Software tools allow people to manage the clutter that threatens to overwhelm their daily lives By MICHAEL TOTTY –Mr. Totty is a news editor for The Journal Report in San Francisco. December 11, 2007 It’s an axiom of the computer age: The very technology that was supposed to make us more productive has instead overwhelmed us with more work, too much information and a blurred line between the office and home. And we’ve repeatedly turned to software to get more organized. But can it really help? Sometimes, yes. Users have found a batch of software tools that can help manage the flood of assignments, projects, calls, reports, meetings and emails that fill our work days. By themselves, the tools are only modestly useful, users and productivity experts say. But used as part of a broader organizing system, they can make it easier to store, sort and retrieve the stuff that clutters our lives. An obsession with personal-productivity tools isn’t new — remember the cult of the Filofax? But interest in them is growing, partly because people feel increasingly snowed under at work. Desperate knowledge workers are also flocking to the dozens of Web sites devoted to “lifehacking” — practices for solving everyday problems. Still, while there’s a lot of software to choose from, picking the right solution isn’t always easy. Different tools work best for different people; for some, pen and paper is still the most useful. Some people can get by with software for generating and managing to-do lists, while others need some way to keep track of all information associated with their daily tasks. Some jobs require better ways of storing, organizing and retrieving massive quantities of information. Here’s a look at tools that help with those different tasks. complete article at http://pkab.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/operationoverload/
