Flow Your Work

Evernote Smart Notebook

michiheider — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:32:31 +0100

In August 2012 Evernote and Moleskine announced their collaboration in a new product, that combines the advantages of both companies.

Together, we created a gorgeous notebook that includes a number of special features that allow you to take your ideas off the written page and place them right into Evernote, where they’ll be searchable, organized and available forever.

(via Evernote Blog)

As Moleskine is known for high quality paper products and elegant designs, the company is the perfect partner to produce a notebook like that. Through Evernote’s iOS App featuring the “Page Camera” you are able to scan the content of each page to archive, organize and search your notes by using the web service intelligently.

In the back pocket of the notebook you will find a stack of stickers showing different icons. By putting a sticker on an entry Evernote automatically integrates it into the appropriate notebook you set before. Consequently, there are possibilities to divide private and corporate notes, sign different types of content and mark ToDo lists as done, for instance.

The notebooks are available in two sizes: Pocket ($24.95) and large ($29.95). Both come with a code for three months free of Evernote’s Premium service.

Things 2

michiheider — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:07:00 +0200

A major update to your productivity

(via culturedcode.com)

After we’ve waited so many months, the second major release of the task managing software Things finally came out. Things 2 is a even cleaner and smarter version of my favorite ToDo app, which most importantly solves the problem of cloud synchronization. Since the private beta in May 2011 and the public beta in February 2012 Things Cloud managed to sync tasks for more than 30,000 users already. But on top of that Things 2 is full of other amazing new features, that make task management smarter than ever.

Things Cloud

Compared to the local network Bonjour Sync that Things had before version 2.0, Things Cloud is up to 4x faster for all the changes you make. According to Cultured Code’s press release Things Cloud operates securely and based on a SSL connection between your clients and Things’ servers.

Things Cloud is free and works fast and reliable. You only have to switch it on in Things’ preferences, create an account and it works all across your devices.

But frankly I hoped to see such a seamless experience like Cheddar provides, but with Things Cloud you definitely see pull requests with timestamps and sometimes you have to request the sync manually. I think the concept behind the sync is a push when you re-open the app. This implementation of cloud sync is definitely not the best but its great to work with.

Easy user interface

For those of you who didn’t know Things before this review it’s important to know that there are only a few apps that provide such a clean and intuitive to use UI. Everything is sorted by projects, tags and dates like today, next, scheduled and someday.

Let’s go on with the new features…

…Quick entry with Autofill

With a system wide shortcut the quick entry feature of Things is a great way to quickly add new ToDo’s to your inbox. And with Autofill it’s even more powerful to add meta information or longer text from e-mails, for example.

Daily Review

Daily Review is a great new feature of Things 2 which helps you to manage the tasks you want to do today. It’s often a problem to plan for many days or weeks but with Daily Review you have the ability to chose what you want to do today and what to move to another date in relation to your daily planning and the time you have. And it’s also great to not forget about tasks you didn’t have time to do the other day.

Apps

Mac OS X ($49.95) | iPhone ($9.99) | iPad ($19.99)

Cultured Code did an amazing job with designing three gorgeous apps for Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad. All three apps have the same concept and utilize the different advantages of each platform. And as we have Things Cloud now, everything is in sync.

Summary

All in all I think that Things 2 is a great update of the most beautiful task magaging software for the Apple universe. Although Things Cloud isn’t that great as syncing services of other apps it is great to don’t have to worry about if everything is up to date. Together with Daily Review, Things 2 convinced me to switch back to it from Wunderkit I used full time before.

Scratch for iPhone

michiheider — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:35:00 +0200

“Your Quick-Input Notepad”

(via GoKarbon.com)

Today I’d like to present you a well designed text editor for iOS with a huge diversity of writing features.

Scratch for iPhone is amazing to quickly take notes because it’s always ready for new input. After you opened the app there is a simple and clean text field and your keyboard. On top of this standard iOS keyboard there is a toolbar with a lot of useful special characters and symbols. Additionally to that there are buttons for your writing history, the export settings, the text formatting and markdown text editing. But you can simply customize this toolbar, too.

