Today I did something that I haven’t done in a quite awhile, I cleaned out my planner.

I always have such trouble keeping my planner in a condition which allows me to close the zipper. Most of the time it’s just bursting at the seams. Well not today.

My wife was kind enough to get me a Franklin Covey refill for my birthday, and it instructed me to put 2 months worth of the planning pages in it. Well that wasn’t going to happen in the condition the planner was in at the time. So a cleaning out was in order.

What goes? Well, old pictures of the kids, I have new ones now, coupons that have expired, membership cards to places that either I don’t go to, or that aren’t in business any more. Also, old receipts, old calendar pages, notes for things that have passed, and goals that I haven’t achieved.

Wait a second? Goals that I haven’t achieved?

Well, looking back a year, it seems that I went through my planner then as well, although you wouldn’t be able to tell if you saw how much stuff I tossed.

At that time, I noticed there were a lot of things that I had never finished. Well, this year is no different.

I will have to say that this year, I’ve really done well at keeping the important things in mind. My family and kids have been in the front of my mind.

Also, Art and I started a podcast over at Two Guys Tech, and that’s going really well, with 37 shows under our belt, we have somewhere around 75 regular listeners. If you haven’t checked it out, check out the feed.

So, back to those goals that I was talking about. You know, the ones I never achieved. Well, they get moved to this year’s goals. If I looked at them, and they are still pertinent, then it would be a shame to stop pursuing them just because they proved to be hard.

I hope you’re willing to do the same.

Here’s wishing you a terrific 2009!

Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.

Edward H. Harriman

Posted in 1YearAgo, New Years, Productivity No Comments »

The Stikkit web service has been around for quite awhile, and although I had used it when I first signed up, for some reason I stopped. Simply stated, Stikkit lets you create events, reminders, contacts and notes.

That last statement is sure to have you asking one of two questions.

“So what. Aren’t there about a million web sites and programs that you can use to do that?”

Or

“What makes Stikkit different?”

The answers are:

I don’t know, I haven’t counted them. I bet there are a lot though.

and

Stikkit is different because of the way that you enter this information.

You see, Stikkit uses some intelligence to interpret the emails that are sent to it. When you sign up for stikkit, you’re given an email address that you can send email to. The content of your email is used to create “stikkits” that represent your information, using various keywords.

Some of the Basics

Here is an example. If I sent this email to stikkit:

“Call Joe next Wednesday about his WebSite”

Then Stikkit would create an appointment next Wednesday, whatever the date may be.

Stikkit gets even better as you start learning the language that it uses, which is pretty straight forward. I could have sent this email:

(Subject:) Joe Joeseph

(Message Body)

Joe Joseph

Home Phone: 123-456-7891

- Call Joe next Wednesday about his web site

@WebGigs

Now Stikkit would create a contact (called a Peep) named Joe Joesph. It would list his home phone number as 123-456-7891. A to do item would be created, and they would all be tagged “WebGigs”.

I just started using Stikkit again recently because I wanted an easy way to keep my contacts up to date, and a easy way to remind myself about things that I have to do. I use Google calendar too, but it is just so much easier to add a Stikkit.

Email Addresses All over the place

Each Stikkit that you create is given its own email address. So you can reply to the email, and make changes.

This is also nice because if you share a Stikkit with someone, they can make comments and changes to the item without having a Stikkit account.

Added Bonus: Works with your favorite Calendaring App too.

If you create a Stikkit for an event, when you are emailed about it, the event is attached in ICS format, which Google Calendar, and most other Calendar applications, recognize. So you can quickly add the appointment to your calendar application.

One of my favorite words: Free

The founders of Stikkit are making this service free, and they intend to always have a free version of the service. The web site is nice and clean, ad free, and pretty easy to navigate.

Links:

Stikkit Web Site

Posted in Productivity, Organization, free stuff, Web Tools, WebSites 2 Comments »