Did you know that the Mobile board controls what panes are in the mobile app?

One of the ways that you can optimize your usage of Legend is to customize your Mobile board to use when you are away from your computer. You will have limited screen real estate on your phone and you may only need access to certain information as opposed to everything all at once. Here is an example:

The board is configured in this way:

• Shopping: an outline view zoomed into the node where your shopping list starts
• Tasks: a list view showing only prioritized tasks, sorted by date
• Notes: a list view zoomed into a “mobile notes” project separate from your journal

On mobile, you would see:

The other two pane icons are at the bottom of the screen.

NOTE: For the “Items from mobile” pane, you would transfer notes and tasks to your main journal when you got back to your desk or you could even star the items by default and expose them in your tasks review pane with filter criteria, which would look something like this:

-is:complete is:task pri:low+ OR is:star

Legend Examples: Setting up a Board for mobile was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you are enjoying all of the flexibility that Legend gives you to manage your tasks but want to see them in a kanban view, it’s pretty easy to set up a board to list your tasks in kanban format.

(If you need a primer on kanban, this Lifehacker post covers it nicely.)

We’ll go over two simple types of kanban, each with a different column setup, that you can expand on if you need more.

The first type, which we’ll call Kanban A, is modeled on a traditional software development sprint board. Individuals frequently copy this model for personal productivity as well, so that will be our focus here.

The columns in this type of kanban are:

• Backlog (the list of all the things that need to get done; this is where your tasks “brain dump” would go)
• On deck (not on every kanban but this column allows you to pre-select tasks that will go in your doing column next)
• Doing (what you are working on right now; also known as “work in progress” or WIP; generally limited to around a maximum of three items)
• Done (optional column that lets you see what you have accomplished, if that is helpful for context or encouragement)

After you have added items into the backlog, you can easily drag and drop tasks into the appropriate column (or move them with the Alt+M keyboard shortcut).

The second setup, Kanban B, does not use a backlog. The column descriptions should provide more context:

• Do (can be more than three items but should be prioritized if there are a number of items)
• Schedule (items that have a due date but don’t need to be worked on immediately; scheduled events)
• Waiting (items that are delegated to others, waiting on a company to respond, etc.)
• Maybe (things that you might do but shouldn’t be cluttering up your active doing list)

Whichever kanban setup you choose or even if you decide to set up your own, Legend makes it easy to work the way that works for you!

Legend Examples: Kanban Boards was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let’s pick up where we left off in Part 1.

This setup is great if you are working with a relatively small journal or just using the journal as a task list. But if you take a lot of notes for your work or school, sooner or later (sooner!) your tasks will be swallowed up in all those notes and you’ll lose focus on what needs to be done.

The tasks pane

Thankfully, Legend is powerful enough to pull those tasks out of your journal so you can see them easily and even group them on the fly!

Let’s start by closing the calendar pane (don’t worry, we’ll add it back!) and adding a List view pane, grouped by Priority and sorted by Date:

You’ll see a flattened view of your journal but we are going to tweak a few things by doing the following:

1. Click on the filter/search bar at the top of the pane.
2. In the graphical filter interface, click the Task icon in the Type row.

Once you start setting priorities on your tasks you can very easily see what to work on next!

Returning to the calendar pane

Let’s add the monthly calendar back in:

This is okay if you have a large monitor or if you don’t mind scrolling. However, if you like to keep a clean workspace you may want to consider closing the calendar pane and creating a list pane sorted by date instead:

Unreviewed tasks

As your Journal grows longer after time, you will now be able to see your tasks at a glance, both by priority and by date.

If you have the screen real estate on a larger monitor instead of just a laptop screen, you can go one step further and add what I like to call a “Sweep” pane. Any good task management system will allow you to review all open tasks and easily re-prioritize them as circumstances change. Let’s go ahead and add a list pane no grouping and sorted by created date, then filter it for tasks with NO priority and NO date:

Then, since we are listing tasks with no priority, adjust your tasks pane to only include low priority tasks or higher:

Which results in the following four panes in your master board:

Here is one way to consider the maintenance of this type of setup. You complete your work from left to right:

• Entering notes and identifying tasks (journal pane)
• Selecting tasks to work on by priority (tasks pane)
• Completing or progressing work with specific deadlines (dated tasks pane)

But you manage your work from right to left:

• Setting priorities, dates and tags on unreviewed tasks (sweep pane)
• Adjusting task priorities based on due date (dated tasks pane)
• Adjusting priorities for tasks competing for attention based on evolving circumstances (tasks pane)
• Pre-filling the journal with upcoming meetings, archiving past days of work (journal pane)

There are, of course, several other ways to refine the board and other advanced techniques such as tagging and custom filters that aren’t covered here but are covered elsewhere in the help file. Hopefully this example will give you ideas for how large and how complex you want your setup to be!