And to export is easy via:

E-Mail
Message
Tweet
or a “.txt” file for your Dropbox

This piece of software costs just $2.99 in the App Store! Check it out!

And if you like this app you should read my review of iA Writer, a clean text editor with iCloud integration, too.

Launch Center Pro

michiheider — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:54:00 +0200

Today I would like to show you an app to improve your operating speeds on iOS devices!

You have a lot of apps on your phone and they are categorized in folders or pages so you can’t open them quickly. That’s a speed problem for your daily use! Today’s app allows you to open these apps with one touch, but it goes one step further.

Lauch Center Pro by App Cubby isn’t only a fast way to open apps but to run different kinds of actions within the apps.

(Launch Center Pro | Video)

The revolution in Launch Center Pro is the possibility to trigger different actions!

Here are some examples:

Call your Mom
Message a friend
Email your boss
Search Twitter using Tweetbot
Create a new item in Omnifocus
Search Yelp for nearby coffee shops
Fire up Instagram’s camera, instantly
Jump right to your favorite website
Use the iPhone as a flashlight
And so much more…

LCP costs $2.99 and it’s really worth the money. Check it out in the App-Store!

Cheddar - Tasks made simple

michiheider — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:54:31 +0200

(img-source)

Today I would like to focus on an iOS app and web service called “Cheddar”!

(Cheddar Promo | Video)

Cheddar is a simple and elegant app/service to manage all your ToDos, shopping lists, ideas etc. Like all ToDo apps I tested on FlowYourWork.com Cheddar is easy and fun to use, but it has two killer features that provide an amazing experience to work with it!

The fist one is….sync!

This is really the best syncing experience I’ve ever had! There are no syncing periods, no local “wifi-sync” and no painful connecting procedure. It just works. It instantly pushes the latest infos all across your devices. In my opinion this app has a much better implementation of syncing than Wunderkit or Evernote!

The second one is….markdown!

This is gorgeous for all of you, who are creative and want to collect their ideas together with links, tags, italic and bold test style, strikethrough writing, code and emojies! Here is the complete list of Cheddar’s possibilities!

So, where can you find it?

You can download the iOS app, sign up for the web interface and get more information, here!

Cheddar is free for everyone! But with the pro account (1.99$/month) it’s possible to create unlimited lists. Check it out!

Team Collaboration - Rule.fm

michiheider — Wed, 30 May 2012 11:59:37 +0200

Rule is all about Project Management and Cloud Collaboration.

Save Time. Get Organized. Stay on Task. Rule Work with One Application and Keep Your Team on the Same Page from the Smallest Task to the Biggest Deal.

Every work item has its own space for sharing, connecting & collaborating.

(direct-video-link)

When we think of today’s possibilities to work on the internet, it’s necessary collaborate with many people all around the globe. It’s very important to have one unified place where all the good and bad stuff of your work comes together, where you can share files, communicate with each other and organize your collaborative work.

(img-source)

One of my very first articles centered around a social project planning platform called “Wunderkit” and today we’re talking about Rule! A really big advantage of Rule is its diversity of powerful features, such like…

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
User and WorkGroup Management
Document Management
Project Management
Productivity Stream
Private Messaging
Permissions
Drop Email
Calendar
Security
Support
Wikis

All in all, Rule.fm is an amazingly interesting service pointing to the innovative direction of collaborative work in the near future.

Rule costs about $49-199 per month and is available on www.rule.fm!

The best music for your work

michiheider — Mon, 28 May 2012 12:53:00 +0200

A lot of studies confirm that for the vast majority of people working with music is very distracting. But there is another group of workers who are very productive listening to relaxing and quiet music…

Often it’s very useful for developers working in an open-plan office who really have to concentrate on their programming. They use high-class “over-the-ear headphones” with the latest noise-cancelling technology to isolate themselves for the best working conditions as possible.

Today I would like to present you a mixtape with gorgeous music to work with. I personally listen to it while working for school etc.

It’s a tape from “Das Kraftfuttermischwerk” called “Kleines Ganzes” and it was the official music of the re:publica’12…

…check it out and download it for free (because of its cc-license)!

