There is a lot you can do with some apps and websites to boost your contact management, appointments and business cards

Software secretary for you

There is a lot you can do with some apps and websites to boost your contact management, appointments and business cards

Smart phones are getting smarter every day, and are now capable of being used to increase your productivity, even beyond the basic calendar and email use. Responding to an email on the phone is ok in an emergency, but my first productivity tip is: avoid answering emails using your smart phone. Tag them, flag them, mark them to be addressed when you are back at your work station; this is better than paying for mistakes introduced by the auto-correct on the oh-sosmart phone, or by the two fat thumbs fumbling over a QWERTY keyboard. But this is a personal choice.

Here are some applications that can improve your productivity on the move, synchronising data across apps and across devices, and is also available on your computer.

TO-DO MANAGER

I like to use task lists. In the old days I used to carry physical lists with tick boxes, and a pen to make entries. When smart phones came, I put in some time, effort and lots of money to figure out an app that could fill the role. I finally froze on "any.do" (www.any.do), a to-do list manager available for iOS, Android and Google Chrome (and coming soon on the Web). Sadly, Blackberry and Windows options are not available.

The any.do app is free to use. It uses your Facebook account to synchronise across devices, and allows you to share tasks, drag and reschedule tasks and edit tasks from an iPhone. The simple approach to task management is beautiful.
Postscript: You can always use calendar entries to manage tasks, but sometimes all you need is a list, not a time-schedule.

CALENDARS AND MEETINGS

I have 4 or 5 meetings every day, some professional, others personal. To record these interactions means toting a diary or two, taking notes — and painstaking recaps when I get back to office.
So when I found Meshin calendar (www.meshin.com) it was the answer to a prayer. I use a calendar diligently to plan my time across days, weeks and months, and Meshin helps me see my calendar in a simpler way, and even lets me take meeting notes directly from here.
It lets me take voice records of the meetings, which I can add as a note to corresponding calendar entries. This is like having a secretary. I can also click pictures or make quick notes on my smartphone keyboard. The notes and my calendar get synchronised to my Evernote account in the background, making sure I have my meeting notes across all devices.

If you make a note directly in Evernote, or just jot down a new note — or even take a snap of a physical pen-andpaper note — you can link it to the calendar entry. The background synchronisation means you can access these on any device via Evernote.
Right now, Meshin is available only for iOS and Android, but you can always access meeting notes from Evernote.
Postscript: Simpler calendar options include Google and Outlook calendars. For Outlook, your company should have an MS Exchange server running or you need to have an Outlook.com email address (now available as free Web mail). The Google Calendar can be accessed and synchronised by most smartphones, and can also send appointment reminders by SMS.

SCANNED BUSINESS CARDS

Five odd meetings a day result in halfa-dozen or more business cards, usually. If I forget to scan the cards when I get to office, even for a week, it means getting snowed under. But no longer.
With sharp cameras and business card scanners on smart phones, that is a worry of the past. My favourite utility is ScanBizCards (www.scanbizcards.com), available for Android, Windows and iOS platforms. Shoot the business card with your smartphone, and the app scans it, runs an optical character recognition to convert the image into text and you can add this to your address book — all right on the phone. You can then connect with the person over LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), add a follow-up reminder, forward/export the card via email (or quick-send the contact)... the possibilities are endless.

There is a free limited version and a paid version with more features available for both iOS and Android. Windows users can get only the paid version. The price for the paid version varies depending on the platform. If you want to synchronise cards across devices and also upload/view cards from a Web interface, the company offers a subscription model at $0.99 (R54) per month.
Too lazy to type in a card? Shoot it, and ScanBizCards will convert it manually at $0.18 (R10 approx) per card - though that seems like a lot.
Postscript: Other apps that help me improve my productivity are Skype (video calls), travel manager Tripit (which we saw in a previous article) and Dropbox, which lets me access my centrally stored files.