Hello. Solo productivity.
How do you get things done when you're on your own, you work alone, and you still want
to get stuff achieved?
Yes, this is 55th episode of our podcast, and today we are going to,
as Michael said, introduce you a little bit to productivity, but not as usually
encouraging you to cooperate with your team and communicating with other people
efficiently, but focus on your own. And we would like to do something good as well
for solo entrepreneurs, freelance people, or people who just work alone and they're
independent professionals who also seek for some tips and tricks for productivity, for
staying accountable and calm and not so stressed. Exactly.
So today we'll talk about the basics of productivity, the main thing, how to make
the main thing the main thing and how to just guests have done better because now
that our previous old Nozbe has been renamed from Nozbe Personal to Nozbe Classic
and now we are only accepting signups for the new Nozbe and the new Nozbe is as
well coming and is as great for both personal use and use for soloperners, for as
you said freelancers and also from also for people who are working in teams.
So, and we have here somebody from Canada.
Hey, Robert, great to see you from Canada. Robert says, good morning from very cold
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, minus 18 degrees. - Minus 18 Celsius.
- Oh man. - I hope you have snow. - Yes, Robert, so hold on warm. Let's keep you
entertained, so you feel warm. And let's talk about solar productivity.
So, Magda, how do we not want to go about this? - We will use our classic formula,
10 steps that we love, and that we keep on talking about, but we find these 10
steps, the most basic and effective ways to get organized and to work really,
really in a calm, not stressful environment.
I mean, not we, but Michael wrote a book about it, and now we have the fresh e
-book, it's already the third edition updated this year, it's available on our website
for free and so you can go in depth and look for more information.
This used to be a book we used to sell on our website and to our customers. Now
we are selling you. So we are starting this podcast by selling you with a hard
sell. You can get the 10 Steps to Ultimate Productivity for the price of zero
dollars from our website. So a link will be in the show notes. So make sure to
get the latest version, the latest update of the book of the 10 steps to ultimate
productivity, because we will be following along this book and with, but not only
with the content of the content of the book, but mostly with our personal advice
from this book. Exactly. So Let's start, let's not make it any longer.
First step is the most important one because it says about the fact that we are
bombarded and we get information and data and queries and questions from so many
sources, from so many channels that it's really easy to get chaotic and lost and
exhausted. So the solution for that is to try, as much as we can,
to centralize all the communication and find the place,
your system, where you will be saving and noting down and collecting everything that
you need to get your things done. Yes, completely, because you have so many inputs,
there are so many things many things coming in. There are things coming from social
media, from WhatsApp, from all the messaging applications, Facebook Messenger, all that
stuff. So there are things coming from all over the place to you. And you kind of
can control it, but you also cannot control it because there are so many inputs.
It's your job to make sure that you know which inputs are really yours, where you
just jot them down and when you can process them later. So don't keep them in your
mind, like put them somewhere. And here I can plug in a famous David Allen's two
minute rule that sometimes what you can do in less than two minutes, you should do
it right now. So very often this is what I do is where whenever I get something
from someone through a channel that I don't normally process very often,
I save it in my, for example, Nozbe inbox or in my downloads folder, somewhere
where I know I'll get back to it. That either when I do my weekly review, which
we'll talk about it also later here in this show, that all these inputs that are
coming to me, they're coming to me to the places where I want them to be. And
they're not my mind. They're somewhere in a system, somewhere where I know I'll get
back to them. Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah, exactly. I have the same method. Actually, I
have two places, my two places where I keep my things,
and when I know my stuff is there, I feel safe and I feel reliable.
So first thing is, of course, Nozbe, the application where I put everything that can
be called a task. So something that I have to do. If I get an email, I can
either reply to it very quickly based on two -minute rule that you have just
mentioned, or if it's something bigger, I will just put it in my Nozbe.
If someone calls me and we didn't manage to solve the issue on the phone,
then I will quickly add a task saying what I need to done to follow up this phone
call. If someone sent me something via WhatsApp and this relates to something that
is already a task in my system. I will not leave it in WhatsApp. I will make
everything what I can to forward it to Nozbe because I like to have everything in
one place. It's so easy, it's so comfortable. Yeah,
I mean, it takes you just a few seconds to find the right place,
to find the right task, to add a comment there. Or if you have an idea about
something that we already discussed somewhere, I very happily open Nozbe,
find the task or find the project and add the information there. Even I follow your
advice, I sometimes use the dictation tool. So I just dictate my idea, even if it's
really not transcribed perfectly. But this way, I know it's already there. It's saved
in the system. It's saved where it should be. So later, when we get back to it, I
can process it, I can edit it, or I can just improve on it. But it's there. It's
saved in the system. So it's important that you control these inputs and that you
control where things are coming from to you.
