These days, I’m as busy as ever, a mixed blessing in some situations. While I don’t have a lot of free time to play more Mario Kart on the Wii, I do have a lot of fun projects and clients to keep happy. Here’s a brief list of some of the stuff I use to stay productive:
- Cashboard: Cashboard is a slick little web application, complete with integrated Dashboard widget for Mac OS X, that I use for managing tasks and time tracking on projects for clients. They even have a free version that lets you manage up to two projects. Subscriptions are nicely priced in different tiers depending on the amount of projects and contacts you need to manage.
Anxiety: Anxiety is the best, most minimal To Do list I’ve used on the Mac. I’ve tried other apps like The Hit List, but keep coming back to Anxiety. It’s lightweight and very well integrated with iCal.- Mozilla Thunderbird: Don’t get me wrong, when I’m on my Mac, I’m a full-blown Apple Mail fan, but at work, we run Windows and Outlook is not my friend. I’ve got Thunderbird configured with a theme that closely matches the Mail experience on OS X, and a minimal folder/filing system that lets me use my inbox as a task list of pending projects. And speaking of email, I’m also a big fan of Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” philosophy. Check out his great presentation here.
iCal/MobileMe: I may be one of the few who doesn’t have constant troubles with Apple’s MobileMe, a service that syncs my desktop calendar and email with the cloud (online), so that I can pull up my schedule, emails, contacts, and more via web browser. I find the web apps very easy to use and stay connected with my main email account and calendars all day long.
Google Chrome: Quite possibly the best web browsing experience available on a Windows PC. I love its minimalistic user interface and speed most of all. Sure, Firefox has dozens of great, powerful add-ons, but when you want a browsing experience that is fast, Chrome is where it’s at! Chrome works great with Apple’s online web apps for MobileMe that I mentioned above.
Coming soon: A Note on Unproductivity (or better known as the fun stuff I distract myself with)
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As your client list and your workload grows you may also want to check out Intervals, a web-based project management app that includes task and time tracking. It will help you keep organized what you need to bill, and then generate invoices for you.