What is GTD

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website.

Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Do. This post focuses on the Process Phase of this workflow and describes the many ways that you can process your collected items.

What is the Process Phase in GTD?

In an earlier post (Best Practices for Getting Things Done — Capture and Collect), we discussed using LifeTopix to capture everything that’s floating around in your head. Once these items are in your trusted system, they need to move to the next stage of the workflow, which is Process.

During the Process Phase, you define each item collected as actionable or non-actionable. Non-actionable items are reference items or items that you can delete. Actionable items can be further defined in LifeTopix as described in this post.

Generally, those who follow the GTD process take an hour or two out each day to perform the Process step.

How do you use LifeTopix to Process?

During the Process Phase, you define each item collected as actionable or non-actionable. Keep in mind that LifeTopix is very flexible so you’ll find that you can create objects and categories that are suitable for the way that you work.

The following diagram shows the choices for the Process Phase in LifeTopix.

Non-actionable Items

Non-actionable items include items that you cannot or will not act upon. These might be objects that are not important, not your responsibility, or items for reference — such as background materials in the form of notes, document files, audio, or video. These items might never make their way into LifeTopix in the first place and generally reside in your email or voicemail inboxes. If you find non-actionable items in LifeTopix during a review, you can easily delete these items if they’re no longer needed.

LifeTopix includes features enabling you to organize your important reference materials. For example, you can associate local files; checklists; bookmarks; audio; photos; videos; notes; shopping items; and online files from Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Evernote, Toodledo to projects so you’ll always be able to find reference information associated with your actionable items.

Two-minute Rule

Generally, during the process phase you focus on making decisions, rather than completing actions; however, if an item can be completed in two minutes or less, then you can go ahead and act immediately.

Items To Do Soon or ASAP

During the Process Phase, you decide which tasks to do right away and soon. If you would like to learn more about prioritizing when using LifeTopix, see Best Practices for Getting Things Done — Prioritizing Tasks in LifeTopix.

LifeTopix to-do lists (checklists) are very suitable for small items that you wish to complete soon. If you’ve defined projects with associated tasks in LifeTopix, you can choose to complete the next action that helps you complete the project. You can define to-do lists on the fly directly in the Agenda view or you can define a task list. Task lists can include dates if you wish to view them in your Agenda or on your calendar. In addition, you can choose to use online tasks from Asana, Toodledo, or Google.

Items With Dates and Times

Many objects in LifeTopix can includes dates; however, generally when using the GTD method, calendar items should be used for objects that occur at a fixed place or time, such as meetings, doctor’s appointments, or social events. The LifeTopix calendar is the logical place to place these items. Simply tapping the plus sign allows you to add events you’re attending, events you’re hosting, appointments, reminders, occasions, and device events. With LifeTopix, you can also use your online calendars (such as your device calendar, Outlook, or Google calendar) and manage those items via LifeTopix. LifeTopix becomes the central place for viewing multiple calendars.

Ticklers, Items You Wish to Defer, Items To Do Someday

Items without a clear due date, items with a due date in the future (ticklers), or items that you wish to do someday (such as learn to speak another language) can be placed in the Quick Inbox as a holding area. These items should be reviewed often.

Alternatively, you can create tasks (as task lists) or as a part of a project in the LifeTopix Tasks + Projects topic. These tasks can remain undated and you can review them regularly.

Projects

In LifeTopix, projects can be used for just about anything you dream up. You can create any type of project for work or your home and tag the project with an appropriate user-defined context tag. For example, in LifeTopix you can create Health projects; Event projects (for a wedding, graduation, etc.); Education projects; Work-related projects, and more.

Delegation

For items you wish to delegate, you can email them directly from LifeTopix to the recipient and he or she can open them directly in their LifeTopix app on their device from their email inbox. The ability to share is available for Projects, Trips, Notes, Tasks, Shopping lists, Checklists, Visits, Events, and Appointments. Another option for sharing includes using a shared Dropbox account with team members or family members and using Cloud Sync. And if you wish, you can use Toodledo or Asana for your task management, which allows you to share with team members.

You’ll find in LifeTopix or My.Agenda that there’s several ways to process and review. Hopefully the items that I touched on will get you started to living a more productive, stress-free life.

GTD is a great system for managing your busy home and work life. If you’d like to know more about best practices using LifeTopix for GTD, refer to the follow­ing posts:

Best Practices for Getting Things Done — Prioritizing Tasks in LifeTopix
Best Practices for Getting Things Done with LifeTopix Categories and Contexts
Best Practices for Getting Things Done — Capture and Collect

LightArrow, Inc. co-founder and CEO Adi Mishra talks to *second screen INSIDER about LifeTopix, and shares the vision for the future of their apps and the company’s relative priorities for iOS, Android and Windows 8 platforms for business apps.

