Apple has brought together a helpful collection of some of the best apps for getting things done:

• iPhone apps (opens in iTunes)
• iPad apps (opens in iTunes)

What I use:

• Keeping track of notes/ideas: Evernote
• Capturing quick notes when Evernote feels too cumbersome: Apple Notes (native on the iPhone and iPad — super easy to use)
• Calendar: iCal (native on the iPhone and iPad)
• Action and project lists: OmniFocus or Things
• Action lists, as a helpful supplement: Reminders (native on the iPhone and iPad)

And worth taking a closer look at:

• Things (I used this for a time)
• Remember the Milk
• Do it (Tomorrow): Looks interesting
• Calvetica Calendar: Looks intriguing
• PlainText: Looks as simple as Apple’s Notes app, with the added benefit that you can actually organize things
• MindNode: For mindmapping. Currently I use MindJet MindManager

Having pens you actually like to use makes all of your work go better. And even though we do so much digitally now, there is still a place for pens because some notes are best captured by hand and, beyond that, there are all sorts of occasions throughout the day when we need to physically write.

One of my pet peeves is pens that are annoying to use. Some pens skip a lot, while other pens leak out too much ink. So a few years ago I bought a bunch of different kinds of pens and compared them to find a pen that I actually like to use.

Here’s what I recommend: Uni-ball Vision Elite Stick Micro Point Roller Ball Pens, 3 Black Ink Pens. (You can also get them in a 24-pack.)

If you have these, there is no need for any other pen. They are awesome.

For more on why pens matter, the single most important rule in choosing pens, and the qualities of a good pen, see my post on Recommended Pens.

Amazon’s Price Check looks like a helpful app if you still have some Christmas shopping to do — as well as just being useful in general.

Here’s the first part of the description:

Ever wondered if you were getting the best price on a product when you were out shopping? With Price Check by Amazon, you can use your iPhone to instantly compare prices with Amazon.com and its merchants while on-the-go. Price Check enables you to search Amazon products quickly using barcode, picture, voice, and text search. All prices are in US Dollars and search the Amazon US catalog. Compatible with iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4 devices with auto-focus cameras and iOS 4 or greater.

Price Check by Amazon provides access to Amazon.com product descriptions and customer reviews to guide you in making informed purchase decisions. When you find a low price while using the app, simply log into your Amazon account to complete a secure purchase. Price Check by Amazon supports 1-Click check-out and Prime memberships.

A helpful article by Scott Belsky, author of Making Ideas Happen.

Times looks like a helpful new RSS reader. The latest issue of Mac Life says it “feels like reading a really smart newspaper stocked with your favorite RSS feeds.” Here’s the summary from their site:

What is Times?
Times is a unique and innovative newsreader for Mac OS X Leopard. By rethinking the way you read news, we’ve engineered the best possible news experience straight from the ground up.

Instead of treating news like email (as most RSS readers do), Times presents you with headlines and photos from a variety of sources all in one place, letting you more easily discover the news you want to read. Like your own personal newspaper, you can put feeds into separate areas, create pages for different subjects, and more.

Post 13 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

File Cabinets

When it comes to file cabinets, there are two rules:

1. Get ones that don’t screech when you open them.
2. Get ones where the drawer comes all the way out.

This rules out the Office Depot el cheapo $30 excuses for file cabinets.

But, also at Office Depot, are the Hon 2-drawer and 4-drawer file cabinets. Hon is a decent brand, and their cabinets meet the above criteria. They are more expensive than the $30 excuses, but are the cheapest file cabinets I’ve found that don’t waste your time.

Get 2-drawer or 4-drawer, depending on your needs. Don’t get the lateral ones that go in sideways. Get the ones that go in normally. Here’s the specific one I recommend, in both 2-drawer and 4-drawer options:

Now, I also recommend having some ordinary drawers at your desk, as I went over in the second post in this series. If your desk doesn’t have those built into it, there are some good drawer units that have two ordinary drawers on top, and then one file drawer below.

If that single file drawer gives you enough room for your files, then you don’t need to get an additional 2-drawer unit. Get the 2-drawer unit (or 4-drawer) if you need additional space.

Bookshelves

IKEA has fantastic bookshelves that look nice at a great price. I love IKEA in general for their motto “we’ll never stop making good design affordable” and for generally living up to it.

They’ve captured it well: keeping things affordable doesn’t mean getting ugly stuff. Good design can be obtained at a good price.

Here are the bookshelves that I use from IKEA:

You can also get the shorter 2-shelf unit, or some nice-looking cubed ones:

Conclusion

This brings us to the end of our series on recommended (physical) productivity tools. I will close the way I began: Having good tools matters.

First, because if you have good tools, you will often find yourself wanting to use them. And “one of the best tricks for enhancing your personal productivity is having tools you want to use.” Second, because bad tools get in the way. And third, because good tools in general make your workspace as a whole a place where you want to be.

Don’t be selectively strategic. Make your workspace work well for you in all respects — give it both an efficient setup and effective tools.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves

Post 12 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

On Physical Filing

My series on filing is coming up (sorry for the delay). In it I’m going to cover both electronic and physical filing. As a general rule, obviously it makes sense to keep as much as possible electronically and minimize the amount of physical filing that you have to do.

But if you still receive some things made of actual paper that are worth keeping, there is still a need to keep physical files. And so you need to have a decent labeler and some file folders.

Labelers

David Allen has a great paragraph on why having a decent labeler matters. His words here actually illustrate very well the much broader point I’ve made regarding productivity tools in general — namely, that if you have tools that you enjoy using, you will use them more effectively.