For For example, also, if I order tickets for a theater,
for example, for my wife and my kids, I get an email confirmation with a ticket.
Depending on the, if it's a ticket, like a wallet ticket to iPhone,
I can add two wallets right then, right in this moment. I add a two wallets, so
the ticket is already on my iPhone. Or if it's a PDF, I either forward it to
Nozbe, for example, if it's something business related, or if it's something I want
to share with my wife, I add it to a note in Apple Notes. So this way, the
ticket is in Apple Notes. So we have a note called Tickets. So it's always there.
This way, it's also available offline. And this way, when we show up at the
theater, I know what the ticket is. I don't have to search for email, search for
the Information like I know I bought the ticket. But where is it? Like, you know,
which was the email address or whatever? No No, I already have the ticket ready. I
know where it is Yeah, this I already said about nose be in my case and the
second place where I sent my stuff is Dropbox and
The the most like typical image of Magda shopping is After I pay,
I just take my receipt. If it's something related to my small company,
I just scan it as quickly as I can. I don't even leave the shop. I stay where I
am. I have all my shopping around and I just scan my receipt. The lady always,
she's already accustomed and then she knows that I do this and this I,
even if I lose, which is very probable in my case, even if I lose the paper
version, I will have it digitalized already in my Dropbox folder that is called this
month. It will be
2024-12-invoices and I know that anything that needs to get to my accountant at
the end of the month is there. Yeah, I mean, in hotels, very often, they want to
give you the invoice and they want to first fold it in a nice envelope or
something. I tell them, no, no, no, don't fold it, put it on the counter. I scan
it first, and then you can fold it, whatever. But I have already scanned it, and
this we also, when my dad who's doing, who's in charge of finance in our company,
when he wants invoices from me or whatever, I have them already scanned. I can send
them any time to him and I can add this scan directly to a Nozbe task.
The cool thing is that many applications right now on the iPhone, on Android, have
this feature that you can scan a document.
It's like a photo, but it pretends to be a scan. So this way it's easier and more
compressed. So it's better to send it to a accountant like this. So I use this,
for example, in Apple Notes. I can scan a document. And then from there, I send it
to a task in Nozbe where I need to do my invoicing.
- Yeah. It relates to the first productivity advice that I got when I started
working in Nozbe a long, long time ago and I was working on a productive magazine
and there was one article I don't remember by whom but there was this simple advice
if you want to stop losing your keys which I used to do a lot just find a place
at home when you will always put them no matter what and now I have a small bowl
in my you know just right to the door and I put my keys just to this bowl.
And I know they are there. This is so simple. And this relates to all other
situations. If you don't want to lose it, if you don't want to waste your precious
time on looking for things, just put them to the place when they belong. Completely.
I also have a safe place for the keys and for my wallet. I attach wallet
magnetically to my iPhone. So, I just put the wallet back there, put the keys back
there, take off the shoes, and then I go into the house. So, it's like a kind of
a ritual. Like, "Hello, I'm home." And I do do this, and then I go, "So, this
way, I always know where my wallet is. I always know where my keys are. I don't
have to search for them. They're always in the same place, because I have this
ritual of coming back home." Okay, so our first piece of advice is that you try to
minimize the number of incoming channels of the information, work -related documents,
data inquiries, and try to put them to very few places and just be sure that you
know how it is all organized. Do it as simply as it's possible.
Yeah, completely. And the second thing is, of course, the next step of productivity,
once you have everything in your system or in a place where you know where it is,
organize everything in projects.
So we always talk in Nozbe that, you know, Nozbe has this very simple structure of
projects, tasks, and comments. And very often people, when you think about projects,
they don't They are like, "Oh, I'm not a project manager," or, "I don't do
projects." Yeah, they are worried. "Oh, maybe it's not for me because I'm not
working on projects." Exactly. So, yes,
you are a project manager because there are so many projects, there are so many
things that you need, that there are so many things that require many steps to get
done. Like when you're going on vacation, when you're planning a party, like a
Christmas party, you know, trip with your family. These are projects.
And in Nozbe, we also treat projects as groups of tasks regarding some subject,
for example, for example, marketing is also a project because all these marketing
ideas, marketing inboxes, they are a project. So if Magda has a new marketing idea,
what we can do in Nozbe marketing, she puts a new task in marketing project for us
to review.
