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[Guest blog post by  Jason Spencer]

Eric Mack reached out to me recently and offered to show me how he uses IBM Notes. I wanted top see eProductivity in operation anyway so this was my chance to learn from its creator

My first One on One coaching session with Eric Mack focused on an introduction to eProductivity which I found impressive. Eric Mack and David Allen have created an optimized software package and user interface for IBM Notes.

(As an aside, I believe that it  would behoove anyone working in software development to preview the demo and see what a completely optimized life management tool looks like.) Over a three day period, I implemented all 57 exercises to properly demo the software. In my next post, I will describe more about this experience.

Continue Reading "IBM Notes as a "Trusted System" for Getting Things Done" »

Journalist and professor Jason Spencer is on a quest to use IBM Notes as a productivity platform. I've invited him to share his experience with Notes on Productivity readers.

Jason's first and second guest blog posts are here, here and here.  Jason's fourth installment update is below.

Setting up IBM Notes with the Getting Things Done White Paper

Yesterday, I tried to set up IBM Notes and organize my work according to the best practices of David Allen's GTD methodology. I ran into some snags which I documented.

Today, as I continue my productivity journey, I decided to see if David's white paper on using Notes would provide some relief to the challenges I encountered with vanilla Notes. I spent a day setting up my vanilla copy of IBM Lotus Notes using David Allen’s Getting Things Done white paper for IBM Notes. If you have never used a GTD White Paper before from the David Allen Company, you should know that their white papers give you a complete Getting Things Done Setup for that specific piece of software, turning confusion into clarity.

Continue Reading "Guest Blog: Using the GTD Setup guide for Lotus (IBM) Notes" »

Two weeks ago I shared a link to productivity blogger Jason Spencer'

Jason is a journalist and professor at the Art Institute of Houston and he recently reached out to me to share his interest in IBM Notes as a productivity platform . He said that he was planning to do a long term experiment by migrating his life to IBM Notes/Smart Cloud. I like the way he explores and writes about productivity topics he's passionate about so I encouraged him to share his experience and I invited him to submit guest blog posts about his experience for the benefit of the Notes on Productivity readers.

Jason's first and second guest blog posts are here and here.  Jason's third installment update is below.

Challenges Implementing Getting Things Done with IBM Notes
I'm a long time proponent of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) approach to work and life. In fact, knowing that David uses and recommends IBM Notes as his knowledge platform of choice is what first led me to consider switching from Outlook. When Microsoft emasculated their productivity tools I got fed up and decided to explore the tool that David Allen uses. I understand that David also uses eProductivity but I wanted to first understand what it is about Notes that has kept this program around for over two decades. Using my knowledge of GTD, I decided to see if I could implement this approach to productive work within my vanilla Notes 9 Social Edition Setup.


Continue Reading "Challenges Implementing Getting Things Done with IBM Notes" »

[Two weeks ago I shared a link to productivity blogger Jason Spencer's rant against Microsoft for their emasculation (his words, not mine) of their productivity tools.

Jason is a journalist and professor at the Art Institute of Houston and he recently reached out to me to share his interest in IBM Notes as a productivity platform . He said that he was planning to do a long term experiment by migrating his life to IBM Notes/Smart Cloud. I like the way he explores and writes about productivity topics he's passionate about so I encouraged him to share his experience and I invited him to submit guest blog posts about his experience for the benefit of the Notes on Productivity readers.

Jason's first guest blog post is here. Jason's second installment update is below.]

IBM Notes True Cross Platform Support
Despite all the challenges I faced setting up IBM Notes, I chose Notes as my primary life management application because IBM has tried to make Notes a truly ubiquitous cross platform PIM. IBM chose to pursue simplicity in Note’s mobile device support-- like Google Apps for Business, IBM Notes Traveler (the IBM Notes push email and PIM solution for mobile devices)  embraces Microsoft Exchange Active Sync Protocol for maximum interoperability. Furthermore, IBM Notes Traveler offers software for iOS and Android; and support for Blackberry and Windows phone platforms.  Similarly, Notes also offers a robust web interface far more comparable to its native client then Outlook Web Access 2013 (OWA) to Microsoft Outlook. When it comes to desktop operating systems, you can run the full IBM Notes Client natively on all major operating systems --Windows, Mac, and Linux flavors of Red Hat and Ubuntu.


Continue Reading "IBM Notes True Cross Platform Support - Guest post by Jason Spencer" »

As the creator of eProductivity, the premier personal productivity application for IBM Notes, I want to share a few examples of how eProductivity makes my task management in IBM Notes easy.

In case you are unfamiliar with the approach to knowledge work that I use, it's called GTD® which is the shorthand for "Getting Things Done®" from a a book by my friend and best selling author and productivity expert David Allen. (Disclaimer: I have worked with David for 20 years and David has greatly influenced my eProductivity software; it's the productivity application that he uses and recommends.)

David Allen identifies the fives stages of workflow as:

Continue Reading "How I track and manage my Projects & Actions in IBM Notes" »

[Two weeks ago I shared a link to productivity blogger Jason Spencer's rant against Microsoft for their emasculation (his words, not mine) of their productivity tools.

Jason is a journalist and professor at the Art Institute of Houston and he recently reached out to me to share his interest in IBM Notes as a productivity platform . He said that he was planning to do a long term experiment by migrating his life to IBM Smart Cloud. I like the way he explores and writes about productivity topics he's passionate about so I encouraged him to share his experience and I invited him to submit guest blog posts about his experience for the benefit of the Notes on Productivity readers.]


Here is Jason's first guest blog post...

Technology Challenges Setting Up IBM Notes

Originally I started working with IBM Notes Smart Cloud edition which includes a free copy of IBM Notes 9.0 Social Edition and huge cloud base document Management Suite for only $10.00 a month. First off, the technical support and the hosting provided by IBM is fanatical – they will, if you have the patience, hold your hand through everything, including adding your own custom domain.

Continue Reading "Setting Up IBM Notes / Smart Cloud - Guest Blog by Jason Spencer" »

I was intrigued by this recent post by productivity blogger Jason Spencer's in which he takes Kurt DelBene, President of Microsoft Office’s Division to task (pun intended) by saying that he "...emasculates the task interface, making it impossible to sort or search tasks by category".  But wait. there's more. Jason says that DelBene and his team of Software Engineers "have continued to castrate with gardening sheers Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA)’s functionality."

Ouch!

Harsh words? Perhaps, but Jason has the expertise to know what he's talking about and backs up his claim.

Jason concludes:

Even DelBene’s favorite whipping boy IBM Notes allows mobile workers to access all major functionality of its PIM from a web browser, including editing and sorting by category it’s journal and todo features. IBM’s Traveler team also develops its own versions of ToDo and secure email features for IOS and Android so mobile workers can maintain a secure and consistent experience across all major platforms. IBM Notes’ cross platform compatibility was a primary reason for me to shift over to using IBM Notes from Microsoft Exchange.

As a reader of my blog you know that as a 20+ year user and long time champion of Lotus/IBM Notes, I will encourage Jason to give IBM Notes a try. I will also invite him to share his experience here on the Notes on Productivity Blog.

Meanwhile, here is the direct link to Jason's post on his Open Notes, Et Cetera blog where he focuses on productivity technology and social branding based on experiential knowledge.

For the past 18 months I have been involved in an enterprise deployment that took most of my time and much of my attention. It also necessitated that I curtail my blogging activities for a while. I'm back and I look forward to getting social again...