Todoed

When was the last time you forgot to do something really important at work or home and went all mad about yourself for not being able to do it? The worst part is when you’ve to explain it to someone that you actually forgot a task. It’s not a good feeling. But it happens. People forget simple things like a deadline, doing household stuff, class assignments etc. It’s a normal human thing. We tend to forget, get occupied in busier stuff. But as humans, we’re also evolving. We’re being more productive. We’ve got tools to help us remember stuff that we need to do. Yeah, todo lists. That’s what I’m talking about.

An organized mind is a devil’s enemy. So go ahead and make those todo lists, prioritise and execute. There are plenty of tools available to help you out with that stuff. But using them shouldn’t become another task that you forget. You don’t want to add another to do task to add to do tasks to you to do lists. That doesn’t help.

We at Todoed, are on a mission to make the world a more productive place. For first steps, we want to help you easily build that todo list so you don’t ever forget simple tasks. With our chrome extension, you can turn any selected text into a delegate-able task. It’s simple and easy. And it’s not a todo tool made just for busy business people. We want to help different people organize todos for as many different tasks they want to. We believe this tool can help students, entrepreneurs, parents, doctors or anyone who wishes to be more productive.

This presentation can help you get an idea of how Todoed can help you work better, live better, study better or just be more productive in life.

Todoed is working to make todo listing, delegating and organising be absolutely seamless on your mobile and desktop. Seamless to your browsing, thinking and chatting habits. The goal is to build a productivity suite to enable effective task management, building and sharing ideas and better team communication and collaboration across devices and platforms.

I have read hundreds of articles on the web about 7 ways, 9 hacks, 20 tips on how to be more productive. I did an in-depth analysis about the psychology behind it and ended up buying a couple of books off of Amazon on the same topic that I will never finish and here I am. Writing this blog post. No matter how much we study or complicate the sacred art of productivity we never achieve 100% results. We forget that the best way to learn or complete doing anything is to just do it. That's why the Nike slogan has been around for ages because its precise and it's true. Just get it done. But it's understandable that just getting it done is not the problem. We are very much capable of it. What we aren't capable of doing is keeping our head straight and do what we HAVE to do. Kids who grew up in the eighties and early nineties understand the difference the recent insertion of constant chaos in our lives. The reason is the constant buzz of text messages, emails and the latest news that vibrates in our pockets. We take our smart phones out and reply to that email in our suave professional artfulness. After all we are important and these emails need to be answered. The world counts on it, right?

WRONG!

The world doesn't need our exclusive viewpoints, our tweets or Facebook updates. What the world needs is constant innovation; everybody getting the work assigned to them, done efficiently. The reason people read blog posts like this one is because they understand that and want to get it done. The best way to get anywhere near to being a productive human being is to eliminate these distractions. Distractions are what keeps us away from the elusive productivity we wish to achieve. Let's consider distraction as a type of dark cloud that is in between us and productivity. This objectification helps understand that productivity is within reach, its just being blocked by distraction. Now, close your eyes and take a deep breath before getting to that important task. Imagine yourself reaching out between the dark cloud of distractions with all your positive energy and reaching out to the clear sky of productivity. Hold this thought for a couple of breaths until you finally reach 'productivity' and then get to your work. Now you have an inner motivation to do that the task at hand until completion.

Not enough?

We know it's not enough to do this. This imagination game that many of you might think is silly won't work. After all we have an attention span of just eight seconds which is shorter than that of a goldfish. One needs to be more mentally prepared and present in the moment to make the right choices. Here are few helpful tips that if incorporated into your lifestyle will bring about a distraction and confusion free you-

Get rid of your smartphone while you work

You need to get rid of that smartphone for a while. Put it on silent and keep it aside for a while. The time of you pure dedicated work. Can't do that? Try the 10+25 method. What is that? It is a simple 10 minute work followed by a two minute break repeated 5 times in a row which amounts to 1 hour of productive work. How does that help you keeping away from your phone? After getting a little accustomed to the 10+25 method you will work towards getting your work done and eliminating the two minute breaks and hence it will occur to you naturally to club these breaks and take longer 15 to 20 minute breaks where you can check your phone and follow up on any important calls, messages and emails.

