How I Work - Evernote and Wunderlist
I have a difficult time organizing, as a technician. Being the only tech for my school that is responsible for the network, our 1:1 Chromebooks and pretty much everything else that has an 'on' switch I have a lot going on. Organization can be difficult, but I'm finding a few things that help a lot. I'll highlight two of them here that I am currently using.
Evernote is a pretty popular note-taking tool, so I don't think it needs much introduction. I use it as a running documentation tool, more for keeping track of network management-y type stuff. For example, if I use a Powershell command for creating a student account, I'll put that command into Evernote with a descriptive title so I can find it easily later, so I don't have to go Googling around to find something I had already figured out three months ago.
I also use it during staff meetings to keep track of things that are going on, so when this time rolls around next year I can refer back to what we were doing.
Wunderlist is a to-do list that seems to have an app for pretty much any device or platform. I was previously using Asana, and switched to Dayboard, but neither really did it for me.
Asana is more targeted towards teams, and since I am my team, it was helpful for project planning but not so much daily tasks.
Dayboard is awesome, as it requires that you list five tasks for the day, and then check them off as you go along. It really gives you a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. This is quite important for me--most days, as soon as I walk into my office I'm texted or called about something not working, a teacher sub shows up that needs help or a student had problems with their Chromebook the night before. Being able to actually see that I did something other than run around all day putting out fires (as the cliche goes) is extremely helpful for me.
Wunderlist is a bit better, as it seems to combine a few features of Asana and Dayboard that I like. I like that Dayboard is a 'new tab' page in Chrome, so it's pretty visible and easy to use. It's main drawback is that Chrome is the only place it exists. Wunderlist has that 'new tab' page, but also syncs to my iPhone, laptop, and any other device I care to use. In that sense, it's more like Asana.
I'm still very much in the beginning stages of working with Wunderlist--it has proved to be very helpful so far, but we'll see if I'm able to stay with it.
So I think this is going to begin a series of posts reflecting on tools that I use. Next time, we'll take a look at Hours, an iPhone app that I discovered a while ago.
Evernote
Evernote is a pretty popular note-taking tool, so I don't think it needs much introduction. I use it as a running documentation tool, more for keeping track of network management-y type stuff. For example, if I use a Powershell command for creating a student account, I'll put that command into Evernote with a descriptive title so I can find it easily later, so I don't have to go Googling around to find something I had already figured out three months ago.
I also use it during staff meetings to keep track of things that are going on, so when this time rolls around next year I can refer back to what we were doing.
Wunderlist
Wunderlist is a to-do list that seems to have an app for pretty much any device or platform. I was previously using Asana, and switched to Dayboard, but neither really did it for me.
Asana is more targeted towards teams, and since I am my team, it was helpful for project planning but not so much daily tasks.
Dayboard is awesome, as it requires that you list five tasks for the day, and then check them off as you go along. It really gives you a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. This is quite important for me--most days, as soon as I walk into my office I'm texted or called about something not working, a teacher sub shows up that needs help or a student had problems with their Chromebook the night before. Being able to actually see that I did something other than run around all day putting out fires (as the cliche goes) is extremely helpful for me.
Wunderlist is a bit better, as it seems to combine a few features of Asana and Dayboard that I like. I like that Dayboard is a 'new tab' page in Chrome, so it's pretty visible and easy to use. It's main drawback is that Chrome is the only place it exists. Wunderlist has that 'new tab' page, but also syncs to my iPhone, laptop, and any other device I care to use. In that sense, it's more like Asana.
I'm still very much in the beginning stages of working with Wunderlist--it has proved to be very helpful so far, but we'll see if I'm able to stay with it.
Next Time
So I think this is going to begin a series of posts reflecting on tools that I use. Next time, we'll take a look at Hours, an iPhone app that I discovered a while ago.
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