Without tasks

One of the things to be aware of in this setup is that every task needs to be set as a task item in order to show up in the task panes. For those who would prefer to keep tasks separate, you can still set up Legend to display a notes journal in one pane and tasks in another pane but still within the same board:

While the screenshot above is ungrouped and sorted by priority, you may prefer to group by priority and then sort by date.

While this setup allows you to keep your tasks separate, you can still easily identify tasks from your notes journal (this is helpful when you don’t want to break up the “flow” of your note-taking but want to make sure not to forget a task you put into notes instead of the tasks pane).

One way to accomplish this is to star the items in your notes journal (with the Ctrl+8 keyboard shortcut), which highlights them.

PRO TIP: You can also configure the filter in the tasks pane to show all highlighted items as is shown in the screenshot above. The advanced filter query is:

is:plain or is:star

At a convenient time, you can just drag the item into the tasks pane (or of course use the Alt+M keyboard shortcut), set its priority and remove the star (again with the Ctrl+8 keyboard shortcut).

Legend Examples: Work Journal (Part 2) was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Basic

At its most basic, a journal should contain the following sections:

1. A daily journal for capturing notes and tasks
2. A goals section to list short and long term goals
3. An events section to keep track of upcoming events
4. Other sections for reference information, habit trackers, etc.

You can use Legend to create a digital journal that varies from very basic to very advanced. This article will focus on creating a basic journal that you can level up when you are ready.

To start, create a document and add a “Journal” project. Then dump in some notes and tasks!

If that’s all you need then great! But maybe you want to break up your days and activities a little more (I would). Let’s add some more structure:

Even with your journal broken out by days and activities, eventually your journal will get long enough that it will be hard to scroll through it efficiently.

Try creating an “Archive” heading (inside the Journal project) with a year and month hierarchy. You can then move old days from the top of your journal into the archive by dragging and dropping or with the Alt+M keyboard shortcut:

You can then collapse everything in the archive to keep your journal pane nice and clean:

Congratulations, you have set up a basic journal!

Intermediate

Now that you have the Basic journal set up, let’s find a way to give you more clarity on your tasks. The flexibility of Legend lets you do this a few different ways (actually a lot of different ways!).

Let’s start by adding a pane for a calendar:

You’ll quickly notice that there are no items, so let’s add some due dates to the tasks in our journal:

Okay, so this is great. You’ve got a journal with tasks and if those tasks have due dates they will show up in the calendar pane.

But what if you have events that aren’t tasks like birthdays, vacations, etc.? You could put them in your journal but you can also create a separate “Recurring Events” project at the same level as your journal:

PRO TIP: You can also capture recurring events on the fly in your daily journal and afterwards move them to your Recurring Events section with the Alt+M keyboard shortcut!

This board improves on the layout of the basic journal but Legend can do even more when you are ready for it!

Continued in Part 2…

Legend Examples: Work Journal (Part 1) was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

Hi there, I’ve been bullet journaling since 2006 and think that the current version of Legend is the closest I’ve ever gotten to digital bujo nirvana. I’ll go over my setup below but tried to include as much context in the screenshot for all you tl;dr types.

Even with a large monitor, real estate is a consideration because I prefer a one-screen view of everything actionable in my journal. That is why there is no calendar pane in my setup. As with everything, take what you find useful from this overview and leave the rest if it doesn’t fit your work style.

Here is my layout:

Minor configuration detail: I place my toolbar at the top in order to save me space horizontally. You’ll also notice that the navigation bar is closed on all of my panes, meaning I only work out of one document. Also, this screenshot is from the mockup I created in a separate document; you’ll notice boards at the top for desktop, laptop and mobile. I can go over these in another post if requested but as you can guess they have to do with maximizing screen real estate on each device.

