Moving to an Electronic Time Management System

This article is far from all-inclusive, but it's a place to start. I welcome any questions you might have.

Moving to an Electronic Time Management System

The beauty of a planning notebook such as Day Runner, Day Planner, Filofax, etc., is its ability to contain everything in one spot. You don't have to worry about syncing it with anything; never have to worry if something on your work computer made it to your home computer and to you smart phone, or your iPad. Nope, it's all there in black and white—or red, green, blue, and orange—in your notebook that you keep with you always.

But we're in the age of electronics now, and many of us spend almost all of our time with our eyes on the computer monitor and our hands on the keyboard and mouse. And what precious moments aren't on those are spent focusing on our Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, Droids, and other electronic "smart" devices.

Add to that the importance and integration of email into our lives and electronic means to time management leap ahead in the race to finding solutions that work for us. Let's face it, about 80 to 90 percent of our information comes to us via email, be they tasks, appointments, contact information, or other miscellany.

In the old paper method we had only three main tools in out tool box--task list, calendar, and journal. Now, thanks to computers, we have at least two more: email and contact management.

Ironically, the problem with electronic devices and solutions is that they haven't really caught up to the simplicity and versatility of the good 'ole manual paper and pen system! The various systems don't always talk to one another, and if you finally get them to do so, you are stuck with that one system and God forbid you have to switch to another device or application.

My Story

First I want to say that I do not endorse any one time management product, either manual or electronic. I was weaned on the Franklin Planner time management system and I do admit a definite soft spot in my heart for it. It was so long ago that Covey's name wasn't yet attached to the product line and in those days I had my day planner virtually hermetically sealed to my body--where I went, it went. Everything was there and I loved it!

At my last full time job I started out with my wonderful little Franklin Planner book... I even designed and printed my own template pages—major time management geek! During the course of my time there the company went to MS Outlook and its task management, calendar and journal features fit perfectly with my day planner. Why, it even let me print out pages in the correct format to put in my notebook. Later I purchased Franklin Planner's electronic system which wrapped around Outlook quite beautifully. It also seamlessly synched with my Blackberry. So there it all was: my task list, my calendar, my journal, my contacts... all of it was right at my finger tips.

Until I was laid off, that is. Then I lost all the conveniences.

Sure, I still had my Blackberry and the information was there, but I no longer had it on all my computers. I began to look for web-based solutions and I decided on the Google suite of applications to manage most of the things. At least the calendar and contacts synced well with my Blackberry. But Google tasks didn't; there was no journal application linked between the two, and things looked pretty grim for a while.

I'm sure there are other products out there that work great--in fact, might even work better, but my primary consideration was cost. By that I mean I wanted a free solution, and Google provided that. (When you've been laid off, those things are important to you!) My secondary considerations were ease of access and simplicity of use.

By comparison with its other applications, Google Tasks seemed woefully inadequate for what I needed in a task management system--and in reading all the related blogs and forums, Google didn't seem all that interested in fixing it. To make matters worse, the tasks in the email application didn't sync up with the tasks in the calendar application! Major dilemma.

I hear that there are some great apps for the iPhone and iPad, but I guess I'm officially a luddite as I have neither of those, and I wasn’t interested in shelling out the cash to move to those platforms either.

Having decided on the Google apps as my overall management system, which could at least manage my emails, calendar, and contacts, I set out to find solutions to the other two biggies: task management and journaling. I'm going to be honest with you and admit that I haven't found the perfect solution yet--I continue to keep looking--but I have found some solutions that are working for me.

I also needed something that incorporated these three basic tools, as well as the two newer tools, within something I could convince myself was a one-stop-shopping solution. Additionally, It had to be accessible from as many of my devices as possible. I knew this was a tall order and that I'd have to prioritize these needs and I might have to be flexible.

This is how I adjusted to an electronic solution and it may or may not work for you. Later I'll outline things you should look for when determining a solution that works best for you.

My Solutions

All In One Solution

For me, accessibility means I need to not only have access to it from all my electronic devices (desktops, laptops and the ever-present Blackberry), but it has to have some semblance of my old day planner's "all in one" solution. With my day planner I had everything at my fingertips. I could see my to-do list next to my day's appointments, all of which flanked my journal. I haven't found the online system that does that for me while tying into email and contacts and syncing with my other computers and my Blackberry.

Most browsers, however, now let you have multiple windows open at the same time in the form of tabs. I settled on Google's Chrome as my browser (well, if I was doing everything else Google, then it made sense that using their browser would afford the best interoperability) but you could just as well use Foxfire, Safari, or IE. I set it to open the following tabs each time I started up: email, calendar, contacts.

So that just left the business of syncing with the other devices. Since it was all web-based, all my other computers worked fine (I even set Google Chrome to sync my account on all my computers so when I launch it, it's the same on all of them.) And Google does a pretty good job of integrating the email and contacts with those on my Blackberry.

I'll address integrating email as a time management tool later, so that brings us to the calendar.

Calendar

Not much to say on this one. Calendar systems are what calendar systems are... you put in an appointment and it tracks them. The Google calendar syncs across all my devices and sets reminders for me so I couldn't be happier. One advantage of having one that integrates into your contact management system is that you can invite people to appointments that you want to share.

One disadvantage of the Google calendars was there didn't seem to be an easy way to label appointments or color code them like I had in Outlook. For example, all my job-related appointments I wanted to stand out in one color, all my classes in another, choir in yet a different one, etc. My solution was pretty easy... Google lets you set up different calendars and assign a color to each. These all show up on my main view and synch across to my various devises—problem solved.

