Paperless Productivity - Microsoft To Do & OneNote

This month I decided to use another to do or task software that was connected to something  I was already using, in this case my Microsoft email account.  So I downloaded Microsoft To Do as my tasks manager and OneNote as my digital notebook.

Let's start with To Do.  This is meant to basically be Wunderlist, which Microsoft brought and which is now being shut down.  I only really used this on my mobile, I didn't really look at it through my laptop or tablet, and only a couple of times directly through my email account.  So my opinions here are only really going to be based on the mobile applications.

First off, though Google Task and Microsoft To Do are very similar to each other there is a bit more complexity to Microsoft To Do.  This includes the information you can add to the tasks themselves and the themes that you can pick as the back drops of your pages if you want it to be a little bit more personal. 

You can add tasks when you're in the Tasks, Planned, or My Day section of the software, and usually I just add it to the Tasks section by clicking on the green cross at the bottom.

Then it's as simple as just typing in the name you want to give the task, add in any due dates, if you want a reminder, and if this task will be a repeating one.

Then just click the blue arrow.  One thing this doesn't have at this point, and which I found quite useful in Google Tasks, is that you can't add sub title that might give you a little bit more information about the task itself.

You can, however, add more information and steps to the task later on by clicking on it once it's been set up.  Then you can add in steps, attach files, add additional notes, and star them if they are important.

The one feature I do particularly like is that you start each day with your My Day section completely blank, even if you had placed task in there the day before and hadn't completed them.  This allows you to start with a clean slate and allows you to put in the tasks that are most suitable for that day rather than just trying to get task done you hadn't completed.  

To add tasks you click on the Day button at the bottom of the screen and just add the tasks.  Once each task is complete you just press on it and it disappears with a slightly annoying ding that I know is meant to be satisfying but isn't to me.

Another good feature is that you can flag emails in your Outlook accout which you want to work on and they show up in this To Do software.  As with your normal tasks you can add information to the email to do and they can even be added to your My Day section later on.

I have to say that this is a pretty good piece of software which I found very easy to use and which has some really good features.  If you wanted just a little bit more complexity then you were getting from Google Tasks then this is definitely worth trying.  The only problem I had with this was very similar to the problem I had with Tasks and that's the fact that you can't really plan out your week in the same way you do when you're using a physical calendar.  For me I much prefer this as it allows me to spread out my tasks throughout the week and helps me ensure that I don't fill up one day with too many things.  Here I found the tasks just merged into one and it was too easy to fill up your day with too many tasks.

As for OneNote, this is a whole other kettle of fish and I really liked using this right from the start.  It's literally like having a notebook with tabs, but even more user friendly because even those tabs have easy to find other tabs.  I have this on both my mobile phone and on my laptop (you can also get it through your emails).

I've set it up so that I have a general notebook that contain notes that I like to keep for general life stuff and then a separate blog notebook.  These are then separated by different sections or subjects and each section has as many pages as you want.  

The best bit here is that, unlike a physical page that is limited, each page here is limitless in size.  You don't have to do that thing where you need to try and guestimate how many  pages you will need before you start a different subject, or have the subjects all mixed together that you need to search through.  As with actual paper you can add bullet points, tick boxes, and even highlight certain sections if you want to.  The highlighting feature isn't as good in the mobile app as it is on the laptop - but at the moment this doesn't bother me enough to make me not want to use it.

So far I've really liked using it and have actually stopped using my actual notebook all together, reaching for my phone when I want to make a note or do some research rather than the notebook.

As well as notebooks OneNote also has sticky notes.  I used to use actual sticky notes for things like shopping lists and quick notes I didn't need to / want to keep long term, but now that I've used them all up I'm going to start using these instead.  It makes far more sense and I can just delete them when I'm done with nothing to throw away.

You can also add pictures to these sticky notes (though I'm not entirely sure why you would) and change the colour of them either to one you like or, perhaps more usefully, to match the colour of one of your sections in your notebook.

All in all this is a good piece of software and I'm definitely going to keep it for now and maybe from now on, though we'll see how the other bits of software I'll be looking at work out first.  There may be one that works even better then OneNote, but the bars pretty high right not.

Next month I'll be looking at Todoist.

Travelling to the South Island (New Zealand) part 2

It's probably pretty obvious to most of you that I'm not a big city person and, as interesting as Christchurch is, I wanted to see a bit more of the local area.  So my Aunt and Uncle very kindly drove me to Akaroa in Bank's Peninsular, one of the only French settlements in New Zealand.  Akaroa was what I wanted to see but it turned out that drive there itself was a very pretty drive in its own right, with lots of vineyards and beautiful views across to Akaroa Harbour.

The town itself has a definite French feel to it, specifically when you look at some of the older buildings that remain, and you are mainly right beside the waterfront for most of the time you're walking through around it.  

The Akaroa museum was compact but still pretty interesting and contained rooms taken from one of the older buildings in the area showing how people used to live.  There weren't a large amount of artefacts, but apparently the original French inhabitants didn't actually leave a lot when they moved on.  You also get to have a look at the old court house which actually only closed pretty recently.  The last trial that got heard there were for a couple caught naked in a hotel room they hadn't paid for - in case you were interested.  Oh, and they were aquitted.  

