I love Zoho, GTD and Diigo. And today, I’ll be sharing with you 3 tips on how you can take advantage of these tools/ concepts to get things done.

Why Zoho for Online Task Management Tool?

You can use pretty much whatever Task management system you are already using. For myself, I use Zoho. Zoho is actually a most comprehensive suite of collaboration, productivity and business tools online. It is email, docs, sheet, online notebook, writer, wiki, planner, project manager, etc. – all in one. It’s sleek, uncluttered and very intuitive. In my humble opinion, every Virtual Assistant should use it. It’s free. When you sign-up, do get the Zoho Business. It has all the components you’ll need, in one panel. Explore Zoho

What is GTD Getting Things Done?

I find that most people online are familiar with GTD Getting Things Done, or at least have heard about it. If you happen to be living outside the GTD planet, this brief article will get you up to speed What is GTD? You may find Free Podcasts & Free Articles on GTD on David Allen’s site. If you have itunes, you may listen here Free podcasts  David Allen Company. GTD is one of those concepts/systems that has the most profound and long lasting impact on my life.

3 Tips to Get Things Done with Zoho Online Task Management Tool

Set Zoho Task Categories by On-line Context

The Context list is a GTD concept whereby you group your task list based on location/context (ie. @home, @computer, @errand). Doing so allows you to batch process all your tasks. Andre Kibbe of Tools-For-Thought.com explains this very well in his article Get More Done with Batch Processing.

Set your folder categories based on the url location of the major task groups. For instance, all tasks that you need to do while you are on Facebook, should fall under @Facebook (add friends, add clients, enhance Virtual Assistance Business Fan Page, share photos,etc). All the tasks you need to do while you are on your website (i.e. write post, add plugins, respond to comments, enhance design, etc), should fall under your @Blog folder. When you categorize your folders based on on-line context, you are able to work on your tasks in batches. Your productivity shoots up.

Do not create an impossible number of list. Create separate categories only if there’s sufficient task volume involved. For instance, I have a lot of Facebook tasks so I have a separate category for this. I also maintain mybloglog, my visualcv, friendster, twitter, etc, but the tasks I have on these are minimal. So I simply dump them all under @social.

Batch Your Tasks by Day of Week

You should assign the best day of the week to do a task category. For example, I do heavy RSS readings when I do research on Wednesdays (day 3). So I also schedule all my bookmarking related activities (ie. Diigo), on the same day. I usually have the energy to work on my most challenging tasks in the beginning of the week. So on Friday, I just schedule all my social media and planning activities. You may need to spend a bit of coffee hours if it’s your first time to do this exercise. Planning your task structure upfront will enable you to get things done, at much less time.

For tasks that spans through a couple of days (usually for those with subtasks/checklists), you can simply indicate the start day of the week. But of course, the actual start and end date will be reflected accordingly in the schedule. Also, feel free to indicate the actual deadline if a particular task happens to be time-bound. Usually I put those with real deadlines in my calendar. But for some tasks, I may opt to do them ahead of schedule. That is fine as well. But always remember, the more you can batch your tasks, the more productive and the more efficient you’ll be.

Putting the day of the week on your task category folder itself (ie. 3 RSS meaning day 3 Wednesday), makes it easy to add a task on the fly. I’m writing this post when I suddenly remember I need to search & subscribe to RSS feeds of interesting VA Bloggers. I can simply pull up a task and add it to Wednesday next week. The number 3 besides 3 RSS reminds me at a glance, to schedule the task the following Wednesday.

Leverage Diigo Bookmarks to Batch Your Tasks in Zoho

A lot of times you come across good reading materials while you are in the middle of a job. Or you may come across an article that is excellent for your future blog posts, while you are rushing to meet a deadline. A lot of people let these valuable information get lost due to the absence of an effective capture system. Bookmarking them alone, usually results to waste. Most of the bookmark’s tag and search systems are currently inefficient. Here’s a simple trick.

Assign a simple tag to all the bookmarks that requires an action. I use “add”. Anything I need to add to my blog I tag “add_blog”, to my facebook “add_fb”, to my google reader “add_reader”, to clients “add_clients”. Get it?

Assign a repetitive task to the above tag. I have a folder | 1 Blog. I do my blogging on Mondays (ie. day 1). I simply create a task “Check Diigo | add_blog” , in the Blog folder, and schedule it to repeat every Monday (screenshot below).

Here’s a concrete example. I’m working on a project and I happen to come across a good reference for this post. I quickly highlight the article and post a few private stickies to remind me what I like about it. I tag it “add_blog”. I then continue working on my project. Come Monday, my system reminds me to look it up in Diigo and use it in my article! This simple process enables you to capture and organize an enormous amount of information, without disrupting you from your current work.

Of all the bookmarking tools, Diigo is the best as far as productivity is concerned. It is not (as yet) as popular as other on-line bookmarks. However it is a most intelligent bookmarking tool. It is a blogger’s best friend. If you do a lot of on-line information processing like I do, you have to try it. Visit Diigo. To jump to the overview guide Diigo Outline

I hope you picked up something useful. Do try the above 3 Tips to Get Things Done with Zoho On-line Task Management Tool, and you’ll be amazed at how much more productive you can be! Thanks for reading.

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer

Recommended Readings

• How Good is Your Time Management Quiz | MindTools
• Productivity Tips for Freelancers with Toddlers Underfoot | FreelanceFolder
• Vote for Diigo! Lifehacker Five Best Bookmark Management Tool | Diigo
• To-do Lists The Key to Efficiency | MindTools
• 46 Must-Read Productivity Tips for Freelancers | FreelanceSwitch

Author:  Online Business Manager. Former FP&A & Service Excellence Manager at a fortune 500 MNC. With over 14 years of Corporate experience. Dropped out of the cubicle nation due to an entrepreneurial itch. Process & Productivity Addict. Loves GTD, MindMap, Brian Tracey. Simple. Approachable. Evangelist of Virtual Assistance Excellence! Do visit 1 Online Business Manager | 1OBM.com