The 3 productivity tools you need

You want to streamline your work, be more productive, and be more efficient. You take a look around and find productivity tools and techniques galore, enough to intimidate you back into the un-managed ways.

So, what is the easiest -- and probably the best! -- way to go about getting started with getting things done in a systematic way, without investing too much time and effort into myriad approaches?

From personal experience, I would say just three tools are sufficient to do the trick:

1. To-Do list
2. Checklist 
3. Reminder mechanism

Let's see how to use these...

•  THE TO-DO LIST: WHAT to do A good to-do list should consist of two parts. One part should have the task-lists. Tasks are the chores that you need to repeatedly perform with some regular frequency, such as sending out a status report every Friday, or, washing your car every 15 days.
  
  More details about creating task-lists can be read here. The second part of the to-do list should have action items specific for the particular day (or week), such as a meeting with software analyst or attending a wedding reception at 9 PM.
  
  Tools: 
  For the office work, I used StickyPad earlier. But now I use the Tasks feature of Microsoft Outlook. It integrates nicely with e-mail and calendar features (see below) and has almost all the features one could ask for. 
  For personal work, I extensively use the Notes and To-Do List features of my cellphone.
  
  Success Mantra: The key is to have specific, actionable items on your to-do list. For example, "I want to reduce weight" is merely a wish; you need to convert it to something like "Jogging for 30 minutes every morning from 7 AM to 7:30 AM". Now, this becomes an action-item.
  Some say that the best time to chalk out a to-do list is just before you go to sleep or early in the morning before you set out for the day. Well, I don’t have a specific time to update the to-do list; but just go on adding to it whenever a task presents itself.

•  THE CHECKLIST: HOW to do
  Checklists are a list of items that help you either to perform a task in the best possible manner or to verify if a completed task meets the requirements. Hence, the checklists can basically be of two types: pre-emptive and corrective. For example, a checklist that you use while conducting a software release is a pre-emptive checklist, whereas a code review checklist is a corrective checklist.
  
  I have always been big on checklists, so reading The Checklist Manifesto by Dr Atul Gawande was a comforting feeling!
  
  Tools:
  As of now, I am not using any particular tool to create and manage the checklists. They are mostly scribbled on a paper notepad or saved in MS-Excel.
  
  Success Mantra: 
  The key is to be honest with oneself while using the checklists. It’s a tall order, but you can always try! You need to force yourself to acknowledge that you have skipped some essential steps during a procedure or that your finished work doesn’t satisfy all the expectations. This will not only help you brace yourself for any glitches ahead but will also –hopefully – forewarn you against making the same errors again in future.

• REMINDERS: WHEN to do
  Most of us use reminders. The hitch is that most of us don't really act on them when the alarm goes off, instead preferring to hit the snooze button.
  It helps if you set two reminders for each task, one for any preparatory actions you need to perfrom and the second one for the actual task.
  For example, your buddy's birthday is on 1-September and you wish to get your buddy a present.  Then it's not a good idea to set only one reminder for 1-September. Better set a reminder a week before so that you have sufficient time to go out and buy that gift.
  
  Tools: For office work, I use the Calendar feature of Microsoft Outlook. It integrates nicely with e-mail and Tasks feature (see above) and has almost all the features one could ask for.
  
  For personal work, I use the Calendar as well as Reminders features of my cellphone.
  
  Success Mantra:
  The key here is to make your calendar sacred, something that no one can override… not even you, not without a good reason at least. If you mark a time-slot for studying Linux then hanging out in a mall with friends during that time should be avoided, however tempting it might be.
  
  Of course, you cannot always have things your way. If you mark a Friday evening to watch a football match on TV and your wife informs, “We are visiting my folks today evening”, it would be wise not to insist too much on preserving the integrity of your calendar.

Using these three basic tools in a disciplined way is guaranteed to bring a huge improvement in your productivity and efficiency.