There is also the possibility of seeing the rare Hector's dolphins there, though we didn't see any from the harbour and unfortunately didn't have time to go on one of the tours.  One of the best things about that day was, despite the strong sun, there was a very cooling breeze that made it very comfortable to walk about it.  Sunscreen was still a definite must.

On my last day at Christchurch we didn't have a huge amount of time as I was catching the bus in the afternoon.  So we first went to the Christchurch Gondola to get some great views of the surrounding area.  

It's a pretty quick trip up and then you can see over Christchurch itself, the Canterbury Plains, the Southern Alps, and back across to Banks Peninsula which definitely made the trip worthwhile.  Part of the ticket meant getting to do the Time Tunnel ride, where you basically get taken through a very quick look at the geological history of the area.  You can walk back down to the car park, but we decided to take the Gondola back down.

And then with the hour or so that we had spare we visited the Ferrymead Heritage Park.  This park displays buildings and artefacts from an Edwardian township that developed when the first railway in New Zealand opened there to move the traffic that came to the area by sea to Ferrymead to the centre of Christchurch.  

As it's run by volunteers not all of the buildings were open for viewing but those that were were pretty interesting to look at and included cottages, schools, printers, local general store, and a church.  

Unfortunately the one building I was particularly interested in seeing, I think it was called the Pioneer's House, was closed, but we were able to peer through the windows to have a look at what people thought was important to bring with them.  It was another blisteringly hot day that day, so getting on the bus was almost a relief.

The next stop on my journey was Timaru and my grumbling about the heat was rewarded by a much colder city which rained on me the whole way from the bus stop to where I was staying that night.  I did get in relatively early and had intended to maybe do some site seeing.  Instead I decided I would have a nice warm shower and then snuggle into bed to read a book whilst listening to the rain outside, leaving all the site seeing for the next day.

Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere I could leave my bag in Timaru so I had to carry it around with me everywhere and that did make me change my plans a little when it came to deciding what I was going to do.  First stop was the South Canterbury Museum which contains artefacts from the surrounding area as well as Timaru.  The items here are very similar to those I'd seen in the museums I've visited so far, but it's always good to get a more local feel for things and they had quite a few displays that were more hands on then other museums.  They also had a section on the work being carried out on the Sacred Heart Basilica church.

Unfortunately this work meant that I wasn't actually able to have a look inside the church, or even get to see the outside properly.  But it does look like a very beautiful church and hopefully I'll be able to see it properly if I'm ever in the area again.  At this point I had to make the decision about whether or not I was going to have a look at the Botanic Gardens.  It wasn't a huge walk away but it was far enough that, with me having to carry my bag with me, I decided to give this one a miss.  

Instead I headed back into the centre of town to have a wonder around the Edwardian Precinct, geeking over the architecture that had managed to last this long.  Whilst a lot of these buildings have a very distinctive Edwardian feel to them, there is definitely a kiwi touch that makes them different to the styles of buildings we get in the UK.

Next on my list of things to do in Timaru was to wonder around the park at Caroline Bay.  It was a nice little walk, if not a little short, and the sun that had come out was particularly appreciated at that point and the wind was pretty cold.  

I then had a potter along the shoreline and sat on the beach (fully dressed with a jacket on because of the cold wind) to enjoy the view and wait for my next bus.  They actually have a Little Blue Penguin colony here, which is actually one of the things I should have done the night before, but all of the birds were out to sea feeding at the time and wouldn't be back before nightfall.  So it was pretty unlikely I would see one that afternoon.  Then it was on the bus to Oamaru.

Oamaru is a very distinctive town and definitely worth stopping there is you're driving through.  I got there pretty late and unfortunately couldn't stretch for the free of the night  ticket at the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony (which is meant to be amazing and you're pretty much guaranteed a site of the penguins coming in), so I just used the time to sort out my items and get ready for the early start the next day.  

If you look really hard you can see a penguin. 😂

The early start was because I was going to walk to the Bushy Beach Scenic Reserve where a Yellow Eyed Penguin colony is.  They are very shy of people so you have to be careful about disturbing them and make sure that you are quiet and keep to the path away from the beach.  As they also go out to sea during the day to fish the only way you have any chance of seeing them is to either go at sunrise until about 9.00 am or between 3.00pm and sunset.  I was catching the bus in the afternoon so I decided to go in the morning.  Getting up early is always unpleasant and the walk to the reserve isn't the most interesting walk ever, but all that and sitting in the cold for over an hour I got to see...… 1 penguin.  Literally one, but you know what?  It was worth it to get to watch it waddle along to the shoreline, hesitate quite a bit as the waves came in and out, and then shoot off into the water like a torpedo.  There were also quite a few fur seals and best of all I got to see a Morepork fly right in front of me.

I headed back to the hostel via the South Hill Walk, which has a really good lookout at the top, and packed up my stuff.  Thankfully the hostel let me leave my bag there which meant to could go where ever I wanted on my walk around Oamaru.  

First stop was the St Patrick's Basilica (which I could actually get into), which was a lovely quiet church to have a look around. 

