Disclaimer :

NET is not affiliated with any of the software / application company. While I am helped by certain features of these programs, in no way I can guarantee that they will give the readers the same results. Always back-up your file before doing major changes to your computer.

OK, I’ll readily admit it. I have a weakness in getting my tasks done. Sometimes I let myself get too immersed in the details that I have difficulty in prioritizing and managing my tasks. That, and the all-too-common dilemma of procrastination of course. Am I getting familiar already ? If you share the same problem with me, read on to discover a possible method to get out of this productivity inefficiency trap.

It’s not that there isn’t a possible solution for my problem. The basic, underlying issue is time ( and self ) management here. The “First Things First” method of Franklin Covey quickly came to mind as I outlined this post. Yet I particularly want to make a certain emphasis on the wildly-popular way of “Getting Things Done” ( GTD ) as preached by David Allen, a recognized author and productivity coach across the globe. There’s a reason for this. While whether or not GTD works for you will remain up to you to decide, the benefit of practicing it can best be summed b y its tagline : “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”. Now, that’s a promise I heartily embrace, to let go of the stress of daily life.

At its core, basically GTD works by collecting your thoughts ( I like to think of it as actually get the stress blocks off my head ), processing them ( by assigning them to the appropriate contexts ), organizing, reviewing and doing them. I am summarizing a lot here. For more information of how exactly this system can get the stress out of your head and help you increase your productivity, the Wikipedia article of GTD has an excellent set of article references that should help you. My focus, instead, is to point us into one of a great ways to practice this action management method.

Enter Thinking Rock. Developed since 2005, it is a free, open-source and multi-platform (Linux, Mac OSX, MS Windows, …) organizer software, designed to practice GTD. Now I have been an avid user of task managers like Rainlendar or Outlook, but Thinking Rock differs from them radically by employing the GTD method straight from the home screen itself.

Thinking Rock

From the home screen, you are straightly coached and encouraged to employ the GTD method of collecting and processing your thoughts. This has forced me to alter my old task-management way of simple listing, to actually classify them as actionable or not. In the end, it saves me a lot of time and help me prioritize my life in such a way that I now have more time to do the tasks themselves rather than just pondering about them. Translated, it should spell less-stress for my life.

In their own words, Thinking Rock “is NOT another to-do list. It allows you to:

• collect your thoughts, also called dump your mind;
• process them into actions, projects, sub-projects, reference items or someday/maybe items;
• actions can be done by you, delegated to someone else or scheduled for a particular date;
• projects can be planned into ordered list of actions and sub-projects;
• you can review all your actions, projects and other information quickly and easily to see what you need to do or to choose what you want to do under your current context at a particular time. These views can be easily modified by you to tailor for your needs;

Having been using it for more than two weeks now, I can certainly testify that it helps me organizing my life. And as the title of this post series implies, I hope that it will also help you all. I certainly enjoy it.

The free community version of Thinking Rock can be downloaded here.

Introduction :

Lifeware is a post series that will tell you how some certain softwares / applications have changed my life. It was meant to be a regular feature of NET blog, but I still can’t say how regular. I hope you like it !

First of all, some disclaimer :

NET is not affiliated with any of the software / application company. While I am helped by certain features of these programs, in no way I can guarantee that they will give the readers the same results. Always back-up your file before doing major changes to your computer.

If somebody would ask me : What software, – once tried -, has become my first choice in its department ?; – the first answer that comes to my mind would probably be PDF Xchange viewer. An excellent alternative to view PDF files, it was produced by a company called Tracker Software.

I tried it when I got increasingly annoyed by a resource hog that is Acrobat Reader. On the contrary, the Xchange Viewer is so fast that I was almost blinded by the change ( I know, I am exaggerating a bit here ). In fact, when I opened my Task Manager, it only leaves a memory footprint of a mere 3,2 MB ! And that’s when I already keep it running for almost 48 hours, meaning it does not have any apparent memory leak either.

The interface is sleek and nice, as seen in my screenshot of a page with thumbnail view in the left column here :

But what impressed me the most is its set of features. Fully customizable to your heart’s content, it will even allow you to use the commenting features and overwrite the original PDF files, – thus functioning almost as a PDF file writer in itself. Following is a screenshot when I try to made a note :

I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s enough to induce me to switch to it for good. That, and the fact that it regularly updates to the newest version. Oh, it’s not a powerhouse-supermodel as Adobe Acrobat, but for your sweet-girl-next-door, she will maybe change your life as mine.. You can download the software from its site here