Pane 1: The bullet journal

The journal pane is all data entry. YMMV on sections but you will see three projects:

• Journal: This is where my daily work goes. It’s mostly notes and tasks, not a lot of reference (but not zero reference). The last couple of days sit at the top of the journal and everything else gets dragged into the archive. Ordering the archive by most recent first allows me to drag recent days in more easily.
• Shopping: I keep separate sub-lists for household and groceries in here and expose it in a pane in mobile view.
• Recurring Events: Chores, birthdays and anniversaries go in here. I will occasionally add a recurring task directly to the journal but may eventually move it into this section.

NOTE: Where you see the dates in the journal (my favored date format is “Mon 1 Jan 2022”) I have used AutoHotKey with a text shortcut to dump in the date.

Pane 2: The priority list

I don’t manage my tasks out of the journal pane, I manage them out of the next three panes. Since I review my tasks multiple times a day, I am frequently shifting tasks between priorities (using the keyboard shortcuts of course). I could switch to a format where I only use priorities for marking tasks instead of checkboxes but a) I don’t want to run the risk of creating a task with no priority that disappears in my journal and b) I like to click checkboxes. 😛

Your breakouts for priority may differ from mine but in general:

• High = do today or urgent for monitoring
• Medium = due this week or within the next seven days, or just because I think it belongs there
• Low = for non-urgent waiting-for tasks (hello GTDers!) or scheduled tasks that need a little visibility, i.e. due this month

Pane 3: The agenda calendar

If I had infinite horizontal space for a monthly calendar (my preferred calendar view) then I would use that, but I have happily settled for an agenda view of tasks sorted by ascending date.

To keep from seeing every date for all time, I restricted the pane with the filter “before:today+60” so it only shows tasks due within the next two months. (I highlighted the “christmas shopping” task from the journal to demonstrate this.)

This pane is most useful for moving tasks into the priority list (pane 2) as they get closer to being due. An example from the screenshot is the “water plants” task that is due tomorrow. I would normally prioritize that to medium within a week or on Monday of the week.

Pane 4: The sweep list

For anything that I’m capturing on the fly or can’t decide a priority, it goes on the sweep list. I review the sweep list once a day and promote tasks to priorities as needed. I will also demote prioritized tasks if they snuck into the priority list but really fall under that “not important/not urgent” quadrant (hello Eisenhower matrix fans!).

If a task has lived on the sweep list for a while (a while = when you realize it has been on there too long) then I will delete it or more likely tag it with #cancelled and mark it as complete.

NOTE: Tasks with dates will not show up on the sweep list. So if you put a date on it, it will show up in the agenda calendar when it gets to within two months. (See the “christmas shopping” tasks again for this use case.)

Conclusion

This is an accumulation of my experience using bullet journals, GTD and several other productivity methods and task management tools (too many to list here, honestly). I will probably continue to fine tune it but after using this setup for a couple of months, I’m still satisfied with it and figured it might help others. Feel free to reach out in replies if you have any questions!

Legend Examples: Bullet Journal was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When my co-founder and I started Moo.do, our goals seemed far too ambitious for the two of us alone. We wanted to build an email client, todo list, kanban board, and calendar — all working together in one app. With real-time collaboration on all desktop and mobile platforms.

Of course, that much work would be nuts for just two people.

We were passionate about the front-end user experience, but to make our product work we would also need to build a large scalable backend. This in itself would be a huge amount of work, so we would need to hire developers to build the backend and manage the servers.

To afford that, we would be stuck investing months into getting VC funding. And then it would take a few more months to hire employees and ramp them up.

And all of that would be before we could start validating whether customers would even like the product.

Fortunately, we started right when cloud databases like the Google Drive Realtime API and Firebase were launching. We realized we could skip the backend completely, save a huge amount of time and money, and bootstrap the company ourselves.

Serverless

Serverless is the hip new trend in web development these days. The idea is that your server code magically runs in the cloud while the cloud provider manages and scales their servers behind the scenes. It’s a great way to reduce the work required to build a web app. But we took it even further: Moo.do is fully client-side and we use free external services as our backend.

Ok, that’s actually a little bit of a lie. We do have a small server just for minor user account details like settings and billing, but that’s it.

This is an enormous undertaking, and it would have been impossible if we had to build the backend required for large-scale data storage and real-time collaboration as well as the web and mobile apps.