Watch the interview below or watch the original at *second screen INSIDER:

Adi Mishra from Angel on Vimeo.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website.

Allen lays out five key phases of the GTD process, which include 1) Capture/Collect, 2) Process, 3) Organize, 4) Review, and 5) Do. This post focuses on the Capture/Collect Phase of this workflow and describes the many ways that you can capture and collect items that are on your mind.

Why Capture Everything?

Allen’s thoughts around capturing everything that’s floating around in your head is of greatest importance because once these items are off your mind, you’re no longer burdened by them. Just like removing clutter from your home to create a relaxed environment, removing clutter from your mind into a trusted system gives you a sense of relief and order.

Capturing these ideas, plans, etc. allow you to carry through on them and move them through the workflow. LifeTopix and the starter app, My.Agenda, are ideal tools for capturing things and helping you to follow through on items that you must do and goals that you want to achieve.

The Capture Process

Our apps include many features that allow you to capture everything that’s in your head. I’ll touch on the following features in this post:

• The Quick Inbox
• The Quick Menu
• The Agenda View
• The LifeTopix Calendar
• The 12 Life Topics
• The Notes + Files Topic
• Your Reminders / Siri

The Quick Inbox

The Quick Inbox was designed with GTD in mind. Its purpose is for quickly capturing everything that’s in your head for processing later. It’s perfect when you’re short on time, or for items that are not on your immediate agenda, or for “ticklers,” which are items that have a definite date in the future such as a wedding you’re attending. Most of us keep our smartphones handy at most times so a personal organization app such as LifeTopix or My.Agenda are the natural choices for recording these items that pop into your head or are demanded of you.

You can easily access the Quick Inbox by tapping the Inbox icon in the left pane then tapping the plus sign in the upper right corner. The Quick Inbox displays as shown below.

You simply type a description of the item, optionally add an Act by date or you can tap Soon or Someday for items without a clear due date. These items are added to the Soon or Someday buckets — depending on how you’ve defined them, and all dated items are added to the Soon bucket.

When you’re ready to process these items, you can easily convert them by tapping on the green arrow and then tapping Convert as shown below.

When using the Quick Inbox, you can convert the items to tasks, notes, appointments, reminders, projects, trips, visits, attending events, hosting events, shopping lists, or gifts as shown below. 

Once these items have been converted, you can add details that support the next stages of the workflow — (Organize, Review, and Do). Keep in mind, you should set a time each day to review and process these items that are waiting in your Quick Inbox so they don’t fall through the cracks.

The Quick Menu

The Quick Menu gives you access to many important features for capturing information, such as the Quick Inbox discussed above, Quick Add, and the Quick Log. You’ll find the Quick Menu as indicated in the image below.

Through Quick Add, accessible from the Quick Menu, you can add tasks, shopping items, checklists, notes, appointments, reminders, bookmarks, files, expenses, projects, events you’re hosting or attending, trips and visits, service providers, assets, audio, drawings, occasions, bills, photos, videos, device reminders, and device events.

When using Quick Add, you can move directly to the Processing step and add all the details of the entry immediately, if you wish.

The Agenda View

You can also capture items directly in the Agenda view, which is the view that shows your to-do lists/checklists, and what’s important today, tomorrow, and the next seven days. The Agenda view is a perfect place to add several types of items to the Quick Inbox described earlier, or through Quick Add.

Through the Agenda view, Quick Add allows you to add tasks, shopping lists, notes, appointments, reminders, expenses, projects, events you’re hosting or attending, trips and visits, occasions, bills, device reminders, and device events. When using Quick Add, you can move directly to the Processing step and add all the details of the entry immediately, if you wish.

The LifeTopix Calendar

For items that need to be scheduled at a fixed time such as meetings, doctor’s appointments, or social events, the LifeTopix calendar is the logical place to capture them. Much like the Agenda view, simply tapping the plus sign allows you to add events you’re attending, events you’re hosting, appointments, reminders, occasions, device events, and device reminders as shown below.

The 12 Life Topics

You can capture any type of item through the My Topics view by tapping one of the cards, and you’re given full access to all the details of the entry. You can see an example of the My Topics view below. The 12 life topics include Tasks + Projects, Shopping, Events, Travel + Places, People + Services, Health + Activity, Finances, Home + Assets, Education, Notes + Files, Media, and Bookmarks. To learn more about the 12 life topics, refer to the 12 Life Topics.

