Goals 2020 Update #4

                                                 

And this is it, the final update of my goals for 2020.  What a funny old year it has been, but at least I have a pretty good excuse for not completing all of them.  Unlike the last few years.

British Sign Language Learning

Apart from this one, I don't really have an excuse for this one.  After all, I had a whole lot of extra time to work on this, but as I said in my last post I just lost the motivation.  It's a shame really as this is a great language to learn, but I have time still and will probably roll this over to next year.  I should also be able to concentrate on this more now that I have work, at least temporarily, and all the work that I can do on trying and get my money back from the airlines and travel agents is done - it's just a waiting game now.

Financial Fitness

I did manage to get my pension sorted out and rolled into one pot this quarter, so that'll make things easier moving forward (you can read more about that here).  I also now have a job (though it's closed down for the two weeks over Christmas and New Year) so at least there will be money coming into my account again.  However, we did have to buy a car for work and that, along with needing to keep aside six months rent to try and entice letting agents to rent us a flat when self-employed and with a zero-hour contract (it's turning out to be very difficult at the moment), has meant having to go back into debt.  It's upsetting but fixable with a bit of grafting.

Being a Tourist

I haven't been able to do as much exploring as I had hoped, but now with the car, this should become a lot easier to do.  We had a nice little walk on Dartmoor, which entailed getting slightly lost in the fog, and I've earmarked a number of other walks to do in the near future.  The biggest issue this last month has been getting the work schedules to match up and may mean that I just need to go out and do some solo walks in the future.  I have been a little unmotivated to go outside recently, but getting to work outside again has reminded me how much I enjoy it giving me a nice little kick out of the rut.

Paperless Productivity

I won't go too much into this here as I've already written a blog about it.  However, it's been quite an interesting time testing out all these new apps and, after a year of it, I've decided that OneNote has been the best note-taking one for me, and Cute Notes and Teux Deux have been the best apps for keeping an eye on my tasks.  I'll be making the full move next year.

That's it.  This really hasn't been a great year for getting goals done, but I still managed a couple and so I'm still going to classify this as a win.  It might not be a lot, but it's something.  I've decided that I'm going to end this year by really sitting down and deciding on some actual long term goals.  Normally I just make goals for the year, but really, if I want to actually get to where I hope to be, I need to plan a little more in-depth than that.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Paperless Productivity: Final Decision

 

About this time last year, I decided that I would try out moving my paper-based productivity tools of a diary and notebook to a more digital format (you can see the post about that here).  Other than the digital calendar I have linked to my phone it's never really been something I've tried before.  I've always liked using paper and pen, as it just seems to work with how my brain is wired, and the satisfaction of ticking off the work that you've done, so this year has been a bit of an eye-opener.

After a year of testing out 14 different apps (twelve for productivity and two for note-taking) this is what I've found:

• There are a lot of options out there, so it's pretty likely you'll find something that suits you.
• Despite the variety, it's unlikely you'll find something that is 100% what you want, but then that's the same for all forms of productivity, including paper.
• That I actually prefer the simpler apps with the least amount of frills, which is not what I was expecting when I first started this.  Really this should have been obvious, I've tried many complex versions of diaries, habit tracking, and task completion, and yet I always reverted back to simplest format.  The other forms just made me feel like I should be busy, even when I really shouldn't.

So, which are the apps that I actually liked and am likely to carry on with.  

When it comes to note-taking I only tested two apps and the one that I prefered was OneNote.  I liked the way I could have it on my phone, my laptop, and link to it through my email, and the layout really works for me as it's more like a notebook than just post-it notes.

When it comes to the to-dos or tasks my favourite apps were actually Cute Note (which is funny as I originally picked it as just a light end) and Teux Deux.  I like Cute Note for the simple but actually quite effective layout, the countdown page, and, to be completely honest, the cuteness of the whole thing.  It's also completely free, which is always good.  Teux Deux is just as simple but has a more minimal appearance with no distractions.  However, it does function much more effectively as a task keeper, specifically the part where the tasks get moved for you to the next day.  This one does cost money, but the price wouldn't exactly break the bank.

For a long time, TickTick was actually my favourite app, but I've now decided it's a bit too complex for what I actually need.  I'm also no longer bothered about keeping an eye on my habits at the moment.  My main aim is to drink enough water and take my iron tablets, I'm not sure I need an app to do that.  This may change in the future if I ever need to work on more things and I would definitely recommend it if that's what you're looking for.