How it works

All of a user’s private data is stored in their personal Google Drive account and we use client-side APIs for everything:

• Hosting: Static page on Github Pages with CloudFlare CDN
• Data storage and sync: Google Drive Realtime API
• Email: Gmail API to manage email without touching our server
• Calendar: Google Calendar API
• File uploads: Google Drive API

When you launch the app, everything is downloaded and stored locally in Application Cache so that it can work offline and to speed up load time. It loads any local data stored in IndexedDB and then connects to the Google Drive Realtime API to set up the real-time sync, and syncs with the Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive APIs. And finally it quickly pings our server to confirm the user’s premium account status.

In typical web apps, most of that would happen on the server instead of on the client. Doing it all client-side might sound crazy, but I’ll explain why:

The Benefits

Get started quickly

We added real-time collaboration to our initial prototype in just a few days with the Google Drive Realtime API. This allowed us to quickly build a working product to prove the idea. Otherwise, we would have had to invest a huge amount of time in building a real-time collaboration system before we could even validate whether people like the product.

Save money

These services and APIs are free, so we’re running at near zero variable costs. We don’t have any extra money to waste since we’re bootstrapping our company, so lower cost extends our runway.

A typical downside to a freemium business model is that the free users can drive up costs. But in our case, free users cost us almost nothing.

Hire less people

We don’t need backend engineers because we have no complex backend to engineer. And we don’t need systems administrators because we have no systems to administrate.

We are able to build this as just two founders with no employees and no VC funding.

Less work and therefore less bugs

Building a backend for real-time sync and collaboration would be a tremendous amount of work. Ain’t nobody got time for that, so we skipped it. And a heavily used API that’s well tested by Google is going to have less bugs than code we write from scratch.

Of course, every API or service needs some work to fit into the app. We have a lot of client-side integration code, like conflict resolution to support offline usage, but everything else is taken care of by Google.

Huge performance gains

Moo.do is a static page, meaning we cannot send user data with the initial download, so everything has to be loaded by JavaScript. This might sound like a downside, but it’s actually great for performance, for two reasons:

1. Offline caching. When the page loads from Application Cache or Service Worker (the new hotness), it completely skips the whole download process. This can shave many hundreds of milliseconds off your load time, depending on the user’s connection speed. It also saves bandwidth costs (for you and your users) since files are only transferred when they are updated.
2. Serve assets from a CDN. Since you don’t need any server-side processing to generate the page, you can host the page and all your assets on a CDN (Content Delivery Network), which is much faster and easier than geographically distributing your own servers.

Infinite scaling

Because we’re running our backend almost entirely on Google services, we’re able to run at Google scale. We could gain a million new users overnight and everything would be fine. We don’t need to throttle signups or worry about being taken down by a Reddit Hug of Death.

No data or passwords on our servers

We use Google OAuth to sign in, which has the huge security advantage that we never receive a user’s actual password.

All items, tasks, and attached files are stored in each user’s personal Google Drive account. Gmail and Google Calendar are synced completely client-side, which means that emails and appointments do not pass through and are never stored on our servers.

Not storing users’ private data on our servers protects their privacy and limits their potential exposure to hacks.

So in conclusion, everything is great and there’s no downsides.

Ok, that’s another lie. Giving up control of our backend does have some drawbacks.

The Drawbacks

Dependency on Google

Google has been known to shut down services. This presents a risk, but they typically give a warning beforehand and a long window to migrate away. They are investing heavily in Google Drive, and we don’t see Gmail going away anytime soon. The dependency on Google is a risk, but we feel confident that these services will stick around.

Bugs in APIs

There’s always a risk that a new bug will appear that is out of our control to fix. The Google Drive Realtime API had some issues in its early days, but the developers were responsive and fixed bugs quickly, and it has been stable for the past two years. Based on their track record of stability and responsiveness, we feel safe.

Static page makes A/B testing hard

The only true downside of a static page that we’ve found is that it’s harder to A/B test. There is no server to decide whether to send the user A or B, so we have to send the user both A and B and then display the right one in client-side JavaScript.

Google Drive Realtime API is JavaScript only

If you need to access your data from a native app, the alternative solutions listed below might be better for you. We’re ok with this limitation because we’re heavily invested in JavaScript — even our iOS and Android apps are mobile web apps. That might sound crazy, but mobile web can actually be fast. That’s a topic for a future post…

Serverless technologies

• Static page Hosting: We use Github Pages, Alternative: Amazon S3
• Offline app: We use Application Cache, Alternative: Service Worker
• Data storage and sync: We use Google Drive Realtime API, Alternatives: Firebase, hood.ie, Back&, or others
• Run your code serverless: Alternatives: AWS Lambda, Serverless framework
• Email: We use Gmail API, Alternative: Outlook API, Nylas
• Calendar: We use Google Calendar API
• File uploads: We use Google Drive API, Alternative: Dropbox API

aI’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or talk to me on Twitter. And if you liked this article please click the ❤ below to help me share it. Thanks!

