We conduct cabinet meetings at the paying gig each Monday. Our leader develops the agenda and leads these discussions between our regional academic administrators. Typically these meetings are a simple sharing of information between our team leaders. On occasion we invite college and community leaders to meet with the team to understand important initiatives.

A unique twist is that once a month, our leader asks a cabinet member to provide a professional development activity. The cabinet member does not have to personally conduct the activity. They can farm it out to someone on their team or bring in someone from the community. This month, the task falls to me.

While I have a large number of faculty on our Academic Affairs team that I can ask to lead a session, given that I am new to the cabinet, I felt it appropriate that I take my turn at bat. Folks who know me can probably predict the topic of my presentation (or have read the title of this post). I have this odd obsession. I constantly refine my productivity workflow. I’ve gone through a countless number of tools and processes to find a system that works for me in my given environment.

During my presentation I share some tools to get my fellow administrators thinking about their own productivity workflow. There is not a one-size fits all solution. Everyone has their own specific needs. My presentation provides some simple and advanced tools for consideration. It’s an eclectic mix. You can check out my slides and links to all the tools I mention below.

The title of my presentation is Productivity Tools Primer. The focus of the presentation is two-fold. This presentation is around 30 minutes and was presented to the cabinet on March 4th, 2013.

As a primer, I quickly provide a bunch of tools I find useful day-in and day-out. I have many other tools I would love to share, but with only 30 minutes, I focus on the obvious and then discuss a couple of concepts that most likely none of the cabinet will use. My intention is not to encourage them to use these tools, but rather to consider other advanced options.

Obviously, a review of the slides and the links below are not enough for readers of this blog post to glean all concepts. For that you need to hear the entire presentation. If you are interested in an expanded presentation let me know.

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Slide 1 - Title

• StevenCombs.com

Slide 2 - Get a System

• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• GTD

Slide 3 - Inbox Zero

• Inbox Zero

Slide 4 - Evernote Web

• Evernote Web

Slide 5 - Evernote Computer

• Evernote Mac
• Evernote Windows
• Windows Touch

Slide 6 - Evernote Mobile

• Evernote iOS
• Evernote Android
• Evernote Blackberry
• Evernote Windows Phone

Slide 7 - Evernote Extension

• Safari
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Bookmarklet for other browsers

Slide 10 - Evernote Trunk

• Evernote Trunk on the Web

Slide 11 - Evernote Notebook

• Evernote Notebook

Slide 12 - Freemium/Premium?

• Evernote Premium

Slide 13 - Pocket on the Web

• Pocket on the Web
• Pocket for Safari
• Pocket for Chrome
• Pocket for Firefox
• Pocket for other browsers

Slide 14 - Pocket Apps

• Pocket Desktop
• Pocket iOS
• Pocket Android
• Pocket Window Phone
• Pocket Blackberry

Slide 15 - RSS Feeds

• Google Reader - deprecated
• Newsify for iOS

Slide 16 - Find a Feed

• Google RSS Search - deprecated
• The Verge

Slide 17 - Google Drive

• Google Drive

Slide 18 - Waze (Social Nav)

• Waze with links to Apps

Slide 19 - Plain Text

• BBEdit for Mac
• nvALT for Mac
• Notepad++ for Windows
• Elements for iOS
• Epistle for Android

Slide 20 - Markdown

• Markdown
• MultiMarkdown
• MultiMarkdown Composer for Mac
• BBEdit for Mac
• Marked for Mac

Slide 21 - Addendum

• TextExpander for Mac
• Text Expander Windows
• Autokey for Linux
• Alfred for Mac
• Launchy for Windows, Mac and Linux

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See something useful in the slides and/or the list above? Want to add your own productivity tips to assist my fellow higher education administrators? Drop a comment below. I’m always looking for new ideas.