Evernote, MM8 and a Cellphone ... Idea Processor+

I am contemplating a trip and on a long run today visualized a flow to solve a problem I had been thinking over for a very long time ... when on a trip or thinking about a problem ... you never have a way to take all kinds of inputs, whiteboards, tablets, files, handouts, napkins, sticky notes, etc etc and create a cohesive thought process or to enable a quick thumb through of relevant information.  I have gotten close with using a tablet PC as it allows me to write on all sorts of scanned or printed objects and also to take contemporaneous notes during meetings and brain dumps .. all well and good, but it required scanning, printing, and asst files ...

Here is the thought ... Evernote has a neat feature that allows you to take a photo (Cellphone with at least 2mp resolution) and email the photo right into your Evernote database ... once there, you can tag, annotate and flesh out the concept ... when it is time to review or compile the thoughts, you can get them up by filtering the tags or key works  ( it also indexes the image, so things captured on the photo are searchable) ... I then print the needed notes to pdf file on the computer ... you can use pdf Annotator from Grahl Software to then further markup the file if you have a tablet PC ..

You then assemble each page into one thought processing document that includes all notes, whiteboards, napkins, (you get the point) ... I use pdf Tools  to merge all of the notes into a single file  that will create your document.  Voila, you have all your valuable thoughts in one place in one document.  Now the final step ... create a mindmap in MM8 or any other solution that allows you to link files to your map ... here is a shot of a Thought Base that you can play with ... the screens shot shows how useful the new browser function is in MM8 especially when you put a process together using this method ...

The only limitation to what can be done is your imagination ... works great and will keep EVERYTHING in one "notebook" that you can call up at any time ... don't forget that you can annotate your annotations as the ideas progress ... thought processing done efficiently ...

Whose problem is it anyway ...

If you work in the cloud or rely on internet services you've got to have run into this problem ... you are buzzing along and all of a sudden things stop working ... you now go into full fledged panic .. what happened? did I accidentally hit the wrong key? is my internet connection down? is my service down? did I pay the electric bill? (well maybe in that case there would be other overt signs ...) anyway, you get the drift ....

Having faced that dilema and done all the reboot, reinstall, plug and unplug drills to no avail .. it seems the next thing is to search the net for answers ... well in reading Thursday Bram's excellent Stepcase Lifehack blog she penned an excellent read in "How to Deal when Your Favorite Application Goes Down".

Here is her solution (just wish I had read this sooner) ... "My initial plan has two parts. First, I visit DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com. Just type in the site that you’re having problems with on the front page and you’ll get an immediate response on whether the site is up or down. It’s an extremely simple approach, useful as an initial check. My second stop is usually Twitter. Many Twitter users have gotten into the habit of posting about their problems with applications almost immediately. Visiting Search.Twitter.com and looking for a specific application name can give you a good idea of who’s having problems."


Will file this in things to do before throwing computer out the window ....

Keeping it all together with MM8 & Friends ...

I have been feverishly working on a presentation that was a mashup of lots of current works in progress and an entirely new concept ... I'm sure this scenario plays itself out myriads of times for all of us, happens too frequently in my day ... seems I have to get all my files together each time and keep so many items open on my desktop just to make sure items and info are at hand as I work. i.e. I had files open from my google docs, an excel spreadsheet, a couple of word docs and assorted pdf's ... thinking about my recent exploration in mashing info up from google services, I thought maybe this was the way to go ... indeed it was !!!

Take a look at this dummy map that I made ... I can have hyperlinks set to all my docs within my cloud of services on the net (including foxmarks to get to research that has been bookmarked) and files on the machine (although I could make this entirely web based by going to my files in my dropbox) ... the big SECRET is that the new embedded browser feature in MindManager 8 that allows you to switch between your items right there in the map ... everything is a click away, especially if you use all the web based items ... taking info from one doc and pasting into your working doc is simply too easy this way ... thus assembling things from multiple sources is so much more efficient and less distracting ... also when you start up again, you are instantly up to speed. I found this to be exceptionally useful and saved a LOT of time and wasted energy ... by using the organizational strength of MM8 and the cloud, I was able to work with greater focus and much more efficiently ... hope this works for you like it did for me ....

PS ... remember the earlier posts dealing with emails and tasks .. by converting emails to docs using the google docs, you can include your entire trail of exchanged info and comments within your map for reference ...

Using MM8 & RTM to GTD ...

If you followed that title you are among the elite or just have too much time to follow your curiosity (actually a great pastime, some call it futzing .. I like that!). As I explored more uses of the browser in MindManger 8, I realized that there was a very cool way of implementing the super todo manager, Remember the Milk, to not only do todos, but to manage followups, tasks, and items of interest ... all of this has emerged because of several neat switches that are now used in gMail ... let me walk you through how I implement this and you can play to your hearts content ...

In the first shot, I have sent an email to my gmail box ... I have the RembertheMilk addin that has the RTM list on my right pane in my main gMail window (screenshot 2) ... notice in 1 that there is an option to create task .. when you do that, the task goes to RTM directly ... and will appear on the pane ...

The third shot shows the actual RTM web site ... there are two ways to rename the task .. you can do it right on the gMail pane (I usually do that ...) or on the site ... you can edit the title (I usually do ... ) then put a priorty on it, and then the most important I can either erase the due date so it just appears undated at bottom of the list or give it a due date and that way have reference to date in the future ... one other neat thing on this I have email notification on the tasks, so as they come due, they will automatically appear in my gMail directly ... cool ...

