Apps | List Producer

Be More Productive with a 15-Minute Vacation

April 23, 2015/2 Comments/in Apps, Happiness, Increase Productivity, Reduce Stress/by Paula Rizzo

photo credit: Nicole Rouyer Guillet

BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

The most productive people know the importance of taking a break. In fact studies show that brief diversions from a task can dramatically improve one’s ability to focus on that task for prolonged periods. This is a productivity tip I talk about in my book, Listful Living.

But what do you do with you break? Some go for a short walk, others make a cup of tea – but what about something a bit different? Today I’m going to show you how to take a 15-minute vacation and feel rejuvenated and re-energized.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Go onto Google and choose the street view.
2. Type in your favorite city or a place you’ve always wanted to visit.
3. Use the Google navigation tools to take a stroll around and enjoy
4. Walk down the Champs-Élysées in Paris or relax on the beach in Bali!

Another great way to take a virtual vacation is to use the app Periscope. If you haven’t heard it’s a new video streaming app that I’m totally obsessed with. Download it and you can watch people live streaming from their phones all over the world. Just recently I watched someone walk along the Great Wall of China. It’s so much fun and a great way to reward yourself after some hard work!

What do you like to do on your break?

BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

My Latest Productivity Killer: Periscope

April 14, 2015/2 Comments/in Apps, Technology/by Paula Rizzo

Smartphones are in many ways a productivity blessing. They provide you with instant access to hundreds of apps designed to help you get more out of your day. However, smartphones can also be a productivity curse. Because you also have access to hundreds of apps designed to get you addicted and take up all your time!

As much as I write about the importance of not being distracted – I too, sometimes get addicted to apps and get thrown off course.

The latest being Periscope.

The app allows you to live stream video from your phone from anywhere in the world. It’s very exciting for me, as a news producer, to think of all the possibilities. When I downloaded the app I had expected to watch a few videos of people going about their lives, but I quickly found myself becoming addicted.

Here are some of the things I’ve watched so far:

Pizza delivery guy arriving at a house in Utah
Kid playing super mario brothers for the first time
Pearl Jam tribute band
Guy hiking in Arizona
Person hanging out near the Golden Gate Bridge
Guy walking through the mall in NJ
Little girl learning to ride her bike for the first time
Guy who couldn’t sleep in the UK drawing
Newsroom tours in Waco, TX, Lexington, KY, Las Vegas, CNN
A puppy that is afraid of a cat in Alabama
Mother daughter dance at wedding
Malibu Beach sunset
Some nascar race
A firehandler on the beach in Florida
A cat yawning
A puppy eating
The MTV Movie Awards red carpet
Cherry blossoms in DC
Behind the scenes tour at The View

You can download the app here. Follow me — I’m @listproducer of course. Remember it is seriously addictive – so consider yourself warned! So use is as a reward when you get something checked off your to-do list. Then you can check out someone walking through Times Square or a Disney parade in real time. Let me know what you think if you check it out.

Get Control of Your Calendars

April 8, 2015/0 Comments/in Apps, Fab Find, Technology/by Paula Rizzo

I often hear a common complaint from productivity seekers like yourself — “I wish I had a better way to keep track of all my calendars.”

I get it – I have the same problem.

I have an Outlook calendar for work and I use Google Calendar for my personal and book stuff. And sometimes iCal gets thrown in the mix too. But sometimes they don’t cross pollinate and I forget stuff. I never like feeling like I’m missing out or not hitting a deadline.

Not to worry — I’ve found a pretty cool solution. I was a guest a book club last week (yes, they read my book Listful Thinking and asked me questions about it!) — and we started talking about apps of course. And one popped up that I’d never heard of — the Sunrise App.

So I took a closer look and it’s basically amazing. It allows you to connect multiple Google Calendar, iCloud, Exchange and Facebook events all in one place. So you’ll be able to keep track of your appointments, work meetings and social events.

Pros:

It’s really pretty. In my book a gorgeous design goes a long way.
It can be used on your desktop, iPhone and Android.
It’s smart and uses appropriate icons for your entries. For example, if you enter “Lunch with Ali” it will instantly assign the knife and fork icon for quick reference.
It includes the weather forecast and any holidays or sports schedules you’d like to add.

Cons:

You’ll need to rework your alert system. I still had my Google Calendar alerts on when I started using Sunrise and I was getting double notifications. So that’s really annoying but totally fixable.
I’ve had a friend (Ok, so it’s my friend Terri, who you all know by now as the host of Solopreneur on the Whatever It Takes Network) tell me that it doesn’t update quickly enough and changes made outside of the app take a while to show up on Sunrise. This hasn’t happened to me but don’t say we didn’t warn you!

