5 cool tools to ramp up productivity!

by Amanda Wiss

Though improving productivity is often about little tweaks rather than a single magic bullet, there are many resources that help corral the chaos of life.

Five tools I love:

1. Ready to take your “to do list” virtual? Check out Remember The Milk - a free online to do list that allow you to manage your tasks from anywhere.   You can get email, SMS or IM reminders and it syncs with Google calendar and iPhones.  Genius.

2. Wish you had a second brain?  It’s time for Evernote – an incredible application that synchronizes between your desktop, web and smartphone.  Any information – like a recipe you may want to try someday or an article on the best local spas – can be stuck there and tagged.  Evernote’s beauty is that it’s all the information you want to save but can rarely find in a paper filing cabinet.  Makes retrieval a breeze!

3. reQall (like Jott) is an amazing memory tool that allows you to pick up your cell and capture ideas.  It transcribes your utterances into text, so when you’re on the go and suddenly remember you need a 9 volt battery for your son’s remote control car, it’s added to your master shopping list.  You can dictate an appointment into your phone and it appears on your electronic calendar. The free version offers tremendous value; the Pro is $25.

4. Google docs is my favorite free application for sharing information with others.  It allows you to edit your online documents from any computer, which makes working remotely a breeze, and means that you and others always have the most current version.  No more emailing documents to others  – just store them online!

5. Let’s say you need to know the schedules of multiple folks (and you’re not already sharing your electronic calendars).  It’s time to Doodle! This free online poll service is a breeze to use, and makes scheduling mass playdates or book club planning much simpler than the usual volley of emails.  Doodle today; you won’t be disappointed.

Let me know via email or in the comments what your favorite tool is.

Featured on Rachael Ray as an organizing expert, Amanda Wiss is the Founder of Urban Clarity, a professional organizing company based in NYC.  She helps people eliminate clutter and chaos from their lives.  Amanda holds inspiring workshops on time management and productivity.   To check out Amanda’s resource listing on the blog and reviews of her services, click here. To see her other Expert Advice, look at her page here. Amanda lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with her husband and their two toddlers.

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