Wunderkit was launched by 6Wunderkinder early in 2012 to an audience that was madly awaiting its release. After much hype and sneaky previews, Wunderkit arrived. Many people anticipated Wunderkit to be the next version of Wunderlist – building on it’s current features and functionality. However, what arrived was a very different product. Wunderkit was always meant to be a very different tool than Wunderlist. Some things that Wunderlist could do, Wunderkit could not. And of course, many things that Wunderkit could do, Wunderlist could not.

One particular thing that was raised very quickly (and is still raised today) is that while Wunderkit has tasks and it has notes, there’s no way to attach a note to a task. This was very simple to do with Wunderlist with the note icon that appears when hovering on any task. There are, however, two ways to achieve the same result with Wunderkit (attaching more information to a task) that I’m going to explain here.

1. It’s all about the comments

One of the features that Wunderkit introduces is commenting on tasks. It’s a social/collaborative task management tool, so commenting and the ability to add feedback to a task makes perfect sense. Anyone can comment, and leaving comments is a very quick and easy way to add more detail to a task. Personally, I use comments to not only add more detail to a task, but to also act as an audit trail. Any time I make progress on a task, or something happens related to a task that I need to remember, I add it in as a comment. Then, whenever I view the task, I can see the complete history and details of that task below it.

To add a comment to a task, just click the comment icon then type your comment into the Add a comment section. You can add line breaks to your comment by holding Shift and hitting Enter (Shift+Enter) to get a new line so you can enter as much information as you like. Hit Enter and the comment or description will be captured.

2. Just Link It

Sometimes, the details you need to capture about a task are just too much to fit as a comment. That’s when it’s much more beneficial to use Notes and type away, entering as much information as you need. The problem is, and as was quickly pointed out when Wunderkit launched, that there’s no obvious way to link a note and a task together. But it’s actually pretty simple, and here’s how to do it using any web browser (this trick won’t work with the Mac or iPhone apps)

First, make sure you have created both a task and a note. Then go to the note and open it up. Take a look at the URL in the browser – it looks pretty funky, right? A whole bunch of letters and numbers. This is the unique address of that note. Now, click in the address bar and copy the entire URL (CTRL+C).

Go to Tasks and find the task that you want to link the note to. Click on the comment bubble to view just the single task and comments (look – the task has it’s own unique URL too!). Then, just click in the Add a comment area and paste in the URL of the note (CTRL+V) and hit Enter. Since Wunderkit makes links clickable, you can now click the link in the comment to go straight to the note for more information.

What’s really cool about this is that you can do the reverse too. Copy the URL of a task and paste it into either the comments on a Note, or inside the Note itself. And you can take this a step further and have multiple notes attached to one task and multiple tasks attached to one note!

Granted this method isn’t as intuitive as adding a note to a task in Wunderlist for example, and the links can’t be clicked on the iPhone, but it’s simple and very effective. There is much more to Wunderkit than what you first see. Take some time to really click and play around in it. If you’d like to learn more about how to get the most out of Wunderkit every day, register for the newsletter and other excellent stuff and follow Cloud Productivity on Wunderkit.

How to Link Notes and Tasks with Wunderkit is a post from: Cloud Productivity

With so many new productivity applications hitting the market, they each need something unique that sets them apart and fills a gap people didn’t even know existed. So many apps focus so heavily on the GTD mantra that they forget what the experience is like for someone who has no idea what GTD is. If you’re not sure about GTD and want to find out more, I recommend going to the source and checking out Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (aff. link). Some of these apps try to be unique by “looking” different from the next one. But when it comes down to it, a visual difference only will only go so far. To be truly unique, you need to be something that no one else is.

Taskk is that something.

Taskk is currently in beta, but is truly unique and after trying it out I was blown away at just how much potential this little application has. Yes, it lets you create lists and add tasks to each list, but what it does from there is amazing. But first, creating tasks. This is a little different from it is in a lot of other productivity apps. When creating a task, there are only two things to fill in – What is it, and how long will it take. This is interesting when you look at it. When you add a task to your list of things to do, do you think of how long it will take? What if the task might take several days? Taskk makes you think about it and, if it’s going to take too long to do, you can’t create it. You need to break it down further into smaller, more targeted and specific activities.

