difference. But the way you use it sure does.
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Written on August 24th, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Probably I’m obsessed by this word: synchronization.
But if I’m not the only one who tries to keep all calendars, emails, to-do lists, files, contacts in sync, then I would like to share some of my considerations and some of my experience with a pretty good cocktail of tools I regularly use. Truly enough, I would love to hear similar thoughts and experiences from anyone.
First of all let me say that I’m a great fan of David Allen‘s GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology and that I love to be organized, efficient and productive. Second, I must admit that I’m also fascinated by new technologies and not very keen anymore to use paper and pen.. Oh, and I’m a Mac man.
What I would like to share are some experiences, workarounds and ideas I came up in the last years in order to try to keep my life (and work tools) in sync.
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Written on August 19th, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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For those of you who think can keep all your activities and To-Do list in your mind, for those who still rely on paper and pencil, for everyone who does not believe that technology can improve your productivity… stop reading this article. For all the rest I hope this helps!
Given as requirement that I’m a Mac user and GTD (Getting Things Done, by David Allen) passionate, I will try to illustrate several options I have personally tested for To-Do lists and task management.
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Written on July 7th, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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It might seem obvious but I found out that a lot of people don’t know you can sync your Apple iPhone with your Google calendar.
So here is a very short how-to.
In order to sync your iPhone’s calendar with your google calendar you must create a new Microsoft Exchange account under Preferences:
1. Open the Settings application on your iPhone.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Tap Add Account.
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Written on May 23rd, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Unfortunately there is still no software application that can handle your emails.
I’ve seen some interesting prototypes but still nothing usable.
Maybe one day, a Gmail 2.0 add-on will read your email, move unwanted messages to your “not now” folder, schedule meetings in your calendar if the sender invites you to one, and highlight emails from your wife (or maybe mark them as spam 
).
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Written on May 23rd, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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How many times did you find yourself making ten phone calls or exchanging tons of emails to organize a meeting?
I’ve been using Doodle for a while to organize my meetings with colleagues, and I must admit it helped me reducing those calls and emails quite a bit.
But I now must say there is probably a better product that will replace Doodle (at least in my business life): Tungle.me
Tungle.me is a much more complete meeting organizer. I would today call it a social schedule organizer.
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Written on May 19th, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Recent changes in Gmail APIs have opened the door to third parties applications which can integrate into Gmail.
I’ve been (and still am) testing a few interesting (social)CRM applications which integrate into Gmail.
Here is what I found:
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Written on May 3rd, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Here is a short list of the productivity tools which I really can’t immagine my working life without them:
- Remember the milk: this is an incredibly easy to use and powerful task management system. It has most of functionalities you would expect and many more. I find very useful the project tabs under which I separate my “worlds”.
It has an incredible amount of plug-ins and other ways of accessing your data (iphone, widgets, extensions, google calendar intgration) and it is completly online, web 2.0 style.
(FREE version and pro account for $25/year)
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