The last six months since my layoff has been a flurry of freelance work especially article writing. Moving from the glacial drift speed of a federal government contract back to freelance writing meant I had to get organized quickly. It was back to living by my ideas again.
One of the first things I did was get reorganized quickly and came to rely on the following apps:
Evernote: I capture potential TechRepublic, The Mobility Hub, and Projects@Work ideas in Evernote. It is also where I capture news articles related to trends and topics I regularly follow. Evernote also serves as an archive for all of my project research. I like Evernote because I can always access it from my iPhone 5, iPad, or one of my Android tablets. The attempted hacking didn’t faze me one bit as an Evernote customer. Clearly is becoming my favorite way to capture information into Evernote especially now that it lets you capture PDF files.
Projectbook: I got turned onto Projectbook when I wrote a review about it for Tablets in the Enterprise on TechRepublic. When I get a pitch from a PR agency, and I am interested in it, I forward it to Projectbook for later reference.
Google Drive: This is where I keep tracking spreadsheets and draft potential article and post pitches. I don’t use Microsoft Office for these tasks because I do switch PCs and devices and always want access to this sort of information.
Dropbox: I do use Dropbox on a limited basis for my active posts and articles since I spend time working from my home office and the local Panera.
Task management: Right now, I’m using Things for task management including the check lists I run through when writing my posts for TechRepublic, The Mobility Hub, and Projects@Work. Previously, I was a longtime Omnifocus user. Considering the way I work, I enter and manage tasks on my iPad or iPhone. Ideally, I would like to find a task management app that supports iOS, Mac, Windows, and Android but have yet to find one that I like and that fits my requirements. Asana also comes into play with some of my corporate client freelance projects and I hope that Asana releases an iPad app sometime in the near future. When an Asana iPad app pops, I would definitely consider consolidating my task management to Asana full time.
What are your systems of record?
