Can mobile devices help you get things done?
One of my favorite blogs to read is Eric Mack On-Line and I always seem to come away from reading his entries with more knowledge about interesting topics and a desire to try something new. I just read his thoughts on the new GTD (Getting Things Done) Connect service and have to admit that I am even more interested in trying out this technique now. I used to use a Franklin Covey system for managing my life and for the past several years I have just been "winging" it with Outlook and my mobile devices. This "system" is not working at all and I need to get something figured out since my life keeps getting crazier and crazier with 3 active daughters, a busy wife who owns her own business, my gadget blogs and podcast, and my extremely busy day job as a professional naval architect. My life seems to be spinning a bit out of control and I need to apply a rudder and get things back on course again.
As I said I currently have a basically non-existent system that just seems to bounce all over the place, which is a bit unsettling for me since I am generally a very well organized and goal-oriented person. I think having 3 daughters approaching their teens is stressing me out and knocking me a bit off my path and I need a bit of guidance to get back on track. At this time I'll enter appointments for most events on my device that syncs to my hosted Exchange service (here is one service I know is helping me out). However, nothing from my day job is really integrated since we use Groupwise at work and the software doesn't seem to integrate/sync reliably with tools I have tried in the past. As a result, I have pretty much given up on putting any appointments from work in my calendar and keep my work events separate from my "other" life. I imagine this disconnect here is having an impact on my productivity and I am hoping my IT guys will implement the Groupwise Mobile Server sometime soon that is supposed to sync with lots of mobile devices. I used to use Tasks and Notes quite a bit, but haven't really created many in the past couple years and they are quite stagnant. I put tasks as a calendar appointment most of the time and then just keep changing the date when I don't get to something. I haven't set real goals since I have been out of the U.S. Coast Guard when I actually did set tangible goals with achievable measures. I miss shooting for goals and need to implement this in my life as well. As you can see, I am quite a mess at this time and need to take a couple days and get refocused and reenergized.
I strongly believe that my mobile devices can enhance and keep me on track since you can always find at least one device with me at all times. I would be very interested in hearing about any methods and products/tools that readers use and how they use them in their life. I have been using my Nokia E61 as my main device and would love to hear from those in the Symbian community as I search for tools in this platform as well.