The Notes + Files Topic

For those who prefer list-based notes for ubiquitous capture, LifeTopix or My.Agenda provides the flexibility to capture these notes directly from the Notes + Files Topic. And they allow you to capture these notes via voice/audio, text, and through free-hand writing. You can also add checklists/to-do lists from the Notes + Files topic. You can share these notes via social media, email, or text messages.

The Notes + Files topic is also the perfect place to capture reference materials such as class notes, meeting notes, coupons, health docs, manuals, financial items, legal docs, etc. You can attach a file to these notes, take a photo, or use online notes (such as Google Docs or Evernote).

As a side note, if you want to access the Notes + Files Topic quickly, you can add All Notes to the Hot List view for one-tap access.

Using Siri to Add Reminders

If you like to use Siri to capture items you wish to be reminded of, you can simply tell Siri what you want to be reminded of and where. For example, you can say, “Remind me to pick up Timmy from Soccer practice at 7:00 p.m. today.” Siri launches the Reminder app and requests confirmation. With the LifeTopix integration, you can automatically view these reminders in your Agenda view, My Calendar view, and your Events Calendar. You can open the reminder directly from LifeTopix to edit it or mark it as complete. You can also create new entries in the Reminders app from LifeTopix topic

You’ll find in LifeTopix or My.Agenda that there’s several ways to capture everything that’s in your head. Hopefully the items that I touched on will get you started to living a more productive, stress-free life.

GTD is a great system for managing your busy home and work life. If you’d like to know more about best practices using LifeTopix for GTD, refer to the following posts:

Best Practices for Getting Things Done — Prioritizing Tasks in LifeTopix

Best Practices for Getting Things Done with LifeTopix Categories and Contexts

Transcript

Organizing your calendar and schedule is a big challenge when you have a lot going on — and most of us do.

And if you’re a mom who’s organizing the whole family, it’s even more challenging.

Between Zumba, baseball games, meetings, carpools, and clubs, you feel like your drowning and it’s practically impossible to keep it all straight.

This is when LifeTopix and our starter app, My.Agenda, come to the rescue.

LifeTopix is a central hub for your tasks, projects, shopping, events, travel, and more. My.Agenda is a starter, more economical version of LifeTopix that enables you to start small and expand as your organizational needs grow.

As the central hub of your life, LifeTopix works with all your calendars, including Outlook, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, your device Calendar, and others. You just need to configure these items in your device’s Mail, Contacts, and Calendars Settings.

So Why LifeTopix?

You might be wondering why you would use LifeTopix instead of your standard device calendar or a free online calendar.

There’s lots of ways to justify it — with 12 big reasons. The 12 Life Topics, which are intelligently designed topics that manage more than just calendar events.

These topics are connected and in one place, which eliminates the app hopping that you do when you install a flock of apps to do many different, disconnected things.

For example, when your contacts and service providers are linked to your calendar events and other items, you can easily contact them if you’re running late in just a few simple taps. You never have to open your device’s contacts or search for an email address again.

And don’t worry about getting lost with LifeTopix’s location services, you can always view your destination on the map.

LifeTopix keeps the whole family on the same page because it uses cloud services such as Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Google Drive for device-to-device sync. Because of this, LifeTopix or My.Agenda becomes the perfect place to share your kids’ doctors appointments, playdates, sports, and other events with the whole family.

And LifeTopix gives you other options for sharing. You can share items via email, text, or social media with friends or family members.

Before you get started with Cloud Sync, all you need to do is go to www.dropbox.com and set up a free account for the family to share.

Once you’ve set it up, everyone in the family can point LifeTopix to the Dropbox folder using LifeTopix Settings.

Next, Voila, everyone can start using Dropbox sync.

You’ll find another video on our website or youTube channel that describes these steps in detail.

Now everyone can be on the same page about what’s going on from appointments, to checklists, to bill payments and more — we’ve got you covered.

Now that everyone’s sharing the same calendar, you can easily add all types of items to your family’s agenda without a lot of nagging.

And your weekly review is a piece of cake with this handy agenda view.

We know you have a lot going on, keep track of it and keep everyone in the loop while on the go with LifeTopix.

If you want to learn more go to www.lightarrow.com or find LifeTopix or MyAgenda at the Apple App Store in the Productivity section. Thanks for Watching.

More info at the Apple App Store:

LifeTopix

My.Agenda

I consider myself somewhat of an authority on juggling multiple responsibilities. I can completely relate to stay-at-home moms and working moms alike, as I’ve been both — and now I’m the parent of a teenager who will soon be off to college. In my situation, I’ve taken on the majority of the parenting responsibility because my spouse’s career always required a great deal of travel. Consequently, I’ve picked up some wisdom over the years that I hope you will find useful — “things I wish I would have known when I was 20.”