Once you’ve broken down your tasks into small pieces, the act to get them into Taskk is very simple. Enter task name, and estimated time needed to complete and hit enter. That will add the new task to the end of the list. The next thing to do, once all your tasks are in, is to sort them. Many other productivity apps let you specify if a task has a high, medium or low priority, but this rarely gives you enough insight to decide which one to do first. What if you have five high priority tasks? Taskk is different. Forget about priorities in the traditional sense. All you need to do is rank each task in the list. If it’s super important, drag it to the top of the list. Not so important? Drag it to the bottom. Once all your tasks have been sorted the next part gives you the direction you need to get them done.

The Planner is the incredible part of Taskk. First, set a number of hours each day that you can commit to working on your tasks. You can specify any reasonable amount of time per day up to 24 hours. When you’re happy with the time you’ve allocated for each day, clicking Update Planner unleashes the beast. Taskk will look through all the tasks you have on all of your lists, look at how much time each task has been allocated and how many hours you can work each day and then plans your days for you! If a task you’ve created has been allocated more time than you’ve set for a day, the Planner will keep looking forward until it finds a day that does have enough time. The Planner is now your list, your calendar, your everything.

Often after we spend so much time adding new priorities to our lists of things to do, the sheer number of things then makes it difficult to decide which task to do next and which task after that. Taskk is the application to fix that for you. It’s one less decision you need to think about and make before you can get in and get working on your lists.

Taskk is still in beta, but you can request an invite. From what I’ve seen so far, the beta is solid. I’ve not found any issues at all. So if you’ve tried out a bunch of other productivity apps already and none of them seem to quite fit your needs, I recommend you take a look at Taskk. There is a short introductory video on the website that walks through how to use the app and, of course, there is much more to Taskk than what I’ve described here. Be sure to check out task dependencies, “not until” scheduling, shared lists and a stack of other great stuff.

Find out more about Taskk at taskk.it.

Plan Better with Taskk is a post from: Cloud Productivity

I’ve always had a thing for maths. The complexity, the simplicity, and the beauty of numbers. They are the key that unlocks so many different doors in this world. Without maths we’d still be drawing with sticks in the dirt. It is the only language that spans all humanity and units us. So when I first laid my eyes on fractals I was blown away. How could some simple math result in images with so much depth and detail and that never ended? It was truly a boggling moment. There is a lot we can learn from fractals that applies to every aspect of our lives.

Fractals are defined, in a sentence, as a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. What this means is that when you look at a fractal, then zoom in, it becomes impossible to tell how far zoomed in you are since what you end up looking at is the same as the original. I know, mind crunching stuff.

So what has this got to do with productivity? There are a couple of things I’ve found.

1. Keep Breaking it Down

Probably the most significant feature of a fractal is that no matter how much you break down even the smallest part of it, it ends up looking and behaving the same as when you first saw it. Each time you zoom in and look closer you understand more about just how important each level of detail is. Relating this back to productivity, it should be apparent that breaking down your agenda into the smallest digestible nugget and using all those pieces together will give you a much better, more detailed result than if you just try to approach the task as a whole. It’s about dealing with that most hideous of monsters, Overwhelm, in a systematic way. Refine, refine, refine, and keep refining until you can do so no more. Consider building a car. It’s simply not practical to have “Build Car” on your todo list. It makes much more sense to deconstruct this task into a set of instructions for yourself. In doing this, the path to the completion of the task writes itself and all you need to do is read the instructions and go alone for the journey.

2. Never Lose Sight of the Big Picture

As well as breaking down your tasks, it’s important to keep a focus on what the bigger picture looks like. What is the result of doing whatever it is you’ve set out to do? What is the impact on you and your environment? Why bother at all? It’s been spoken about many times before, but it should be stressed again – when you’re working through your tasks (as broken down as they now are), it’s super important to zoom right out now and then and make sure that the picture you see now is the same as what you had envisioned. Constantly take stock of each activity to ensure that it is indeed helping you to accomplish your goals and tasks.

