Anyone who’s kept up with me over the last few years realizes I love 37 signal’s products. I’ve used them all, but always wondered why they didn’t integrate. Instead of getting stuck on that concept, I’ve embraced their exclusion and containment. I’m glad I did. It seems complicated on the surface but deep down it’s simple. You can take a look at major CRM’s and see examples of integration. You’ll see a loaded down, bogged down productivity system. People in my experience will spend all their time learning and working the system instead of getting results.

So here’s how I see the transition between 37 signals products.

Backpack for me was the end all be all. I used it for everything.- sharing pages with customers, keeping lists and running projects. Lately, I’m back to using it as I believe it was intended. A place to organize your organization. I keep reference lists (not task lists), share reference pages with customers and compile data for events, trips or major ideas. I also use the calendar to organize one step actions that happen on a particular date. I keep budget (bill payment) info on the calendar as well. Of course I ical this into Google Calendar so I can access it on my iphone wherever I go. Plus I share Google Calendar with several others. I have started to use the Backpack journal feature at night to record the days happenings.

Basecamp for me is all about projects. If you use the GTD terminology a project would be anything you can’t do it 2 minutes or less or that doesn’t have one defined next action to complete it. This is still a tough balancing act. I have most mid to large projects set up independently in Basecamp. Basecamp is also where I manage my business, my wife’s business and collaborate with key people who contract with us. We manage monthly deliverables for retainer customers along with new customer projects in Basecamp.  I love Basecamp because of writeboards and milestones but template to do’s are the powerful stuff.

Ta-da lists are a new edition to the arsenal for me. I love them. Instead of keeping simple next actions (not associated with projects) in Backpack or Basecmap, Ta-da lists allows me to quickly put them into list format. That’s not the key though. Any program can do that. A text file can do that. The real power is the iphone ready site which parallels the web version. Check off something from your list on your iphone it mirrors up on my Macbook in the cloud. What do I keep here?

• Shopping lists
• Errands
• Weekly Review lists
• Daily Review lists
• Today’s tasks
• Daily supplements (you name it)

Highrise is my weakest area. That may be the case for many people. It’s a powerful platform but I think I stumble here because of the lack of sync tools in the cloud (which still boggles my mind). I do keep my contacts here and the new ability to add social media contact info has been a big addition. So much communication takes place in mobile environments or in email threads, that getting it into Highrise can be difficult. I would suggest you at least organize your contacts in Highrise and record key conversations or meeting notes. You need those kind of records and that kind of data stored somewhere. Once someone becomes a customer they usually migrate to Basecamp in my experience.

*I’m an affiliate by the way. The banners are on the home page. No big deal just telling you.

This is a two part answer and the answer is never the same for two totally different people. I spent many years thinking of perfect solutions, when there are no perfect solutions. Even though I believe in principles which can work for everyone, the means or method may not. Want to watch a cool video that explains this in unique way.

I used to be a big time list maker, note taker, write on a calendar and planner kind of guy. About a year ago, I completely went digital with all my lists and to do’s and everything else. Before that I read David Allen’s GTD book, and I decided to try it with paper and folders. The system worked, but so many of my projects didn’t work that way. I was using Basecamp to work on my biggest current project, and I had found Backpack to be so useful in managing just about everything else. Well I love 37 signals aforementioned products and use them more than any other applications except Google. I don’t plan on stopping my use of them, but actually probably increasing it. What I did realize a few months back was notebooks and small pocket notepads are still the best way for me to capture a quick list, idea or thought. It is still the best way for me to draw out a mindmap or brainstorm a project to determine next actions. I was inspired yet again by a very digital guy, who still says the pen and pad trump typing in a web based application. If it takes me 5 minutes to locate my laptop, open it, wait a second to refresh my wireless connection, open up backpack, find the appropriate page and then type out my thought, it will always lose to grabbing my moleskin notepad out of my back pocket or my notebook and getting the thought out of my head. Earl Nightingale was famous for saying that ideas are like wet slippery fish. I have found that to be true. The only substitute for the Moleskin back pocket notepad for me, has been using the digital recorder on my cell phone. The only problem I encountered was that when I did a weekly review, which was about as often as I would check my little digital notes to self, I would have to replay the message and type it out into backpack. I didn’t like the extra step. It wasn’t my typing skills either. I type over 45 WPM, which isn’t ground breaking but it’s not slow either.

