Online Task and Time Management Tool Debuts

I’ve written before about the Action Machine, a productivity application that brings the tried and true “time boxing” technique into the 21st century. I was one of the early users of the Action Machine and have found it to be an excellent tool for task and time management.

The latest version of the Action Machine has been relabeled as the Action Enforcer and is being sold by Dennis Becker of Earn1KaDay fame. Dennis is known as The Five Buck Guy for his now famous 5 Bucks A Day system. The Action Enforcer is ideally suited to the 5 Bucks A Day system as it helps the user focus on a single task for a given period of time by reducing distractions. In addition, the time boxing strategy at the heart of the Action Enforcer compels the user to plan a set of tasks, prioritize them and work through them one at a time.

As you can tell, I’m a fan of the Action Enforcer. As I said earlier, I own the desktop version (currently available for Windows only). Despite its many virtues, the desktop version has a couple of drawbacks. First, it’s only available for Windows platforms, so Mac users couldn’t take advantage of it. It also doesn’t work very well on netbooks due to resource constraints in those mini-machines.

Well, the good news is that both of those issues have been addressed! The Action Enforcer is now available in an online version so any machine that can run a browser can get the benefits of the Action Enforcer’s time boxing techniques. Even better, the online version is free! Check it out here:

http://johnthegeek.us/proaction

Download the user’s guide from the site and read it over, then give the online Action Enforcer a test drive. I think you’ll be as impressed with this tool as I am. The online version does have a few limitations compared to the desktop version, but is still a very powerful time and task management tool that will make you more productive.

So, the question now is: what will you do with the extra hour or two you’ll have each day?

John The Geek

Action Machine + Dashboard = Can’t Miss System

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been using Derek Franklin’s Action Machine software for a while now. The more I use it the more I like it. I keep finding things it does that not only help keep me focused and productive, but enhances other parts of my product creation system, too.

Here’s a good example: I’m in the middle of writing an e-book. The e-book is actually written, it just needs some editing and formatting to make it look nice. There is still a lot to do, however, before it can go live and start making sales. Among other things, I need to create the cover graphic, make two web sites, one for a free e-book that promotes the paid one, and the other for the paid e-book.

The first site needs to interact with AWeber to collect contact info, and the second site needs a sales page, order button, and the back end for payment processing, downloads, customer registration, etc.

Once all that’s done, I need to promote the sites, so there’s a whole list of things to do in that regard, too. The list of to-dos is pretty long and keeping track of what’s done and what needs to be done can be a real challenge without some kind of system.

To help me manage all these tasks, I bought Marlon Sanders’ Promo Dashboard last year. This is a great product that lays out step by step everything that needs to be done from product creation to promotion. Each step is explained and there is a ton of videos and other training tools on the Promo Dashboard site.

Knowing what the tasks are is great, but even better is having a way of staying focused on each task until it’s done. Still further, being able to track how much time you spend on each task is very valuable for future projects. If you know how long it takes to complete a particular step, you can accurately gauge how long it will take to complete a project from start to finish and plan accordingly.

The Action Machine allows you to create your own task lists and groups of timers. It dawned on me that I could simply take the steps in the Promo Dashboard, create a list of them in the Action Machine and set up groups of timers for each phase of the project.

Once I understand the task thoroughly from the training in the Promo Dashboard site, I can set to work on it and the Action Machine keeps me focused on it until it’s completed. Then, I move to the next task and repeat the process.

This is a perfect marriage of two separate, but complementary tools. Each by itself is a terrific tool. Used together they make a killer product creation system that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Check out the Action Machine here: http://johnthegeek.com/likes/action

Check out the Promo Dashboard here: http://johnthegeek.com/promodb

John The Geek

The Action Machine – A Great Productivity Tool

I’ve recently been evaluating a new piece of software from Derek Franklin. Derek came up with a really interesting and effective productivity strategy and wrote an application to support it.

In a nutshell, the strategy is very simple: allocate a certain amount of time to a task, set a timer, then focus only on that task until it’s either done or the timer goes off, whichever comes first. This increases your focus because you tend to want to get the thing done before that timer goes off!

It becomes something of a game with yourself to see if you can accurately estimate the amount of time a task will take, and then to see if you can get it done in the time you estimated. You know you can’t be sidetracked by anything else or you probably won’t get it done, so that increases your ability to shut out other distractions and concentrate on the task at hand.

Because it can be a hassle write several to-do lists, then to locate a timer and carry it around with you, Derek had the idea to write a software application to address the problems. What he came up with is called The Action Machine.

I bought The Action Machine v1.0 because I liked Derek’s strategy and the idea of the software. It was good, but had some limitations. Derek asked the users to let him know how the software could be improved and got a ton of great feedback. He’s just released The Action Machine v2.0 incorporating many of the requested features and enhancements.

Here’s what the new version of The Action Machine looks like:

I had to shrink the image so depending on your screen resolution you may not be able to read the text clearly. The lower left pane is the task list. The software comes with a default task list, but you can create your own.

For example, I have a list (shown) of my routine activities, daily, weekly, etc. This is my default task list to which I can add tasks to be done that day, or new daily or weekly or even monthly tasks. I can export the list to save it for future reference, or to copy it to another computer.

I have another list that is specific to the steps involved in a particular product creation and promotion process. When I’m going to be focusing on that process, I load that list to serve as my checklist to determine my progress. More detail on that to come in another post.

On the right, there is a grid of 12 squares each of which may contain a separate timer. In the screenshot above I have five timers loaded. Two of them are set for 30 minutes and the other three are set for 60 minutes. The total time shown at the top is 4 hours, so I know how much time I’ve allocated to the tasks I’ve committed to get done this day.

Timers can be started, paused, reset, cleared, or checked as completed. Completed items can be listed in a report. Lists of timers can be saved under specific names and reloaded at any time. If you know you’re going to work on a certain group of your default tasks regularly, you can simply create timers for each of those tasks, save them as a timer group and reload them when you’re going to work on that task group.

You can see the full demo video at The Action Machine web site. Check it out, I think you’ll like it as much as I do. Highly recommended!

John The Geek