DIGITAL WORK TOOLS

For the rest of us

Tools should help you be more

effective

But most are just another

DISTRACTion Made for the happy few who have all the in the .

The Best online

Work Tools For the rest of us…

Easy to use Free version to start Proven track record

Tested in real life

There is not one solution

Pick a tool for your work

TO DO’s note-taking File sharing

Collaboration Connecting

…

EVERNOTE – Note Taking & idea storage

www.evernote.com  

USAGEUse for taking notes (meetings, ideas,…) & gathering information from various sources (from Internet, pictures, scans,…). Comes with plugins for browsers, apps for smartphones and tablets and thus is your always present companion.Makes your notes searchable (even the handwritten ones via OCR), so it really becomes your extended brain. Think of all those meeting minutes on paper you never found when you needed them!Evernote has integrated annotation capability for pdf & images and a growing number of collaboration possibilities.A free version with most of the relevant functionality is available. Upgrade for more space & collaboration stuff.

Real Life tips •  Use tags to quickly find back notes. I use one tag for

meeting minutes.•  Share notes online (privately) and link to them in

your other tools (eg. Trello) to avoid duplicating information.

•  Learn the e-mail syntax basic so you can quickly send mails from your regular email program right into Evernote.

Trello – TODO’s & Getting Things done

www.evernote.com  

USAGEBy far the most easy to-do tool I tried in the last years. It is visual (think of it like a large & intelligent post-it wall), so it is great in giving you an overview. Also, your less digital colleagues will be able to use it. As tasks in real-life are never attained alone, this is by far the most important criteria to pick a to-do-tool. It offers straightforward colour coded tagging ( = different colours of post-it’s) & drag&drop attachments.Underneath the hood it offers more advanced futures to put everything into a calendar view, keep information structured with checklists, voting capabilities, aging, archiving,…

Real Life tips •  Create a tag for tasks that you have delegated

(“Waiting on”) to quickly see the things were you should start chasing people to deliver.

•  Keep track of your work done: I create a list for each month to put in all the ‘Done’ work (“Done-May”).

•  Add links to Evernote shared notes to avoid storing information two times.

•  Create a meeting note for each one-to-one meeting.

ASANA + Instagantt – Project management

www.evernote.com  

USAGETrello will go a long way, but for complex projects you probably need that little extra. People also tend to like Gantt-like views of projects (to show you have timing under control). For these jobs/projects, I really like the combo Asana with Instagantt (basically a layer on Asana that transforms your tasks in Asana in a visual Gantt chart) that comes with exporting capabilities, progress bars and advanced filtering.Asana itself is already a very solid project management tool, with easy shortcuts, lot’s of integrations in other tools, semi-automated project status reporting that works lighting fast.

Real Life tips •  Take some time to learn the keyboard shortcuts to

work like pro.•  Share live versions of your Gantt chart with your

team.•  Create snapshots to see how your projects evolves

in real life compared to your initial baseline.

Dropbox + many others file sharing

www.evernote.com  

USAGESharing files with teams can be a hassle: You all know the limitations of your corporate network storage, the 7 versions of the same file with always different filenames (importantfile_V06_adaptations_Filip.doc) and sending mails with heavy attachments. Dropbox started a revolution years ago by creating an insanely easy solution to have your files in the cloud and share them easily. Dropbox watches a directory of your choosing and sync everything in it with your cloud space. Working on 2 or more pc’s on the same file: easy peasy. Sharing files with co-workers on the other side of the world: check.A lot of alternatives are available (Copy, Google Drive, Bix,…), so choose what works best for you (or combine them ;-). If you are new, I suggest you go with Dropbox, that has still be far the most integrations.

Real Life tips •  Combine different tools to boost your free space

available.•  Give JoliCloud Drive a go, it is a virtual front end for

all your cloud drives (and more).•  Send links instead of attachments and see how

much more easy life is with a corporate email account with limited space.

•  Sharing files < > collaborating on one file (see below)

Google Drive collaboration

www.evernote.com  

USAGESharing files is not the same as actually working together on the same file at the same time. Cloud storage doesn’t work in this case as 2 different files are created (awesomepresentation.ppt & awesomepresentation_conflicting_copy.ppt). If you really want to work on the same file at the same time, you need to be able to access and write at the same file in real time. The most common tool is Google drive and more specifically the part of Google Drive where you can create new files (so not uploading an existing Powerpoint for example). Use for text documents, spread sheets and even complete presentations.

Real Life tips •  Learn to use the limitations (compared to a full-

blown word processor or presentation tool like Powerpoint) to your advantage: who needs those fancy slide transitions anyway?

•  Google Forms is a great way to quickly get customer feedback and get everything in a nice overview.

A little

extra

SLACK collaboration - talk

www.evernote.com  

USAGEStill need to test it in a real-life environment, but in terms of getting your work e-mail inbox more clear, after already cleaning out the heavy attachments (Dropbox), storing old but relevant mails (Evernote) and make to-do's actionable instead of a mail (Trello), the last step is getting the (semi-)real time communication out of your inbox. Think of mails like: “Can you send me that file”, “I like to share this webpage I think is relevant with you” and “Want to go for lunch?”. Slack seems very promising in terms of integration with Dropbox.

Real Life tips •  Still working on it: go and try it out.•  I love how the setup for first use is done: you

actually answer to a ‘slack bot’ who is using real-life questions. Check it out!

Other must haves?

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