Productivity Tools

The second session of the Cool Tools track focused on productivity tools. Two librarians from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Lynda Kellam and Beth Filar Williams, presented a list of tools categorized by need:

• Tasks
• Notetaking
• Scheduling

Productivity

The goal of the session was to pull together the collective thoughts of the audience – it was an interactive session. The most interesting part of the presentation might have been the use of Poll Anywhere for real-time audience feedback and interactive voting. The audience members decided which tools they wanted to talk about and then were encouraged to voice their opinions. A wiki is still available that lists the tools: http://productivitytoolscil2010.pbworks.com/. Here are just some of the handy tools mentioned.

Things (http://culturedcode.com/things/) – is based on the book Getting Things Done. Tasks are based on context. But it’s only to be installed on Macs or iPhones; no web-based version.

Todoist (http://todoist.com) — An easy to use cloud-based tool for task lists

jiffle (www.jifflenow.com) – an easy-to-use web-based scheduling service that enables secure sharing of calendar –with available times sent to contacts who simply click to indicate they are available

Evernote  (www.evernote.com) — Use Evernote to clip and save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free. Buy the premium version if you need to add Word files or other file types, search PDFs, need more storage, or don’t want to see ads.