Changing the approach

Do not warm up to tackle a full project in one sitting by just getting into it headfirst. Understand what the project is. Take a piece of paper. Break down the parts required to complete the task. The little physical note of these milestones will make you feel like you are achieving something on the way so that you don't give up easily. Even if you do that early approach will help you get back to finish the last few parts because your brain sees it as a few smaller tasks and not a complete big task that you left in between.

Prepare for the day before the day even starts

We get distracted not only by our gadgets but also by the amount of decisions we have to make throughout the day. Some decisions are very important and some decisions do not mean anything and we can easily do by automating them. So before you go to bed make sure you have your small workout plan, your basic outline for the next day ready. How you can do that? Assign a specific time to do so. Where you can just sit for 15 minutes and reflect your day and make plans for the next. Buy a notebook or maintain a file on your phone. Writing down helps more though. And when it's time dim the lights and prepare for a good night's sleep with a clear motive of what you have to do tomorrow.

Hammer this into your routine and there is no stopping you. Soon enough you'll forget what distractions even are.

Get to it.

Getting press for you startup is something a hustler has to do to contribute to the growth.  

There are may tools out there that can get you the emails of prospected journalists and Todoed can be there right with you to clip the emails. For this blog post I am focusing on three tools that work brilliantly in flow (you need zero knowledge of coding to work with the following).

1) Google news api 

2) Emailhunter.co 

3) Todoed.co

Before I dive into the tools here a little background. I am the coordinator of Todoed, which is a productivity chrome extension that allows the user to turn any selected text into a delegate-able todo with just one right click. It is a simple powerful tool that is on my shoulders to market. My goal is to get to 10k users by the end of March, 2016. On this journey I have exposed myself to many  press and media tools and sources I have collected here. 

Let’s get right to it; on this journey of growth these are some tools that work really beautifully in flow 

1) Google news api product-ified    Here you can simply input a few keywords relevant to your startup / product and find a long list of relevant articles. Through these article you can find the relevant journalists (that is gold right there).

Now if you have about 20$ to spare then continue reading this post. It will contribute greatly to your learning. It sure did for me! If you want to do it for free continue reading and let me tell you about the magic. 

2) Email hunter After searching for the relevant links this is where your time is getting saved. Since you have to tackle this part manually you have to open the relevant links found in point 1 and use the Email hunter chrome extension to scrape the emails relevant to the domain of the relevant article.   Email hunter does this seamlessly and allows you to do about 150 domain searches per month and 150 searches are sufficient ;) So what just happened? You found the relevant emails on the relevant articles! So 60% of the work is done simply. Next what is really required and this proves to be some solid feedback for the Email hunter team is making that text productive. 

Here is a short note from one of our tribesmen. Read it to have an idea of our inspiring mission and soulful interactions.

Music knows no boundaries. Feeling low or need help to tackle your long list of todos, don’t you worry - music will conquer all!

According to a study done by the Australian Journal of Music Therapy, music and productivity are directly related. The main reason being the impact music has on one’s mood. Mood is a temporary state of mind or feeling which may be subjected to frequent changes, depending on how much willpower you have. The right kind of music will ease your tension and let you think more clearly.

So while your colleagues are chattering away nearby, and your boss is yelling at his subordinates, all you need to do is chuck in your earphones and listen to the right music to get your work done.

In this blog post we’ll be talking about the different kinds of music for varying levels of concentration required in your work.

The first kind is the mundane, no brainer job which you detest at the same time. To tackle these kind of tasks, listen to your favorite music. This will lighten up your mood, keep you interested and working to the beats.  You can even choose songs which last as long as you need to finish a task, thereby acting as a deadline.

The second kind is where you need to work intently. This is a tricky situation. You cannot listen to something which has a lot of beats or intense lyrics, as this will distract you from your surrounding to the music itself, thus losing its purpose on the way. This is where classical music steps in. Listen to the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Yanni or Yiruma. This will create a musical ambience, soothe your senses, shut out all the noise around and give you the right mood to focus!

The third kind is where you need your creative juices to flow. Here is when you can experiment with different kinds of music to find your perfect match! This is usually when it is late at night and you need to groove out to get your blood pumping. Listen to hip hop or some funky jazz to stay upbeat and productive on your todos.

