A few days of the year 2016 have already gone by. For most of us holidays are over and we´re back again to our daily work and home routine. Some of us have also started to put into practice their New Year´s resolutions. One of mine is to keep an eye on all the small things I cannot forget about.
Annual routine template. What is this? To get all these things done earlier this year (instead of just thinking about them and waiting until the very last minute again), I´ve created an ‘Annual routine‘ template.
2015 was the year that brought some new possibilities for automation on mobile platforms, especially on iOS. The beginning of 2016 is a good moment to tweak our workflows and make them even more effective.
In this blogpost, I will show you a few examples of how these automation tools can work with Nozbe. Thanks to our email integration, hashtags and Markdown support we can do some really cool stuff. Here goes:
We regularly introduce Nozbe users from all over the world. Today, we visit Spain to meet Pedro Rodinger and learn his way of dealing with his professional objectives in Nozbe.
Who is Pedro? My name is Pedro Rodinger, I’m a manager with more than 20 years of experience in the field of finance and accounting on the one hand and industrial property on the other hand. I work in an international environment with particular emphasis on organization, implementation of IT systems and managing staff.
If you are looking for a new source of inspiration and trustful productivity tips for 2016, Mike St. Pierre and his blog are your solution.
Mike St. Pierre is a blogger, host of “The Emergent Leader Podcast”, the Executive Director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association and a father of 4 children. As you might guess, he uses Nozbe to get organized with all his projects. As an active user, Mike wrote a comprehensive Nozbe 2.
Some time ago, we introduced you one of Nozbe power-users: Jeff Sanders. Today, we would like you to meet another fantastic member of Nozbe community: Robby Miles.
About Robby - a busy guy from North Idaho :-)
Robby is a husband, a dad of four, a college prep teacher, a freelance writer, and an Officer in the Army National Guard. After hours, he runs a Mission Mindset project to help people like himself stay on top of things.
He says:
I’m from North Idaho. Up here productivity means getting the right things accomplished. And this can only be done through simplicity and focus.
Robby’s goals
Robby is convinced that only by using practical systems you can create focus for the missions that matter (putting your priorites first)… And he helps you with that by providing you the exact templates and systems busy parents and students may use to create focus, overcome distraction, and get back hours of quality time each day.
After a longish break resulting from changing our publishing schedule from monthly to quarterly, here is the latest issue of Productive! Magazine :-)
Inside No.31: interview with Grace Marshall on work-life rhythm-not-balance and being really productive and articles on workflow optimization, making working as a team, work as well as transparency and exercises as a productivity booster.
This interview can’t be missed
No.31 comes with a great interview with Grace Marshall - a naturally disorganised productivity coach, chief encourager at grace-marshall.com and a productivity ninja with the team at Think Productive :-)
She speaks with Michael about the work-life rhythm that should replace the work-life balance. She also gives some tips on how to be really productive not just busy and how to deal with the guilt that distracts and holds you back.
“Guilt has you thinking that every time you move forward, you’re moving backwards somewhere else. And so, when you’re dealing with guilt (…) one of the first things to do is to actually take a step back and go, “Okay, let’s start with… Let’s start with enough."
Nozbe is used by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. For all of them efficiency and smart time-planning are the principles that let them enjoy their lives and stay on top of the things.
Who is Jeff Sanders?
Jeff Sanders, the host of “The 5 A.M. Miracle Podcast” is one of Nozbe power users and productivity gurus. He is also a public speaker, author, a 10-time marathon runner, passionate raw vegan and a big fan of taking bold action. And don’t worry - he doesn’t keep his knowledge and experiences to himself.
See how the 5 A.M. miracle works in real life
As Jeff’s new book: The 5 A.M. Miracle: Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast has just been published, he spoke to Michael about what he wrote about and how waking up early will actually help you use your time wisely and get a lot more done.
Jeff convinces that if you read his book you will get a list of think you could do to change your life!
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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!
As we’re ramping up our Affiliate program and we want to give you an even better product, I’m conducting interviews with our top affiliates, users and fans. One of them is Jeff Sanders, host of The 5 AM Miracle Podcast - and with Jeff we talked about a few things:
how he discovered Nozbe how he uses Nozbe for his content creation how he tricks Siri into adding tasks to Nozbe via email he asks me what’s in the future for Nozbe what does “Nozbe” actually mean (hint - it’s not a Polish word) how I use Pomodoro and Unschedule with Nozbe and many more behind-the-scenes details about Nozbe It’s a longer chat (~ 20 minutes) but I’m sure you’ll find it useful.
One of most popular blog posts on my personal blog is the one I did on “Pomodoro Technique and Unschedule Calendar”, where I explain how both: Pomodoro Technique and “Unschedule Calendar” from Neil Fiore’s book “The Now Habit” can work together. But since I’ve done that I’ve improved the concept and moved from a paper-based calendar to a template in Nozbe which serves me even better. This technique is really powerful. I’ve used it for many days now and you practically can’t have a bad, non-productive day if you implement this, so be warned - this will make you more productive :-)
What is “Pomodoro” and “Unschedule”?
But before we start, let’s explain briefly the concepts of “Pomodoro” and “Unschedule”:
Pomodoro is a productivity technique that asks of you to set a timer for 25 minutes and work on something until the timer is done. Then take a 5 minute break. Then repeat. The premise is that knowing the timer is ticking and having the time-constraint of 25 minutes, you’ll work better, faster and with more focus.
Unschedule is a type of calendar where you don’t plan your work, you only put meetings on calendar and “fun things” somewhere in between. You plan only for those. Then you’re left with blank chunks of time that you can now fill with work. The premise is similar - time constraint of knowing you have only X more hours of work, and later a meeting, makes you more focused… and knowing that in a few hours you have your “jogging time”, motivates you to work harder and “deserve” your reward.