Serverless: Bootstrap your startup by only doing half of the work was originally published in Startup Grind on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Three years ago, I left San Francisco, sold and gave away everything I owned, and moved into a 40 liter backpack.

I traveled to 47 countries, went to every Disneyland in the world, saw the Aurora Borealis in Norway, skied in the French Alps, played on a Japanese island covered in bunnies, bashed people with plastic hammers at the São João festival, and saw my favorite hip hop group perform in an ancient Roman colosseum.

I also built and launched a startup.

And my monthly expenses were less than just the rent in San Francisco.

Two years ago, I wrote that I was traveling because it’s cheaper, more productive, and better for my social life.

Now after three years of traveling full-time while building Moo.do, I’m more confident than ever that a nomadic lifestyle is an effective way to live while building a company.

Looking back, my goals made no sense to me

I was following the goals of the previous generation: what my parents wanted for me and what I saw people do on TV. But the old definition of “success” doesn’t necessarily make sense in our modern world, so I’m recalibrating what success means to me and rethinking my basic assumptions about life.

I’m supposed to spend my 20s saving up to buy a house. I don’t want to own a house. Owning a house restricts my freedom and may not even be a good investment. I’m investing my time and money into my startup and an adventure-filled life rather than lock myself into one location and lifestyle.

I’m supposed to buy things for happiness. I’m much happier living out of a backpack than I ever was sitting in front of my massive 3D TV and ordering new toys from Amazon every week. Exploring the world is much more interesting than putting more things in my home.

I’m supposed to work when the sun is out. Working from 9–5 is ridiculous!. That’s the best part of the day! I prefer to enjoy being outdoors during the day and work at night.

Now I’m trying to ignore what I’m supposed to do, and instead I’m figuring out what I want to do.

A life of adventure can be cheaper than staying home

In my first year of traveling, I favored cheap destinations in Southeast Asia or stayed in hostels to keep the costs down. But I realized that I was making the mistake of procrastinating the adventures on my bucket list because I perceived them as too expensive.

I found out that the expensive adventure I had been putting off is more reasonable if I split apartments with friends or stay in a hotel slightly off the beach. I’m spending more money this way, but my increased happiness improves my productivity, making it easily worth the extra cost. And it’s still much cheaper than when I was living in the US.

I’m more productive because I’m getting exercise and having fun

Productivity is one of the major reasons I’m traveling full-time. I feel more creative and it’s easier to focus while traveling. But I only recently figured out why: a side effect of traveling is that it makes it easier to get into a flow state.

My #1 goal is to always work in flow

When I’m working in flow, or “the zone,” I’m totally focused. My mind is completely invested in my task, and I don’t get distracted. My output is substantially higher and I am much more creative than when I am struggling to concentrate.

Time is my most valuable asset, so I want to produce as much as possible while still leaving time to enjoy my life. And after years of experimenting with how to get into flow easily and often, it all comes down to one strategy.

Take many breaks to exercise outside

Working in an office or at home, my instinct when I need a break is to browse Reddit or watch TV. But doing something active outside is much more mentally regenerative than continuing to sit in front of a screen. After a 30 minute TV show, I don’t really feel refreshed at all, but a 30 minute walk usually brings me right back into flow.

Going for a walk is much more invigorating when I’m exploring a new city. Or I can go for a hike in the woods, swim at the beach, ski with some friends, or check out a museum. In an exciting new environment, my mind is occupied and inspired by all the new sights. But when my surroundings are familiar, my mind stays preoccupied with work and I can’t clear my head.

Working flexible hours lets me spread my work through the day and give me time for adventures even on work days.

I’m making lasting friendships with other traveling entrepreneurs

When I first started traveling in 2013, all of my relationships were short-lived and superficial. I had nothing in common with kids partying in hostels, and friendships with locals disintegrated as soon as I left. I wasn’t the only one with this problem — many nomads have written about their difficulty making lasting connections.

