Neil Hastings - Latest Comments

Re: How I keep motivated to workout

ronevanscl5 — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 08:56:52 -0000

I really love my tiny new Fitbit! - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0... It motivates me to move more and is more accurate than a pedometer. It's so tiny and fits right on my waist. Love it!

Re: How I keep motivated to workout

Alijah Villian — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 01:30:31 -0000

I find it hard sometimes, to workout. Especially spending most of my time in a computer chair. But I will check out Fitbit and EveryMove.

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:56:32 -0000

Wow, great link! That's a awesome concept. I've been using SaneBox for the past few weeks and it's pretty awesome also.

https://www.sanebox.com/sig...

With the recent features that AIB just release, I've actually changed my process a bit. I should write an update :)

Thanks again for the comment the great link :)

Re: Email Processing

Nathan Sudds — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:21:46 -0000

Thanks for sharing your experience, I've been using activeinbox for years and it keeps getting better.

Thought you might find this extension interesting to pause your inbox so you aren't tempted to check your new email after processing...

http://www.inboxpause.com

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 10:08:22 -0000

HI Sam, thanks for the comment! While I don't work for or even use Boomerang I can speak to security via sharing gmail. I work for http://appirio.com/ on a app (http://www.cloudfactorapp.c... that pulls emails via IMAP to scan and provide contextual acurate info from salesfroce. We actually don't keep any information. I can tell you that Boomerang most likely just keeps the id of the email, your osid (open social id) and when you want to resend it. It's not really practical for them to actually store the entire email.

Most likely they they just call another call to gmail to get and send the email based upon your trigger to get the email then just resend it without actually storing any info besides perhaps a log entry about the success or failure. That's how I would architect it.

Your concerns are true though, you give them access to your gmail. YOu also give AIB access to your entire gmail account by allowing them access that page via the extension. They could send whatever info they want about the page your are on to there servers.

What to keep in mind is that there is no business reason to do this. Neither company benefits from storing this information and it actually turns into a big hassle.

I do appreciate where you are coming from, privacy and security is also a concern to me also.

Thanks again for the comment!

Re: Email Processing

Sam Feldman — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 15:56:19 -0000

My concern about Boomerang was a privacy and security one. Specifically that the emails have to hit their servers for the boomerang piece to work whereas AIB is all labels.

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 22:11:28 -0000

"Imagine that actually taught one how to manage email overload at school? " Great idea! I'm so going to teach my kids that. My 4-year old is already an avid iPad user.

Thanks for your insights. I always enjoy hearing how others attempt to optimize their workflow.

Re: Email Processing

Ryan Silberman — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 05:17:15 -0000

Makes sense. I have tried asana - great for team collaboration. Workflowy looks grat, but I would think google tasks works better as you can link it to an email and assign a due date - you can then access it from http://mail.google.com/task... if you want to be outside of email.

Streak lets you setup a pipeline. I use it to manage leads and recruitment. Basically for tasks that have to go through common steps in order get done. Another useful feature is sharing it with relevant team members so everyone has the same view and info about a particular job. For me the best feature is the reminder which resurfaces emails when you want them - Boomerang is not cool as it is outside of gmail. Trello on symphonical also work nicely.

The latest iteration of activeinbox (version 5) looks promising, but I think it would be best if they managed to simplify the tool, there are just too many options and features.

Anyway, I guess every individual is different. Imagine that actually taught one how to manage email overload at school? Would be a cool course.

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:52:55 -0000

I also want to add that I found I really didn't want to spend any more time in my inbox then I have to. I've been playing with Workflowy (https://workflowy.com/?ref=... and Asana (http://asana.com). I think I'll really like workflowy once I get my system organization in order.

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:48:47 -0000

Thank for your comment Ryan. You are absolutely correct. It doesn't matter how great your tool is if you don't stick to it. It's important to be evolving your system as you grow and learn what will work best for you.

I actually have modified my task system a bit from this post. I wrote a follow up here http://indytechcook.com/sti.... Please have a read and let me know what you think.

I haven't used streak. are you talking about http://www.streak.com/? Looks like CRM, does it work as a task manager?

Re: Email Processing

Ryan Silberman — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:48:22 -0000

I tried activeinbox, as well as boomerang, streak, google tasks, and a whole host of other tools. The main issue is discipline. If you don't go back and check your actionable items frequently enough you are doomed. I became overwhelmed and eventually it just became another email inbox to check. I think the main point that these tools are missing ito GTD is the fact that they need to resurface when the time is right without you having to go and review all the time. To that end I have found streak quite useful.

Any thoughts?

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Neil Hastings — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:14:10 -0000

I have them managing several calendars including my wifes.

They can only authenticate to one google account but as long as that account has access to the other account's calendars then you are fine.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Neil Hastings — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:13:16 -0000

Sounds like a great idea! Those sort of phone calls are how you get hooked on a VPA like Fancy Hands.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

davereid — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 16:19:55 -0000

Also wondering how this works if I have more than one Google Calendar: one for work and one for personal

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

davereid — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 15:15:18 -0000

Yeah I'm trying to figure out how many of the moving tasks I could relegate to Fancy Hands like taking care of moving or setting up utilities, figuring out which trash and recycling services I need to start with and setting up accounts for me.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Neil Hastings — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 16:36:00 -0000

Thanks for the comment Fredric! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Neil Hastings — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 16:35:39 -0000

Hey Dave, thanks for the comment.

Here are examples of different requets
* https://www.fancyhands.com/... (this actually has gives an example of fixing a CC charge)
* https://www.fancyhands.com/...

I would think they could do it for you. You would have to give certain information to them or have them patch you in on a call to give approval. See Request #2 for an example. If you integrate the calendar then can see when you are available and only make the call then.

Cheers,

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

davereid — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 22:03:24 -0000

Very interesting. I recently found out a cab company charged both my personal debit card and my work credit card. I would love someone to help resolve it for me... is this something do you think Fancy Hands can do? I have a hesitation to start using something if they can't do it.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Fredric Mitchell — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 21:28:54 -0000

good job dude. may have to check this out.

Re: My Assistant - Fancy Hands

Neil Hastings — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 21:22:08 -0000

Fancy Hands actually reviewed this post for spelling and grammar (I'm terrible at spelling). I posted it as is. Please also comment if you see any mistakes!

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 13:58:34 -0000

I added In-progress, I thought "Next" was there already but I might be wrong. Just create the label in gmail. Mine is under S/In Progress or S/Next.

Click on "Configure Label Types". Here is how I have my status labels setup: https://www.monosnap.com/im...

Thanks for the comment!

Re: Email Processing

Tom Murphy — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 21:40:05 -0000

I'm loving ActiveInbox and your tutorial was very helpful.. but I am having trouble finding the Next and the InProgress labels.. where am I going wrong?

Re: Email Processing

Neil Hastings — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:07:01 -0000

Thanks for your comment Louie! I used Boomerang for a little bit and think it's a great tool but I couldn't justify the cost.

Thanks again for the suggestion!

Re: Email Processing

Louie Helm — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:22:21 -0000

I use Boomerang to get emails away from me while I'm waiting on them. It's a nice complement to ActiveInbox.

Re: More Drupal Design

website builder — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 04:49:43 -0000

That is a very good "to do" list.