Last week we were on the Nozbe Reunion where we spent a great week together. We had some fun and enjoyed each other’s company which is very important for a team that most of the year spends time working remotely from our homes. In case you were wondering, Nozbe is not just me so in this post you’ll get to know some of the people who help me get you more organized:

One of the questions I keep getting is why I named my productivity product “Nozbe”? It doesn’t mean anything in English… so why this name? Maybe it means something in some other language? Well, not really… so in this post let me share the story behind the Nozbe name with you… Nozbe = To BE Naturally OrganiZed When I was in college, back in 2000, me and my friend Wiktor were dreaming of running an Internet company some day and changing the world.

This week of September 21-25 we’re on our semi-annual Nozbe team reunion where we all meet together in one place to work together, brainstorm ideas and basically make Nozbe more awesome. Unlike a “traditional” company we’re all working remotely from our homes so these two times per year are the only moments that we all see each other. And we’re 24-person strong team now. We’re very excited. Here’s what it also means to you, our Nozbe users:

As you know, every Nozbe PRO account is actually “2 in 1”, meaning, you get 2 accounts for the price of 1. Yes, you can use Nozbe on your own, but you can also go to the “Team” section and put the email address of your partner and create an additional account for them, completely free. Do you want to know how I work with my assistant? I can’t do everything alone.

Sharing projects and teams is one of the most confusing matters to our users.

Definitions

For safety please allow me to start with definitions. For some users this is not a secret as it can be read about on Nozbe Help Page. The matter, in fact, is so simple that it seems confusing to many and is related to Nozbe’s history.

Inviting someone to your Nozbe team DOES NOT mean inviting them to your projects. Statement seems logical enough, right? Well, it is like inviting a friend to a party. You invite him over, yet that does not mean automatically he will or should get involved in all conversations and activities going on at it.

So what’s the deal?

Once you invite someone to join your team… what happens?

1. You see them on your “team members list”

2. You pay for their access to the service BUT 3. you neither give them access to all your projects, nor you get access to all of their projects.

Once you share a project… what happens?

You grant them access to all data within that project but nothing else.

A few months ago, we’ve decided to double down our efforts on Apple platforms. Many of us at Nozbe are happy users of Macs and iOS devices, and so we wanted to bring more features, improvements and refinements to our apps there.

You might have noticed the results over the last few versions. We released one of the first apps for Apple Watch, then redesigned it just two months later. And in the lastest version, Mac users got a Today widget (just like the one we have on iOS).

But we’re just getting started. We have a ton of improvements in the pipeline. Here’s just a few examples of what we’re working on for the iOS 9 release in September:

Multi-tasking on iPad

If you’re on an iPad, you’ll love this one. In iOS 9, you can swipe your finger from the right edge of the screen to see your tasks in Nozbe. You don’t have to leave the app you’re using, go to home screen or double-tap the home button. Just swipe from the right and you can slide Nozbe over other apps. This is useful when you just want a quick glance at your priority tasks, or when you want to quickly add a task to your inbox.

It gets even better if you’re using iPad Air 2. After sliding Nozbe over, you can drag the separator to enable split view. This way, you can use Nozbe side-by-side with another app. For example, you can compose an email while looking at your notes in Nozbe.

Did you know that Nozbe can help you build a new habit? Let’s take learning a foreign language as an example. Who wouldn’t like to speak an extra one, huh? Say… French…

Before you start

Scientific researches have found certain mechanisms that rule the process of creating a habit. Based on that, we can formulate a couple of tips that will help you take off.

1. Set a big goal - have your vision of what you want to achieve and why. Talk to yourself for a while and make sure that learning a new language is something you really want and need.

2. Make it so easy you can’t say no. — Leo Babauta - start approaching your big goal with tiny steps. Try setting the tasks easy enough so that you can get it done without motivation (that is kind of moody and differs depending on a day, weather and other circumstances.)

3. Building sticky habits is a lot easier if you make use of the routines you already have rather than try to fight or modify them. It’s good to build your plan around triggers that will let you know that it’s time to work on your habit, e.g.: after I get up and have a glass of water I learn French.

4. When you fail, get back on track as quickly as possible. Don’t worry! Missing your habit once or twice, no matter at what stage it occurs, has no serious impact on your long-term progress. Instead of trying to be perfect, be good and compassionate to yourself. You’re doing a great job!

OK. Once you know the rules, let’s get to work :)

Chain tasks… what are they?

Quite often we come across a very particular set of tasks. I like to call them chain tasks, as they act as if they were a silver chain, one following the other.

To put it in simple terms, chain tasks are a group of consecutive tasks that need to be done in certain order and most often task B, C, D can’t be done without having A completed.

What can be done with them in Nozbe?

It is true that Nozbe does not have a direct/to-the-point option for them. Having been asked about them frequently, and having tried my best to work around that lack, I came up with and idea, that although not ideal, seems to work well.

In case you missed it, me, Michael Sliwinski, Nozbe’s founder and CEO together with Radek, our VP of Apple Technologies (and the guy responsible for our Apple Watch app) started an audio podcast called “The Podcast” because we wanted to chat about things we care about: gadgets, technology, business and productivity. Now, after 8 episodes I think we started getting into the grove and making it a better show with each new episode, and in time we started talking a lot more about productivity than we previously anticipated.

Last week we updated Nozbe to version 2.2. It brought some cool new features. With Nozbe 2.2 productivity level of our users who use Google Drive or Mac will be even higher ;) Want to know why? Keep reading! Google drive integration Nozbe users love our integrations with Evernote, Dropbox and Box. It gives a great way to attach notes or files from your cloud to tasks and work on them together with your team in Nozbe.