But after a tipping point in late 2014, the situation has significantly improved. Digital nomad communities have formed to foster communication between nomads, and new organized travel groups are making it easy to meet like-minded travelers. Many of them are entrepreneurs, freelancers, or remote workers, which makes discussing and advising each other with our businesses and projects beneficial for everyone.

In the past three years I’ve explored all sorts of different ways to meet nomads, and these have been the most effective for me:

Go solo to nomad hotspots

Nomads flock to cheap destinations with good wifi, mainly in Southeast Asia. A lot of nomads like to work in coworking spaces, which have a nice community built around them and often organize group events. My favorites have been Kohub in Koh Lanta, Hubud and Dojo in Bali, and The Hive in Bangkok.

Meet nomads online

The numerous nomad communities on Facebook are a great resource, as are the subreddit and forum, and I met a lot of my best friends in the Nomad List community. In my experience it’s easiest to meet nomads online while in Asia, but it’s still a viable option in other parts of the world.

Go on organized group trips

The best way I’ve found to make lasting friendships with interesting people is to go on trips with an organized travel group. They bring between 10–75 nomads together in one place and organize housing, coworking, and sometimes even food. It’s a great way for new travelers to get started, but it’s also a good option for seasoned travelers who want to meet new people and have unique experiences that you can’t get traveling solo.

I’ve been to Hacker Paradise eight times, Nomad House once, and visited Remote Year for a few days. These groups often have a focus on business development — I’ve gotten invaluable help in design, marketing, and branding for Moo.do from organized talks as well as simply asking the group for advice.

The best thing for me is the events I wouldn’t have otherwise had access to: a chat with the CTO of Estonia, a meetup at TypeForm’s office in Barcelona, and exploring Jeju Island with a group of English-speaking local students.

You can find the top cities for digital nomads on Nomad List, chat with nomads on Nomad List’s chat, find good coworking spaces on Work Hard Anywhere or Places To Work, and search for organized travel groups on Coworkations.

Soon you’ll have lots of nomad friends

After two years of meeting nomads, I now have a big group of friends who are exploring cool places and going on epic trips.

I love that each month I have a choice of a dozen different trips to join, whether they’re organized group trips, a bunch of close friends, or even going solo and following a friend’s recommendations.

See you out there

After three years of traveling full-time while building Moo.do, I have no plans to stop. I’m more productive than ever, I’m spending less money than I did at home, and I’ve made some incredible friends. And of course, I’m having a lot of fun!

The digital nomad revolution is just getting started, and I’m excited to be a part of it. I hope you and I will meet some time, somewhere out there.

Originally published at www.entrepreneur.com on March 22, 2017.

If you enjoyed reading this, please click the ❤ below to help me share the story with others. Thank you! ❤

Why I traveled to 47 countries while building a startup was originally published in This Publication is Moved on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Would you use a todo list where all your tasks are created by someone else, and you can’t prioritize or rearrange them? Of course not. How would you know what to do next? Using a todo list sorted only by creation time would be incredibly frustrating. But that’s exactly what email is.

The past few decades have brought great innovation in organization methods like GTD and Kanban boards, with thousands of unique todo list apps in the app stores. But email has worked essentially the same way for the past 40 years, sorted by time and organized in folders. Getting a new message was fun when email was designed in the 1970s, but email is now a nonstop deluge of incoming work and software needs to adapt.

The average professional spends 28% of their time in email, trying to manage and organize their work in a system clearly not designed for it. So it’s time to redesign the way email works. The technology itself doesn’t necessarily need to change, but the tools for reading and managing email need an upgrade.

A list sorted by time is fundamentally unmanageable

When you get an email, you have to read it and handle it immediately. If you don’t, it falls off the bottom of your inbox and you’ll never see it again. The only way to remember an email is to keep it in view.

Star, Mark as Unread, and Snooze all do the same thing, pushing emails to the top of the list. But there’s no way to differentiate between emails containing important tasks, questions that need a response, articles to read later, or coupons for chicken. So you have to constantly scan through an ever-increasing list of tasks to determine which to deal with next.

And if you try organizing emails into folders, you’ll soon realize that you never look through your folders, and those emails are gone forever.

Once the list gets too long and you’re drowning in a sea of emails, the only thing you can do is give up. You declare Email Bankruptcy (yes that’s a real thing), delete everything, and start over. The only manageable Inbox is an empty one, which you have to diligently keep empty by handling everything immediately, a la Inbox Zero.

This is crazy.