So projects are also groups of tasks. Projects can also be never -ending. So for
example, as we mentioned, accounting. I have an accounting project that we have with
people who are doing accounting in our company and we put all the tasks there. And
if I wanna see and I wanna make sure that, how has this been paid for or has
this been invoiced? I can also check in the accounting project. So projects are
groups of tasks or really projects where you want to achieve something, but you need
several steps to do it. So they can be goal oriented or they can be just like a
drawer for the tasks related to some topic. And what can be a project?
A project can be your client. A project can be an aspect of your business.
A project can be be a campaign that you're running, a project can be, even if you
bake cakes for your clients, when someone orders it, a project can be a cake.
So really, don't think that project is something totally like IT related or finance
related. No, it can be anything that requires more than several steps.
Completely. And
People like to overcomplicate things like, you know, I have a project and I have
sub project and have sub sub sub project I want to like No projects tasks and
comments to tasks will talk about comments to tasks in a few moments But the idea
is that when you have projects and tasks this structure is very simple It's very
easy to find what you're looking for as we mentioned to add a new task to a
project to add and you comment to a task, because the structure is very simple. So
make sure to do this kind of structure. And this is how we start it. Hello.
This is how we start it. So this is how you should get your stuff organized.
Exactly. And also,
you don't have to worry if you have too many projects or too many tasks. Don't be
afraid of this multitude. The more the better. When you feel you are overwhelmed
with the number, then you can try to reduce it or you can try to compound. But
don't worry to create tasks. Don't be afraid to create projects. Really, it will
help you to see how you are progressing and it will help you to to organize your
work and Activity you have to do and you have to remember about is a task. So
always remember to create a task for it Yeah, and when you and and let's go to
the third point so when you have the multitude of projects multitude of tasks and
you have All that really nicely laid out. The third aspect is your priorities.
So what you wanna work on are your next actions, your next things you wanna work
on in these projects. So back in the day when I started Nozbe in 2007,
hashtag history Nozbe. So hashtag Nozbe history, let's say it like this. So I loved
the idea of Gmail that in Gmail, there was the star and you could star an an
email. The cool thing about starring an email was that by starring an email,
you made it like it was your idea what the star meant.
It means that it's an important email, it's an email that I have to get back to,
or it's an email that I want to take care of, like you could have your own
interpretation of what it was. The same is for Nozbe that we have this star when
you can start a task And you decide later if it's your priority or it's something
you want to work on or it's next action for this project Like you it's your
system. You decide what the star means But it's just so simple you start a task
and it's and then you see all the start tasks in one place And we call it a
priority view because then you can decide what you tackle and very often even I
mean in your In my case when I'm in a team environment, I'm very often starring
tasks of other people where I just want to contribute. I want to add a comment. I
want to just remember about this to do something about it. So using stars is
Marking as priority is something that helps you Find from the multitude of projects
and tasks. What you should be focused on now. Yeah not be users use it to mark
the tasks they want to get done today, or this week, or even this month, or as in
my case, when I'm trying to process my incoming view, which I do like really
religiously, and
I'm afraid that, okay, I will remove it from my incoming, but then I still want to
do something there, But now I don't have time for it, but I really want to zero
down my incoming. So then I just start. And I know that then when I'm calmer,
when I have less to do, I will go back to there and I will work on this task.
And yeah, that's how I use priority in Nozbe. Yeah, exactly.
So let's get, because out of the 10 points, we have three points done, but these
are the most important three points ever. Like again, when you listen to our
podcasts, you see that we are like people who like simple things and we like things
to work the simple way. So the moment you start, you know where you write down
your things. The moment you know where your inputs are coming to, and you can
always find them. The moment you organize them later, these things into projects and
tasks, and you have this structure, and you can find your next actions,
next steps, priority tasks in all of that. And you know what should be done when,
where, and by whom. Exactly. Then you've got it. Like this is like the Holy Grail
of productivity. You don't need much more. It's 90%, like you're not 90 % there, and
you you basically have it done. Everything else, we'll talk about it today and on
this podcast, all the next seven points are a bonus. Really, it all comes down to
not using your mind to start things, but writing things down, later organizing them
into tasks and putting them in the projects and finding these tasks that you should
work on and that you should focus on. So it's like, it's all that, Nothing more.