An honourable mention has to go to Habitica.  It's far more complex than I need, but it definitely added an element of fun to getting tasks done without taking up a large amount of space on my phone.  Definitely keeping it in my list of future possibles for if things get a bit more complex.

So, am I doing moving forward?  My physical diary is now coming to an end.  It's a visually beautiful diary, but I'm not going to buy a new one.  However, I do have a number of notebooks sitting in my storage boxes that I want to use up, so the start of the year is going to still be paper-based when it comes to organising my to-dos.  I'm pretty sure I'll always need to have a notebook of some description with me as my brain does work better when I write things down (I just don't think I'll ever be able to go completely digital).  However, I have already moved a lot of my long-term notes and note-taking onto One Note, and I'll continue to do that.  Also, once those notebooks are finished I'll move to a digital task manager.  I haven't decided yet if it's going to be Cute Note or Teux Deux yet, but it will probably be one of those two.

To read about the apps I tested this year you can following my Paperless Productivity label.

Paperless Productivity - Cute Note

 

I decided to end the year with another fun paperless productivity app.  I found this one on the Google Store and it's Cute Note - DDay Todo.  It's really cute and kitsch, and could actually - ironically - be the one I'm looking for.  I should probably start by saying that this one does come with adverts that pop up now and then, but you can pay a subscription to have these adverts stopped.  However, the free version works completely well as it is.

It's made up of four pages.  The first page is Memo and I basically used it for notes and  making shopping lists, which you put on digital sticky notes.  You can arrange this page in two different ways by clicking on the squares on the top right and order them based on date, etc.  One of the good things about this page is that you can add folders (by clicking on the folder icon on the top right) to separate your notes into different subjects or projects if you wanted.  I don't have enough projects on to make that worth my while, so I just kept them on one page.

To make a note you just click on the Create button and then type anything you want.  You can use the ribbon at the bottom to change the font size, colour, etc, and, most importantly, change the character of the note by clicking on the face.  I, of course, picked all the cute animals, apart from the one connected to a jumper I'm knitting which is batman.

The second page is To-Do.  You can name your notes whatever you want based what the to-dos are for, such as projects, but I decided to do a sticky note for each day of the week so it was like a diary.  

To get started I just clicked on one of the notes that was already there and then make changes  by editing those.  I deleted the old to-dos and then added new ones by typing in box at the bottom and clicking on the cross.  The picture doesn't show it, but there is a ribbon at the bottom which allows you to change the character of the note.  It is a lot more characters on this page, but I went for the same cute ones as the memos, because I just couldn't help myself.

To name each sticky note and add new ones (in my case, for the days of the week) I clicked on the folder tab at the top right.  Once each task is completed you just click on the note and then tick the to-do circle.  Then you can delete all your completed tasks giving you a better idea about what you have left to do.  

Of course, they don't automatically move to the next day's note, but I found being able to just view all the to-dos I hadn't completed on one page meant I still got them done even, if it wasn't on the day originally planned.

The third page is a D-Day / Countdown page.  

As with the Memos page you can create folders for different projects (though I would think you would probably want to see all the countdowns on one page) and sort them by date.  To create one you just click on the Create button, then fill in the details of the day you want a countdown to.  You can also change the design on this as before.  

I, of course, picked Christmas Day as that's my main date at the moment, but I'm sure others will appear.

The last page is more of a settings page.  You can log on, using your Google account, which allows you back-up your notes to your Google Drive.  Then clicking on the settings wheel also allows you to add passcodes and set everything up as auto.  This is also where you pay to remove the ads.

As I said, this is my last paperless productivity of the year and I really loved it.  It's nice and simple, and has everything I need at the moment to keep an eye on all the things I need to get done.  This might change in the future, but, for now, the simplicity is good.  The only thing I thought would be better is if I could get habits put in as well.  However, I could just add them to the To-dos sticky notes and I have gotten a little bored of keeping tabs on those at the moment, so maybe it doesn't matter too much.  That being said, this is app has definitely made it to the top of my list.  Not going to lie, it's probably mainly to do with the cuteness of it, but whatever you need to do to get yourself organised.

