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Out of all the current crop of web 2.0/productivity tools, the one I am most enamored with (and the one that makes me crazy when I don’t have it) is Google Notebook.   It is a lifesaver, and I’m going to take you through how I’m using it right now.    It works more or less the same on Firefox and IE and it’s indispensable.

It’s A GTD Tool for me to be sure.  I’m still fine tuning it, but here you go:

It all starts with unprocessed things.  I dump EVERYTHING in there.  Stuff I can delete, stuff I might want to see again, stuff I might not.  It’s a right click–>note this (and I’m adding today to my todos: find hotkeys for google notebook and right clicking itself).  Anyway, selecting any text in most any browser can be noted–and most of the stuff you select is automatically dumped into a folder (for me it’s just an inbox which i say is unprocessed things).

This is basically what it does; you hit alt-n and then tab into it, and you’re typing in your notebook.  You can select text (the above is from Tim’s fantastic blog, and I used the “unprocessed things” as a basic dump for todos, and the “things” to deal with this.  I wanted to Blog about Tim’s way of closing loops in one conversation–to the 30 odd people that read to see this.  (So I have, killing two birds with one stone.)

The next thing that I’ll do, since I’m processing this, will be to MOVE it:

Normally, I’d move it into my “todos” if it was a todo (or media to get, or something to buy, etc) but I can move it to Chris: done since I got my point across and people will click on it (hopefully using Read It Later–a new favorite of mine).  Anyway.   the other folder that I’ll share is my todos:

This will be where I review it on a regular basis–do stuff; @home will be changed to @desk or @computer; but I can then print this off every other day and know where I’m dealing with stuff.  Projects (and I’m getting more of them) are getting their own notebook.  I then ruthlessly process my unprocessed things on a routine basis so I can put the 30 or so things in their place.

I export to docs, and you can share with others.  It isn’t quite like basecamp but for simple projects with 2-3 people is superior (if people will use it).

Once I find the plugins that I like for notebook I’ll be redoing this article to get picked up by tips@lifehacker.com. 

 

OH:

Also–after several weeks of use–I’m an unqualified fan of Windows Live Writer.  I’ve got a pretty good anti-microsoft bias, but this thing is almost perfect.  It needs to cross post a little bit better, but it’s not bad as it is.

Next Topics:  Generation Y (is kicking our XButts) & My Reader Philosophy.

Presumably Related Posts:

• GTD and Google Notebook.
• Zoho, Baby, Zoho.
• GTD and Google Notebook: Ten Features I Absolutely Pine For