Everything else is a bonus. And we'll talk about this bonus now after a break,
where we'll ask Sarah how she likes Nozbe.
When we've been around for about 10 years, our business has, and we've been using
Nozbe for about eight of those years. And as we grew, we kind of got to the point
where I just couldn't remember everything anymore. I'm pretty organized. I would just
kind of keep everything in my head and with posts and notes and things like that.
And it just got to be too much. And so I started looking around for some sort of
project management software that could help me have a set up really trusted system.
But really, I just wanted a system where I could know that I had everything in
there. I wasn't gonna forget anything. I wasn't gonna drop any balls for clients or
miss deadlines.
- Exactly. - Yeah, Sarah So we use this as a basic way, but it helps her so much
to organize her small company. Yeah, exactly. So number four,
Magda.
Number four is a little bit related to the fact that we are in the 21st century
and using paper notes, using post-it,
not being able to reach your work and reach your information and documents from
anywhere you are, it's a little bit counterproductive. So the step number four is
please try to use the tools that will let you carry your work,
carry your small office or your small company in your packet. It means that use
something that is cloud -based, store your documents and your files on internet drives
or Google Drive or Dropbox or anything like that, that lets you open a file that
you really need on your home office computer, on your company computer, on your
phone, or even if your mobile battery is dead,
but you are, I don't know, at your friend's house and they have the computer.
This is like crucial that that's why you know, it must be we really make sure that
the mobile app is as powerful as desktop app It's it's smaller, but it's very very
powerful. It's not something We want to avoid situation where you when you say I'm
gonna do it in front of the computer because only then I have access to all this
data No, you should be able to access all this data right then right now So many
times I was on my way I was somewhere in a cafeteria or somewhere like just with
my phone and my accountant needed an invoice. Somebody needed something else. Somebody asked for a feedback on a comment on a task which was really important and I
didn't want to be a bottleneck. I could do all of that right from my iPhone. And
this is really important. So when you structure your system, when you prepare your
system, even if you work alone, like if it's just you, You don't want to be in
the situation where you just go out, you don't take your laptop with you, and then
suddenly you need to do something, or there is some urgency for your customer or
for somebody else, and you cannot send them things because they are on the office
computer, and they are not synced in the cloud, and you cannot download them easily
or just get them easily. So this is really important. Choose the tools that just
enable you to use them on any device that you need. Exactly. Can I?
Yes. Number five is about cooperation, but as we today as we are talking and trying
to focus on people who are working individually, I just wanted to tell you that
exchanging comments in Nozbe and discussing in Nozbe is not a sign of the fact that
you are crazy, but this is something really productive. This is the way to remember
things, to be able to note down the progress and use comments as a communication
with yourself from the past or from the future. Very often, even when we are
working in a team in Nozbe, I create a comment to a task saying "note to myself"
or "to Magda". I just note down the information that I want to remember about this
task. It's not useful to Michael or to other team members, but it's important to
me, and I just make a note for myself. This way, whenever I need it, I type the
phrase that I used in this note and I can find it easily in Nozbe. Exactly.
And also, I was discussing with a fellow solopreneur recently how they want to
structure their work at Nozbe. Because if you introduce a solopreneur, very often you
are working with someone. So it's like you have a subcontractor, like you have
somebody, for example, recording the podcast and somebody else is doing the audio of
the podcast and putting them and putting it together. So you might have
subcontractors. So with them, the idea is that you structure the way the way you
work, not with email, but also with your system, with your tool. So very easily you
can like after you publish, you can easily send them an audio or you can, you
know, even point them where I should log in to get the audio, you just like you
make sure to work, you know, easily with everyone else. And also, the idea is this,
that in his case, he was like, he is working with his assistant. So he's a
solopreneur, but working with an assistant. So I already told him that, you know, in
his case, he should have like an account for two people for himself and his
assistant so they can manage all the projects together, and then they can have
separate projects just with the podcast subcontractor, the web developer subcontractor,
so like the other subcontractors. So even if you're working alone, even if you're
just getting your stuff done, again, when you're using modern systems, not post -it
notes, like Sara said, not post -it notes, just a modern system, you might want to
establish channels of communication, like through joint projects in Nozbe or through a
task in Nozbe so that you can send somebody a task and you can do that in Nozbe,
you can send a task via email, you can send somebody any information and this way
you can get it into your system. You can get their response in your system.
Exactly, in Nozbe, specifically in Nozbe, we have two options. If you want to share
the whole project with someone from outside your Nozbe account,
so with someone that you don't want to pay subscription for, you can ask them to
create their own Nozbe account. It can be a free space in Nozbe.