Paperless Productivity - Habitica

 

After taking a little bit of a break from productivity apps I moved onto a slightly more fun way of getting your tasks done, and that's by using Habitica.  In a nutshell, this app is basically a way of gamifying your life.  Where you build yourself an avatar and complete tasks and habits to level up your character and unlock in-game features.  However, if I'm being honest I was just there for the pets you can get.  

As with all the other apps, I was just using the free version on my phone.  However, you can also use the app on your computer and I'm assuming the two link up through your account.  There is an option to subscribe as well for additional features, which is actually quite cheap and, if I used this all the time I would think about it.

Once you've downloaded the app you register your account and then create your avatar.  Then it's time to go.

The main set up of the app is broken into four pages (shown at the bottom) made up of Habits, Dailies, To Do's, and Rewards.  Each page comes with some little examples to start you off with and which you can edit and change if you want to.  

The first page, Habits, seems to be for habits you would like to develop, but which aren't necessarily actions you need to do on a daily basis.  Adding a habit is pretty easy to do.

Click on the cross at the bottom on the page, add your name for the habit and any notes you think you'll need.  If it's a habit you want to get rewarded for doing have it as positive only, to be rewarded for not doing it negative only, and if you want it to be something you want to get rewarded for doing but have the extra penalisation if you don't do it(such as not eating process sugar) then have it as both positive and negative. 

There's then an option to set how difficult you think the habit will be, as well as adding how often you want to reset the streak, and add a tag if you're wanting to attach the habit to a larger goal, like getting healthy.  If you don't complete these habits regularly they begin to decay in colour, you lose streaks and end up being penalised.

The next page is the Dailies.  This is for daily habits and you can only click these to say you've completed them. I'm not entirely sure why this additional page is necessary when you already have Habits, however you can add much more information to this habit and they seem to have more consequences to completing or not.  Setting them up is pretty similar as before.

Click on the cross, add the name of the daily, any notes you want to add, and how difficult you think it is going to be to do.  The biggest difference with the dailies it that you don't add a positive or negative and you can break down the habit with checklists.

You can schedule this habit, put how often you want to repeat it, adjust the number of times you've completed it (streaks), and also tag this habit to a specific goal.

There's also a possibility of adding a reminder. This didn't appear on my screen saver, as with other productivity apps, but it does appear on my phone's notification bar.  As with the habits, completing or forgetting these dailies has positive or negative impacts on your Avatar.

The To do's were the main page for me.  Setting up your tasks are pretty much the same as adding Dailies.  

Click on the cross.  Then add the name of the task, any notes you think will be useful, how difficult you think the task will be, when it needs to be done by, a reminder, and then tag it to a larger goal / task.  

As with the Dailies, you can also break the to do down into smaller tasks using the checklist, and I found this a pretty useful way of getting them done.  As with the others, the to do's will begin to decay in colour if you don't complete them in the time you've scheduled.

One thing I found with this page is that the tasks are ordered in the order you add them, with the newest at the top.  This wasn't particularly helpful for how I wanted to use this app, but it's easy enough to change this by clicking on the three vertical lines at the top right and then filtering them by Scheduled.  You can also use this to find all the to do's you have for one goal by clicking on the Tags.

Each Habit, Dailies, and To Do's you complete gets you rewards in the form of food, potions (including hatching potions for your pets), and coins which you can then spend on equipment, or you can make up a reward yourself and decide how many coins this reward will cost you.

The menu allows you to look at your skills and achievements, buy some more items and quests in the shops, look at what equipment you own, and purchase some gems which will then allow you to buy additional items. 

There's also an option to do some socialising with other people using Habitica and build quest parties if that's what you're into.

The Tavern is probably the most useful part if you need to take a break from all those tasks and habits.  By checking into the Inn these are then frozen and then have no negative impact on your Avatar.

I didn't really use these other options other than the Pets and Mounts section.  Here you can hatch your pet, feed it up to become a mount, and equip your Avatar with it.  I'm guessing these come in handy when you're completing a quest, but I just enjoy hatching and feeding them.  Right now I have a bear as a mount and a wolf as a pet, and as far as I'm concerned my Avatar is living her best life.

I have to admit that, even though I'm not a gamer in any way, I really liked this app.  I don't think it necessarily added any more of an incentive for me to actual complete my to do's and habits, but it did add a pleasant element of fun to it.  It also didn't use as much storage on my phone as I thought it was going to, which is always good.  The only thing that didn't quite work for me was the fact that my habits and to-do's are on different pages and I much prefer having them all in one place so I can see everything I need to work on that day.  However, I would still recommend this app and I think I'll put it with TickTick and Teux Deux as my top apps so far.

