Help Me Pick Some Products, Please!
Posted on September 22, 2011 in Productivity
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:25 am)
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:25 am)
Got a quick question for anyone who’s reading regarding print on demand:
- Which PCEO forms would you like to be able to purchase?
- What customization would you like to be able to do to the forms?
I’ve been talking with a printer about a web-based ordering system that would allow anyone to purchase forms in modest quantities. The printing quality is good; I’ve used them before. I’m thinking of making the investment.
Some possibilities:
- Any of the existing designs in the productivity tools section.
- Customization of text on the form as-you-order (for example, your company name on a Compact Calendar)
- Numerous paper options
I’m putting together a proposal for them for Monday, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please leave a comment. My intention is to keep offering the free PDF downloads, but to also offer high-quality printing on high-quality paper at a reasonable cost to the people who want it.
8 Comments
I would love love love a slightly shruken version of the ETP – like 8 by 10.5. Right now I take the pad I order from amazon, cut the edges off each sheet, and double-sided tape it into a large Grid&Lines book from Doane. I also think the A5 / mini versions of the ETP would be a hit (especially if they could come hole-punched!) – I’d actually probably convert over to a regular min-binder if I could get those punched in nice paper.
I think pads of the 4×6 Task Order Up would also sell nicely.
Hi David, I’m a sales and I deal with many customers each day. I have a problem finding a solution for myself on Customer Relationship Management. I’ve tried so many softwares and none of them work for me, so I’m looking for some forms to do the job. Basically, I need to be able to keep track of each customer of their status. For example, I sent them some samples today, and I would probably forget about this forever… I need to be able to remember to follow up on this customer… things like that. I’m pretty sure there are lots of people out there that have the same problem like mine… I just need to clearly get a hold of each customer, know their status, and be able to follow up on them at some specific time or date. Can you help? Thanks!!
I would love to see the A5 ETP also! That would fit in Day Runner/Day Timer type binders. Agree punched holes to fit these brands would be good!
Thanks David!
Upon reflection (what do I use regularly, when I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, or what could I use that I don’t have, but would help me do what I’m supposed to be doing?): 1) the ETP as it is –I use circa in various sizes most of the time, but in some instances I prefer three ring notebooks –so having the option of punching my own holes is good–so no change there. 2) the mini-ETP –you made one to fit my circa junior system perfectly (although for the moment I’m using the letter size again) -so again, there is a wisdom to keeping the system to “punch holes yourself.” 3) I regularly use the calendar (and liked the academic calendar you put out recently, made copies for all of my students). I use both the PDF for the whole year, and also use the Excel file for printing out three or four months at a time (for example, for the fall trimester I made a document from the calendar that includes Sept, Oct, Nov, and most of December. I pass these out to my students as well, and tell them to use both (whole year and trimester at a time) to plan their time. 4) I still have trouble planning particular weeks so Im trying out the Planner Pad system, and it’s quite useful (this is an entirely different product). 5) I pull out the Emergent Task Timer when I feel like I’m not getting anything done, and keep it diligently for a few days. This helps a great deal because a) I stop feeling like I”m not getting anything done when I see what I actually do, or b) the self-awareness brought on by tracking time makes me get more productive or c) I’m in a funk and resume doing nothing, including not using the ETT. 6) Reading about what sales people do leads me to wonder about –what kind of form(s) might you create that would be good for professional psychotherapists and coaches? I keep relatively simple notes (I have to although I prefer not to, other than to know when I see everyone) so forms that would indicate a client with some simple information and then places for notes –I do this using ordinary lined circa paper, then after a while pull pages out and file them by client–ideally, I don’t always do this but should. A form that would help this process might be useful. (Now that I think of it, I should really discuss this with you to figure out best format etc.). 7) For records of payments –i keep them in a journal religiously, any time I get a check from anyone I note it in one of those “last forever” lab journals, with common first name (or just initials), date and amount. This is for privacy, should anyone ever find it. Not conventional perhaps, but useful. I have my own billing form on computer, but most people don’t need or want bills as they are not using insurance (again because they want more privacy and they can afford to pay out of pocket). 8) The new “simple note taking for books” I have converted (at the moment) to note taking for articles/journal or magazine style and I’m using them. I use the first page (more space per line, and fewer pages). I like it. I ordinarily write notes on regular paper (circa or three holes) but then lose sight of them before I’m finished. There is something about the form you just passed on that seems better organized and that will be easier to file in a searchable system. For whatever reason I seem to prefer (still) to take reading notes by hand (although everything else I prefer to do on computer, and if I kept reading notes by computer I probably would be able to locate them more easily –but I prefer paper for this so the form is stellar. 9) Records for students (both in class/seminars and one on one dissertation students) –I make these up each year, depending upon what I am teaching. For my seminar the last three or so years I’ve made a form up and it’s worked well. But this really depends upon what I’m teaching and what the requirements are that I need to make sure a student has fulfilled (or that I have fulfilled). But teaching doctoral students is probably different from teaching high school students.
Writing all of this down has forced me to think about how I record things, and I could make my life easier and better organized if I consistently used more pre-made, situation-specific forms. That is probably obvious to any business person, but perhaps less obvious in science and art. In research SPSS determines how my data is recorded (it comes in on FileMakerPro, converts automatically to excel and then is fed into SPSS.). When we are writing up an article or a presentation we (me and my team) always reanalyze the data and the way we present it depends upon the context (paper? poster with lots of graphics for conferences? etc.) One final thought –I waste a huge amount of paper, and should computerize more but having had hard drive crashes, and having a lot of confidential information precludes –for me anyway– putting everything in a computer. I read about large insurance companies and health care providers having computers ripped off or somehow losing a big pile of patient data is enough for me, in my private practice mode (which is actually a smaller part of my “business”) to feel more secure with paper records. So I will think about what might be helpful or keep me better organized in that realm.
Liz, Matt: Thanks for weighing in on the smaller size ETP! I think that would be a good second product to launch.
Maggie: That sounds like an interesting idea. I’ll think about making one! I have the “Network Catch-o-Matic”, which I haven’t updated in a while…perhaps it’s time to revisit.
Lynn: Thanks for the detailed thought dump! It’s hugely informative. I think the takeaway I get from it is that there is room for making specific designs for specific processes within general fields like business, psychology, medicine, and son on. And it would also be great if there was some way to round-trip it back into the computer. This makes me think of some of those receipt scanning systems like NeatScan, which I should really look into.
The two forms I use the most are the mini ETP and the RTT02 which I print scaled down to a5. I’d love to be able to get both without the time tracking section printed on circa/atomica punched paper, but that’s probably not the most viable set of forms.
At the moment I print on to my refill pages and hope the printer doesn’t eat them.
I really like the order up task sheets. I would love to see you investigate a bit more into how to track large projects and how they get broken up into little pieces.
I would also like to see you do a multi day type book. Most of my tasks take at least a week to complete.
Dave: I’ll have to get myself a Circa system one of these days for testing. Do they still sell the punch?
David: That’s a great idea for a project: create a system for people to track and break down large projects. Heaven knows that this is always a challenge. I’m thinking of doing a year long ETP book. The idea of behind able to track projects across multiple days in such a book is an interesting wrinkle…hm!