And then you can invite them to join your project. And this way,
they can't see any other project of yours. You can just collaborate on this specific
project in Nozbe. They don't have to pay because it's possible with the free,
not be free, subscription. So this is one idea if there is something bigger to do
together. But if you are running a project alone and then suddenly there is a
single task that you think you would like to work with someone or maybe you would
like to ask someone to contribute. Then you don't have to leave Nozbe.
You don't have to change your communication channel to email or to WhatsApp or to
text messages. No, you can send this specific task to the person of choice via
email. They won't have to register to Nozbe. They won't have to create the account.
Nothing of that. They will just receive an email saying, "Hey, Magda wants to
collaborate with you on the specific task in Nozbe." They will press the button and
in their web browser, they will see a very simplified Nozbe interface with just the
view of the task of Nozbe. And the only thing that they will have to,
I don't know, devote or change in their life is that they will have to type their
reply or they will have to type what they want to say to you, not in the email
response to your email, but in the small comment window in Nozbe. It's exactly the
same, the small difference, but it will help you keep everything in your system and
that will be really not a big difference for them or anything not professional or
something that will be a trouble for them. Exactly. So really sharing a task via
email is something that we'll be promoting much more in the next episodes of this
podcast and also on Nozbe website because we think that you should be able to send
anyone a task who wants to work with you and this way you keep things in your
system. They keep using email if they want to or they can sign up for Nozbe if
they want to. Like it's all, like you don't, you're not forcing anyone to do
anything, but this way you are more organized. You as the solo solopreneur,
solo productivity person.
So here, Robert is said that on YouTube, he found our, so speaking of 10 steps to
admin productivity. Robert has found 10 steps to admin productivity course that I
recorded like many years ago, 11 years ago or more and he loved it and he asks if
there is a chance for us to re -record this course.
I'm not sure we will be able to re -record it, but we have had last year a new
updated 10 Steps to Admin Productivity course webinar that we launched last year.
So we'll add the link to this webinar to the show notes of this episode. So you'll
be able to find this
updated 10 steps to Ultimate Productivity webinar. It was like a more than an hour,
hour and a half webinar with a big presentation. I'm sure you'll love it.
It's more updated, kind of. It's something between what we're talking about right now
in this podcast and
and the old course, so make sure to check it out. I think this might be Robert,
something you are looking for. So we'll post all the links to the show notes to
this episode, so make sure to check them out. - Mm -hmm, another tip that we have
for you is once you have your projects and tasks, of course you can get your tasks
than in the structure of project, but sometimes it's really good to batch tasks not
only based on what they are related to, but also based on the context.
This idea comes from GTD methodology by David Allen, and he said that if you want
to be more productive and to work with less interruptions and in more kind of go,
then you can group your tasks by the place they should be done at or to the tool
that you want to use to get them done or to a person or even to your energy
level or the level of difficulty of this task.
This is a really nice thing. You don't have to exaggerate with those grouping And
maybe if you don't feel it, you don't have to because Michael said this is a
bonus. But many people love, especially this idea of easy tasks, low energy tasks
and difficult tasks. Imagine a situation when it's a morning and you are not really
awake and you don't have energy to start doing this difficult report for your VIP
client, but you need a small warm -up and you want to do something that will show
you that, "Yeah, okay, you are working. You are doing this." Then you can ask Nozbe
or in any other way, you can find all the tasks that you earlier marked as low
-energy tasks. And you can just do three or four simple things that only to see the
progress to motivate yourself. This is a good idea. And this tag, because in Nozbe,
those contexts are tags. And it's a really nice thing to do. Yeah,
we changed the name of this concept from context to tags,
because with all your respect to David Allen, contexts were not like, it's a good
name, but it's people were not understanding how to work on that. And tag is also
more flexible in that sense that you can really use it for many different things.
