5 Productivity Applications That Rock:

1. MindMeister

MindMeister acts like an online whiteboard. Ever find yourself knee-deep in a project to only forget the big picture? MindMeister solves this all-too-common dilemma.

As described by Mindmeister, “MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeisters from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map and see each other’s changes as they happen.”

Click here to check out MindMeister

2. GoalScape

GoalScape allows users to set goals in a way that doesn’t intimidate you. How? Through cutting edge visualizations and innovative ways to display goals, the user is less likely to feel overwhelmed, and more likely to actually crank out his or her goals. This is a wonderful supplement to the goal setting tactics that we talk about in the book.

Not only is this application useful for goal-setting, it’s useful for project management, and anything required to get things done.

According to GoalScape, “Goalscape is the revolutionary new way to set goals and motivate, prioritize and progress to achieve whatever you are passionate about. Unlike other program and project management software and task tracking tools, Goalscape is so easy and fun to use that goal setting becomes a quick everyday process and your goals themselves evolve as your personal goal setting skills improve. So you will be better organized, more focused and less stressed! And it works equally well for business and personal goal setting.”

Click here to try out GoalScape

3. Rescuetime

Rescuetime runs in the background and analyzes your browsing activity. It shows you where you’re spending time and where you’re wasting time. In essence, it rescues your time.

On average, Rescuetime recovers 3 hours and 54 minutes of time that you’d otherwise get distracted by.

In their words, RescueTime is a web-based time management and analytics tool for knowledge workers who want to be more efficient and productive. The best way to get a sense of how it works for you or your team is to sign up (for free!). You’ll be up and running in a minute or two. Not yet ready to give it a try? View one of the tour videos or scroll down for some feature screen shots.

4. Concentrate Application

With the Concentrate application, you can literally block out distractions by limiting what you can and can’t do while undertaking a specific action. For instance, if you need to write a paper, you tick it off on the Concentrate Application, and it will virtually bar you from doing anything but writing a paper.

In their words: To start, create an activity (design, study, write, etc) and choose actions (shown below) to run every time you concentrate. When ready, just click “concentrate.” All your distractions will disappear and a timer will appear to help you stay focused.

Check out Concentrate here.

5. FocusList

If you’re tired of complex to-do lists, then check out Faction3′s first productivity application, FocusList.

Faction3 represents a movement towards common sense, simplicity and effectiveness. This movement is embodied in our applications that help you get things done.

The simple to-do list application “FocusList” is a downloadable desktop to-do list that keeps you focused on important items.

You can check out FocusList by clicking here.

5 That Don’t Rock:

1. SugarCRM

SugarCRM is an open source customer relationship management tool (“CRM”). While it’s a novel idea, the features are way too robust to actually be useful. Most companies end up moving to Salesforce, or if they’re smart, they’ll move to a less feature-rich tool such as HighRise.

2. Jott

Jott is a to do list that has some cool features; specifically, text-to-speech. The only problem with that centers on the fact that getting things done does not revolve around how many features are present within one’s to do list. Jott’s competitive edge centers on text-to-speech to do items; if you actually use the service, it could be quite useful; however, most people end up distracting themselves with features instead of concerning themselves with getting things done.

3. Evernote

Evernote is an application that allows you to take pictures of objects that you wish to remember, and then search for that object later. Guess what else does this? A camera. Evernote’s greatest competitive edge is their marketing, as there’s nothing revolutionary about their product (in terms of productivity).

4. Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a to list on steroids. This to do list is the exact opposite of minimalism and productivity. RSS to do items, Google Maps mashup to do items, twitter to do items–you name it, they’ve got it. Good luck getting anything done.

Bottom line: If you’re into web-based to do lists, go with Google Tasks (within Gmail).

5. Twitter

Twitter and productivity do not go together.

5 That are Underrated:

1. Moleskine

We live in a digital age. One that’s concerned with how to sync to do lists across RSS, iPads, iPhones and Android Tablets. Yet, when it comes time to actually getting things done, nothing beats Moleskine’s weekly to do planner.

In their words, Moleskine is a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, diaries, and city guides: flexible and brilliantly simple tools for use both in everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of one’s personality.

Moleskine was created as a brand in 1997, bringing back to life the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two century: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin. A trusted and handy travel companion, the nameless black notebook held invaluable sketches, notes, stories, and ideas that would one day become famous paintings or the pages of beloved books.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs offers users a minimalistic, web-based set of office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Forms).

Many still overlook the power of collaborating with these tools–specifically Google Docs version of excel. It works great for not only calculating and organizing data, but also for project management. When managing a project, try using a Google Docs workbook with the following columns: Name, To-Do Item, Note. That’s it. You don’t have to even set a date next to each item if you hold the people that you work with accountable.

3. Tungle.Me

Tired of going back and forth between email in order to set up a call? Tungle.me solves this issue eloquently.

In their words, you can use Tungle.Me to Eliminate double-bookings, time zone mishaps and the back-and-forth of finding a time to meet. Easily schedule meetings, inside or outside your organization, and invite others to schedule with you, without having to sign up.

It even integrates with Google Calendar, Google Apps and more.

4. Calculator

So often we lose sight of what’s really important in business: money.

You can take that any way you want. Bottom line, the game of business centers on one principle: Revenue – Cost = Cash

If you’re not in business for that reason, then you’re not in business–you’re in a hobby, dream or venture-backed startup

On every device I own, I use the standard calculator. It keeps me in check and allows me to do simple math that calculates whether or not a specific opportunity is worth the time or investment. If you want to get productive, start using the calculator more.

5. Kindle

“What you will become in five years depends on the people you meet and the books you read.”

