Turning Your SmartPhone Into A $1,000,000/Year Tool

Over the past few months I’ve become semi-obsessed with productivity because of my BlackBerry.

After reading David Allens “Getting Things Done” and having his system change my life I have stumbled upon/created a system for personal productivity that uses technology to make me more productive.

If you’re not paying the $20/month to be able to do email from your smartphone, I think you’re wasting the biggest productivity tool you have. I’ve always said that outside of being a phone, most pda/smartphones are just toys. They look cool and sound great, but in the end, they’re just eye candy. Toys to play games with in your down time and keep people’s contacts in.

Here’s my podcast of How To Turn Your Smartphone Into A Million Dollar Tool instead of just having a phone and a toy.

Or you can play it here:



The website I use and talk about in the audio is http://tracks.tra.in.
I also use Google calendar.

Here is the php script I use to email myself the todo’s.

Here’s a video of instructions:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=816501744180957431

[tags]gtd, getting things done, gtd online, blackberry, smartphone[/tags]

Filed under GTD, Life, blackberry by

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Comments on Turning Your SmartPhone Into A $1,000,000/Year Tool »

10/19/2007

preston @ 3:22 pm

Good post – I’m always surprised that people won’t drop the $20/month for email access on their phone. The opportunity cost is much higher.

[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptOver the past few months I’ve become semi-obsessed with productivity because of my BlackBerry. After reading David Allens “Getting Things Done” and having his system change my life I have stumbled upon/created a system for personal productivity that uses technology to make me more productive. If you’re not paying the $20/month to be able to do email from your smartphone, I think you’re wasting the biggest productivity tool you have. I’ve always said that outside of being a phone, most pda/smartphones are just toys. They look cool and sound great, but in the end, they’re just eye candy. Toys to play games with in your down time and keep people’s contacts in. Here’s my podcast of How To Turn Your Smartphone Into A Million Dollar Tool instead of just having a phone and a toy. Or you can play it here: [...]

10/21/2007
(Pingback)

Getting Things Done by David Allen : Neal Harmon @ 11:25 pm

[...] on my PDA and computer…I wanted a solution online. Leave it to John to solve my problem…his latest post gives you everything you need to start making the Getting Things Done system work for your life. [...]

10/22/2007

Neal Harmon @ 12:27 pm

John,

Do you mark off your tasks somehow with your phone in the system you described? Or do you have to mark them off through the tracks interface?

- Neal

10/23/2007

John @ 8:53 am

I have to mark them off in the tracks interface.

But, when you use rss through viigo to view your tasks on your phone, whenever you actually look at a task it un-bolds it. That’s how I know I’ve accomplished something. Normally I don’t need to open up a task in viigo to know what it is, so I don’t open it until I have accomplished it.

10/30/2007

Richard K Miller @ 3:17 pm

John, nice podcast. In my GTD system I’ve kept a list of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks which seem to correspond with your reminders/affirmations/goals. I like the idea of having them emailed to me so I don’t have to remember to check them. I’m going to set that up.

You mentioned that you have your notes from Conference emailed to you every week. How long do you keep them? I thought it might be interesting to keep each individual note until you felt like it was a part of you. The other option would be to keep them for 6 months. I’m going to add that to my system.

Richard K Miller @ 3:20 pm

P.S. If you do a followup podcast or post, I’d be interested in hearing about your affirmations — how you chose them, how often you review them, what effect they’ve had, etc.

11/5/2007

Alastair McDermott @ 6:32 am

John, nice post/cast. I’ve been trying to get into GTD for a couple of years now and getting over the initial sort is real tough. Once I’ve setup I think I’ll implement it similarly to how you’ve done it with tracks. I haven’t used GCal (I’m all in Outlook) so I need to see how the calendar side of things will work out.

Alastair.

[...] my last post about my online gtd system and my first post about how to best implement GTD online, I’ve had quite a few questions [...]

1/1/2008
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Why I Don’t Do New Years Resolutions @ 12:58 pm

[...] Of course, I always write these things down in my todo list and email them to myself. [...]

8/18/2010

Bob Ludeman @ 12:14 pm

I just looked for some apps that do this on an ipad. One suggestion I saw on a forum had this software for ipad, iphone and andriod. I can also get there on a smartphone/ or Blackberry via web browser. You can email you self to do list as notes. It will email or text you rminders also. Looks like it is free. I haven't used it yet but it certainly looks like it would work with 2010 technology. One of my clients was entering her MLS listing on an ipad yesterday. That thing is cool. I may get one to go with my blackberry. Ican't give that up yet.
Oh here is the link. This is not an affiliate link and I am not trying to sell anything. http://springpadit.com/features#manyways

I am a replace yourself customer.

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