I had originally planned on testing Evernote next, but as I already have and use OneNote it actually seemed a little bit pointless as you would use both digital notebooks in a similar way.  So instead I'm going to try something a little simpler but cuter, and that's Cute Note.  Should be fun.

Goals for 2020 Update #3

Okay, we all know what I'm going to say here - this year has been a funny year, nothing has really gone to plan, circumstances have meant that what I had originally planned to do wasn't possible.........I could go on but I won't.  We know all of this already.  So, I'll just get into the goals and how they're going or not.

British Sign Language Learning

I seemed to have completely lost the motivation to carry on working on this.  It's not that I don't find it interesting or don't want to learn this language anymore, because I do.  It's more that after doing the job applications and trying to get money back on my cancelled flights I don't really want to do anything else that requires this type of brain activity.  For now it's taken a back seat, and that's okay as I don't want to make it into a chore I have to do.  I'll get back to it at a later date when I can make it a priority again and it's actually something I'm looking forward to.

Financial Fitness

As someone who is a self-employed subcontractor I was able to get a little financial aid from the Government over this period and this has made being unemployed at the moment much less stressful than it could have been, especially with the whole issue with the flight cancellations.  It did also allow me to get rid of the last little bit of credit card debt that I had from the car purchase in New Zealand, so that now I only have my student loan sitting there.  I am still being careful with my money at the moment whilst I carry on with the job search, but once I'm earning again I really want to put a good amount of money into my pension fund, as it's been almost a year now since I've been able to, and build up a bigger emergency fund in case this all happens again in the future.  Diversifying where my income comes from is also going to be really important as well.  The one thing I am going to do this quarter, and which I can do regardless of whether or not I have a job, is to find out how much of a pension I have at the moment and which companies I have pensions with (I have a few employment pensions that I've never really looked at).  Then I'm going to look at putting them all together in one place so I can really get a good idea about where I stand on this front and what I need to do in the future to research a good pension target.

Being A Tourist

This has obviously been put on a low burn right now as Covid-19 has meant too much movement in unadvisable if we're to reduce the spread of this virus, we're also experiencing a second peak here in the UK.  We did get to go to the South Island in New Zealand before we left, during their lull period of virus infections and when movement was allowed (you can read about this trip in part 1 and part 2).  We've also managed to do a little bit of exploring around where we are at the moment, but this has mainly been in urban areas and not the countryside walking we'd prefer to do.  Obviously the options have become even less now that the lockdown measures have had to become more strict right now, and lack of money is also having an impact.  But I am researching some day walks we can do and, now that I have a vehicle I can use, hopefully that gives us something to do to pass the time over the next few months.

Paperless Productivity

This quarter I looked at Journal It!, Memorigi, and Toodledo.  These are pretty good apps, but a little bit too complex for what I need at the moment.  S0, for now it's still TeuxDeux and TickTick that are at the top of my list, but there's a couple more for me to work with before I decide what is really working and if I'll move to the digital format entirely.

Of course, I have added other things to my day, mainly on the crafting front.  It just seems the most logical thing to do when you have a bit more time on your hands, quite a bit of crafting equipment you haven't really touched in the last few years, and a requirement to spend more time in your home.  One thing I do really need to add to this is exercise.  Now that I haven't done any path building in quite a while I've definitely loss the strength and fitness levels I had previously, so I'll be upping the exercise I'm currently doing to help ensure that it isn't too much of a struggle when I do finally get some work again.

Paperless Productivity - Toodledo

 

I think I've had a little too much of productivity apps right now so I'm not sure I've been able to give Toodledo as much of a trial as it probably should have had and.  However, I did use it for a few weeks to try and get it a good idea on how to use it so hopefully, I can write something useful here.  I should probably start by saying that I think this is another one that would be good if you're someone who wants a little use a digital form of a bullet diary.

When you first download the app it asks you a couple of questions to help find out how to set it up specifically for your needs - which is a nice touch, as long as you know what the terms mean.

Then you need to log in so that it can sync your information with the website version which is a bit more full-on and that you do actually have to use sometimes because the phone app doesn't allow you to do everything (more on that later).

