I was tempted to add MenuMeters to the “VPZtms Compendium of Tools” post because if I’d added it (and Growl), the list would have included all the applications that I am always running on my machine. I refrained because technically they have nothing to do with information management. But I still wanted to write something […]
All of the tools I listed in the “Compendium of Tools” section are either free, have a free version, or come built-in to OS X (excluding TextPander, which was just recently made a paid product). This tendency towards free software is a side-effect of the way I select tools. Definition of Good Software When selecting software tools, […]
This is a quick introduction to the software tools that the VPZtms uses. The tools are divided into the categories that I outlined in the “Introduction to Information Management” section. All of these tools satisfy my requirements of being simple, flexible, and easy to use. Discovery NetNewsWire - I’ve already written 2053 words about RSS, so I’ll refrain […]
There are three (closely-related) reasons that incorporating a new tool into your time management system often fails: It is too complicated It is too inflexible It is too hard Too Complicated A tool is too complicated when it does too many extra things that you don’t need. For example, the much heralded Kinkless GTD is too complicated for me because it […]
The Scope of my System The characteristics of your work setup define which features your time management system needs and which tools are available to you. My time management system is defined by the following characteristics: I work from home, off of one computer. This means: I don’t need contexts I use all desktop software and no web software. Because the […]
It’s been Field-Tested Five years ago the company I worked for asked me to start using a Franklin-Covey Planner. Like many others, I found that using a time management system helped me get more stuff done. It has been five years since that first Franklin Planner and I have experimented with many different tools and systems since […]
Background I have been keeping an eye on Karelia Software’s website for news about Sandvox for quite sometime now. My interest was perked when I heard it was in development for two reasons: Karelia Software was behind Watson, one of the most interesting and inspired early Os X 3rd party applications. Watson was one of the […]