A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place

The author, Charles Augustus Goodrich popularized the phrase, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” The phrase was first published in an article called “Neatness” in 1827. Many years later, this phrase still stays true. Removing clutter and having a home for everything can drastically reduce stress and free your time. Essentially, this means that you should store similar items together and make sure frequently used items are stored in an accessible place.

According to an article from Psychology Today, there are many reasons that clutter causes stress, but the one that stands out the most to me is, “Clutter inhibits creativity and productivity by invading the open spaces that allow most people to think, brain storm, and problem solve.” Another side effect of clutter is it’s difficult to quickly find the things that you need to use. From lost keys to misplaced bills — even your favorite jeans; it’s frustrating, time consuming, and it costs you money in late fees and buying duplicate items. And don’t be afraid to trash or donate the things you don’t use. You won’t miss that stuff. I promise.

There are several inspirational people and websites for learning about organizing and enjoying a clutter free environment. You can find great ideas from the popular de-clutter websites or by viewing organization and DIY examples on Pinterest. You can learn great ways from the community about processes and ideas to find your way to that blissful, organized haven that you deserve.

Make Time For Yourself

A happy mom is productive and stress-free mom. Consider this research taken from the workplace. According to “Happy Workers are More Productive” published in the Guardian, “Happier workers, our research found, were 12% more productive. Unhappier workers were 10% less productive.” The article continues to explain that economists have continuously overlooked that human emotion is a key component of productivity, rather than skill building or education.

The logical conclusion is if you schedule the time for yourself to include the hobbies and activities that make you happy, you will be a better you — less stressed, more productive, creative, and more motivated. If you’ve set your hobbies aside because you’ve been raising children, think about the activities that bring you joy, whether it’s running a marathon, writing a novel, or knitting a scarf — and make some time in your schedule to pursue these activities. And if you’re concerned that you don’t have time due to your parenting responsibilities, exchange childcare with friends or family.

Plan Meals and Make them Simple

Our family has a weekly ritual of grocery shopping together every Sunday. First, we take into account our weekly activities, work-related dinner commitments, and travel schedule and make sure everything is on the family calendar. With our busy lives, it’s difficult to have a meal at home every night so we’ve learned not to be too ambitious and we plan when we’ll have dinner out.

I like to keep a collection of easy-to-make recipes that suit the entire family and recognize our food intolerances and allergies. Making a fancy meal on a weeknight is a difficult endeavor for me because I don’t particularly enjoy cooking. Some moms swear by preparing meals ahead of time during the weekends. If this strategy works for you — go for it. It’s a great time management strategy to group similar tasks together. Personally, I prefer to prepare meals that take 30 minutes or less. I use a variety of meats, vegetables, beans, pasta, and rice and keep it super simple every night.

Apps are a great way to keep your grocery list organized, and you can find a variety of apps that can help you create your grocery lists. I recommend LifeTopix or My.Agenda as your shopping app because they allow you to keep a database of shopping items with their sellers, locations, and prices and you can re-use these lists and items time and time again. This takes the guesswork out of your weekly or bi-monthly shopping trips.

Too Much Stuff Wastes Your Time

If your family is anything like mine, you’re attracted to shiny objects and you’ve spent a lot of time accumulating stuff. And then something happens. You discover the costs of ownership (time and money!), and you find that these objects really don’t make you happy. We learned this lesson and made deliberate choices to reduce our material possessions. Now, we don’t make purchases without careful consideration of the costs and time involved in owning that object.

For example, it might seem like a great idea to purchase that pretty new boat, but before you know it you’re spending more time on the weekend caring for it then you are wakeboarding or swimming at the lake. Believe me — I’ve been there! Simplify. I can’t stress this lesson learned enough.

Delegate and Outsource

Delegate and outsource as much as you can. The most difficult part of delegating is letting go — especially when it comes to asking children to complete to-dos. Children of appropriate age are very capable of performing chores such as emptying the dishwasher, folding laundry, cleaning their rooms, dusting, simple cooking, and other chores. They might not perform the chores up to your satisfaction, but in turn they’re learning important life skills and their ability to perform the chores will improve over time. And, of course, sharing responsibilities with your spouse and completing projects together is imperative.

If you have the means, hiring help to clean your house or take care of lawn maintenance will free your time so you can focus on enjoying family time, learning new skills, practicing your hobbies, or reaching fitness goals. It basically boils down to how valuable you believe your time is and your budget.