You can use it for a kind of status. Like, you know, instead of,
like some people are, instead of completing a task, they are changing the status of
the task by adding a different tag to it. So for example, completed, waiting for
shipping or shipped or like whatever. So like this can, they can like kind of,
instead of completing a task and moving on to a different task, they can just
change the status of the task. And this works for certain industries or for certain
types. Recently, I spoke to a person, this is a freelancer, and they hire a desk,
rent a desk in open space, like a co -working place. And they are working with
many, many people around, but they have a bunch of tasks that require phone calls,
because it's really difficult to talk on a phone with all those people around and
also maybe not wanting to disturb other people. Once a day,
he goes to the small conference room that he can also use in this co -work, and
then he asks Nozbe, because that's the Nozbe user, only show me the task that I
earlier Marked with a phone call and then he spends 30 or 40 minutes in the small
conference room Which is quite place and he he he calls people This is also a good
idea for tags. I remember in one of the software companies They were also working
like in an open space and the moment somebody was going to someone and started
talking and start discussing something Another person sitting next to them were like
Get a room
So they were like get a room. Yeah, so go to a room and just don't talk here
because here we work So yeah, completely and so tags are very flexible also some
people that they asked us. Yeah, not be I don't like those We because not speed
doesn't have the This setting of lower priority higher priority and I need that you
know for my system because this is how I'm used to working I'm like, yeah, easy,
just create a tag, high priority, low priority, or priority one, priority two,
priority three, like whatever, like you can really, thanks to tags, you can really
put Nozbe to work, you can adjust it to your preference, to your system, and
especially if you're working solo, like this is your system, like we give you a
simple structure, but a very flexible one, and this way, you'll be able to adjust
these tags and everything else to the way you work.
The next step is number seven, and we probably already covered it. It's about taking
control of your documents and files and images, graphics and everything.
The most important thing is to know where it is, where to find it and to save
those documents in those locations as quickly as you can using these two -minute
rules. And now with all of our devices very soon having artificial intelligence,
scanning everything and indexing everything, it's easy later to find.
When you have a scanned document, the AI on our small computers is already
recognizing what's written there. So when later you're searching for this invoice from
this company or whatever, very often you can just find it by searching on the
device. So it's really simple. It's really easy.
And really right now, not using our small device,
small computers in our pockets to scan is a wrong move, Because this way you have
access to all these documents very easily and you are not wasting time searching for
things.
The next step is probably your favorite one, Michael, right? Yes. Weekly review.
Yes, it's about reviewing your system. This is why in Nozbe we work, we have Mighty
Fridays, we work on be things from Monday to Thursday from we have our activities
and then on Friday this is when we have our weekly reviews so this is important
because in this fast paced world we need a breathing room we need a space in time
to to review our stuff and to get it ready for next week for what's yet to come.
And very often, this is a psychological thing, people are happy to give their time
to a meeting with someone. Like, if Magda calls me, hey, Michael, I need an hour
of real time. I'm like, yeah, okay, let's do it. Let's talk now. But if we need
to block two hours of work for a meeting with myself about my own tasks,
my own system. Then it's like, oh, no, no, it's too much time. I don't have time
for that. No, you need time for that because if you review your system, if you
make sure that you review your projects, your tasks, your tags, your, your dates,
like your due dates, like when you review all that, you will have a clean system.
You will have a system that will work for you. You will not have a cluttered
system. So we will not be, be complaining that you have too many tasks or too many
things because you will have reviewed them. So it's really important to dedicate this
time and I do encourage you to do it on a Friday because on a Friday it's like
an easy way into the weekend. You summarize everything you've done, you know what's
ahead of you and then on Monday when you show up to work you show up with a
plan. Yeah and also for me the week to review it saved me many times because even
though I'm trying to be well organized and I'm trying to follow all the rules that
we preached here, but sometimes a small mistake can really ruin everything.
For example, sometimes I forget to set the due date or set the recurrence to a
task just by mistake. And then if I don't find out the small crack in my system
during weekly review, I could have really serious problems because of that. So even
if you think that you are doing really well with this organization and you have all
your projects and tasks, it really doesn't mean that there isn't space for
improvement and that you shouldn't take care of clean and maybe get rid of something
or maybe change something or improve or plan. And also,
a weekly review can be your time to clean up your actual desk, not only desktop
on your computer, but also your desk, your environment, just to start fresh the next
week. Completely. Like, very often, we were laughing that Friday,
when you're doing a weekly review, the moment where you, you know, take a small
clothes and you just clean your desk when you clean your environment, when you just
make sure that everything around your computer and the screen of your computer
exactly that you actually know what you're seeing there on the computer when you
type it. So, um, so this way, again, you're ready for next week. And so it's
really important. And I really encourage you, this is like, you know, two hour tops,
uh, to, to just see, look at your calendar,
look ahead, what's going on, what you have completed. Also, celebrate your wins,
celebrate what you've done this week, and then get ready for next one. >> The
easiest way in Nozbe is for me, is to open the view called My Tasks, and just go
through all your tasks one by one. That's a really great start,
and sometimes when I'm in the hurry, it's even enough. Okay, so next step is email.