MM8 (screenshot 4) allows a direct link to the RTM website for clarity ... you now have your GTD functionality right in the map and linked directly to your gMail box ... one of the key points also is that in the gMail pane, when you mouseover (see final screenshot) the circled envelope icon will now bring back the email that you refenced with the item ... I cannot tell you how much valuable time has been saved by using this tip ... you get a todo item a couple weeks from now, go to it and open the email .. up to speed in a flash ... great stuff ....

More on New Feature ....

Good question was posted by Michael and I shall expand on it ... here are two more shots dealing with the use of the google doc creation from email received on gmail ... then to add into a MM8 map using the new embedded browser feature ... the first shot shows the menu of features you get when you hit the little lab sign on the gmail service to get to the enabling of the feature ... create a document




Once you hit the enable switch, this is what you will see when you open a new email .. notice the addition of the create document button, hitting this will create a new google doc that you can use as described below ... hope this clarifies things for all of you ...

New feature in gmail adds to MM8 ...

OK ... here is a good one, let me set the stage for the scenario for use first ... I have kept project and general info in maps for ages and find the utility of it great, but interface and presentation can sometime leave more to be desired ... the main hangup is adjusting the view and taking things out of context .. specifically since gmail is now my email service of choice, it was cut and paste whenever the need arose.

Enter a new labs feature that allows you to create a document from the email .. thus having the entirety of the thread available .. so the first shot shows the button that is enabled when you turn the gmail to doc service on under you labs tab ... once you save your doc, it will appear as a normal google docs entry in your gdoc folders ... at this point, you are free to annotate, share, markup, etc and operate on the email thread like a regular document (one really nice thing that can be done directly here is to annotate in color and then send back by emailing the doc to your group).

The next shot is an open mind map that you can create for any purpose .. a single project, a dashboard, a general collabortive space, etc ... you can map to your hearts content ... I show the browser window open and it now lists the main window on your gdocs directory ... see the top entry is the newly created email doc. You can then open the document and as circled on the screenshot, you hit the hyperlink sign that adds the individual doc directly to the map ... the last shot shows the new link in your map, so you get to it directly .... this opens up a whole world of efficiency in your info retrieval from gmail ... the ability to instantly pull up information buried in email threads and then highlight or annotate and share with others is what information management is all about ... by combining the new additions to gmail utitility with the new power of MindManager 8 you have a WINNER ...

One other thing worth noting ... MindManager connect service and web application allows for working in the cloud ... all you road warriors take note as I also took another step with this exercise and went up to the net to see how this map would translate ... it is just like working on your desktop ... thus you have the means to not skipping a beat as the map itself is synched to the net and your docs and email are there, so computing in the cloud is a virtual reality ... double WINNER ....

Side Project Overload ...

I read an outstanding article on Managing My Time and Avoiding Side Project Overload on one of my everyday reads, WebWorkerDaily ... this read spurred me to thinking about this problem as it seems day to day, there is so much to do and so little time to do it ... one of the biggest problems I have and I think most people who are working on multiple opportunities is to focus on what will be revenue generating ... this is the key to survival in these tough times .. anything to keep focusing on this main window can help ...

With that in mind and after thinking more from this article ... it started to make a lot of sense ... distractions and side projects are good to spur creativity, but the proper amount of time and effort will lead to success and the ability to keep doing what you love ... I created a quick map to highlight this concept ... the numbers on how much time (I used daily and weekly for sake of illustration) are in the diagram ... this is a simple guide and starting point ... but the focus on revenue generating items and how much time to allocate to them is something each of you will have to answer ... there is no rigidity to the system, it is a guide ... a reminder to allocate time to functions that pay the bills ... while still taking care of the longer term and diversions ... balance can be described by this illustration ... use this as a starting point after reading the article and deciding how to frame your efforts ....

Keeping the Flow ...

I answered a call by Chuck Frey of Innovation Tools late last year for comments on what "What is the most important lesson you learned regarding innovation during 2008?"

The following was my answer ...

I think the biggest lesson I have learned goes back to a search for creativity while maximizing productivity. It often seems as if ideas and thoughts do not follow any set pattern and will come up at any time and within any context. Over the years, I have always gone back to moments like that to try and discern what may or may not impede the "flow," the elusive state where thoughts seem to just gel and come together with a singularity, at that point one may feel a touch of genius and relief to know the moment was caught.

Catching the ideas has always been the goal of my work with software and computers to make the flow as unobtrusive as possible. I started with mind mapping systems. I primarily rely on MindManager 8 and XMIND for their complete feature set and export capability. The ability to quickly record ideas and reorganize them at will is the key to flow as sometimes in midstream a thought takes a different path and ideas must be rearranged. These two programs allow you to mobilize a thought or task at the drop of a hat. Speed and ease of use are key to capturing the moment and a naturally intuitive interface is the element that allows that. I like to change formats and colors once the initial inputs are drawn as visual cues, they have an ability to create more pathways that are not necessarily evident when one first puts ideas to "paper."

I also use a Tablet PC and a new program by Microsoft Research called Inkseine. It was created as a strictly pen-based application that would tie web research and other information into your drawings. I have done full presentations on the fly with this wonderfully agile tool. Included in InkSeine is a "camera" to allow you to embed anything and everything to key you into visual cues.

Once I get things the way I want, the ability to export to Word then comes into play as I formalize the paper/presentation by normal means. Being able to conceptualize from a visual standpoint allows you to flesh out the details. This is the distillation of years of tinkering and this year I have put it to use multiple times with great success.

-- Alan Yoshioka, ENVIRtrade, Inc.