So we’ve spent the past few years building Moo.do to try to improve the email experience and we’ve come up with two major ideas to make this situation better.

1. Email should be a good todo list

You already use email as a todo list, so your email app should be designed for it. We started with the primary feature of a good todo list: prioritizing emails to easily visualize what’s next. Sorting by priority lets us bring important emails to the top in order of importance.

To prevent the cognitive drain of constantly switching between the Inbox and Priority View, we took inspiration from the Kanban Method, which suggests using boards to visualize the progress being made as you move tasks between boards.

Building on that principle, Moo.do shows multiple views side by side, making it easy to track a Priority View while running through your Inbox, or work with multiple labels at the same time.

But simply prioritizing emails isn’t enough. It doesn’t matter how good email is as a todo list if it’s isolated from your other tasks and calendars. You should not have to be responsible for managing priorities between all your different apps.

2. Email should be integrated with everything

Your brain doesn’t care what service a task came from and neither should your software. In Moo.do, email is just one part of a larger organization system. You can organize emails in your projects right next to your other tasks and notes, because a task assigned to you by an email is no different than a task you wrote yourself.

Tasks on your todo list are the same as emailed requests from your co-worker, so you should be able to prioritize them together. Your professor’s email about this week’s assignment belongs right next to your assignment notes. And it just makes sense for you flight and hotel confirmation emails to be together with your travel itinerary.

The main benefit of integrating email with everything else is that email is now as powerful as your normal organization system. If you like to organize tasks by project, use tags for context in GTD, break down tasks on Kanban boards, schedule tasks on a calendar, or outline your thoughts on a bulleted list, you can do that with email too.

Clean and minimal

In addition to the organization features, we think it’s important that an email client be distraction-free and visually pleasing. We designed Moo.do to let you focus on the tasks at hand without fighting a complicated user interface.

Get it together now

Thanks to all of the great feedback from our beta testers, Moo.do for Gmail is now available on desktop, iOS, and Android. We truly appreciate everyone’s feedback and ideas on this. Reach out to us on Twitter @MooDoApp or send us an email to contact@moo.do. We’d love to chat.

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[1] https://twitter.com/EliLanger/status/572081933452218368

[2] https://leankit.com/learn/kanban/what-is-kanban/

Moo.do makes email a powerful todo list was originally published in Moo.do on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One year ago, I left San Francisco, sold and gave away everything I owned, and moved into a 40 liter backpack.

I traveled to 45 cities in 20 countries, 3 Disneylands, and 1 bunny island.

I also worked 50 hours a week building and launching a startup.

And my total costs were less than just the rent in San Francisco.

Traveling is not the same as vacation

There’s a growing community of “digital nomads” who live a location independent lifestyle. We’re software developers, designers, writers, journalists, engineers, and all sorts of people who share a passion for the work we do and experiencing the world.

I propose that a nomadic lifestyle is a productive way to build a real company. I’m working hard on bootstrapping an ambitious startup, Moo.do. I’m traveling because it’s cheaper, more productive, and more inspiring than sitting in one place. Traveling is the most responsible choice for the sake of my company, my finances, and my personal growth.

I became a nomad by accident

Three years ago I was preparing to leave my job at Microsoft to move to San Francisco to start a startup. My friend asked me “but why do you need to be in San Francisco when you can work on a computer from anywhere?” His question made a lot of sense. As I thought about it more, I began to question my assumptions about a “normal life” which don’t make sense in our modern world.

I reject the idea of a 9–5 job. I want to explore the world while the sun is out instead of wasting the daylight hours working inside and dreaming of my next vacation.

I reject the idea of settling down. I want to experience new cultures and eat new foods instead of being stuck in the neighborhood around my house.

I reject the idea of stuff. It’s not the size of my TV that matters. The world is much more interesting than what’s in my house.

I reject the idea of boredom. I’m constantly surrounded by new places, people, and experiences. I haven’t felt bored since I started traveling and I don’t even have the desire to watch TV or play video games anymore.

I reject the idea of a bucket list. I have a list of things to do and I’m doing them.

So off I went, with my crazy new ideas about life in tow.

But it didn’t work out so well.

After traveling for 6 months, I gave up and still moved to San Francisco. Traveling was fun, but I had a great idea and I needed to really focus and get real work done. What better place to build my startup than Silicon Valley?