When the tasks page first comes up you get a whole lot of information on how to use the app and you can go through each part to get a real feel for it - also a nice little touch.

The main menu (on the left) allows you to navigate through each section of tasks (also brokendown in sub-sections so you can navigate to a specific task quickly), notes, outlines (I really didn't use this section at all), habits, and lists.

So let's start with tasks.  These are pretty simple to add and follow what is now a pretty familiar pattern.  You click on the cross button at the bottom right.

Then you type in the name of the task and add any notes you feel you need to keep with the task.

You can then add this task to a folder and add context to it (I used this to say if the task was for work, blog, home etc).  This is one part where I found I had to use my laptop instead of just being able to use my phone.  You can add a folder or context to your task on your phone if one exists, but to create them you have to log in using your computer.

Then you add a start date if you want and due date, and you can also select what priority the task needs to be.  Click on the tick at the top right and you're done.

You can see what tasks are overdue or coming up over a specific time by picking 'Due-Date' from the menu.

Or have a look at the tasks you have in each category using the 'Context' section and these are probably the two parts that I used the most.

The tasks themselves are ordered in importance, which seems to be partly based on the importance you give them when you created them but are mostly due to the due date they have.

I would mostly use the note section for writing up quick shopping lists and which I only really did here to test it out as I normally use the notes app on my phone.  However, if you were wanting to integrate notes with tasks for a project you have going this would probably be perfect as you can add the notes to a specific folder.  As with adding a task note adding it pretty simple and you just click on the cross, type in the name of the note, what folder you want to add it to and then type away.  Clicking on the tick at the top right then saves it.

The next section is Habits (I'm glossing over Outlines because I really didn't look into it) and I used this also as much as the tasks part.  Rather than a number or rating I kept all my tasks as a checkbox as I just prefer that.  The good things about this habit tracker is the chain chain underneath the habits name.  The reason for this is that every time you complete the task it makes the corresponding link in the chain dark and this allows you to see how many many times you have managed to complete this task in the last few days.  I will admit that it is quite satisfying.

Adding is the same as before.  Click on the cross at the bottom right.  Write in the name of the habit and click how you want to show you've completed the task.

Add a start date (though this isn't necessary if you're starting from the day you've added it), how often you want to do the habit and if you want to be reminded.  Then it's just 'Start Habit' and you're off.

If you put in number instead of checkbox then there is this pretty cool thing where you can add the amount of time you have completed the habit in a day and then this progress is then shown on a graph to let you see this progress.  I didn't really feel that it would mean anything to the habits I was wanting to track, but if you were doing something like push-ups or swearing less then this would probably be a good tracker.

The last section is Lists.  I already have lists elsewhere and didn't want to duplicate them here, but I did have a little play around.  

It's actually quite a nice little section and already has a whole lot of list templates already made up for you. 

Like Migraine Log - something I probably should have been tracking a few years ago.  But there's also bucket lists, recipes, reading list, weight tracking, etc and you can creat your own with a little bit of work.

And that's the layout of the app.  I'm not going to lie, it did feel a little bit clunky trying to get around this software on my phone and is probably a lot easier to use on you computer instead.  I would say that the best way to use it is to actually predominantly use the website when you're at home and just use the phone app for when you are on the go.  Which is absolutely fine, but I want something much simpler that I can use directly off my phone.  There was also an issue with it trying to sync from my phone to the website and I kept getting messages that this wasn't happening, but I wasn't too bothered about that.  However, if you are using it in that integrated way then that might be an issue.  I also noticed that I didn't get the reminders coming up on my phone as I did with Memorigi and Tick Tick, and I actually quite liked those.

One little aspect that I liked was the way you could add things to the tasks from another app using the share function.  A couple of times I found webpages I wanted to read but didn't have time right then and easy enough to add it as a task by clicking share and then selecting Task with the Toodledo logo, and there it was.

As I said before, I probably didn't give this app as much of a test as it deserved and could probably do with a little break from these at the moment.  It would be a really good app if you were someone who likes using a bullet journal to organise all your project, thoughts, and tasks, and maybe in the future I'll come back to it if I ever need that amount of organisation.  If that's what you're looking for definitely give this a go, however, I don't really feel I need anything that complicated and so this app didn't really work for me.

I'm going to take a little break from these, but then I'm going to test Habitica.  I've heard a lot of good things about this one.