I know I'm aware that email is really like ubiquitous.
It's everywhere. You can't get rid of them. You can't tell people to stop emailing
you. But there are some tricks that can help you move out some of the important
stuff to your them out of your email inbox.
One of methods to do this is using Nozbe and using the feature that is called send
task, email task to Nozbe.
Every place in Nozbe, every view, every task, every section,
every project has its own email address, not be generated when you ask it.
And you can create this email address and you can do several things with it.
For example, if you have a task devoted to a client and in this task you are
discussing with yourself because you are a freelancer, finance staff, budgeting,
you can't how many hours you devoted working for them. You generated an invoice and
you prepared an invoice which is waiting to send it to the person. And this way,
you can ask Nozbe to generate an email address straight to this task.
And when the person emails you some important information regarding this particular
staff, you can forward it straight to this task.
It will become a comment to this task. You can even give this email to this person
asking, if you will be sending a signed contract, please email it to this address
and it will go straight through this task as a comment. Another way is generate an
email address to a project or to a project section and do exactly the same.
Such an address can be used to create a contact in your email inbox and then you
can forward any email to this specific project or project section or even you can
give this email address, not the email address, to someone, to your accountant, to
your client asking them, not to email you to magda.blabla@gmail.com,
but to this specific Nozbe address. This way, all the messages that they will send
you will omit, will skip your regular email inbox. When there are many newsletters,
spam messages, and stuff, it will go straight to the specific Nozbe project or
section as a task.
The Subject of the email will become the name of the task and the email body will
become the comment of the task it will you can also obviously include all the all
the attachments. The crazies thing that I that I know people do is giving this
specific address to the specific project to many people around is sometime ago I was
talking to. to the company that is using Nozbe. And I think they are working as a
maintenance company for schools or for other like big spaces,
big organizations, big institutions. And they could create a project for a certain
organization or institution or building. And they gave the email address straight to
this project to all these building users, like everyone,
and they say, "Hi, this is the email address where you can complain and say,
"Oh, here there is a problem with lock. Here the toilet is not working. Here the
corridor is dirty." And all those complaints and queries will come straight to as a
tasks in Nozbe. It's so easy. It's so great.
Yeah. I mean, this is like the email integration for Nozbe that you can send emails
to anything in Nozbe and really to, as you said, to projects, to projects section,
to a task, to anything. It's a powerful glue.
It's a powerful way to connect, you know, people with your Nozbe or So other tools,
like if you're a solopreneur, very often you also work with other tools like that
you need for, I don't know, for editing, for recording, for, I don't know, for
whatever is that you're doing. So very often you can also designate Nozbe email as
the email for notifications from this tool that you're using. This way when there's
new customer coming in, you get a new task in Nozbe. - Scheduling >> Even sales
platforms, shopping platforms, and any service that requires giving your email address
can be. >> Just think about it. Both of us use Calendly, this application to
schedule our availability. The cool thing is that whenever there is a new event in
Calendly for Magda or for me, so for Magda, when you go to Nozbe .com /demo, when
you schedule a demo with Magda, It's a new task in our Nozbe demo meetings project
in a section, like new meetings and then as you know,
I'm talking to customers so very often we also send them also my links so they can
find availability for them. The same way, when they schedule a new talk with me,
it goes as a task to the same project, but it's a different section, Michael's
meetings. So This way we both can control our meetings, we know our meetings, we
can remind ourselves of things or give feedback on people that we see there who are
going to meet with us. So it's really convenient and it's really a great way to
connect with different services via email to your productivity system. So this way
you can get away, as you mentioned Magda, you can go away from email, I mean, you
can use email less you can worry about email less because the most important things
the things that you really care about are going to go straight to your productivity
system. Yes so what we really want to tell you is that leave emails for the
external world and for handshakes as Michael always says and use your preferable
tools for actual work and for getting things done. Don't keep things in email.
Don't rely on email as your productivity or work tool. - Yeah, I mean,
we built this feature that you can send a task via email to anyone. Also with that
case in mind, that if somebody emails me, I can forward this email to Nozbe to a
specific project or just to Nozbe. And then when in Nozbe, I can click to delegate
this task and Nozbe already reads the email address from this person, so I can
actually, with one click, I can delegate this task to this person, so I can send
them back the task. So this way, again, the handshake is the email. He sends me an
email, wants something from me, I agree, but instead of replying to them, I send it
to Nozbe and then delegate the task to them and reply in the comment. This way,
they receive a new task and we can work already in the comments of this task
instead of exchanging emails.