But I soon found myself becoming too comfortable and slowing down, getting easily bored and distracted, and watching a lot of TV. I sat at my computer for 12 hours a day but didn’t feel like I was productive.

On a trip to New York, my friends went to work during the days, so I went out and worked in coffee shops and in Central Park. Suddenly I was hugely productive, getting much more work done in 6 hours than in my normal 12 hour days. The same thing happened a few months later on a trip to London. I was even coming up with better ideas because the new experiences and surroundings were keeping my mind more active.

Having figured out the pattern, I left San Francisco a year ago, fully committing to a nomadic lifestyle. And this time it feels like I’ve figured it out. I’m happy, productive, meeting great new people, learning about real global problems to solve, and I successfully launched Moo.do.

This is what I’ve learned over the past year.

Traveling is cheaper than staying at home

This is my average total monthly spending from one year living in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, one year living in San Francisco’s Upper Haight, one year traveling to 20 countries, and one month at a hotel in Bali. It is much cheaper for me to travel. Since the majority of my costs are from trains and flights, it’s significantly cheaper if I stay in one place.

My friends in San Francisco and Seattle often ask me: “How can you afford to travel so much?” I can’t afford not to travel. I’m bootstrapping a company and living in San Francisco was draining my savings.

San Francisco’s median rent is now $3,120 per month. My total cost to travel all over the world and live the life of my dreams averages to $2,921 per month. I’m living in Bali right now for $1,200 per month. The total cost of living in Chiang Mai, Thailand is $641 per month.

Traveling makes me more productive

When I first started traveling, I was a great tourist, taking pictures of everything and doing all the activities listed in tour guides. After a couple of exhausting weeks it occurred to me that I’m not on vacation. This is my life now. I slowed down and realized that if I have a month to explore a new city, I don’t need to do it all at once. I can explore the city for a few hours and still get a lot of work done.

I was surprised to find out that I’m significantly more productive while traveling. But it makes sense. If I’m only in Rome for a week, why would I waste my time on Facebook? Being constantly surrounded by novelty reduces my boredom and increases my focus, and even makes me feel healthier and more creative.

I went back to Seattle in June to work next to my co-founder and hash out long-term plans. My development time was surprisingly less productive than while traveling. I was sitting at the computer just as much, but was more easily distracted by internet and TV. And even though I was in 6 different cities in September, I managed to work extremely productive 48 hour weeks. Being more focused while working gives me more time to enjoy the rest of my life, so this is huge for me.

9–5 is not optimal

Instead of working during the daylight hours and pushing all my free time to the worst part of the day, I prefer to enjoy the days and work at night. I get out of bed faster when I’m excited to go out, and when I don’t have to commute there’s just more time in the day. I like to work 7 days a week with flexible hours so I can take a day off when I please or enjoy an empty movie theater at 2pm.

I wasted a lot of time when I worked in an office because of commuting and the massive distraction that is the internet. Now I spread my work throughout the day and take big breaks for exploring. After working for a few hours, I reach a milestone and explore the city until I want to get back to work. Or if I hit a problem I can’t figure out, I walk it off until I’ve solved it. Cycling between fun and work makes my days less exhausting and makes me less prone to burnout.

My stay at Livit in Bali was the most productive time of my life. It’s an integrated co-living and co-working space, with all meals provided, so I could focus on my work and not worry about anything. And it’s all inclusive for $1500 per month, less than just the rent in most major tech cities. This is a great trend and I’m happy to see it growing as similar startup getaways are popping up in Bali and around the world.

Traveling expands my cultural bubble

I now have friends all over the world whose life experiences are very different than mine and bring fresh perspectives to my ideas. I’m learning about the real problems that affect the world on a global scale, which will make me into a better entrepreneur in the future.

It’s easy to find great people to learn from. There are co-working spaces in many cities where digital nomads can meet peers from around the world and find collaborators. Nomads give each other travel and work advice on Reddit and Nomad Forum, there’s over a thousand of us (and growing) in a chatroom at hashtagnomads.com, and the community is organizing meetups all over the world.

Conclusion

It’s never been easier to live and work as a nomad. Traveling is cheaper, more productive, and more inspiring than staying at home. Working in an office is a relic of the past.

The digital nomad revolution is just beginning and I’m excited to help it grow. I hope you and I will meet some time, somewhere out there.

Originally published at www.entrepreneur.com on January 15, 2015.

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How I built a startup while traveling to 20 countries was originally published in This Publication is Moved on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.