So let the music play and do whatever it takes to keep the show going!

And do let us know the tracks which bring out the most productive side of you!

“ As we are already aware, Internet can be a large ocean of distraction and managing your tasks and schedule is of prime importance. I have been using a handful of task managers and calendar apps over the years, and although they do help me on utility front, it sure takes some time to get about it. We are compelled to talk about the Chrome extension Todoed, Ask why? The Answer is that it’s extremely simple and blends in with the Chrome browser in just the right way.”

In today’s tech savvy world we literally live online, either on the web browser or on mobile. We work online, shop online and sometimes eat online too. Since the entire day is spent online, the only way to keep a track of all that needs to be done is by having an online assistant which takes care of everything in the background,  without being too evident by coming in your way. Let me ask you, how many times have you come across a text on your browser which you need to save on some todo listing tool? You know where you have to jump through loops of copy > paste > save. Uncountable. Also if you have to share that piece of information with someone else - oh man! Another loop (> assign) to jump through. Forget it, who has time for that! 

If only there was a tool for to #makelifesimple…

Well if that’s a problem you face on a daily basis, then you’re in for some luck, because we have made something for this exact gap that disturbs the flow of work.

Allow me to introduce you to Todoed, the tool that is bound to make your simpler! Todoed is not just another note making app or todo listing tool. It is a way of life! All you need to do is install our chrome extension and let us work our magic behind the scenes, while you focus on your work. It is ridiculously easy. Todoed will not only let you save any todo at hand by just one right click, but also let you delegate todos to your collaborators. Moreover, you can make any chat conversation on the web more productive by just clipping the text straight from within the chats. No more scrolling through chat logs to find important texts that slipped past you the first time.

What’s more, upon sending your collaborators a todo they will receive a simple notification and an email update about the todo added to their list. Easy, isn’t it? The best part is, it is completely seamless. No need to switch screens or apps. Just delegate from where you are on your browser and soon from any device.

The human mind is like a haven of procrastination. We find lousy excuses to not do a job. You have to do the laundry? The sun is not bright enough today. You have to take the garbage out? The bin is not overflowing yet. You have to chase your dreams? Oh I can’t find my running shoes! This is just the tip of the iceberg, where the horned devil rests, content with his success, enjoying his view of you living in an unproductive dump.

The question is - how do we change from a procrastinator to a doer? The subconscious part of your brain can answer this question. Get organized. An organized lifestyle is the result of an organized mind. The key is to detangle all the mess that is in your mind and this will in turn reflect on your day to day life and vice versa.

Imagine a straight road where you have to cover a short distance from point A to point B. The road is covered in debris. So first you will have to clear all the debris to make way and then start moving forward. Similarly, clear all the distractions from your life and your mind, anything and everything that deviates you from your actual goal.

Start by making a list of todos (try Todoed) that need to be done by the end of the day, to the end of the week and gradually to the end of time. The moment you list down all the activities that need to be done, your life will unwind automatically. Thus starts your productive journey.

Next, prioritize. Prioritizing is as important as listing, or even more. You need to be clear in your head about the importance of the todos at hand before executing it.

And lastly, execution. Do not let the devil get the better of you, now that you have organized and prioritized. Just go ahead and pull the trigger, one step at a time, and enjoy the glory at the end of the road.

The todos viewed on Todoed have been filtered in such a way to boost productivity and speed. By knowing what information is best accessible where we are able to save the average productive person several seconds between their todos in their day, thus not breaking the flow of work. The chrome extension has two views that we refer to as the extension view and dashboard view. Let us show you.

Extension view:

Let’s start by clipping.

The extension view is YOUR todo-list. A personal quick view allows you to see your todos (todos assigned to self and todos assigned to me by other). Totally aimed towards speeding up what you need to do, hence placed right there accessible to you at the click of the button. Let’s take a look. 

Dashboard view:

Let’s now delegate a clipped todo

You visit the dashboard via the extension view. In here you are able to keep and overview of your collaboration on important todos with others. This is your TEAM view. The reasoning being the default tab combinations on the dashboard is this certain way will be elaborated in our next post!