Schedule Appointments and Tasks on Your Calendar

When managing your time, you can learn a lot from the GTD (Getting Things Done®) method, which is a popular work-life management system from David Allen. According to the GTD method, actual appointments at their assigned time and tasks that have to be done on a specific day should be listed on your calendar. I can’t stress this enough.

Here’s an example. Like me, I’m sure you have many responsibilities for childcare that can be as simple as picking up a notebook for school to a repeating music lesson schedule. Everything that I need to remember, which must occur at or by a designated time, goes on my calendar or these items will simply fall through the cracks. And as your children mature and have their own smartphones, they can schedule tasks, appointments, and reminders on a family calendar via the tool that they use. I’m finding this process gets my son into the habit of scheduling everything on his calendar, which is helping him to develop good time management skills and habits. I recommend that you try using one of our apps, LifeTopix or My.Agenda, for recording appointments or tasks. They’re amazing for managing your family calendar.

Make Actionable and Realistic To-Do Lists

Did you know that there’s a specific psychology behind why to-do lists and task lists work? Surprisingly, our unconscious minds are wired to continuously nag us about items that we’ve left undone and goals we haven’t reached. This is referred to as the Zeigarnik Effect. Research indicates that once you’ve made an actionable and realistic plan, these nagging thoughts will soon come to an end.

To-do lists are quite useful tools for getting things done, but they can be counterproductive if done incorrectly. Consequently, to make them effective, to-dos in a list should be reserved for small, actionable items that you’re definitely planning to complete. An example of an actionable to-do is “schedule a personal training session,” rather than, “get in shape.” Tasks should be reserved for larger items that cannot be completed within a few minutes. If the deadline is unsure, place these tasks in a Soon or Someday holding area.

Don’t Over-schedule Activities

Parents understandably want to give their children all of the opportunities that life has to offer by providing activities such as sports, dance, education, music, etc.; however, finding a good balance is a challenge. When you find yourself driving from activity to activity and eating all your meals in the car; it’s time to re-evaluate the pros and cons of the activities. Make sure you’ve allowed some free time so your kids can just be kids.

Every child is different. Many are very motivated and love every minute of their extracurricular activities, while other children loathe going from activity to activity and long for free time. Pay attention to your children and their reactions and don’t be afraid to back off if the activities are affecting their ability to experience life in an unstructured way. Keep in mind that studies show that free play is very important for the development of social skills and emotional health.

Scheduling these activities on your calendar helps you to visually examine and evaluate how much time is involved. If you’re child is taking music class, make sure to schedule practice time on the calendar so you can see the entire scope of the commitment. I’m reminded of the quote by St. Francis de Sales, “It is far better to do a few things well than to undertake many good works and leave them half done.”

We’d love to hear how YOU stay productive and if you’ve learned any tips along the way that we can share with our readers. And, if you’re an organization or DIY expert, please feel free to share your website or Pinterest boards.

Happy Mother’s Day!

This is the second in a series of Quick Start videos to show you how to work with the out-of-the-box features of My.Agenda. This video explains how to work with Location Services and Near Me.

You can find My.Agenda at the App Store.

Transcript

For those of you who are new to My.Agenda, it’s a complete organizer and planner app with appointments, todos, reminders, and tasks.

It’s the starter edition of our complete organizer app, LifeTopix, for anyone who wants to start simple, but finds that the crowd of overly simplistic, one-trick pony apps just don’t do enough.

What’s super about My.Agenda is your to-dos, checklists, appointments, reminders, and more are all connected and in one place, which eliminates the app hopping that you do when you install a flock of apps to do many different, disconnected things.

Today, I’m going to quickly show you how to work with the Near Me feature in My.Agenda.

Keep in mind that the Near Me feature requires that you enable Location Services on your device. On the iPhone, you can find the Location Services in the Privacy Settings. Make sure that My.Agenda is set to ON. The first time you try to set the location for an object in My.Agenda, you will be asked if you want to allow My.Agenda to be able to use your current location — you must grant this request in order to have access to the Near Me feature.

What’s great about My.Agenda is it allows you to manage your life in one place. Instantly, when you go to the Agenda view, you can see your to-do lists, what’s important today, tomorrow, and the next seven days.

The Near Me feature gives you one-tap access to a view of the My.Agenda items that are in the vicinity of your current location. This allows you to better plan your schedule based on the location of your tasks, appointments, and other items on your agenda.

Out of the box, tasks and appointments are supported in the Near Me view. If you’ve purchased My.Agenda topics or packs, this feature is extended to shopping items, events, notes, audio, photos, and videos.

In order for an item to be included in the Near Me view, you must have previously set the location for that item. Keep in mind you can change the number of miles or kilometers for the vicinity.

