Productivity and Organization

During 2018 I decided to take control of my work and my time. I used to be really unorganized and constantly forgetting some task I could have done with more time.

After reading a lot of blog posts, and viewing a lot of Youtube videos, this is how I decided to organize myself. These are some of the Tools I use to keep my day organized, and how I use them!

Email and contacts

I use Gmail for email. I've integrated it with Hubspot for contact management and a better mail tracking. Hubspot CRM is free and adds a lot of cool features to email like open tracking and schedule. For that, you will need to add the chrome extension.

Task management

To manage my small tasks I use Todoist. It's a task list with some cool features, like labels and filters. You'll need to have the premium subscription to create your own but it worth it. I've organized my tasks by priority using filters and every time I open the app I can see which tasks I need to do first. Then I send those task to Google Calendar to make sure I don’t forget to do something! Todoist has a quick shortcode that allows you to create a new task without having to open the app. And by using some shortcuts it's really fast to create a very descriptive task.

Trello

For the work-related tasks, I use Trello. Trello is a Kanban tool with boards, lists and cards or tasks. I manage my week in a very simple way, 1 board for my week to-dos with four columns, Sprint, In progress, Pending approval and Done. I've powered it with a few power-ups, or extensions, to add more features to Trello.

One power-up I use is the Custom Fields to create my own fields, and one extension is Pro for Trello to add some tweaks to my boards.

TeamGantt

In some cases or bigger projects, I use Trello with Teamgantt. It allows me to take my Trello cards and display them in a Gantt chart. This way I have better visibility over the progress! Team Gantt has a lot more features, but I use it mostly for the Gantt chart.

Time management

I’ve also integrated Trello with Toggl for time tracking. I've set up all my clients and projects and from inside Trello. I can open a card and start a timer associated with a client and a project. I also use some labels to be more specific on what I’m doing in that project! Toggl also has a great report feature if you need to send a report to your clients.

All these apps have shortcuts, power-ups or extensions, and they do integrate well with each other. I've centralized my workflow in Trello and with all the other apps I can at least know where I am and what needs to be done.

There are some alternatives that have all these features in one single app, but that comes with a cost, usually a monthly subscription. Most of my setup is free or at a little cost and for now I'm going to keep it this way.

Low tech

There’s a pair of tools I also use every day regardless of all the apps and technology available. That’s a pen and paper. Whether is on a call with a client taking quick notes before passing to Todoist or Trello, or just to do some doodles when I have the time or I’m just daydreaming...

We are now in 2019 and I'll keep testing new power-ups or extensions to be more organized. There are a few apps that I would like to test like Monday, a full-featured app that does almost all I need but with a monthly subscription. Planyway for Trello card viewing in Google Calendar, also with a cost.

April 11, 2019
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