As a full-time web worker, I sometimes forget that not everyone geeks out over the latest internet productivity tools.
For instance, many of my non-geek friends don’t really get the point of feed readers, no matter how often I extoll the virtues of RSS. “Rather than checking CNN.com fives times a day,” I say, “Wouldn’t you rather have all the top stories delivered directly to your reader? You’ll never miss an update!” (It turns out no, they wouldn’t. Too much thinking involved. But you should still subscribe to the Guppie Life’s feed, of course!)
The one site I cannot live without is iGoogle, Google’s customizable homepage. I’ve set up mine so that all of my essential web tasks are available with a flick of the mouse:
- gCal for scheduling work and personal appointments and deadlines
- Gmail for monitoring personal email (and also for when my coworkers confuse my work email address with my personal address)
- a Weather forecast widget
- Google Reader for monitoring industry news and commentary (and a few personal blogs)
- a Bookmarks widget that stores sites I’d like to be able to access from anywhere in the world
- Google Docs for collaborating on documents and spreadsheets in real-time with coworkers
- a Sticky Note widget that serves as a To-Do list and a repository for brief reminders
- Google Maps for getting around
What’s the point of all this? Couldn’t I just get email through Outlook/Thunderbird/Mail like everyone else? Couldn’t I just use iCal for my itinerary? And use Word and Excel for creating documents and spreadsheets?
It’s true, everything I have on my iGoogle homepage can be replicated using standard-issue software.
One advantage is that consolidating all of these common tasks in one place is an enormous time saver.
But the real beauty of iGoogle (and similar services) is in its accessibility. Anywhere I have an internet connection, I’ve got email, news, weather, calendar, notes, and more— all in one place. No more remembering 20 different URLs, user names and passwords. It’s the ultimate one-stop shop, and it’s called living in the cloud.
As I see it, there are two downsides to cloud-services such as iGoogle. For one, you’re entrusting some huge, faceless corporation with all of your personal data. Scary.
Also, you become way more valuable to identity thieves when you store your entire life under a single internet account. Could you even imagine what a person with malicious intentions could do to with access to your email and schedule? Even scarier.
Of course, there are a lot of other ways to live in the cloud. You’re doing it if you use Facebook to store your digital photo albums, for instance.
For me, the gains in my personal productivity are worth the risk. But what about you? Do you live in the cloud, too?
A fair amount, that’s how I manage a lot of my blog stuff. Though I spend most of my time with this laptop, so a lot of stuff is saved on here. I should really copy some of it to the internets.
Thanks for sharing your iGoogle with us. Mine was similar, only with a Jon Stewart quote thing and a Wikipedia search box. Also without Google Docs and Bookmarks, which I added. I should put some of my most useful blog tool sites on bookmarks, especially now that I occasionally use our third computer for blogging. But then I’ve been using del.icio.us for that too. I wonder if they make an iGoogle Widget…I could use that instead. Sweet! they do. :)
I use a special Firefox bookmark to search Wikipedia from the address bar. I just type “wp *search term*” and off I go. I use it at least five times a day.
I iGoogle too. I forget the chasm of folks who don’t though. Today at work a very educated and accomplished non-tech colleague came up to me and said “I heard you have a great system for collaborative projects, so I was wondering if you could teach me about your Kiwi?” I tried to teach her PBWIKI, my new best friend, but, yeah, no.
Good idea. I added it to my Google (and other) search box options on the right.
Well said! I iGoogle a bit too much… I’ve run out of space for more tabs! I really enjoyed NetVibes, but iGoogle just sort of took over (especially with the fun artist backgrounds that you seem to be using, as well).
For implementing GTD and managing your tasks and projects you might try out this web-based application:
Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version is available too.
As with the last update, now Gtdagenda has full Someday/Maybe functionality, you can easily move your tasks and projects between “Active”, “Someday/Maybe” and “Archive”. This will clear your mind, and will boost your productivity.
Hope you like it.