"Do it!" t3n #28 - DE

michiheider — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:36:00 +0200

This post is for all the german self-employed entrepreneurs
who want to found a startup and start innovating…

The new t3n-magazine perfectly describes the pros and cons
of self-employment and provides useful tips for financing,
tools and workflows.

Check it out, here! (9,80€)

how can I view my classes in ical, I know how to view my other calendars in Istudiez but not the other way around. I want to send my data from istudiez to ical, is that possible?

Mon, 28 May 2012 11:04:26 +0200

Hello! That’s an interesting problem and I found this solution to it. Hopefully it’s the right one for you…

Time Tracking Roundup

michiheider — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:40:00 +0200

Time Tracking is very important for self-employed entrepreneurs, designers and programmers to manage the effort and invoicing of your work. With this article I would like to focus on standalone time tracking apps without a billing-service like Harvest or Freshbooks behind them.

Tictoc

(img-source)

Tictoc is a clean and elegant task timer with no paying system included. It has less features than its competitors (only XML and CSV export) but it has a huge advantage:

This app is gorgeously designed and intuitively to use!

It’s perfect for you if you just want to keep track of your work times without huge sharing options, syncing and invoicing etc.

(Video-Link)

It costs $4.99! Check it out!

Minco

(img-source)

Minco is the time tracker I personally use the most! It isn’t that beautiful and intuitive as Tictoc, but it’s definitely full of amazing features…

It supports:

Invoicing
iCal Integration (+visualisation)
CSV, iChat, Adium, Task Note and URL export
Tags
Customizable output information
Automated import in SQL databases
and much more…

I think it’s the best app for you when you have a startup and want to track all your work times and coordinate them with your colleagues.

It costs $15! Check it out!

Office Time

(img-source)

Office Time is one few apps out there that sync perfectly between their Mac, iOS and PC versions…

It’s the perfect app for not depending on a third party service like Harvest or Freshbooks! It has all the fantastic features of the other apps and much more. But with this huge amount of features the Mac and Windows versions are ugly as hell but the iOS versions are pretty elegant.

So, check it out here!

WorkTimes

(img-source)

But what about all the employed people out there. There is a perfect app for you, too!

With the wonderful designed app WorkTimes you can easily track your work times, breaks and holidays and tag them for a better workflow…

(img-source)

It only costs $3! So, check it out!

iStudiez pro

michiheider — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:42:00 +0200

When you are an ambitious student, you will need some help to plan and manage your schedule, assignments, tests, holidays and grades!

Thats exactly what iStudiez pro does for you:

Because I’m a student myself finishing school with the german “Abitur”, I use iStudiez pro every day. It’s perfect for me to organize my day to day tasks and to keep track of all the due dates and grades.

(img-source)

Powerful features like the integrated cloud sync (iPad - Mac - iPhone), it’s iCal integration and notification system transform it into an amazing tool to work with.

Summary:

To improve your workflow, it’s important to organize and plan your tasks to quickly get an overview of all the work that has to be done. iStudiez pro is the unified place for all this data. I really recommend you trying the apps to see how it works for you!

Learn more about the features of iStudiez pro, check out the detailed review of CulfOfMac .com or buy it here. (MAS-Link | App-Store-Link)

Beautiful event planning - Invy

michiheider — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:20:54 +0200

How do you plan your business conferences, trips, lunches with your friends or other important appointments? And how do you coordinate them?

Let me guess: You use Facebook for your friends, MS Outlook for your meetings at work and Google Calendar for your relatives and friends don’t having a Facebook-Account!?

But there is a way to unify all these services for a better workflow: Invy for iPhone.

With Invy’s elegant and intuitive UI you can quickly create a new event and invite your friends. After they responded (via iPhone or any web browser) you can discuss the details with the integrated chat feature, suggest a date, pick it and save it to iCal. Done.

This is a huge improvement of your workflow. Trust me! :)

Check it out for $1.99!

Or win a promo code!

Just follow @FlowYourWorkon Twitter and send this Tweet.