3. Repeat What Works

A fractal is a pattern that is what they call “self-similar”. Basically, this means that it repeats itself. When you look at the fractal as a whole it’s hard to comprehend the detail that has gone into what you see. The same can be said of you! When someone else looks at you, what do they see? Do they see someone that takes on only the simplest of challenges because they’re “easy”. Or do they see someone that can take a behemoth of a challenge, and knock it over on time, every time? Do they see someone that has the bigger picture in mind and knows the path that will take them there? It’s all about getting to know yourself. A fractal is a repeating pattern. It’s time for you to find your pattern and lock it in. This is what defines your process for completing projects of any size. There are loads of articles and books around on establishing a systematic workflow and while I do agree with many of them, it’s up to your individual working habits and personality to define one that works for you. Only you can define your pattern. Look at what projects you’ve done in the past and critically assess them. How did you work? Were the successful? What were the problems encountered? Then try to identify any patterns in the way you handled all those challenges. People love prodictability. So if you can establish yourself as a predictable, repeatable machine, you’ll get an amazing amount done, on time, every time.

4. Be Colorful!

The other thing about fractals images is that they’re colorful! Never forget who you are and what you represent. Define and work through your tasks the way that only you know how. Your personality shapes everything! The people around you, the work you take on, your relationships and environment. Be a fractal and take on a colorful disposition and you will reap the rewards!

What Fractals Can Teach Us About Productivity is a post from: Cloud Productivity

I wouldn’t normally do this, but I really wanted to share something with everyone. I was able to secure an amazing deal from Daniel Gold exclusively for readers of Cloud Productivity!

Daniel has released his second ebook all about the new Springpad – Springpad. Smarter Notebooks. Smarter Sharing. A Smarter Way to Get Things Done.

There has been a bit of debate since this release as to which application – Evernote or Springpad – is the best one to use. Firstly, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from trying both to see which one you are more comfortable with. However, I use both, and for different purposes. Evernote will never leave my side. It’s my memory. I’m often referred to as a “goldfish” since as soon as I’m told something I will promptly forget it. So Evernote has become an invaluable tool for me in every aspect of my life. Springpad has opened up a new world for me now, a world of sharing and collaboration.

I’ve setup some notebooks in Springpad to share with the world some of the things I like or would like. For example, I have a “movies” notebook and a “books” notebook (you can check them out without having a Springpad account too). Whenever I find a movie I’d like to see I add it to my movies notebook in Springpad. The same goes for books. When you add something from the web into Springpad – when you “spring” it – Springpad will go and fetch a bunch of extra stuff about it for you. In the case of movies, it will grab a few images, a trailer video, a description and even give me a link to more information or places to buy it. I can also comment on the item. So now once I’ve seen a movie, or read a book, I can mark it as “seen” or “read” and leave comments and a rating. When someone then asks me what I thought of a movie I can lookup my comments (since I’m a goldfish) and let them know what I thought of the movie by recounting what I wrote when it was fresh in my mind!

Other people can also leave comments on your “sprung” items, and that’s where Springpad really gets crazy. When you share a notebook with someone, you effectively open up a whole new world of collaboration. Share lists, tasks, products, recipes, places to go and things to see. Anything.

It’s true though that when you register for a Springpad account (which is free by the way) and first log in, it’s hard to figure out what to do first. This is exactly what happened to me. Then I read Daniel Gold’s ebook and that was it. Springpad suddenly seemed so simple and so powerful.

I still use Evernote (and Wunderkit too) and each has a unique purpose. These tools are not trying to compete for 100% of your attention and to be all things to all people. Here’s my bulleted summary:

• Evernote - remembering everything. Your thoughts and memories. It’s super quick and available everywhere.
• Wunderkit - what do I need to do next? I use this to separate my “what to do” lists into different life areas for clarity and focus.
• Springpad - sharing my passions with the world and finding others with similar passions.

If you’re into Evernote and looking to get even more out of it, I also definitely recommend Daniel’s other ebook.

Now, if you’re like me and want to get the most out of both, or, if you’re not sure which one suits you more, you can get both of Daniel’s amazing ebooks and, exclusively to people reading Cloud Productivity, save 25%! Each book is already ridiculously cheap at only $5 each. So with the saving, you can grab both for $7.50.

All you need to do is head over to Daniel Gold’s site using this link: http://www.cloudproductivity.net/dangold, add two (or more) things into your shopping cart and then use the promo code cloud9.

How I Got Started with Springpad is a post from: Cloud Productivity

There is a huge selection of new productivity applications being released these days and each one has its own unique approach to target a specific audience. There are tools such as OmniFocus that cater to the high-end GTD adepts and then there’s things like Moredays.

