As you know, I’m a fan of the Getting Things Done productivity system. With the popularity of this system it is no surprise that there are literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of tools designed to work specifically with GTD. I’ve experimented with many of them and have really enjoyed looking for that “perfect” GTD application.
One of the problems, though, is that I use different computers with different operating systems. Sometimes I’m using a PC and sometimes, most of the time, I’m using a Mac. And what about those times I’m not at a computer at all? The best GTD tools are those that don’t tie you down to one point of access to use them. That’s where I think Nozbe has the rest beat, hands down.
You can use Nozbe online when you’re at your computer, which means it is compatible with any operating system. When you’re away from your computer you can use Nozbe on your mobile phone. If you’re really “old school” you can even use Nozbe with pen and paper. It is the only GTD application I have found that is truly universal.
While I highly recommend the GTD books, if you want a quick overview of the GTD system, Nozbe has a 10-step Simply Get Things Done Video Course. It covers the core principles of the GTD system and shows you how to implement those principles using Nozbe.
Implementing Nozbe into the way you work is simplicity to the extreme. Within about 10 minutes after signing up for Nozbe I had it on my iGoogle home page, on my iPhone, connected with my Twitter account and set up to take email tasks.
This wide range of connectivity with your Nozbe makes it very easy to use as your catch-all inbox. I’ve written previously about the GTD principle of ubiquitous capture. That is, get it out of your head and captured into a trusted system. With Nozbe, I can capture ideas and tasks into my inbox from almost anywhere. I can send a direct message to Nozbe in Twitter and it will automatically appear in my inbox (a very fast and easy capture method). If there is an email that needs to be acted on I can just forward it to an email address, provided by my Nozbe account, to have it captured in my inbox for processing. If I’m away from my computer I can use my mobile phone to capture information into my Nozbe inbox.
***Here’s a realtime example: While writing this post I received an email with something that I needed to act on. I hit “alt+T” to open Tweetie (my Twitter app), then “shift+comm+N” to start a new direct message. Typed in the necessary next action and sent it off to Nozbe. In a matter of just a few seconds I had captured a task to my inbox that I can act on when I’m done with my current task of writing this post. I also got a text message about someone who needs to be visited. Again, just a few keystrokes and a few seconds and I now have a task, “Visit ***,” in my inbox. It couldn’t be easier and faster to capture to Nozbe! Now back to the regularly scheduled review.***
I signed up for a free trial of Nozbe but very quickly upgraded to a full account. It didn’t take long for me to see that this great web application would quickly become an integral part of my productive GTD workflow. Try it out and let me know what you think.
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