I want to win a free promo code of @InvyApp on @FlowYourWork.com! Check it out, too. http://cl.ly/GAet

[Update 07.05.2012 - 16:20 MESZ]

I tested this app again watching a really strange behavior of the date picking feature! When a friend of mine or I chose a time (4pm) it automatically took 6pm or even 9pm.

I don’t know why the app behaves like that!? Maybe it’s because one of us already has a calendar event at 4pm or something is strange with the time zones.

Please let me know why the app freaks out like that! And if it’s a bug: PLEASE fix it quickly because I still love the app to plan my events…

[Update: 08.05.2012 16:18 MESZ]

Version 1.0.3 fixed it! That was fast!

Back to Work - Podcast

michiheider — Sat, 05 May 2012 22:10:00 +0200

With this post I would like to present you one of
my favorite Podcasts out there.
It’s from the amazing 5by5 Internet broadcasting
network. The show “Back to Work” is hosted by
Dan Benjamin and Merlin Man.

These two amazing and funny guys talk about…

productivity
communication
work
barriers
constraints
tools
and more.

Check it out and enjoy it at 5by5.tv/b2w!

(img-source)

The right food for your work

michiheider — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:07:00 +0200

In general it’s better to stop working for three main meals every day. Leave the room you’re working in and cook something or go to a restaurant with your colleagues and eat something delicious and healthy! This is absolutely great to take a break, think about your recent ideas and relax a little bit.

But: Do not watch a movie, read a newspaper or even play a game on your smartphone while you are eating! It’s important for you to concentrate on your meal for a healthy and strong body and brain.

Additionally to these three meals it’s worth mentioning some possible snacks during the work hours.

Why don’t try…

a smoothie made of bananas and
fresh strawberries?
a collection of nuts and raisins for
better concentration?
an apple?
some natural yoghourt?
a muesli?
and if something important failed:
Some chocolate to become happy again!

During and between the three main meals and the “snacks”, it’s necessary for you and your concentration to drink enough water, coffee, Club Mate or any fruit juices. Try to reach more then 3 liters of fluid every day.

I hope these tips help you to imoroove your current situation!

Please let me know if you have some favourite snacks at work?

Scanner Pro

michiheider — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:23:00 +0200

A huge advantage for your workflow is paper free work. You can easily search, archive and share your documents!

With Scanner Pro for iOS there is always a portable scanner in your pocket to scan any document, article, receipt, whiteboard or paper note you need.

(img-source)

Scanner Pro makes it simple to:

Scan receipts to keep track of travel expenses
Convert paper notes and sketches into digital copies
Sign and scan contracts to email them back
Save interesting articles and book pages for further reading

Scanning is very easy. Just take a picture of a document, add multiple pages and adjust the corners of the document. Then wait about three seconds. Done.

After you scanned some documents you can manage them with the integrated file system and share PDFs via e-mail, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs, WebDAV and your local Wi-Fi.

Check it out for $6.99! (App-Store-Link)

Save Things for Later - pocket

michiheider — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:50:00 +0200

Last Saturday I posted an article about my personal “News-Flow” in which the Web-/iOS-App “Instapaper” by Marco Arment played a large role in saving articles to read them later.

But Instapaper isn’t the only service providing a feature like that. There are two other big services out there: Readability and Pocket (Formerly Read It Later).

Today I want to give you a little overview about the “Read It Later” relaunch called “Pocket”.

(Introducing Pocket)

Pocket is the hub of all the wonderful media to enjoy it later!

Advantages:

Support for websites, articles, videos and photos
Great apps on every platform
Amazing web-app
Ability to save form over 300+ apps, via mail and from your browser
Tags, Search, Favorites and Archive

Inconveniences:

No folders
Worse reading features (no sepia mode, worse fonts and worse website rendering)
Little down times

Pocket is free for everyone! Check it out here!

My Personal News-Flow

michiheider — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 12:03:00 +0200

With this article I would like to describe my personal way to inform myself of what’s happening around the world. I think I found a very good solution to this problem and it’s probably worth explaining it to you!

Disclaimer: There is no perfect way for everybody to consume the NEWS™ and I think you have to find your personal balance between “analog” (old) and “digital” (new) media.