While OmniFocus uses contexts, tags, projects and priorities to help you manage your day to day activities, Moredays takes a much more relaxed approach and spans not only tasks, but contacts, events and notes too.

Moredays aims to be a single resource for the everyday human that is looking for a place to manage the day to day. It is not, and doesn’t intend to be, a fully fledged GTD application. Moredays takes a user-friendly, image rich, approach to ensure the user experience is what matters most. So many GTD apps focus so much on the process that they forget about the user and what they’ll need to do in order to use the application properly.

Photos and Stamps for Easy Recall

Humans recall images easier than words so it makes sense that each item in Moredays, whether it’s a task, contact, event or note, can have it’s own picture. Moredays even helps you get started by providing a whole bunch of sketches to pick from. These sketches are amazing little prompters. Need to make a call soon? No problem. Create a task and chose the ‘phone’ sketch. Need to book travel? Pick the ‘plane’ sketch. You can also upload as many photos as you like into Moredays and have them available for use on any item. Upload pictures of contacts, places, events, that shed that needs clearing out, anything.

Tagging is also different in Moredays and again uses images to help you remember. They’re called ‘stamps’. While you can’t add to what stamps are already available, the ones that are there are more than enough. Add up to three stamps to any item and it will jump out at you when you’re scanning your lists, inbox or sketcher.

Inbox and Sketcher

Any good productivity app understands that when you think of something, you don’t necessarily understand enough about it to know exactly what it is or where it needs to go, or have time enough to write down everything you need to about it. These thoughts should be put straight into the Inbox and expanded on later. The inbox can then be sorted through and the activities filtered off to the right spot. Moredays is no different in this regard. When you create an item you can choose to specify the type of item it is, or you can leave it for the time being and simply jot down the thought.

The inbox lists everything that is still to be sorted and orders them by the date the item was created. And, like other lists in Moredays, it shows the photo or sketch on the left and the stamps to the right of each item. Sorting them out is easy by just editing and choosing if the item is a task, contact, event or note.

Moredays has a unique feature called the Sketcher. Sketcher is like a summary of everything you’ve done today or have to do. It shows notes created today, tasks due today and any events happening today. Of course, you can scroll through to different days to see what your agenda looks like at any time. Today’s birthdays appear in the left menu section.

You can go straight to any item you see on the Sketcher with a simple click.

Bringing it all Together

Moredays will integrate with your Google Contacts and Calendar too. So you can keep everything in sync all the time. Changes made to a contact in one place will effortlessly appear in the other. And the same goes for events. When an event appears in your Google Calendar, from an emailed invitation for example, the same event will appear in Moredays, location, reminders, description and all.

Moredays is Mobile

While Moredays is currently a web-only application, their website clearly shows that mobile versions are coming. In fact, if you look at the web interface, it looks like it was designed mainly for the iPad. I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of the beta programs for both iPad and iPhone and they are both shaping up to be very strong mobile productivity applications, maintaining the fluid, image based nature of the web application and seamlessly syncing across all devices.

Moredays is perfect if you’re looking for a way to get your day to day life in order, but don’t want to worry about dealing with a process heavy GTD system. It’s quick, easy to use and most of all, it’s fun. Go and check it out, it’s free. Visit www.moredays.com to get started. Moredays is currently in beta, but I encourage you to take look, it’s definitely one to keep you’re eye on and tell your mum about.

How Moredays Makes Productivity More Fun is a post from: Cloud Productivity

If you’re looking around for a cross-platform, easy to use task management application, you’ve probably stumbled across Wunderlist and Wunderkit and you might be wondering what exactly the difference between the two are.

While there are many similarities between the two, Wunderkit takes a much more interactive and social approach to tasks and projects. Wunderlist is simpler and may be a better starting point to help you establish your todo list system.

This video below describes in more detail, what the similarities and differences are between these two application from 6Wunderkinder.

So there you have it. Both apps are great and suit different scenarios. To summarize, if you’re just getting into productivity tools or looking for a simple, clean and easy to understand task system, go get a Wunderlist account. On the other hand, if you have multiple concurrent projects that constantly involve, are working closely with other people, and you’re looking to get feedback and comments on your tasks, then head over to Wunderkit and setup an account.

The best part is that both apps are free!

