It's the beginning of a new year!
There is enthusiasm for meeting goals. There is excitement around achieving our highest aspirations.
But how will we get it all done?
Church Production has collected the best in personal planning apps to make visualizing, managing and achieving your 2017 goals easier. Whether you want to test drive an online todo list, mind mapping tool, analog planning system, or scheduling tool, the list of resources below has you covered.
Online Todo Lists
Any.Do is a lean list built for mobile devices. A favorite feature is Any.Do moments which allows you to prioritize your tasks which is followed up by a random motivational message.
Cozi is specifically targeted at keeping families organized and handles everything from calendars, to do lists, shopping lists and has a feature to see today at a glance.
Google Keep is a simple syncing notepad that can keep checklists, photos, images, voice notes and text notes stored in the cloud. It supports time and locations based reminders and you can color code anything. The interface is deliberately simple so that it is always super-fast and it integrates with Google Drive.
Habitica is designed to gamify your life. It turns your todos and pet projects into a sport with rewards that allow you to level up. If you are a fan of RPG’s and need some motivation to help your productivity, this might be the tool for you. The app also features old school RPG graphics.
Remember the Milk is about to dos and reminders so that you can get your tasking out of your head. You enter your tasks in one line along with due date, priority and repeat tags. Reminders are sent by email, text, IM or mobile app.
Todoist.com has a “distraction free” design and lists can be shared with collaborators. Your lists are readily accessible via apps, browsers, inbox and devices. Caution that there are no reminders on the free plan.
Wunderlist has high functionality and integrates with Trello, Slack and 500 other apps. Integration is so good that smart lists can pull tasks in from other places based on due date.
Mindmapping Tools
Coggle is a browser-based tool that creates beautiful mindmaps and makes exporting them really simple. Coggle's interface makes it easy to visualize ideas and communicate them to others. There is a free version and premium starts at $5 a month for personal and $8 a month for teams.
FreeMind is an open source mindmapping tool that is—well—free. It isn’t the most intuitive interface, but it is effective and the price tag can't be beat.
LucidChart is a flowchart maker that works for brainstorming or project management. There is a free version with a monthly fee for premium features.
Mind42 is a browser-based tool designed to create, manage and edit data easily. This is a free application and doesn’t have as many features as the paid services.
MindMeister is a mindmapping interface built for collaboration and decisions. The interface is easy to use and works on mobile devices. Personal accounts start at $4.95 per month.
XMind is one of the most popular tools. It is open source and built to manage ideas. You can use this tool to export your mind map to many formats, including TXT, PDF, and HTML. There are free accounts available with a paid version for premium features.
Workflowy is a mindmapping tool that works in outline form. You can dive deep into lists, mark things as complete and generally organize your brain. Use the tab key to create sublists and shift+tab to promote items. Workflowy has a free version and paid for premium.
Analog Planning Techniques
Bullet Journal is an analog planning system that can work in any notebook and is deliberately designed to be fast. There is a short video to help you use the system, then you simply get started keeping track of your life.
Kanban Boards are a staple of lean planning in the construction industry. It’s a workflow visualization that typically use sticky notes on a white board to make it easy to see status, progress and any issues that come up. This method is particularly effective for planning in teams.
Dash/Plus is a metadata markup system that makes it easy to note the status of action items on a todo list. If you are a fan of paper todo lists, this system can help you take it to the next level.
The Pile of Index Cards System is exactly what it sounds like. You have a storage box (your Dock) with tabs then three types of cards: discover card for a brain dump, a GTD (getting things done) for next actions and a cite card for ideas and inspiration. Follow the PoIC method to the letter or customize it to fit how your brain works.
The Post It Note System leverages the fact that the size of post-its are limited and so is the time in our day. The top left is for the MIT (most important thing) that you need to accomplish that day, then the other tasks are listed on the post it. When the post-it is complete, so are you. There is no endless list to keep track of. You focus one day at a time.
Scheduling Tools
Calendly is designed to get rid of round robin e-mail tag for scheduling. You list when you are available in Calendly, then people can set appointments on your calendar based on those time slots.
Doodle is a free polling app that is designed to make it easy to coordinate schedules. If you waste time ‘herding cats’ every time you have to set up a meeting, you are going to love Doodle.
Time Bridge works both outbound—finding the best time to meet; and inbound—sharing your calendar and letting others schedule meetings directly. It works with Google calendar and Outlook. Pricing is $9 a month.
Whatever you decide to accomplish in 2017, it helps to get all of your inspiration and tasking in one place. The digital world moves fast. Luckily, it also offers tools to help us move faster.