See How I Detox a To-Do List on TV

March 8, 2015/0 Comments/in Apps, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Tool for Success, TV/by Paula Rizzo

Last week I shared with you the exciting news that I was going to be on The Better Show. If you didn’t have to chance to catch it when it was on TV, here are the clips from the show:

Detox Your To Do List

There’s a right way and a wrong way to make a list. Watch this clip to make sure your doing it the right way to set yourself up for success.

Make A List That Works!

In this clip I show you how to make our lists work for you, not against you. Plus there’s a round-up of gadgets that can help you. Do your best ideas come to you in the shower? Watch this!

Appy Listing

In this clip I give a rundown for the best apps to keep you organized while you shop and travel.

11 Free Fab Finds for Productivity

February 20, 2015/2 Comments/in Apps, Fab Find, Increase Productivity/by Paula Rizzo

Getting things done doesn’t always have to be time consuming and costly. There are actually a whole lot of free ways to be more productive. I’ve put together this list of freebies that will get you on track:

Time Savers

1. Pathtalk: This app is really versatile (and awesome)! It allows you to contact local businesses, make dinner reservations, book appointments, compare prices, and check in-store availability. Not to mention, you can do all of these things without making a single phone call! I use it all the time.

2. Dragon Dictation: Have a brilliant idea but don’t have any paper? Dragon will transcribe whatever you say with pretty good accuracy into a tweet, Facebook post or e-mail. This is great for capturing to-dos that pop up when you’re on the run.

3. Umano: This app allows you to listen to professionally recorded short news articles! Sign up and choose from a wide variety of publishers and bloggers (including me!) to listen to. It’s perfect for when you want to listen to stuff on-the-go! If you decide to try it out, use my code when signing up to get unlimited listening: NN8MEZ.

4. Timeful: A way to schedule all the things you really want to do! You can connect Timeful to a calendar you already use and schedule in tasks like reading and meditation.Timeful will suggest the best times for you to complete each task – which you can accept or deny.

5. Minutes Please: Control your web time here! You know how it goes — taking a 10 minute break to check Facebook turns into one hour. Enter the URL of the website and the number of minutes (up to 120) you want to spend on it. Minute Please will give you a countdown at the top of your browser. Never waste time online again!

6. Scannable: A new mobile scanning app introduced by Evernote. I’ve already used it a bunch of times to scan receipts, insurance cards and articles. All you have to do is point and click and you can instantly save or export the picture.

7. HelloSign: You can sign e-signatures with this site that are legally binding. This was a lifesaver when I was buying my apartment. There’s just so much paperwork to fill out. I used HelloSign to scan, edit, and sign documents.

8. Hellofax: From the same makers of HelloSign. With this app, there’s no need to have a fax machine anymore. HelloFax takes a high quality scan of your photo and securely faxes it to wherever you want. One of the best parts is, you can keep your current fax number to avoid confusion with customers. There’s a free 14 day trial.

Email

9. Email Game: If you have an endless inbox — conquer your e-mail, with a game! This game encourages you to read and responds to e-mails faster and more decisively. This adds a fun twist on the boring task of sifting through your inbox.

10. Unroll.Me*: Junk e-mail can pile up pretty quickly. When you’re in the store and they ask for your email, all of a sudden you’re getting a ton of useless newsletters. Unroll.Me will identify every newsletter that you’re subscribed to and you can opt-out with the click of a button.

11. Boomerang: Get your inbox back down to zero. This app provides various useful features. If you’re up late answering emails, you can schedule to have them sent out in the morning. This way you can get your day starting out doing other tasks. You can also prioritize certain emails that you want to tackle later. Plus you can schedule emails you’d like to follow up on to pop back up into your inbox when you’re read to deal with them. The first 10 emails are free.

Still feeling overwhelmed by your email? Check out my course Take Back Your Inbox, which I created to help you get back in control!

Check out these free fab finds and let me know what you think below!

*Unroll.Me makes money by learning what people stay subscribed to and what they unsubscribe from – that data is valuable and helps corporations learn what people want and what they don’t want. Your email address is NOT sold. If you’d like to keep your subscription list private you’ll need to unsubscribe manually from individual email subscriptions. If you appreciate the swiftness that you can unsubscribe from multiple sources while helping brands service customers better then Unroll.Me is for you!