To do today: Eat That Frog

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June 27, 2009

By Greg Bott / guest columnist The Meridian Star Sat Jun 27, 2009, 11:22 PM CDT

I’m a list maker. I even make lists of lists. It’s likely some sort of obsessive compulsive sickness of mine, but it may benefit you today. If you never make lists, you can take a week off from reading this column—it’s for people who want to get the most out of every day and who like putting a checkmark in a to do box. Brian Tracy, one of the foremost authorities on success and achievement, says in his book, Eat That Frog, “…your ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop.” The book’s title comes from a Mark Twain quote, “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.”

I’m not sure how I feel about frog eating, but I am rather impressed with a Web-based task management tool to help determine which frogs to eat first: Toodledo.

List making is easy and therapeutic; however, let’s not miss Tracy’s point: doing the highest value tasks first and well is one of the primary keys to success. So the purpose of a To Do application is to help quickly select those highest value tasks while organizing all the other day-to-day tasks that must be done also. The application should enable you to easily find, organize, sort, and modify tasks. It should also make those tasks easily available to you throughout your day, whether you are in front of a computer, have an iPhone, or no phone at all. Toodledo delivers.

Here’s how it works. Point your browser (Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.), to www.toodledo.com. Sign up—it takes less than a minute. Enter tasks. Tasks have the usual attributes: priority, start date, due date, and notes, but there are also two innovative features: folders and contexts.

Use folders to create groups of tasks. For example, I separate personal tasks from business tasks and I create individual folders for client projects and a folder for fun things I can do with my daughters. Folders alone aren’t anything new, but combine them with contexts and you have something really helpful.

Contexts help you organize your tasks by where you are and what you’re doing. When I’m at home, I don’t want reminders about work tasks. In the car, only show me tasks I can actually accomplish in the car. No sense reading about weeding the flower bed when I’m driving down I-20. By combining folders and contexts, you can easily pick the most important, achievable task to do right now.

None of that is very useful if I’m away from my computer and can’t see the task list. ToodleDo offers three great solutions to this problem. First, since the application is web-based, you can access your tasks from anyplace with an Internet connection and a compatible browser. Second, Toodledo has an equally impressive iPhone/iTouch application that shows your tasks by priority, context, folder, due date, etc. It stays in sync with the web-based version (which incidentally can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook). Third (and really cool) is the ability to print a handy-sized paper booklet.

The standard version of ToodleDo is free, so don’t procrastinate--If you have to eat a live frog, it doesn't pay to sit and look at it for very long (Mark Twain).

I just checked “Write Sunday’s column” off the list. Technically Yours.

Bott Technology Solutions helps small to midsize businesses with computer technology needs and may be reached via e-mail at gregbott@bottinc.com or at 601-616-8509. Greg’s professional experience includes consulting for Price Waterhouse’s Strategic Consulting Group, working as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation, and serving as Chief Technology Officer for several companies. He has a Master of Science in Software Engineering degree from the University of Texas and has presented at technical conferences across the world. He has published over a dozen works including the Microsoft Press Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure textbook, Customizing SharePoint, and the Microsoft ASP.Net Security Operations Guide.

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