I had heard that the museum might not be open as they're getting ready to move location and, after asking in the I-Site, I found out that they only had a limited amount of items on display and it probably wouldn't be open that day any way as it was Waitangi Day.  Things not being open is definitely a little bit of a theme for this trip.

So the next stop was the Victorian Precinct and this was a particularly good area.  The buildings are really well preserved and the whole area, including a number of shops and attractions is Victorian themed.  

Despite it being Waitangi Day most of the shops there were open, including a Victorian custom hire shop that I absolutely loved looking through, and there was quite a lot of interesting window shopping to do for someone who doesn't really like shopping.  Probably my favourite was the second hand book shop which included some hard to find items and in which I had to remind myself that I had a very strict budget and a very specific baggage weight allowance I had to keep to.

I then headed up to the Oamaru Public Garden, which ended up being better than I was expecting. It didn't take a long time to have a look round the whole area, but it was a nice and surprisingly quiet, seeing as it's very close to a main road, spot to wonder around in. 

I had expected all of this to take a little bit longer than it actually did, probably because there was no museum for me to wonder around in, and there was quite a bit of time before my bus was due to go.  It also began to rain quite badly and getting under cover seemed to be a pretty good plan. So I decided to sit down and decide on maybe one or two more places to visit which I had initially intended on not seeing, mainly due to budget reasons.

First up was the Steampunk HQ, which was as bizarre and intriguing as you would expect it to be. 

And then I headed, via the Steampunk playground, to the Oamura Blue Penguin Colony. I knew that it was very unlikely that I'd see penguins returning from the sea at this time, but it was good to see an adult penguin and two chicks in the nest boxes, and the viewing section meant I got to watch fur seals just 5 metres away.  

The money I paid does go towards conserving the penguins, which made me feel less bad about spending the money, and they told me I could spend as long as I wanted inside the compound.  So I did.  After sitting there for almost an hour I headed off to get some food, grab my stuff from the hostel, and head to the bus stop for my last stop.

I had only planned to spend one day in Dunedin, but I actually now wish that I had put aside two days to really explore the place.  I did manage to see everything I had planned to see in the one day I had, but it would have been nice to have spent some more time wondering in the large park area and getting to have some time on the beaches there, which actually looked really inviting.  There also seems to be some really good railway trips that go from Dunedin and give you a good view of the surrounding area and landscape.

To start my day I walked to the i-Site and booked my shuttle bus to the airport for the next day, which was conveniently close to the cathedral I wanted to see, St Paul's Cathedral.  It's a beautiful building with all the features you would expect to see from this type of cathedral - very Anglican in it's style.

And then I headed south east to the Railway Station.  This probably seems like quite a strange action to take if you're not actually catching a train, but the building is stunning to look at and more importantly, it still contains the tiles inside which were put in when it was built in the beginning of the 1900s.  

As you would expect from this era, they weren't your common garden tiles, but a lot of time and work were put into them.  It also contained an exhibited some work by local artists and I decided to take the time to have a wonder around and see what people were producing.  Most weren't really my style but there were some beautiful landscapes.

Very close by was the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum which takes you through the history of all those who settles in the area, from Maori to the European settlers who came later.  It's basically a long building that you walk through full of artifacts from Otago, but the two sections I particularly liked was the information they had on the Maori from the area and the reconstruction of the living quarter of the ships in which the European settlers travel to New Zealand in.  It's always interesting to see just what type of conditions people were prepared to go through for the promise of a better life.

The exit of the Settler Museum conveniently takes you straight to the Chinese Garden and this was something that I had planned to spend some of my budget on visiting.  It was definitely worth it and if you're in Dunedin definitely go and spend some time there.  

Despite its location beside a busy road it is very quiet and calm inside, and walking around was quite relaxing.  I ended up spending a lot more time there then planned, mainly just sitting having a cup of tea whilst staring at the water, plants, and goldfish was very pleasant.  Culturally it's very different from the style of gardens that are done in Europe and other countries with European influences, but I actually think I prefer this way of gardening.

I had a quick look at some of the buildings near the Garden before heading across town to the Otago Museum.  This was very similar to the museums I had visited so far on this trip, but despite it size it contained a lot more artefact then I thought it would.  I spent a lot of time, mainly in the natural history gallery and the gallery on Pacific cultures.  Though I have to say that natural history galleries always amaze me that there are any animals left in the world, what with our bizarre need to collect everything.  There were some additional exhibits, but I didn't really have time to go and see them, and I was beginning to get a little bit tired after so many days of sight seeing.

The last thing I did was to go to the Dunedin Botanic Garden.   I did grab a map when I entered the gardens, but actually just ended up wondering around following the signs instead of using the map.  There wasn't anything particular that I wanted to look at so it was nice just get to see what was around without any real plan involved.  Something my brain was more then happy to do by this point.

And then it was back to the hostel to pack my bag and get ready for my early start the next day as I travelled back to Auckland and the North Island.  Even though it was just a trip of seeing towns and cities I did really enjoy this time in the South Island, but I am really looking forward to my next trip which will involve a lot more wildlife and landscapes.  Should be good.