Be More Productive with Less Stress from Everyday Life

One of the fastest growing concerns in people's lives today is the ability to "get it all done." Often we over commit ourselves, under estimate our time, or just plain forget. If information is the blood that flows through the veins of business and time management is the heart that pumps the blood, then anyone with command of their time and their information can "get it all done." Millions of people today have in their possession a simple tool, created to increase productivity and reduce stress that goes unused or is limited to use as an address book. Some have even taken the time and invested in the expense of a cellular telephone with many of the same features. For the purpose of this article we will focus on the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Information and Time Management, the Heart of the PDA
The PDA is not unique in its ability to easily record and retrieve scheduled events or commitments. If you have access to a pen and paper, you can do the same thing just as quickly but with far less efficiency. On a daily basis, business professionals, academics, home makers and others find themselves accepting and declining commitments as well as scheduling or modifying or recording daily events while on the go. Some have tried to simply "write down" everything in a notebook or a scrap of paper, the full intention of transferring it to a calendar or some other more permanent medium later. If this is a method that you use and it has worked for your without a problem, or you only use your PDA to store contact information, then you need read no further. If, however you are like the millions of people who need a better way to improve their efficiency, and would like to make their PDA investment pay off, then read on.

The first step in improving your efficiency is to always have your PDA with you. Get into the habit of having it physically on your person wherever you go, fully charged and ready for use. After all - you can't use it if you don't have it. I'm not suggesting you go cold turkey and toss out your paper planner at this point, only that you have your PDA present for duty. But remember that possession and portability are only a small part of the whole solution.

The next step is to start using your PDA. Most traditional paper planners hold two or three months of dated calendar pages. Whether daily or weekly pages are used, the space allowed for information entry is limiting, often requiring cryptic entries by the user for later deciphering. Although it is possible to carry a paper calendar with one or two pages for every day of the year, it is impractical. Yet there may be occasions where you will need to coordinate a business schedule, holiday schedule and personal schedule at one time in order to avoid conflicts and over commitments.

A simple solution to this complex problem is to reduce (write) all your scheduled events, activities, appointments and commitments on to one calendar. In the physical world, that would likely amount to a sizeable calendar or a calendar full of cryptic notes and abbreviations to be later deciphered (hopefully). In the digital world, however the power and flexibility of a PDA makes this daunting task simplicity itself.

Having one single point of reference to coordinate your time and commitments not only makes good sense, but the byproduct is the reduction of stress. No longer will you have to worry whether or not the birthday party, business dinner or other commitment will conflict with something else. Finally, when you say "let me check my calendar" you can, and immediately agree, decline or take a reschedule. Error free and hassle free. To get into this mode all you need do is employ one of the most powerful applications in your PDA, the Date Book Calendar.

PDA CALENDAR Use one or more of the three following methods to record an event or commitments select the Date Book/Calendar function.

Record the commitment as an Appointment: Using the scroll function on the PDA, select the date for the event or commitment and scan to see whether the specific date and time are uncommitted. If the date and time is available accept the commitment and select the time. Enter the specific event or commitment in the space provided and select details. Here a menu to verify or modify the time and date are available. Set an alert or alarm reminder and minutes, hours or days before the event or commitment your PDA will notify you...even if you forget. (Another reason to have your PDA with you all the time). Under this feature, the Phone Lookup option saves entry time when adding a telephone or other contact information needed for the event or commitment.

Record the commitment as a Floating Item: Another reminder type is as floating event or commitment. This function keeps the event visible daily on the PDA calendar until it is cancelled, deleted, or completed. This reminder is excellent for starting or maintaining a daily practice, routine or pattern, such as exercising, meditating, self improvement reading or writing to name a few.

Record the commitment as a reoccurring Item: The Repeat function when selected, acts as a daily, weekly, monthly or annual reminder for the event or commitment. This feature is ideal for birthdays, anniversary dates an other regular yearly events. The feature also allows for an end date, to stop prevent reminders of events which have passed. There is typically a reminder menu bar to select whether the event is an appointment, which will appear on the date of the event or repeated daily, weekly, monthly or annual as a reminder. Finally, there is a note icon. This function allows the entry of any additional information the user feels relevant to further detail or explain the dated event or commitment.

The exciting part of the Date Book Calendar function is that once the information is added and saved, the PDA user requires no other action. The PDA user will be automatically notified of the event or commitment on whatever date was chosen as a reminder. The key to success is to enter the information through the Date Book Calendar immediately upon accepting the commitment or event.

To summarize the three methods for recording commitments in the PDA;
1) Record the commitment as an appointment item.
2) Record the commitment as a floating item.
3) Record the commitment as a reoccurring item.

Commitments recorded as appointments are displayed on the day of the commitment only.
Commitments recorded as a floating item are displayed everyday at the top of the Date Book Calendar until the commitment is completed, modified, or deleted.
Reoccurring commitments are displayed daily, weekly, monthly or annually.

Gold or Guano?
As with any new tool the PDA, if not properly or consistently used it becomes worthless. Whether it's gold or guano depends upon the user and how the tool is applied. In his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", Steven R. Covey discusses the concept of "Sharpen the Saw.". The concept focused on the fact that in order to remain proficient (sharp) in techniques, tactics and new developments, the professional must continually update their knowledge. Research and self-study are effective ways to improve personal performance; however it would be impractical for most professionals to carry the vast number of books, magazines, newspapers or other publications needed for the task.

The PDA however, can store dozens of books, magazine and other news articles downloaded through the PC, which are specific to their area of interest. Through many commercial and private Internet sites the PDA professional can download thousands of books, articles and reference materials. Sites such as www.avantgo.com, www.msn.com, www.cnn.com and others host up to date news information the PDA professional can download to stay current.

BONUS INFORMATION
PDAs have the capacity to accomplish many useful functions, the bulk of which go unexplored and unused. Each of its uses is designed to save you time or effort. The calculator function is a good example of a function that contains several, little known, yet powerful features. When you are in a meeting discussing and reviewing information and a question requiring "crunching numbers" comes up, what usually happens? Often, because it was not something that was planned, you need to send someone scurrying for a calculator. You may not have known it but most standard Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's) come with a basic and advanced calculator built in. It takes seconds to activate, calculate and continue.

Power Calculating
Begin by selecting the Calculator icon function.
Select the applications button to activate the pull down menus at the top of the screen.
Select the Options pull down menu, and change the calculator mode from Basic to Advanced.
Select one of the pull down menus for Math to reveal 8 additional specialized calculator functions and features.

Finally, you can put your digital investment to practicle use and be more productive and as a result have a lot less stress!