So lets talk about how you can set a location for an item in My.Agenda. If you go to your Calendar, find the item that you wish to find, or Add. In this case, it’ll be the Scuba Diving appointment. So if you tap it, you’ll find Location Not Set. Tap it and you can set a location to your current location or you can specify and show on map. I’m going to type Lake Travis as the location and it’ll find it. I can save and then I’ll return to the Near Me view. And you’ll see that Scuba Diving has been added to Near Me. I can tap here and find the details.

If you want to learn more about Near Me and My.Agenda go to www.lightarrow.com or find My.Agenda at the Apple App Store in the Productivity section. Thanks for Watching.

This is the first in a series of Quick Start videos to show you how to work with the out-of-the-box features of My.Agenda. This video explains how to manage your to-do lists and checklists.

You can find My.Agenda at the App Store.

Transcript

For those of you who are new to My.Agenda, it’s a complete organizer and planner app with appointments, todos, reminders, and tasks.

It’s the starter edition of our complete organizer app, LifeTopix, for those of you who want to start simple, but find that the crowd of overly simplistic, one-trick pony apps just don’t do enough.

What’s super about My.Agenda is your to-dos, checklists, appointments, reminders, and more are all connected and in one place, which eliminates the app hopping that you do when you install a flock of apps to do many different, disconnected things.

Today, I’m going to quickly show you how to work with checklists and to do lists in My Agenda.

What’s great about My.Agenda is it allows you to manage your life in one place. Instantly, when you go to the Agenda view, you can see your to-do lists, what’s important today, tomorrow, and the next seven days.

The Agenda View is also where you manage your checklists and to-do lists. These lists can be anything from things you need to do — to lists of movies that you want to see. Essentially, they work for any type of list.

To create a new checklist, tap add, select New Checklist. Type a title, such as movies to see. Optionally type a description, and then tap here to add checklist items. Tap Save, and your done.

Now let’s work with a checklist. I’ve already created a checklist called Secret Things to Do. So let’s tap on it. And there’s lots of things that you can do with checklists. You can add items; you can reorder to prioritize; you can re-use them by clearing out any checked items. You can move and copy items to different checklists; and you can swipe to delete.

Lets start with Add. Tap Add, type your item, and save it. Now lets reorder. Tap reorder. Move items up or down. Tap Done. Now let’s clear some items. Tap Clear, and uncheck all checklist items. Now let’s move an item. I can move it to Things To Do Everyday.

There’s also lots of other things that you can do with checklists. For example you can add them to the Hot List. This will allow you to access them easily later. You can remove them from viewing in the Agenda. You can copy an entire checklist. You can associate a checklist with another item in My.Agenda. You can purchase the Sync + Share Pack. This will enable sharing, syncing and exporting and you can share these checklists through Facebook, Twitter, Email, and SMS. And you can also delete an entire checklist.

You can also manage these items by tapping here. You can view the details. You can add to the Hot List, Associate, and Remove from Agenda.

You might be wondering how you can manage the checklists that you copied earlier. Let me show you how. All you need to do is tap Add; Select Choose a Checklist; and in this view you can manage that checklists. If you want to add it to the Agenda, just tap it, and you can see that it’s added.

If you want to learn more about checklists and My.Agenda go to www.lightarrow.com or find My.Agenda at the Apple App Store in the Productivity section. Thanks for listening.

Today is an exciting day for us. Today we have expanded our app portfolio with My.Agenda — for users who desire an easy-to-use app for managing their busy lives, but want more than just a simple to-do list app. My.Agenda, a complete organizer and planner, lets users start small and add new productivity topics as their personal organization needs evolve.

Since 2010, LightAr­row has been providing users with one of the most comprehensive apps for managing all aspects of their lives and businesses. My.Agenda targets a new segment of users who want to start small without sacrificing power. If you already have LifeTopix, you do not need My.Agenda, since it is like a “starter edition” of LifeTopix.

If you are an avid user of LifeTopix, you have most likely been in active conversations with us regarding improvements that are coming soon and down the road. In our next update of LifeTopix in May, there are several significant improvements, specifically in the areas of Shopping, Notes, People, and also in the My Calendar views. There are many improvements in other areas as well, and we will continue to enhance LifeTopix frequently with updates over the next months and years.

We have been adding exceptional talent to our development team. We are planning to offer several new apps for personal organization and business, and expand our support of platforms to include Windows 8, Android, and also full app support on the Mac. We will also continue to improve our integrations with existing and new online services popular with our users.

Team LightArrow works tirelessly to support our users and improve our apps. We have been fortunate to have users we love — you inspire us every step of the way. We are very grateful. We do recognize that in several areas we have a long way to go. We are in it for the long haul. We love what we do, and we will continue execute fiercely on our great vision. We believe in it passionately.