- So now there is step 10, which is kind of the free place for us to give you
some more tips, maybe some practical tips. Maybe you have any questions. If so, you
can now ask us in the comments. But if not, We are happy to share maybe one or
two ideas just to finish up Okay, so there is actually suggestion from Robert Robert
again. Thanks for for participating today live We are called we're called live this
podcast on on Wednesdays So as Robert says one of the best features of Nozbe is
enable duration feature Then when you create a task a date start time and duration,
it will block that time if you have it synced with Google Calendar. And this is so
true. We can enable time tracking features in Nozbe. And this way, when you start,
you know, at the moment, when you start a task and the due date, the due time,
it's blocked. So we have a time blocking feature that blocks time in your Google
Calendar. Again, I advise you to do it for a Friday where you can block your time
for your review, for example.
Yeah, and again, for me, I can't emphasize it more if you are,
even if you are a solopreneur, if you were working alone, don't skip this feature
in Nozbe that is called Comments. Please, if you have a task dedicated to something,
just use these Comments as you use, I don't know, your, your folders in computer,
add documents that are related to this task, add any information that can help you
to serve this client or to complete this campaign or anything.
This is for you. And this is, if you pay the subscription for Nozbe, just use it,
you use the space that we offer. We always say so easy to have it everything in
one place. This is the key. We always say projects, tasks, and comments.
And these comments are really crucial, as you mentioned, even for solopreneurs,
because comments can be checklists. They can be documents. They can be mixed of
checklists, documents, and text, and whatever you want. And the best thing is they
can be communication from your past self to your future self. And this is really
key. Like whenever you have a task that is requiring, for example, every quarter or
every month or every year, then very often you will be really thankful to your past
self for leaving you a thorough comment of how this should be done because by the
time the task gets back to you, you will have forgotten it. So for me, this is
like I'm very often so happy that Michael from a year ago was kind enough to me
To write me this thorough comment or a checklist, or how I should complete
something, that is just something that I have to manually complete every year because
as much as we want to automate our life and all that stuff, in many places we
still have to do things manually every now and then. And for that, we use Nozbe,
we use tasks, we use due dates, we use recurrence. But then in the comments, you
write, "Oh, you just have to click there and just paste this and then you're good."
So this way is like you have saved yourself so much time.
Please take care of yourself and don't let your work to become your life.
And in Nozbe you can separate your personal stuff from your work stuff by using
spaces. If you pay, even for the basic subscription in a premium account,
you can easily and free off -charge create a second space totally separate one that
will let you organize your private life.
You'll have three projects. You'll be able to add as many tasks as you want to do
those three projects. And this way, when you finish your work, or at least when you
try to finish your work, you switch the space. And there you can start learning
your language,
I don't know, doing your sports, hobbies, or planning your journey to some cool
place. - I mean, Nozbe has this cool thing that, in the new Nozbe that we have these
workspaces, so that really you can separate it. Also, when you're a solopreneur,
but you, let's say you have different businesses, other different activities that you
wanna do, and you wanna keep them separate as well, you can, you know, you can
upgrade to business account, even for one person. So this way you can have several
premium workspaces. One for your work, one for your personal life,
one for your other work, or for your other activities. So it's really very, very
flexible and very convenient. So really, as you said, it's really important that
these digital systems, they not only make us more efficient, but help us also divide
our focus and help us, you know, finish this and go to that, you know.
So really, when we talk about productivity and digital systems,
we want to make sure that you also mind your personal life, mind your well -being.
And when you work in focus, you work in focus. But when it's out of work, it's
out of work. But also in private life, as you know, things need their due dates,
things need to get done, you have to run some errands, so it's good to have them
written down and especially you can write them in your separate workspace where you
have all these things organized.
All right, so thank you so much for it's been a blast. Thanks Robert here for
contributing to this episode. You And always follow us live when we record every
other Wednesday. And best of all, like today is 18th of December when we're
recording this podcast. So it's right before Christmas. So Merry Christmas. Stay safe.
And happy new year. Happy new year. Let the new year be really productive for you
really that you can achieve what you want to make it your best year ever.
And if you still are on the fence, if you should try Nozbe, make sure to get our
free bonus. So get our free bonus at nozbe.com/podcast.
Thank you for being an amazing listener of the No Office podcast. Every other
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