The Cranking Widgets Blog

Sandy v. Remember the Milk: The Web-Based Reminder Cage Match

Within this little GTD cult of ours, there are an alarming number of battles fought over the best tool, notebook, web application, etc. In my mind, it’s a little silly – just use what works, right?
Well, sometimes there will be two “competing” services/devices/things that both offer a compelling solution to a common problem. [...]

The iPhone as a GTD Swiss Army Chainsaw

Written by Brett Kelly

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I have to be honest – this past Christmas, the item at the top of my wish list was the completely drool-worthy Amazon Kindle. I had watched the video intro a dozen times and was completely smitten. And while I had been secretly longing for an iPhone since they were released, I simpley [...]

Coming Up: Somebody Interviews Me

Written by Brett Kelly

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I thought this might be a cool thing to mention, especially since I haven’t ever been interviewed for this productivity stuff. This weekend, my new buddy Mike from Effing the Dog and I will be having a friendly conversation that will go out on his podcast at some point in the near future. [...]

Superstar Interview: Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani Talks Beer and Productivity

Written by Brett Kelly

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When somebody first start digging around for GTD and productivity-related websites, it won’t take long before they arrive at Lifehacker.com. A fine mixture of links to quality articles and products, as well as full-length features, how-tos and all sorts of other goodies. Like it or not, it’s hard to deny that LH is [...]

Something You Should Know Before Using a Cashier’s Check

Written by Brett Kelly

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At my house, we pay almost every single one of our bills using our bank’s online bill payment service. It’s fast, easy and I don’t need to buy stamps or deal with the disgusting flavor of envelope glue in my mouth.
However, there are a couple of bills we must pay through the mail – [...]

Your GTD System Isn’t the Problem

Written by Brett Kelly

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Since starting my current job about 7 months ago, I’ve garnered something of a reputation for being “the organized guy”. A couple of the higher-ranking people there had attempted to embrace GTD (with varying degrees of success) and were ecstatic to have somebody on-board who could attempt to convert the rank and file. [...]

Free Software: Two Minute Timer for OS X

Written by Brett Kelly

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Better late than never, I suppose
Many, many moons ago I wrote a tiny little two minute timer application for Windows as a free alternative to the $10 offering from the David Allen Company. I got more than a few emails asking for a Mac version. Well, ask and you shall receive!
This [...]

So, You’re Not Using Jott?

Written by Brett Kelly

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I spend a good deal of time in the car every day. Not as much as some, but it’s typically somewhere around 90 minutes round trip on a given work day. And being one of those people whose brain is pretty much always going, I tend to have many thoughts and ideas during [...]

8 Things You Should’ve Memorized a Long Time Ago

Written by Brett Kelly

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Let’s be honest – part of the reason most of us drank this GTD Kool-aid in the first place was that we were tired of forgetting things. Meetings, lunches, dentist appointments – all the crap that we were too busy (and, frankly, ill-equipped) to recall exactly when we needed to do so. So, [...]

A Roadmap to Spectacular GTD Failure

Written by Brett Kelly

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It’s rather funny to me that I write all this stuff about productivity, GTD and the like – the truth is, I’m probably one of the poorest practitioners of this stuff that there is. My system is constantly a mess, I’m always trying new little tricks and whatnot to get things working better (which [...]