I’ve always believed that you don’t need to know everything, you just have to be able to know where to find it when you need it. So I’d rather have my brain on tap not just on top.

    Your brain is incredible, it processes information at speeds and complexity that today’s super computers can’t compete with.  However, our brains don’t remember very well, at least not without some proper training. Worse yet, information we need to know is constantly increasing,  phone numbers, emails, tasks,  projects, follow-ups, status reports, errands, appointments, websites, photos,  notes from a class or a book, and even those random flashes of brilliant ideas that just pop into your head at those odd times.  No worries though there is some great tech available that can work as a secondary brain for you.

    Using the right tools you can keep everything in your secondary brain and free up your mind for other activities.  I’m going to show you some of the tools I use to set up my secondary brain. What’s important is how you integrate them together to work for you and the habits you apply, so everything you want is remembered.    

    My criteria in setting this up was:  It needed to be able to handle all kinds of information, allow me to save and access them and more importantly be reminded about them them with ease and it shouldn’t be complicated to use.     

    I’m always on the go and prefer being as mobile as possible. I use a macbook, and an Iphone but this can be done with windows tools as well. Ok so heres what I use.

1. Evernote (free basic account): This is an amazing app that stores notes, clip web pages, photos, audio, and more.   The really nice feature it has is recognizing text in images. Example; take a picture and send it to Evernote, the image is scanned for words and now the picture is searchable.  Do you get it? Well check out this video to see how it works.

  You can take pictures of business cards, menus, receipts, documents, anything with text and it’s automatically searchable. 

     The best part is that Evernote syncs across different apps and platforms.  You can capture everything with Mac OS X Leopard, Windows, iPhone / iPod Touch or Windows Mobile apps. There’s even a firefox add-on that lets you save whole webpages (photos and all).   Your notes are available anywhere you want them. For more tips and tricks to use check out http://www.evernote.com/about/support/getting_started.php

2. Remember the Milk (free basic account): This is a fantastic web based task manager, packed with great features and mashups. It integrates with Gmail, Google Calendar, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Twitter, Windows, OSX, RSS feeds, iCal and even Linux. 

    Where I think it shines is the location based tasks.  When you choose the location where to do the task, then you can search based on locations and be able to batch together your chores/tasks, which saves a boat load of time.  If you get the Iphone/Ipod application (free when you upgrade to pro service for $25/year. ) now things jump to a whole new level, using the location finding tools of the iphone/ipod, it will alert you when you’re near a task location. 

3. Gmail(free): Gmail is my favorite email app, it never deletes anything and uses Google’s search technology to find any information you need in all your emails.  The fact that gmail never deletes anything and the storage keeps increasing (at the time of this writing I have over 7GB of storage) is what make it really useful for our purposes.    

    Gmail is also the nerve center between my apps.  I set up mail to periodically retrieve my Evernotes using POP3, label them as “Evernote Backups” and skip the inbox. This way I created a backup for my secondary brain.  As much as I love Evernote and its cool that my data is up in the “Cloud” it’s still new technology and clouds do disperse, so I need to know that I have access to my notes no matter what.    

    I’ve also got filters to forward anything from Evernote tagged as “RTM” to be forwarded to my rememberthemilk.com inbox (Gmail reads and Evernote tag as a FROM: address).Even if you have a note that gmail was already backed up, and choose to send it to RTM afterwards, gmail picks up the changes and still applies the filter to that note.  For more tips on formating your message for RTM go here: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/sending/emailinbox.rtm

4. Dial2do (Free): This is a very useful service.  I’ve seen other services do voice2text conversion from your phone. But Dial2do is unique in a few way, check out this video to see more

• Its a FREE service, but you have to call a 213 area code number(US) right now
• It actually works and you can talk at a regular speed.
• It can be integrated with many web2.0 apps and sites. Dial2do lets you do everything from sending yourself a reminder to posting your status on facebook and emailing a friend to listening to your favorite rss feed

   Dial2Do ties everything together, and is great when you’re on the go. Just call Dial2Do from your cell phone and leave a message, and it’ll be sent to which ever service you specify.  For example, I’ve set up Evernote and remember the milk in my dial2do services, so that when I send a Dial2Do message to Evernote, it’s automatically added to my Evernote account and is searchable later. I’ve also added RTM so that I can easily set up appointments and reminders while on the road.

5. Quicksilver(FREE): Quicksilver makes everything faster because there is no need to use the mouse or trackpad. I can easily send an email from Gmail, start applications, move files, or even send a note to Evernote, by just typing a few keystrokes, the information is entered and sent, without opening any apps. In order to send things to evernote you need to install this script. http://jedverity.com/stuff/clip_to_evernote.zip

My Habits or How I Keep All of This Working for Me.    

    I follow a hybrid of Steven Covey, ZenToDone and GTD.  I set up a notebook for each of the roles I play in my life (ex Husband, Entrepreneur, Admin, etc).  In each notebook/role are different projects and resources. I tag notes as “Projects”, “Networking”, “Resources”, and/or “Waiting For”.    

    If there are any notes that need to be forwarded to Rememberthemilk.com I tag them RTM and if I want to determine where they go in RTM from inside evernote I use the email format I listed above. Otherwise I just use RTM to manage my tasks.    

    When I am on the go and need to remember something I call Dial2Do and send the message to either EverNote or RTM.

Here are some tips to make this into a habit:

    1. You need to just make the note as soon as you think, “I gotta remember this”, so you build up these habits or else things will fall through the cracks. Remember that old computing axiom “garbage in, garbage out.”      

    Someone give you some contact information? put it in evernote, right now. Receive an email that requires an action? Forward it to RTM, right. Want to remember a website or keep a receipt? Well you get the idea.

   2.   Use your secondary brain consistently, it becomes worthless if you don’t always use it.

   3. Make it simple and painless. You will put off adding a note if its a pain in the ass. Same goes for  retrieving the info — last thing you want to do is dig through folders or wait for an app to load just to get a quick note. Its gotta be fast and easy or else you will forget it… literally.

   4. Make sure you can archive and search more vs filing. Id rather do a quick search and pull up a bunch of related items to find mine, instead of digging through directories to remember where one file is located.  If it takes too long you’ll stop using your system.

    For a system to work, the habits have to make it work. It’s that simple.  Without the habits, the system will fall apart.  We’ve all done it time and time again;  set up a great system that works for a few days, maybe even a week. Then it slowly falls apart. Focus on developing these habits for one month.

    When you can do that, the habits will stick and you will really enjoy your second brain.

Technorati Tags: Brain Building Tools, Evernote, GTD, Iphone, Remember the milk

      Cinnamon is not just good for french toast and hot apple cider, it can also help your weight loss and increase your IQ.   It works so well, that drug companies becoming very interested.  But while we’ve been using cinnamon to spice our foods, Cinnamon been used to cure everything from athlete’s foot to indigestion for having a very long time.

      You can either take the cinnamon as an extract or sprinkle it on your food.  Just don’t take it like this.

Check out the rest of the article by going to this page.

Technorati Tags: Cinnamon, Weight Loss

        If you can’t afford those expensive supplements and vitamins that are supposed to improve your memory, forget about it. Instead add the right foods to your diet to give your mind all the building materials it needs to grow.     

        Here’s an article that lists the 5 best brain foods that you just gotta be eating to make sure your brain is in its best condition.

        If you don’t have the time to read about the foods AND figure out tasty ways to at them, no worries. I’ll be bringing you some great easy to make quick recipes that will fill your mind with what you need to build it as strong as you want.

Technorati Tags: Brain Food, Health Food, Recipes