random productivity tools
by math154, Aug 20, 2013, 11:25 PM
... from t0rajir0u.
1. Boomerang: this offers several related and useful features. First, it lets you temporarily remove an email from your inbox and reintroduce it at a specified later time, which is useful for emails that you want a specific future self to deal with. Second, it lets you reintroduce emails you send to your inbox at a specified later time, which is useful for emails that you want to follow up in in case you don't get a response. Third, it lets you send emails at a specified later time.
2. Workflowy*: this is an arbitrarily nested bulleted list, and it is much more useful than it sounds. You can also use Workflowy as a to-do list, and it also has Android and iOS versions with it syncs with.
3. Remember the Milk: this is a straightforward to-do list app. There is an obvious way to use it and a slightly less obvious way to use it, which is to create a tag called "main" and add a smartlist that searches for items tagged "main." Then you use your RTM inbox to write down notes of any kind about stuff you might want to do, but you use "main" to write down next actions. For example, "do my history project" is a note about stuff you might want to do, but it's not a next action: it's way too vague. A next action here is "look up sources to use for my history project and write them down."
RTM has Android and iOS versions and syncs with them. RTM also allows you to repeat items after a certain number of days.
4. Beeminder: this is an app that lets you set various goals, e.g. "spend at least half an hour on homework every day," and takes your money if you don't reach them.
Beeminder fights akrasia by fighting hyperbolic discounting. See http://blog.beeminder.com/akrasia/ for some details. You can also make your Beeminder goals public and share them with your friends to take advantage of social commitment effects for extra motivation.
Besides punishing you, Beeminder also shows you a graph of your progress, which is both helpful and motivating; it's like a quantitative version of http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret. Be careful not to make goals that are too ambitious at the start, or else you'll be demotivated if you fail to reach them.
5. Anki: this is an intelligent flashcard program. It uses spaced repetition (http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition) and more or less solves the problem of how to put information into your long-term memory.
*Mutually beneficial referral link (+250 words per month).
1. Boomerang: this offers several related and useful features. First, it lets you temporarily remove an email from your inbox and reintroduce it at a specified later time, which is useful for emails that you want a specific future self to deal with. Second, it lets you reintroduce emails you send to your inbox at a specified later time, which is useful for emails that you want to follow up in in case you don't get a response. Third, it lets you send emails at a specified later time.
2. Workflowy*: this is an arbitrarily nested bulleted list, and it is much more useful than it sounds. You can also use Workflowy as a to-do list, and it also has Android and iOS versions with it syncs with.
3. Remember the Milk: this is a straightforward to-do list app. There is an obvious way to use it and a slightly less obvious way to use it, which is to create a tag called "main" and add a smartlist that searches for items tagged "main." Then you use your RTM inbox to write down notes of any kind about stuff you might want to do, but you use "main" to write down next actions. For example, "do my history project" is a note about stuff you might want to do, but it's not a next action: it's way too vague. A next action here is "look up sources to use for my history project and write them down."
RTM has Android and iOS versions and syncs with them. RTM also allows you to repeat items after a certain number of days.
4. Beeminder: this is an app that lets you set various goals, e.g. "spend at least half an hour on homework every day," and takes your money if you don't reach them.
Beeminder fights akrasia by fighting hyperbolic discounting. See http://blog.beeminder.com/akrasia/ for some details. You can also make your Beeminder goals public and share them with your friends to take advantage of social commitment effects for extra motivation.
Besides punishing you, Beeminder also shows you a graph of your progress, which is both helpful and motivating; it's like a quantitative version of http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret. Be careful not to make goals that are too ambitious at the start, or else you'll be demotivated if you fail to reach them.
5. Anki: this is an intelligent flashcard program. It uses spaced repetition (http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition) and more or less solves the problem of how to put information into your long-term memory.
*Mutually beneficial referral link (+250 words per month).
This post has been edited 8 times. Last edited by math154, Aug 21, 2013, 2:06 AM
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