You really don’t understand how great the Kindle is until you purchase one. It’s hard to explain the value until you’ve owned one. It’s a device that, much like a book, is easy to get lost in. The value of reading seems to be underrated. You can check out the Kindle here.

Think about the future

Think ten years back. Now imagine if you kept a tidy record of all the contacts you’ve helped out. Think of all the people that you’ve interacted with. You’ll find it’s hard to wrap your mind around. In fact, you can’t. We meet hundreds, if not thousands of people per year. It would be handy to leverage those relationships again, right? I mean, it couldn’t hurt.

Now imagine your LinkedIn account in 10 years. Are you actively building your contacts for the future? The value of LinkedIn doesn’t center on the now; it centers on the will be. It’s a tool that will tremendously rise in value over the course of the next decade. In fact, it’s probably the most focused social network out there on the web. And by focused, I mean results-oriented.

Why is this?

Because its purpose centers on one thing: cultivating professional relationships.

During transition, most career services tell you to get a LinkedIn profile; however, they don’t cover the most critical part in using LinkedIn. There’s a specific ways that you can leverage LinkedIn to help others out, stay in constant contact with your connections, and in turn, help yourself out–whether that be clients, a job, strategic partnerships or business partners. Below, we explore how.

8 Ways To Leverage LinkedIn for Results:

1. Turn off Email Notifications:

Out of the box, LinkedIn comes with constant notifications via email. These emails are not only a distraction; they’re downright annoying. In an otherwise sound service, this component of LinkedIn really is distracting, and doesn’t lend itself well to producing focused results. I recommend turning off all email notifications through LinkedIn. You can find “Email Notifications” within the “Settings” tab.

2. Turn On Nutshell Mail:

Nutshell Mail is an application that I’ve covered before, and one I definitely recommend. Nutshell Mail groups together the most important events, emails, followers, tweets and wall posts from three services (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin). You can have this social network digest delivered in one daily email.

3. Recruit your contacts:

Using LinkedIn’s email import tools, import all of your contacts. From this point forward, make it a point to add all of your daily contacts–whether casual contacts or business contacts–into your LinkedIn profile. Everyone is worth knowing. Everyone is an expert in something. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, “Every person I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of them.”

4. Apps:

Your profile needs to stand out. For this reason, I recommend leveraging LinkedIn’s application features. You can link your blog, a Power Point presentation, Amazon book reading list and more.

5. Connect Twitter:

I recommend connecting your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account. This can be found in the “Settings” tab.

If you don’t have a Twitter account, I recommend picking one up. Immediately. I don’t want to hear a lame excuse that you don’t have time to “tweet.” A results-oriented strategy doesn’t center on needing any time. It centers on needing a good eye for great articles. It centers on sharing interesting links that help your contacts.

The LinkedIn/Twitter Strategy:

Use a service like ShareFeed to schedule your tweets. Throughout the day, if you find an article that you think people would like, you can schedule that article out. All you have to do is bookmark the article. If you have a good eye for fascinating articles and stories, your followers and contacts will love your updates. Like most things in life, it’s not about quantity, it’s quality.

6. Answers

Most people overlook the Answer section within LinkedIn. Within this section, people pose questions and others answer. There’s a massive amount of viable questions out there that you can answer.

So how can this help you?

As stated above, everyone specializes in something. Everyone’s passionate about something. The Answers section is your time to unleash knowledge about your passion. By helping enough people out, you’ll be recognized as an expert. Because the “Answers” section is so overlooked, you’ll be able to leverage and provide excellent answers with little competing answers.

7. Two critical details that everyone forgets

Make sure you fill out your Summary and Specialties section in a calculated fashion. These sections are critical for getting discovered. LinkedIn’s search engine pays specific attention to these two sections. If you’re familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you can liken this section to the meta description and meta keywords within your site. Make sure these two sections are keyword rich.

For your summary section, keep it short and sweet. I suggest setting a limit of 3 sentences. Have the summary contain specific keywords that you want to be found; however, make it colloquial and easy to read.

As an example, here’s mine:

My activities center on monetization, analytics, business development, product development and ping pong. In my off-time I write about social media and productivity.

Learn more at www.scottscheper.com

For your specialties section, list 7-10 keywords separated by comma that describe what you specialize in and what you want to be found for.

Here’s mine:

Search Engine Optimization, Blog Creation, Blog Design, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Web Monetization, Analytics, Social Media Strategy, Product Development, Ping Pong

Obviously, I’m kidding about ping pong; however, it makes people laugh.

8. Do this and LinkedIn will be worth your time: recommend

This is the most critical step for leveraging LinkedIn. In fact, the other steps are virtually worthless compared to this. All of the success books and relationship books all say the same thing: focus on others. Just because the internet presents a new conduit for connecting doesn’t mean basic relationship principles are obsolete. In fact, it’s the opposite.

In order to leverage LinkedIn, you need to recommend all contacts that you’ve had an appropriate amount of interaction with.

Two things stem from recommending contacts:

1. First, your contacts appreciate it. Everyone loves a compliment, and everyone loves being recognized for their work. It’s critical, though, that your recommendation has merit. If you recommend someone that you barely even know, it will show. Make sure that your recommendation comes from the heart.
2. Second, you’ll gain exposure. Think about it. Everyone’s profile features recommendations. Recommendations get very prominent real-estate on another’s profile. Every single day there’s at least one, if not more eyeballs, viewing someone’s profile. If you’ve recommended someone, you’ll be in front of that pair of eyeballs. Now multiply that by the network effect; you can experience a constant healthy flow of traffic by simply recommending your contacts.

Further Readings and Resources:

• Guy Kawasaki’s LinkedIn Makeover
• 20 Ways to Use LinkedIn Productively