What are Wunderlist and Wunderkit is a post from: Cloud Productivity

As you use Evernote more and more and start to really get a feel for just how powerful and flexible it is, you’ll be creating thousands of notes. This means that finding old notes by scrolling through all your notes becomes very difficult. While notebooks and tags do help to separate notes, you will still end up with way too many in each notebook, and assigned to each tag, to make browsing a fast way to recall past notes.

Luckily, Evernote has amazing search capabilities to help you find exactly what you need and fast. Here are six tips to help you become an Evernote search master.

To Search Notes or Note. That Is The Question

Using the global search versus the in note search tools.

There are two types of searches available in Evernote:

1. Global Search, and;
2. In-Note Search

The Global Search you can find in the top right corner of the desktop application. When you use this search, Evernote will look through all notes in the notebook you currently have selected. To quickly perform a Global Search hit Option+CMD+F (Mac) or CTRL+ALT+F (Windows).

Tip: If you’re note sure which notebook you should be searching in, or if you want to return the list of all your notes, hit CMD+R (Mac) or CTRL+Shift+A (Windows).

The In-Note Search only searches within the note you currently have open. To use this search, select a note and then hit CMD+F (Mac) or CTRL+F (Windows).

Both of these search types are also available in the mobile versions. The Global Search is found by hitting the search button from the list of your notes whereas the In-Note Search is found by first opening a note and hitting the search icon (magnifying glass).

Any and All

When using Global Search on the desktop application, the search bar will appear and show you what search is being used. It basically interprets your search into a sentence. Something like “Viewing 33 notes from All Notebooks matchingAny of the following…”. It also allows you to modify the search criteria right there. This means you can tweak the search without having to perform a completely new search. One of the easiest, and most effective things to change in this area is the Any/All option.

The Any/All option determines if the search should look for notes that contain either “at least one search keyword” (Any), or “all search keywords” (All). Often when you search using multiple keywords you want all those keywords to be in the result. Changing this option will from Any to All will quickly narrow down your search results.

Exact Matching

When you punch in a few keywords in the Global or In-Note searches Evernote will search for each individual word. However, you can easily change your search from individual words to phrase search by adding double quotes around the keywords.

For example, the above search will return results that contain all words from the phrase “quick brown fox”. This is especially handy when you are searching for things like names of people, places or things.

Tags, Titles, Time, Attachments and More

List all the search properties. Can you search on date ranges for note created or updated? Can you search on note location?

Every note in Evernote has a bunch of properties associated with it. The obvious ones are the title of the note and any tags attached to them. However, there’s also things like when the note was created and last updated, if the note has any attachments and the type of those attachments, the location the note was created, the author of the note (especially useful for shared notebooks) and much more. It’s great that you can see this level of information when viewing a single note, but how can you use them to refine your search? What if you wanted to find all notes that were created in the last 7 days?

Fortunately Evernote thought about this and you can search on all these note properties. There are a bunch of search properties that you can add to your search. Use each of these properties listed below by typing the search property, then a colon, then the value of that property. For example, to search for all notes that have been tagged with “family” you would type tag:family into the search. Note that no spaces should be used. If you have tags that do have a space in them, then you can wrap the tag name in quotes! So for notes tagged with “extended family” you would enter tag:”extended family” into the search.

Here are the search properties you can use.

Complex Searches and When to Use Them

Combining multiple search queries into a single search.

When searching, you’re not limited to using only keywords or only one search property. You can in fact, use any combination of these. For example, you could find all notes relating to things to do at home and that are tagged with “family” by searching using:

tag:family home todo:false

Or for business you could, for example, find any note relating to “Company X”, tagged with “meeting” and with “next actions” in the title by searching for:

"Company X" tag:meeting intitle:"next actions"

Then, change the Any/All option explained above to make the search results include all the search criteria.

You can also specify that you want certain criteria to not be part of the results. For example, to search for pasta recipes that had nothing to do with chicken, you could use:

tag:pasta -tag:chicken

Search notes created or updated between two dates by using:

created:day-20 -created:day-10

This will find notes that were created less than 20 days ago, but more than 10 days ago.

Saving Searches

When you start to get thousands and thousands of notes in your Evernote, you’ll find searching them quickly is more and more important. What you’ll likely find yourself doing is using the same search over and over again. And your searches will probably end up getting more complex (see above) so that you can narrow down the results more. If you find you are doing the same search repeatedly, then that’s a good search to save. When you save a search you can run the same search criteria without having to type it all out again.