I have decided to use Backpack more for reference, personal projects, sharing pages with customers (works great to develop a word press site- although I’m experimenting with Basecamp for that right now) and someday maybe categories. I use my large moleskin notebook to record video ideas, blog architecture, mindmaps of my marketing plan and many other things. I use my small notepad to list my next actions for the day and to make quick notes throughout the day. I take both of these and review them as collection buckets during my weekly review session (for GTD’ers). I am trying to use Tim Ferris note taking system linked above, but I haven’t mastered the techniques or organization just yet. I use a new page for each day in my small notebook.

GTD suggests that you limit your amount of collection buckets. This is hard to do in a digital world but right now I’m trying to work within these parameters.

• Gmail-  Incoming messages, outgoing messages, waiting for, read/reviews, and next actions
• Google Reader- I read my feeds with this tool and use share and star as my filtering mechanism
• Delicious- it helps to have some broad tags like toreview, toread, toblog more on this in a future post
• Backpack- helps me stay on top of personal projects, customer projects and someday maybes
• Physical inbox- I still get mail, papers, business cards and other non-digital items that must be reviewed
• Large Moleskin- project notes, ideas, creative development, mind maps
• Small Moleskin- daily notes, reference, passwords to be indexed, phone numbers to be indexed
• Whiteboard- I have one behind my desk to record ideas when I’m working at my computer

A case could be made for Stumble Upon, if you really want the community to work as it should. I’m not there yet.

Also I like to review my reference folders using a File Map. If any name on the list prompts me with an open loop, I’ll take it through the GTD process.

Hope this helps. Maybe it’s not for you, but maybe it is for you.

OK, this video should be pretty self explanatory. I’m organizing my backpack for the first time in months. You know the thing I carry with me daily, transporting all my key work tools and belongings. I touch it everyday of my life. I put things in it, take things out and it’s probably with me more than my wife and kiddos. So why would it be one of the last frontiers of organization in my world? Because it became second nature and blended in.

This video is two parts and the second one cuts off at the end. My cell camera ran out of memory. Our main camera was out of batteries. We buy those things once a quarter and Murphy’s law got us. My Macbook isight camera was too stationary for this shot. I apologize for the muted somewhat bumpy shot, but listening to my explanation should help you tackle your own small organizing project.

Part 1

Organizing my Backpack from Bryce Raley on Vimeo.

Part 2

Organizing my Backpack part 2 from Bryce Raley on Vimeo.

Here are links to some of the items in the video.

Retractable Mouse

Case Logic

Flash Drive

Moleskin Notebooks

Vibe Liquid Nutraceutical

Forget the changes happening each and everyday with web tools and technologies, how are you with the basics of productivity?

Take a look at Seth Godin’s little quiz here.

Organization is futile without developing the proper habits and mindset. Call it a new philosophy about stuff, or a call it whatever you like. The fact remains- if you organize your home, your email, your systems, your finances, your garage, your files, your office, your iphone, your computer, your calendar or your life; they will probably become disorganized very quickly if you don’t work hard to develop new habits and a new mindset.

Here are the most important tips I can summarize to get you moving with small daily improvements in your organization quotient.

1. Eliminate- the more you eliminate off your calendar, next actions list, projects list- the more you eliminate from your office, home, finances, and life in general the simpler you will make it to keep organized.
2. Seek simplicity- if there is a complicated way to o something and a simple way, choose the simple way. Go for the big picture. Sometimes simple may cost a little more on the surface but after you look at the hidden costs ( opportunity cost, cost of time, cost of gas, cost of diffusion, cost of distraction) you’ll come out ahead by choosing a simpler more focused option.
3. Organize your stuff. After step 1 and 2 you shouldn’t have that much stuff left to organize. The proper process to organize just about anything (hat tip to all professional organizers like myself, NAPO and where I first learned this system- Julie Morgenstern) is as follows. Sort by putting like items together by association, then Purge by tossing, selling, giving away or recycling, then Assign the remaining items a home, then Containerize the items in their home, then continually Assess your system.
4. Put your stuff back in it’s home right now. Form the habit of picking up your stuff and putting it back after you use it. We teach our kids this right? Put you toys up before we go to bed. Put your books in your locker before you leave school. Put the dishes in the sink. Put those toys up before you get more out. So, my theory is that if we teach it to our kids you better do it yourself or you’re a hypocrite and kids are the best hypocrite detectors. Not to mention the fact that your life will be less stressful when you know where things are.
5. Implement David Allen’s GTD system to handle the rest of your productivity concerns. This system will help you organize your thoughts and close the open loops in your mind. It will teach you to collect your information with various tools, to process this information and then how to act on it. You’ll create next actions lists, tickler file systems, project plans and lots of other helpful systems for increased personal productivity.

