First things first: I’m heavily biased toward Nozbe. This post will demonstrate where my bias comes from. To me, Nozbe is much more than a simple task manager: it’s a whole-life system, guiding all areas of my life.
I want to highlight how I leverage Nozbe across different life domains, from blogging to parenting to my nine-to-five. For those who seek technical guidelines, I suggest that you visit Nozbe’s help page, which is very useful. My goal here is to shed light with some case studies.
This post is a counterpart as well as a complement to the post 27 + 1 Good Reason Why I Can’t Quit Evernote. Evernote is a note-taking app that works very well with Nozbe. You can, among other things, automatically sync Evernote reminders with Nozbe and add Evernote notes as comments to Nozbe tasks.
Let’s not waste any more time; below are the case studies, in a nutshell.
18 Reasons to Use Nozbe
Reason #1. I created a project dedicated to home stuff. It’s a collection of tasks that needs to get done at home. When I must handle a complex problem, however, I create a whole new project under my “Home” label.
Reason #2. Nozbe hosts my projects at work. I have a dedicated label for my office-related projects, so I can easily filter my tasks during my nine-to-five.
Reason #3. I collect items to be discussed on meetings in a separate project (meeting agenda). Once the meeting has finished, I can move these tasks into the appropriate projects.
Reason #4. I keep my Waiting For list in Nozbe. David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, defines the Waiting For list as “reminders of all the things that you are waiting to get back from or get done by others.” When I want to follow up on an email, I just BCC it to Nozbe with the #waitingfor tag in the subject line.
Reason #5. I keep most of my recurring tasks in a dedicated project. The weekly review is a great example. A recurring task reminds me every Friday to do my weekly review. Another example is a daily reminder to record my working time.
Reason #6. Nozbe serves as my content calendar. I collect all of my blog post ideas and guest post ideas in my content calendar. This guest post, too, is listed in my content calendar. It syncs with my Google Calendar, so I have a visual overview of my planned blog posts.
Reason #7. Launching and maintaining a blog is a daunting task. I keep a dedicated “Launch my blog” project in Nozbe to host tasks from saving backups to sending newsletters to installing specific plugins in WordPress. Some tasks have their associated deadlines (e.g., renew SSL certificate), some are recurring tasks (e.g., sharing my content), and some come as a scheduled commitment (e.g., publish my Freebie).
Reason #8. I list my personal development ideas and tasks in a separate project. Such a task, for example, is to regularly update my accomplishment journal.
Reason #9. I read a lot of books on productivity and self-development. To address what I’ve learned in those books, I regularly put tasks into Nozbe. For those books, however, that really made a great impression on me, I create a solo project. My practice ensures that I remember as well as integrate takeaways into my life.
Reason #10. When I find a great job opportunity, I forward it to Nozbe with the deadline for applications.
Reason #11. I keep parenting-related stuff in a dedicated Nozbe project: I call it a Baby project. Important deadlines, including but not limited to vaccinations, a traveling checklist, and other stuff, all go into my Baby project.
Reason #12. I keep a private as well as a shared shopping list in Nozbe. I used to harvest a dedicated Nozbe category, but I find now more useful to run my shopping list as a single project.
Reason #13. Although I craft my quarterly goals in Evernote, associated next actions come into Nozbe. I have a separate project for each of my goals. Keeping a dedicated label for all of those goals makes it easy to filter them later. I adapted the method from Michael.
Reason #14. I have a project dedicated to collecting ideas both within and beyond my nine-to-five.
Reason #15. My Someday/Maybe list, borrowed from David Allen, serves as a container for projects that aren’t important at the moment but hold opportunities for the future.
Reason #16. I leave the Nozbe priority window open all day and then make notes, schedule important tasks, and plan my day.
Reason #17. I harvest Nozbe templates both for personal and team productivity. I share my own templates with my team (checklists), with women (a personal gift for International Women’s Day ☺), with customers (guidelines), and with new colleagues (onboarding checklist).
Reason #18. I like that Nozbe news is nicely integrated into the app. I always check for new content, as well as make a contribution myself regularly.
+1 good reason
The team behind Nozbe delivers excellent customer service. It’s a family. It’s personal. It reminds me of my first job when we used to treat customers like our best friends. If you have a problem, you can expect an accurate and friendly response within hours. You’re treated as a golden customer.
Nozbe and its CEO, Michael Sliwinski, also host a blog (what you’re reading here), a podcast, and a dedicated Facebook group. I do really appreciate the man behind the machine.
I’m eager to learn more. Feel free to continue the list in the comments below…
