Evernote and GTD

I am trying to get into a pattern for my schedule and To Do lists. Currently I have them all over (Google Calendar and Tasks, Gtasks, iOs tasks and just notes in Evernote). I did a lot of research on Google and found lots of ways that different people have incorporated their lives into Evernote. I am a premium user and have used it for about 4 years now for reference material for my computer support business. With their addition of reminders I am going to try to use it for all my lists, tasks and how to's. I think I will leave my calendar in Google as it does a pretty good job of syncing to all my devices (iPhone 4S, iPad 2, laptop, netbook, etc).

During my searching on Google, I did find a few templates that others have made up and graciously shared (thanks Chris Mayo ) that I am trying out. One Daily Checklist gave me the idea to create my own as there are websites I do like to visit but forget about in the daily whirlwind which is life! Will also make up one for my part time gig as a customer support lead at Flip-Pal the mobile scanner which has been a great help in going paperless.

I have been getting into Genealogy and have found Evernote to be a great help there, still working on a workflow so that what is there also gets added to my Famiy Tree files. The clipper helps greatly there.

I have found Evernote to be great for storing my client notes but seem to like actually taking them in just the apple Notes app on my iPad, I just send them to Evernote (still having trouble remembering to put in the notebook name but that will come) and then append them to the original, delete the new and all is done. I will try setting a reminder for those clients on a cleanup schedule but will probably continue to use Google Calendar for that as well. Duplication in that instance is good!

I have pulled out my GTD workflow and posted in the wall to help me setup a habit of following it. I seem to do better, feel better about what I have accomplished in a day it I can check it off on a list! From reading other bloggers that seems to be a pretty common trait!

Reading Articles on the web

I am in computer support so I spend a lot of time on the web. either looking up removal techniques or just reading about new programs, hardware or just general tech news.I get mighty tired of having to flip through 4 or 5 pages of an article that could have been one but for the advertising. Now, I understand that for the website to stay up they need advertisers but I NEVER click through from an advertisement so they are wasted on me. I want to read the article and maybe save it. The best way I have found is to look for a link that says printer friendly. This usually shows you the article in a new window with no ad's and all in one page. Sometimes it does open up the printer dialog but I just read it in there and then print to a pdf if I want to save it. There you have it a quick way to read an online article with no muss no fuss!

Backups - for Google accounts

This is the time of the year I start going through my processes to see what I need to be doing or maybe can improve on. I noticed that while I am moving more and more into the Google Universe I was relying solely on Google to backup my information, not a good idea.

I sat down and did some research and came up with the following tools that backup my data to my computer where I can incorporate then into my weekly and monthly backups.

Google Calendar Backup - http://www.computergeek.co.nz/googlecalendar.asp
I have been using it for a few weeks and it is small, quiet and does what it says it will do. Backup your Google calendar in a format that is easily read by multiple other programs or ready to import back into your Google calendar if needed.

Google e-mail -
I found another free (for home) program that will backup 3 email accounts for you. Again, easy to setup, exports them into a file that is readily accessible.

MailStore Home - http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

For my  hard drives I have recently moved to Acronis True Image. They just came out with a new version that will do a sync between two computers, I just took advantage of their special to see how this works out.