To create a saved search, setup your search like you would manually. Then, once you’ve got it just right, head to File > New Saved Search… That will then ask you to name the search. Done! From then on you can find the saved searches in the lower right corner of Evernote (or you may have to enable it first). Click the name of the search and, BAM! The results will instantly appear!

Any saved searches are synchronised to your other Evernote devices. For example, on the iPhone, going to ‘Search’ will list your saved searches and give you the normal option to perform a new search.

So there are six tips to help become a a master of your Evernote. Evernote is amazing at capturing anything you want to throw at it. It’s up to you to be able to easily find anything easily. If you have a search tip of your own, I’d be interested to hear about it. Leave your tips and ideas in the comments below.

6 Tips For An Amazing Evernote Search is a post from: Cloud Productivity

When I was a kid my mum always told me to sit up straight and stand up straight. Posture, apparently, is important. But why? When I sat down (with a straight back) recently and thought about this I came to the conclusion that there is in fact three reasons why posture is important.

1. The Physical Reason

When you slouch for too long you end up with a sore back. And also a lot of tension in your back since it’s working overtime trying to straighten you out.  Your neck will also try to overcompensate and bring you back into alignment. This will result in really tight should and neck muscles and possibly headaches.

2. The Visual Reason

Close your eyes and picture two people. Hang on – read this post first and then do this exercise. Picture two people – one standing up straight and one slouching. What do you see? I bet that you see something like this…

 

Which one of these guys do you think is more successful? Appearances can be deceiving, but first impressions last a long time.

Standing up straight exudes confidence and strength. Whereas slouching gives the impression of weakness and uncertainty. When you meet some new, the first impression you give them is your appearance. And that impression influences everything else you say and how that person interacts with you. It’s true.

3. The Productivity Reason

Your posture affects your productivity. When you slouch down in your chair, or hunch over your computer, you start to feel unenthusiastic. You’re energy levels drain away and before you know it you’re surfing YouTube or StumbleUpon wasting the day away (note, I’m not saying that YouTube or StumbleUpon are a waste of time, but they have a time and a place, that is all).

The next time you sit at your desk, think about how you’re sitting. Sit back in your chair, straighten your back and move your shoulders down and back. I was always told to imagine the top of my head was connected to the ceiling, pulling me upwards. Basically, you want your centre of gravity to be on this line. Don’t let your head fall forward. This will add strain to your neck causing it to try to tighten to correct your posture and you’ll end up with headaches eventually.  Now that you’re sitting correctly, don’t you feel more alert, more ready to act? This simple shift in body shape tricks your mind and instantly gives you the boost to tackle your todo list.

When you get up to move about, don’t lose your posture! Chin up, back straight, shoulders back. Walk with purpose instead of dragging yourself around. Walk faster. Walk taller. Walk with purpose.

I have to constantly remind myself to sit up and stand up straight, but the moment I do, I can feel the difference.

I challenge you to correct your posture right now. Go on. Sit up. It may feel a bit weird at first, but soon the energy will start to flow. It it’s feels really uncomfortable I’d recommend seeing a doctor, or a chiropractor, or maybe a physiotherapist.

If you found this worked well for you, let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

How Your Posture Affects Your Productivity is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Recently, I was asked what my preferred method is for saving articles to read later. Was it Instapaper, Read It Later, or perhaps something else? I’ve tried both Instapaper and Read It later and didn’t stick with them. What I found was that I mainly found articles that I wanted to keep for later when I was using my iPhone. The way that both Instapaper and Read It Later work on the iPhone and web browser is through a bookmarklet. These are not the most obvious and intuitive little gadgets to setup. However, it wasn’t for this reason I changed. Both of these services have a free version and a paid/pro version with extra functionality such as the ability to save more articles. I couldn’t work either of these apps into my workflow. My approach, one that works very well, is simply using the every versatile, the every useful, Evernote! And here’s how…

Evernote Web Clipper

When I’m on my MacBook and I find an article that I want to save for later, or simply archive forever, without worrying about bookmarking anything only for the site to disappear or change one day and the article be gone, I use the Evernote Web Clipper. It’s a free browser extension that is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari. There are three types or content that can be clipped:

1. Content - When I want to clip an entire web page, I simply right-click on the page and select Evernote Web Clipper > Clip entire page…
2. Snippets - When I only want a small piece of the page, I just highlight the part I want, then again, right-click and select Evernote Web Clipper > Clip selection…
3. Images - If I’m just after a single image (such as an infographic), all I do is again right click on the image and select Evernote Web Clipper > Clip image…

By simply clicking the Evernote icon in the browser toolbar, the clipper will try to guess the part of the page I want to clip – usually the main content. However, it gives me the opportunity to move the selection around, expand it and shrink it. Very cool.

