We say that meetings are toxic and are the time of your workday “where minutes are taken and hours are wasted.” Does it always have to be like that? Is there something we could do, to retool them and make them more effective?

Solution exists!

“Meetings exist for a reason, annoying as they may be. Decisions are made, problems are solved, bonds are formed, and the needle is moved in meetings. The higher you go in management, the more meetings are your work." - admits Laura Stack in her article for Productive! Magazine. It’s true, so lets see, what - according to Laura Stack - may be done to plan and run the meeting that actually solves problems and ends up with a specific decisions and set of tasks delegated to right people.

Another day, another freebie for You! Hopefully you remember our video course called „10 Steps to Ultimate Productivity.” Many people (not only Nozbe users) successfully used this huge dollop of knowledge to improve their lives. Because of that we prepared an audio version of this course so that you can access it even more easily. Today, as we are still celebrating Nozbe’s 9th birthday, we’d like to give it to you for free - „10 Steps to Ultimate Productivity Audiobook” - download it as MP3 files.

Productive! Magazine is a regular dose of inspiring, practical and timeless articles written by the best productivity experts on the Internet. Over the years, it has given Nozbe users much inspriation and aid in their day-to-day work.

It seems that none of the material found therein has depreciated over time. Therefore, we have concluded to create a compilation of 5 really interesting articles along with accompanying Nozbe.how templates to let you implement the advice they offer right away :-)

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.

Grace and Michael also talk about Grace’s new book called “How to Be Really Productive."

“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!