My “digital” news-flow:

Between monday till friday I don’t really have time to read long articles in newspapers or John Siracusa’s OS X reviews. (If you know what I mean! :D)

So, when there isn’t enough time, I save all the interesting “stuff” to a great app and web service called “Instapaper” to read these articles later. That’s the perfect way for me, because I really don’t want to miss anything important or entertaining and I use so many apps that support its “read later” feature.

(Instapaper and Reeder)

But, where does this “stuff” come from?

Well, my biggest and most valuable source of realtime news is Twitter. And since Tweetbot has Instapaper integration, it fits perfectly into my workflow.
My second source are the RSS-Feeds of news sites like SPON, NYTimes and CitizenReporter.org such as great blogs like Dairing Fireball, The Loop or Beautiful Pixels. Therefor I use Reeder. Again. Instapaper integration.
But I just surf the web using my browser’s bookmarks, too. Discovering my Facebook Timeline and a diversity of news sites every day I read and save interesting articles again to Instapaper by using its bookmarklet.
And because there are such amazing podcasts available like “Back to Work”, “Build and Analyze” or “Newz of the World”, it’s really great to listen and learn something about topics you are interested in. Therefor I use the app Instacast.
At last, when I don’t have a specific topic to look for and just want to consume the news, some apps out there in the App Store are great. Personally I use the german “Tagesschau” app and I’m a huge fan of Flipboard.

(Flipboard and Instacast)

So, when there is free time, I have a lot to read, watch and listen to. And if I want to support these sites, I use Flattr.

My “analog” news-flow:

I think my rates of “digital” and “analog” media are 75% to 25%. At the weekend there is time to read the newspaper, listen to the radio program and watch TV. One of my favorite television shows is “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. But a huge part of the articles I read are recommendations from friends and my family because they know best what I’m interested in.

Now, how is your personal news-flow?

Evernote

michiheider — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:08:00 +0200

There are many services out there, that help you to keep your notes in order, sync and perfect for your personal workflow.

I tested plenty of them and I think the best one is Evernote.

Why Evernote?

At first, the apps: Evernote is available on almost every platform you may use. You can go to every computer, every smartphone or even every browser you want to use it with and it just works, looks and feels the same as you are used to.

Second, the services: I never had any problems with Evernote’s syncing. It always just worked. But perfect syncing and plain text notes are not enough! Evernote provides amazing extra features like:

Very rich text notes
Photos
Audio recordings
PDFs
Maps
Web content
Tags
Search
and much more…

For me Evernote is a great service, because of its diversity of features, that others don’t have.

Third, pricing:

Evernote is free!

But if you wish to have bigger uploads, no ads and extra features like offline notebooks, group working, a note history, faster image recognition, PIN lock or PDF search, there is a premium version for $5 per month or $45 per year.

MindNode - Easy mind mapping

michiheider — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:55:00 +0200

A very powerful tool for a great workflow is mind mapping. Not only on paper, but with your computer, tablet and smartphone. Welcome to the 21st century!

The guys over at IdeasOnCanvas GmbH did an amazing job with their MindNode apps to provide a gorgeous mind mapping experience.

(img-source)

With its clean and elegant UI, MindNode offers nice working conditions, so you can use it intuitively and fast. But there are plenty of powerful features as well. Such like:

Document Sharing
Multiple Mindmaps
Auto Arrange
Cross Connections
File Links
File Versions
Syncing
and so much more

A friend of mine and I tested these apps for some weeks and worked intensively with them. And we were both very impressed.

MindNode is available for iOS ($9.99/App-Store-Link) and Mac OS X ($19.99/Mac-App-Store-Link)

Social Media Management - ifttt

michiheider — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:46:00 +0200

“If this then that” (ifttt) is a beta project created in San Francisco that allows you to connect and automate nearly all social media services you can think of.

(Screenshot from ifttt.com)

For example:

Tweet, e-mail or save a new blog post from Wordpress to Instapaper
Add a Instagram photo to my Dropbox
Tweet “good morning” every day at 8 o’clock
When Facebook profile picture changes, update Twitter profile picture, too
Add Google Reader “favs” to Evernote
Send me a SMS when it’s going to rain
and so much more

Check it out here!