Live by the Meeting Maker, die by the Meeting Maker

As continue to settle into my job as supervisor, I've noticed that I go to a lot more meetings than I used to, as what was billed as primarily a desk job takes on increasingly managerial (and dare I say professional) aspects. While some of this is a function of a recent change in leadership, I would hazard that a lot of this is simply the result of my being interested in the big picture and stepping up to take on additional duties and responsibilities whenever possible.

The price for such a go-getter attitude is a perpetual scheduling crunch that only seems to get worse as my available free time on the clock moves closer and closer to zero. This has been a blessing in disguise, however, as it's forced me to do something that I probably never would have done under my own steam in a million years: i.e., get organized.

Right now I'm using Google Calendar instead of the customary Meeting Maker supported here in the workplace to keep track of my time, as well as Remember The Milk! for staying on top of my tasks. What I like about this combination is that it's possible to do a mash-up the two services, so that your RTM tasks can be imported directly into Google Calendar. Remember The Milk! can also be updated by IM or text messaging from your cellphone, so it's relatively easy to jot down a task on the fly without having to completely stop whatever else you were doing.

I've also been experimenting with Zirrus as a to-do list manager, as I'm fond of the very simple "whiteboard" interface featuring colored tags that grow in font size depending on priority. In the end I might keep Zirrus as a personal to-do list and RTM as my taskmaster for work, since I don't seem to want to spend as much time fiddling around with the latter when I'm not on the clock. After all, isn't the point of productivity tools to save time?