Task Management

Task management, however, didn't go so easily. As I mentioned, the task management built into Google was... well... pretty awful. I experimented around and tried "Remember The Milk" and "GQueues" and finally settled on "GQueues" as I felt it worked the best for me. (Both were really good... it was just the little things that won me over.) Now a new tab was added to my browser launch.

Both integrated into Google, and both had an internal email address so I could easily email tasks to myself or forward an email or appointment to myself as a task and have it show up in the task system. But neither one had a Blackberry app. That was pretty disappointing as now I didn't have my task list with me. Sure, I could go the website for each, but the browser on the Blackberry is slow and the screen tiny (right, right... I shoulda splurged for the iPad; I know.) But since I'm pretty much in front of my computer all day long that was something I was willing to forego. I keep up with GQueues discussion forums and it appears they are working on this.

The downside of GQueues was that it does cost me $25 per year. I know I said I was looking for something free, but this was important enough to me that I felt I should splurge. Some other bonuses, GQueues let's me nest tasks so I can maintain my daily prioritization scheme, as well as create project plans with subordinate tasks. It has a flexible "queue" system that lets me rethink and redesign things on the fly to help me stay focused.

Journaling

In the day planner days, journaling was where you kept all the extemporaneous data that you collected during the day. Periodically you would review the journal and properly file away all pertinent information--your basic data storage and retrieval system, with the journal acting as a sort of temporary storage facility.

Journaling in the computer environment makes it easy to store the data in the right place sooner so there's less need for the intermediate storage. It's actually easier to just put contact information in your contact management system than it is to store it someplace else temporarily. Same holds true for project information, long-term goals, future appointments, etc.

Each system--email, tasks, calendar, contacts--provides its own internal method of storing their related data for later retrieval using folders, labels and tags. But there still remain those notes and ideas that don't really have a permanent home yet. How best to deal with those?

Since the other elements do provide their own data storage and retrieval, my priority for this option dropped considerable. I was willing to use a separate option on my Blackberry and another one on the computers. On the Blackberry, I use its internal notepad; that seems to work OK—there aren't so many that I lose track of them.

On the computer, though, I've been exploring a couple of options. I haven't settled on any one application yet, but I'm currently looking at Google's Notebook, and a personal blog. Both let me add labels to my entries so I can quickly retrieve information, and both are readily accessible from any computer I might be using.

The blog might just win out because I have several blogs that I write for and so I'm constantly in the Blogger system. Additionally, Google has apparently pulled support from Notebook so I'm not sure how long it will be around. Now if Google and Blackberry would just put their heads together and come up with an blog app for the Blackberry, I'd be happy!

One key thing I've learned in all this is to use consistent labels (or folders or tags... whatever your system has) across all the applications. If I have a folder or label in my email for a work project, then I need to have the same label in my task management, journal, and calendar systems.

Contact Management

Electronic systems are at once more sophisticated and more spread out. The inclusion of computers requires, at least, an integrated contact management system Any email system worth its salt has this built in—it saves its users from having to go searching for an email address every time they want to send something.

Google fortunately integrates this quite seamlessly across all its applications—at least as far as I can tell. Another advantage is that Google seems to "remember" the odd email address that it's come across so you don't have to go searching for it. On the downside, this means you have to periodically go into Google Contacts and look for duplicates and combine them, but fortunately there is a built in tool for this that works quite nicely.

eMail

Email is the only tool I haven't really discussed as a separate item here--it is quite integrated into the other elements and I've mentioned above. But there were some key factors for me that Google solved. It had to: work, sync with my blackberry, allow storage (Google uses labels which I prefer over folders since an email can have multiple labels, but only one folder), and integrate with as many of my other systems as possible.

Gmail did this. I'm sure there are other systems that do it too—this is just where I landed.

Wrapping Up

Well, that's how I became electronic in my time management practices. You don't have to do it the same way I did--I think it's important for you to find what works for you. While there are disadvantages to not having a single, unified system, there is the benefit of being able to craft a system, or series of systems, that works specifically for you.

Part of me wants to go back to my good 'ole Franklin Planner... but gosh darn it, my Blackberry is just so small and convenient--it even clips to my belt so my arms and hands are free. Plus I'm in front of my computer all day long anyway, so having a notebook open in front of me just seems... well... archaic.

So if you're wondering how to move from a paper system to an electronic one, here are some things to consider:

• First, decide on which tools you must have and then prioritize them. There are a variety of tools out there now: task management, calendars, email, journals, contact, CRM's, blogs, notepads, Dropbox, Google Docs, collaborative writing... the list goes on and on. Determine what your "must have" list is and the criteria for each part.
• Look for tools that integrate into your most important electronic devices--those that you use the most, such as desktop and laptop computers, smart phones, and tablets.
• Look for tools that integrate with each other--at least with your highest priority ones. If there aren't direct hooks between them, are there simple ways to make them talk to each other (like forwarding emails to you task manager for quick entry?)
• Rather than looking for a central journal option, create a strong data storage and retrieval methodology that spans across all your applications.
• And finally, don't be afraid to experiment. I continue to explore and tweak things. I don't think the "perfect" system actually exists—partly because my needs change over time. This is the beauty of this type of moduler soluttion; it can grow and adapt as I change.