Team LightArrow thanks you!

Best regards,

Adi

CEO, LightArrow Inc.

Austin, Texas

Each year, Earth Day is celebrated to educate Americans about ecology and what they can do to reduce their environmental impact. Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day in 1970 and it’s still celebrated today to honor our planet. In this post, we’d like to do our part to educate you about a few simple things that you can do today that will protect and honor planet earth without drastically changing your lifestyle.

1. Set Auto Shutdown on Your Laptops

According to Casey Roe, Sustainability Outreach Coordinator, Duke Sustainability Office [source], it takes 60 to 300 trees to absorb the annual impact of a computer that’s left on 24 hours a day, and only 60 percent of US adults turn their computer off during the night. A simple change that you can make today is shutting down your laptops and devices at night.

To make it super simple, in many cases you can set up your computers to shut down or use other energy-saving options (such as sleep or hibernate) automatically. Macs have options that enable you to automatically shut them down during times that you’re not using them.

You can use the Energy Saver preferences in the System Preferences application. Just click the Schedule button, and you can set up the schedule that works for you.

2. Eliminate Junk Mail

According to 41Pounds.org, “more than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail. 42% of timber harvested nationwide becomes pulpwood for paper.” Furthermore, they state, “The world’s temperate forests absorb 2 billion tons of carbon annually. Creating and shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 9 million cars.”

So what can you do about it? There are services that allow you to stop the influx of junk mail that you receive at your home. And if you’re a marketer, consider more green (digital) options. I recently started using Catalog Choice. Catalog Choice unlists you from marketing lists for catalogs and allows you to search for and choose the catalogs that you no longer wish to receive. What’s neat about the site is you can also view the environmental benefits of your contribution and the contribution of others as a whole.

3. Buy Used or Borrow Things That You Only Use Once in a While

Many of us rush out to buy something new any time we need it. In fact, according to the The Daily Green, “studies have shown that the average power tool is used for only about half an hour it its lifetime.” If statistics are correct, you probably have some lonely and dusty power tools in your garage. Instead of rushing out to the nearest home improvement store, consider purchasing used items and borrowing tools and other items. Freecycle.org is a great way to find free stuff and it’s completely non-profit. It’s a grassroots community that promotes reuse and keeping all of that unwanted stuff out of our landfills. There are local groups and the membership is free.

Nowadays, there are many choices for borrowing items such as tools, and when you no longer need an item you can consider donating it. In the United States, a “Tool Library” movement has begun and continues to gain momentum, which allows you to borrow several type of home and garden tools. Just perform a local Google Search and you’ll find many options for lending and borrowing.

4. Use Cloud Services

Using Cloud Services is a popular trend, but it also can help you to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. According to Go Green, “large companies adopting the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent. The better news is, small businesses even save more energy than the larger counterparts – up to 90 percent.”

We often talk about cloud services and how you can use them to store your documents, photos, and other media to help you achieve your paperless goals (as opposed to printing these items and placing them in file folders). We also commonly talk about how our app, LifeTopix, allows you to access these documents in context with all the things you’re doing and planning in your life. Examples of cloud services that are popular and can be used for free include Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, Evernote, and Google Drive.

You can refer to their websites to sign up and learn more about these services.

5. Reduce Travel

Whether you’re traveling across town or traveling across the earth, consider video conferencing as an option to reduce your carbon footprint. An article published by Yale University by Elisabeth Rosenthal [source] states that, “According to various estimates, emissions from aviation currently represent 2 to 3 percent of CO2 emissions and are likely to double or triple by 2050.”

To reduce the number of trips that you take, consider video conferencing options. Lower cost and free options that are available include Skype, Google Hangouts, iChat on Apple Computers, or Adobe Connect Pro among many others. Refer to their websites for more information.

6. Cancel Paper Newspaper Subscriptions

Are you still receiving the daily newspaper? Have you ever wondered about the environment impact of that daily newspaper? According to the Daily Green, “The paper industry is the 4th largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions among United States manufacturing industries, and contributes 9% of the manufacturing sector’s carbon emissions” and “Paper accounts for 25% of landfill waste (and one third of municipal landfill waste).”

Understanding this, I investigated a local newspaper and found that there are several options for online, iPad, and various tablet subscriptions. I also found that the tablet choice was more economical than choosing the paper option with full online access. Consequently, there’s no need to give up the subscription altogether.