The Evernote Web Clipper icon will then show that the clipping is being sent to my Evernote account. The next time my desktop Evernote account synchronizes, or the next time I open Evernote on my iPhone, the clip is there waiting for me.

Evernote Clearly

Sometimes the article clipper doesn’t quite find the right chunk of text. Sometimes I just want to clip the content and leave all the ads and other non-relevant areas of the page behind. This is when I use Evernote Clearly, another browser extension that is available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Clearly makes reading online easy again. By clicking the Clearly icon in the browser toolbar the entire article I’m interested in is cleaned up. Ads and menus are removed, formatting is cleaned up and everything is just, well, clearer.

Once it’s nice and clear, one click on the elephant icon and the cleaned up article is sent into my Evernote account.

Email to Evernote (using iOS)

Finally, we come back to my original problem – saving articles for later when I find things with my iPhone. This one needs no extra extensions, plugins or apps, apart from the Evernote app.

When I’m on my iPhone and find an interesting article that I want to save for later I first select the entire article by tap-hold’ing and dragging the selection boundaries. Then, use the Mail Link to this Page option. Normally this only adds in the link to the page into the email. Now I tap under the link and paste in the entire article. I then select my Evernote Upload email address and hit send. The entire article is now on its way to my Evernote account.

There’s another trick here that works most of the time and is a little easier. Some web sites give me the option to use ‘Reader’ on my iPhone. This is a little bit like Evernote Clearly in that it tidies up the page to make it easier to read. The added benefit is that you can use the button at the top to Mail this Article. Then, just like before, simply choosing my Evernote Upload email address and hitting send sends the entire article to my Evernote account.

If you’re not sure what your Evernote Upload email address is, or how to add it to your contact list, see my 5 Tips to Save Time in Evernote.

3 Ways To Save Articles For Later with Evernote is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Following on from my earlier post about how to set and achieve realistic goals, I’m sharing my own goal template I use. This is a template that you can use in Evernote. Or, you can simply write it down somewhere. However, if you’re using my recommended approach for setting and achieving your goals, you’ll want to use Evernote.To use this template, simply copy and paste this Evernote note.

Or, copy and paste the below. I’ve added it here for those people that may not yet using Evernote (though I’m stumped as to why you wouldn’t be). Anyway, please give the template a try and if you have any feedback at all, leave a note in the comments section.

The Goal Template:

GOAL: The Name of the Goal

From: How to Set Realistic and Achievable Goals on Cloud Productivity.

Replace the text under each heading, and all the stepping stones with your own goal. Use this template for as many goals as you have! If you use this template, or have any feedback, please comment here:

What Is It?

Describe what the goal is. For example, “Get a new car”. Maybe even add a picture of something that will help to motivate you.

Why It’s Important To Me

Explain to yourself why you want to achieve this goal. What happened for you to want this, and how it will change your life. For example, “I need to get a new car so that…“.

Why I Want It

Describe how you feel as if you have achieved the goal. What can you see, smell and hear? How do you feel? Excited? Nervous? Relieved?

Impact On…

Others and Relationships

As a result of achieving this goal, how will it affect other (specific) people? How will your my relationships with others be affected?

My Finances

As a result of achieving this goal, how will my financial situation be affected? Will I be in debt, out of debt, about the same?

My State of Mind and Body

As a result of achieving this goal, what will my emotional and physical state be? Will I be less stressed, have different stress or even have no stress? What will I have to put my body through to reach this goal and how will I feel once I have achieved it?

Stepping Stones

• List your stepping stones.
•  As many as you can think of
•  In any order
•  Then, bold the next one you want to complete
•  Never delete these items. If they’re no longer needed, remove the checkbox. If they’re done, tick them off and leave them. – Add progress notes at the end of each stepping stone.

Evernote Template for Setting Realistic Goals is a post from: Cloud Productivity