To start with:

37 Signals products- Highrise-Basecamp-Backpack- Now we can share pages and update them with task lists, notes, pictures and files. We can organize the info and act on it seamlessly.

Copilot- now I can sit at my computer and fix yours by actually taking over your mouse and looking at your screen. This happens with a simple link I send you and takes 30 seconds to download.

Apeer- Now we could share and edit documents, videos and photos in a live environment. This is not sharing- it’s better.

Gotomeeting- we can conduct live webinars or meetings from the comfort of our own offices. I can train you or your staff to work better, and use their stuff better.

These are just a few. Their are so many new ones each day I have trouble keeping up. Somebody has to sift the tools and show you how they make your business work better.

Now that I’ve switched from Outlook (It makes my stomach turn when I see it open on someone else’s screen these days), I am learning how to use Gmail more effectively. I am very amateur on the true power of Gmail at this point. I am however, getting very good at transitioning small business customers to Gmail and other Google apps. This would include setting up the accounts, imapping old folders, popping multiple accounts, creating labels and other handling other administrative tasks.

I haven’t had enough time to figure out the little tweaks that will I’m sure make Gmail even more efficient and effective. Organizing is much different in Gmail than in say Outlook or web-based email clients. Instead of creating a series of folders, and then moving an email to a particular folder for reference later; Gmail’s labeling system with the use of tags (Web 2.0 concept- I guess, but I could be speaking out of turn), allows users to tag an email with several labels instead of putting it into one folder. Although dragging and dropping an email into one solitary folder is simpler on the surface- and I love simpler- labels in the long run are much more intuitive. Need a for instance- here you go.

Say you get an email of a receipt from your backpack account. Well in my mind I need to label this with a star or with an @ action label, because I would like to print it for my tax file. I also want it labeled accounting. Just in case I needed to reference it by association, I may label it Backpack. Now six months from now if I needed to access this for tax purposes or to correct a bill, then I could by association look in one of two or three places. In the old way of doing it. I would be forced to choose one folder that best associates with the email. Well I probably couldn’t make that decision at that point, so I would just procrastinate and leave it in my inbox.

I’m still getting used to not dragging and dropping files but I can see the benefit in this new method of labels/tags.

It seems like syncing devices (except for Ipods) will soon be replaced by feeds and ical type applications. I know that I get ical type feeds in Google calendar and backpack and they can be sent directly to my phone via text or to GMail and Google Reader accounts. Since many smart phones/PDA’s and certainly the Iphone, all have nice web browsing and web functionality these days; why would we continue to need to physically sync a device to our desktop or laptop. I’m sure it won’t fade away that fast, but it might go away a little quicker that the VCR.

This is not a new revelation to anyone in the digital world. I am going to link to a video which explains how Google Reader increases the efficiency and organization of online reading. Most small business owners I meet are not using this time saving method of keeping up with their favorite blogs.

Instead of the old way (going out to each website, news site or blog site to see what they’re up to) you can read your online news the new way using feeds. RSS feeds are changing the way we get info.

Check out this video from Common Craft.

1. Start a blog- I have used google eblogger but I like Word Press better. Don’t know how to get going- call me- it’s a service I offer.
2. Start reading and commenting on a select few blogs that you really like. This will get your name or business name circulating on the Google organic search results.
3. Start an email newsletter. There are plenty of good programs and if you preplanned your content it is something you can keep up with. Pick a frequency- I suggest weekly but monthly would be OK as well.
4. Create a Facebook page. I have one but it’s not at all customized or tweaked. Remember this is a process and Rome wasn’t built in a day.
5. Get a Twitter account (it’s free just like Facebook) and start telling the world- What you’re doing? You’ll be surprised how many people will begin to follow you or your business based on the content of your tweets. Tweets are the short two line entries you make when you answer the question- What are you doing?
6. Post reguraly on Twitter and on your blog. Make it a habit at certain times of the day or the week.
7. Set up a profile on LinkedIn. It’s a site for professional business networking. Every little bit helps.
8. Use Youtube, Vimeo and Flickr to host your videos and pictures that you’d like to share- in an effort to promote your business of course.
9. Try as hard as possibly to do all these things consistently without sacraficing time or attention from the things that really bring in the cash flow.