Here’s what he says about labelers (on pages 93 and 100 of Getting Things Done):

The labeler is a surprisingly critical tool in our work. Thousands of executives and professionals and homemakers I have worked with now have their own automatic labelers, and my archives are full of their comments, like, “Incredible–I wouldn’t have believed what a difference it  makes!” The labeler will be used to label your file folders, binder spines, and numerous other things.

….

Typeset labels change the nature of your files and your relationship to them. Labeled files feel comfortable on a boardroom table; everyone can identify them; you can easily see what they are from a distance in your briefcase; and when you open your file drawers, you get to see what looks almost like a printed index of your files in alphabetical order. It makes it fun to open the drawer to find or insert things.

Perhaps later in this new millennium the brain scientists will give us some esoteric and complex neurological explanation for why labeled files work so effectively. Until then, trust me. Get a labeler. And get your own. To make the whole system work without a hitch, you’ll need to have it at hand all the time, so you can file something whenever you want. And don’t share! If you have something to file and your labeler’s not there, you’ll just stack the material instead of filing it.

I recommend the Brother PT-1750. The reason is: It’s easy to figure out and it works well. Here it is:

There’s just one problem: it appears to have been replaced by a more up to date model, so you can only get it used. The problem with the more up to date model is that it is harder to use. They added some features, and failed to integrate them in a usable way into the interface.

I think its replacement is the Brother PT-1880:

I have this newer version at work because I had to replace my labeler there, and the better earlier model had been discontinued by then.

Label Tape

Along with the labeler, you also need label tape. Get the half inch, black on white tape:

When it comes to label tape or any other supply, remember this principle: Get two. Keep one in use, and the second in with your extra supplies. When the one you are using runs out, grab the one in with the extras and replace it.

In other words: Always keep one extra, and replace it as soon as you use it. That way, you never run out — you’re always one ahead. This same principle works with everything — rock salt (if you have a water softener), furnace filters, everything.

File Folders

Get the third-cut file folders. Third-cut means the tab at the top will be in one of three slots. There is also five-cut, which I don’t recommend because it makes the tabs so small.

The file folders at Office Depot work just fine. Here is an example.

You can get plain ones or colored ones. If you get colored ones, just make sure to have a rhyme and reason to things and keep it simple. I’ll talk more about that in my posts on filing.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves

Post 11 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

Chairs
Get a good chair. Depending on how desk-dependent your job is, you may be in your chair six, eight, or more hours a day. It does not make sense to merely get a chair that you can “get by” with. Get a chair that is ergonomically correct and which you enjoy using.

At the other extreme, I’m not recommending that anyone go out and buy an $800 Herman Miller chair. There are some decent middle-of-the road options that I think strike a good balance.

Here’s the chair I prefer:

It looks a bit like a Herman Miller chair, but it’s not. It’s available at Office Depot and is called the “Realspace PRO™ Quantum Recycled Mesh Mid-Back Task Chair.” That’s a mouthful. And the name actually continues: “40 1/2″H x 30 3/10″W x 26 1/5″D, Black Frame, Black Fabric.”

It costs way less than a Herman Miller, but still costs more than most of the other options at Office Depot. Here’s the way I look at it: This chair ought to last me at least eight years–probably much longer. Let’s assume eight years, though. Working 260 days per year, that’s 2,080 working days. That puts the cost at 12.5 cents per day.

Having a chair that works well, is fully adjustable, and that I like to be in is worth 12.5 cents per day.

Waste Baskets

Waste baskets don’t have to be ugly. Here’s the one I have in my office at home:

I like it because the color and wire mesh style fit the rest of the style of my office. The governing principles for productivity tools in general also apply here: if you are going to have a waste basket anyway, you may as well get one that contributes to the overall work environment rather than just getting whatever you find.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves

Post 10 in the series: Recommended Productivity Tools

Avoid desk organizers, such as the one above, at all costs.

Here’s why: They are designed, by nature, to hold things that should not be on your desk in the first place. So the result is that they don’t organize you; instead, they increase clutter.

For example, look at the above organizer. There is a spot for paper clips. But paper clips should not be on your desk. They should be in a drawer (as discussed in the first post).

There is a spot to keep pens and pencils as well — encouraging you to keep several of each on your desk, in fact. But you only need to keep one pen (or, at most, two) right on your desk, and a pencil probably not at all. All extra pens, and pencils, go in the drawer (again, as discussed in my first post). The one pen you keep on your desk just lays flat on the desk. It doesn’t need an organizer.

Keeping more than 2 pens on your desk is generally not necessary and so just serves to clutter your work environment, creating drag. If you do want to use a pen cup, however, then get just an ordinary pen cup that is just a single cup. Don’t get one of those huge organizers, such as above, that takes up all that space. Also, if you do get a pen cup, get a wire mesh one, not a plastic one, because it looks better.

Desk organizer things illustrate one principle really well: Getting organized is not first a matter of having the right “item” to get you organized. Many such items actually just create clutter. Getting organized is first about knowing what tools you need to have and some basic principles for how to arrange them for easy access with minimal clutter.

Posts in This Series

1. Recommended Productivity Tools: An Introduction
2. The Tools You Need to Have (And Where to Keep Them)
3. Recommended In Boxes
4. Recommended Capture Journals
5. Recommended Pens
6. Recommended Pencils and Paper Pads
7. Recommended Staplers, Staple Removers, and Tape
8. Recommended Scissors, Letter Openers, and Post-Its
9. Recommended Paper Clips and Super Glue
10. Not Recommended: Desktop Organizer Things
11. Recommended Chairs and Waste Baskets
12. Recommended Labelers and File Folders
13. Recommended File Cabinets and Bookshelves