7. Use Reminders, Notes, Lists, and Calendar Applications

iOS reminders, calendar apps, shopping/to-do list and note apps, and personal organization apps such as LifeTopix are excellent for helping you incorporate green habits into your life, such as reducing the amount of paper that you use. For example, you can use a variety of apps or use LifeTopix to:

• Set a reminder to carry your reusable shopping bags to the grocery store or farmer’s market.
• Schedule times that local farmers sell at the markets.
• Schedule recycling day.
• Create digital shopping lists and ditch the paper lists.
• Stop using paper notes and create digital to-do lists and notes.
• Set reminders to turn off the lights in your house.

8. Better Plan Your Errands and Carpool

One great way to reduce emissions is to cut back on the amount of time you spend in your car commuting and running errands. According to the EPA, “Leaving your car at home just two days a week can reduce your greenhouse gas emissions by an average of two tons per year.”

Your built-in map app on your iOS device or Google maps can help you plan the most efficient route when running errands. And, if you use an app such as LifeTopix, you can use the handy Near Me feature to view shopping and other items on your map to ensure you’re taking advantage of the best route.

There are several websites and apps that can help you find ways to carpool. Social media is also a great way to arrange rides with friends.

Please comment and let us know your tips for reducing your carbon footprint. We love to hear from our readers. 

We often talk about the popular cloud services that our customers use to manage their documents, photos, and other media. And our users clearly recognize the value of storing and managing their documents in the cloud. Because there are so many excellent cloud services, we’ve chosen to integrate with the best of the best — Google Drive/Docs, Evernote, and Dropbox. We continue to support more and more of these services for device-to-device sync, file access, and backup and restore. And now, we’re very excited to announce our latest addition — Microsoft SkyDrive.

This post is intended to give you a brief introduction of SkyDrive, and how we support it in LifeTopix.

What is SkyDrive?

Similar to Google Drive/Docs and Dropbox, SkyDrive enables users to store their files in the cloud and access them from their mobile devices or personal computers. And like Google Drive/Docs, users can share word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations for the purposes of concurrent collaboration. Editing and collaborating is available through the free online version of Microsoft Office products — including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. SkyDrive also includes the ability to create and share OneNote notebooks and Excel surveys, as well as to modify files created with the desktop version of MS Office.

SkyDrive is a free download with 7GB of free storage for starters and upgrade options are available. The mobile app for file access is free and available for Windows Phone, Android, iPhone, and iPad. To get started with SkyDrive, go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/skydrive/download and follow the directions.

How Does LifeTopix and SkyDrive Work Together?

In the following sections, detailed information is included that introduces you to the SkyDrive integration. The integration allows:

• Managing your SkyDrive files in context with your life
• Syncing LifeTopix data across your multiple devices
• Backing up and restoring LifeTopix data

Managing Your SkyDrive Files in Context With Your Life

SkyDrive makes it easy to store and share Microsoft Office files created from the desktop app or from the web interface. We have chosen not to replicate this functionality, but rather to allow our users to attach, view, download, and upload files from SkyDrive to LifeTopix. For example, you might choose to attach spreadsheets, OneNote notes, and other documents to a “Paperless Office” project within LifeTopix. The following screenshot shows how LifeTopix can be used to attach files to a project.

After adding your SkyDrive folder to LifeTopix via Notes + Files, the files become available for viewing in context of the project.

Syncing LifeTopix Data Across Your Multiple Devices

We’re very excited that we’ve added device-to-device sync via SkyDrive to our list of cloud services that we support. Still, the most reliable choice for device-to-device sync for LifeTopix is through Dropbox. If it’s imperative that your multiple devices are in sync at all times, we suggest that you use Dropbox. However, we’re continuing to refine the implementation of our device-to-device sync through iCloud, Google Drive, and SkyDrive and expect all services to be equally reliable.

If you would like to set up device-to-device sync through SkyDrive, the process is the same as Dropbox and you can watch the following video to learn how to set it up.

Make sure that you choose Microsoft SkyDrive as the service that you wish to use for syncing, and one caveat I suggest is that you set up a folder in SkyDrive for your sync files prior to configuring your device-to-device sync. In the following example, I’ve set up a folder in SkyDrive and named it LifeTopix, then I referred to it in the My Settings view of the LifeTopix app.

Backing Up and Restoring LifeTopix Data

We recommend that you back up your LifeTopix data on a regular basis to ensure your data is not lost in case of a technical issue or if a device problem occurs. With the addition of SkyDrive integration, it is now possible to back up your data to SkyDrive. Simply set up your Online Folder as shown in the screenshot above. LifeTopix uses the same folder you designate for device-to-device sync for backups and restoring your data.

We hope that you’re as excited as us to have more choices for device-to-device sync, file access, and online backup and restore. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. We welcome your feedback.