In the tar pits

I had thought my next post would be on the need for a supportive team.  But my intention in blogging my way through the transition to #100percentdigital was to describe the journey as it happened, with frustrations and successes along the way.  I’ve had my iPad for two weeks, and I’m ready to move beyond using it for email and the internet. This means really getting into my workflow and figuring out how the iPad can improve my functionality.  If all it can do is just provide a new medium for notetaking during meetings, but I later still need to transfer action items etc, I’ve just substituted technology as a new tool, and all that will give me is a handy electronic notepad.  Going beyond that requires deep thinking about how I work now, and how that might be improved.

I’m lucky to have Danny, a great thought partner who is also super tech-savvy. Danny was one of the triumvirate who convinced me to go digital, and I warned him he might come to regret this.  We’ve uploaded all my files to Box, and I’m really happy to have my documents stored in the cloud (for access anywhere) which also provides a back-up for the inevitable hardware failure (always a question of “when” not “if” so back up now!).  Microsoft now has iPad versions of Office and Excel, but not wanting to pay the annual $99 fee, Danny found CloudOn as a convenient Microsoft editing app (and free!).  So far we’ve found it works pretty well, but sometimes it’s slow to bring up files and other minor glitches.  I had hoped to use OneNote (see my assistant Jill’s guest blog on the AWESOMENESS of OneNote) but so far that’s not working out.  Email attachments on the iPad can be uploaded to EverNote or Box or CloudOn, but not OneNote. And OneNote doesn’t work with Box.  The iPad version of OneNote also seems to have limited functionality compared to the iPad version of EverNote.  Looks like EverNote might be the best option.

I want to be able to take notes at a meeting, tag any action items for follow-up, and have the tagged items drop into a To Do list, or drop into folders for follow-up at meetings with others.  I’d like to be able to annotate meeting agendas with notes and action items.  Do I need EverNote for that, or use CloudOn, and then save back to Box?

I’m beginning to feel that I’m stuck in the tar pits.  But Danny keeps me focused on what tasks do I want to be able to do, and I stay focused on whether it’s a better process or just a substitution.