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A New Adventure

This past week I've had the great pleasure of becoming friends with Alex Schiff through a really fun, and somewhat intimidating turn of events as we decided to put ourselves personally on the line to give Fetchnotes a future. I'd like to share with you an email that him and I sent out on Monday to the Fetchnotes user base: communicating our plans to crowdsource the Fetchnotes product: "Dear Fetchnotes friends, Today, you, me, and thousands of others were slated to lose access to a product we love. After acquiring Fetchnotes last year, Drift announced that they had shifted focus and were shutting down the app. I didn’t feel quite right about that, and it turns out some of the original founders of Fetchnotes felt the same way. The app’s unique approach to organization and syncing across all devices made our day-to-day lives a whole lot easier—and we didn’t want to lose that. So, with their support, I’ve purchased Fetchnotes, assumed all of the monthly costs, and am planning to turn Fetchnotes into a sustainable service. My main gig is as a product manager in the FinTech industry, and it’s clear that Fetchnotes is not only an impressive product—it also has tons of untapped potential. My new friends (the original founders) told me that Fetchnotes has always had a unique, special community, and I want to reinvest in that community. My vision for Fetchnotes is to be a product supported by member contributors, as well as users and friends who dedicate a little bit of time and resources to work together, design, develop, and release new features. Fetchnotes is now yours, mine, and all of ours. I’ve personally committed to footing the bill for the next six months, allowing Fetchnotes to keep the lights on as we build out a sustainability strategy. I would sincerely appreciate any contribution you’re willing to make to keep the product alive—pay whatever amount feels right. Become a contributer here: http://www.fetchnotes.com/views/donate_landing.html If you have any questions, are interested in contributing as a developer/designer, or just want to chat, drop me a line and say hi! Your new friend, Corey Crellin" Since sending this we have had an incredible influx of emails from designers, developers and product managers wanting to help give build the next Fetchnotes. It's been a humbling few days, and I can't wait for what's next. Stay tuned!

Joining a new family

During my sophomore year at the University of Michigan, I took a class called “Entrepreneurship Practicum.” It was a bootcamp in the “lean startup” method taught by one of the cofounders of Aardvark, and I became really interested in how people capture ideas and reminders. In fact, it was around exactly this time in 2011 that I sent out the first “alpha” invite of what would eventually turn into Fetchnotes: From that janky, manual prototype, one thing led to another and I ended up deciding to stick with it after the class. Little did I know that this email would end up defining not only my career, but launching the careers of a couple dozen others that, at one point or another, have been a part of the Fetchnotes family. A little over four years after I sent that email in 2011, and exactly 3 years to the day since we launched publicly, I’m excited to announce that Fetchnotes is joining a new family: Driftt. Most people don’t know this, but for the latter half of 2014 we had actually been experimenting with a new collaboration product we called Thready. Personal productivity is a crowded, commoditized market, and we knew that people who shared notes with other users remained far more engaged over time. We did a lot of user research with the people that were sharing, and we found that what they wanted wasn’t a bloated project management solution or another cloud-based document repository — they just wanted a shared, simple, mobile-friendly place to throw stuff (whether it was a document, a short note, a list, or a photo) where other people could access and discuss. It was a fairly broad-based need being overlooked by other products, and the free-form simplicity of Fetchnotes fit it well. We’ve been beta testing that product for a little while, but only with about 100 people. A few months ago, we ended up connecting with the team at Driftt. Driftt is a relative newcomer to the collaboration industry, but they came out of the gate screaming with an all-star team of ex-Hubspot execs and $15M from CRV, General Catalyst, NextView Ventures, and Founder Collective. Elias Torres (Driftt co-founder and CTO) and I walked each other through our respective product demos, and it was clear from the first meeting that our goals were tightly aligned. Without getting too much into the details, we actually had both reached many of the same general product conclusions despite very different starting points. In the end, we both want to help people spend more time doing the work they love and less time fighting the tools they use to manage it. Driftt is acquiring Fetchnotes (and the associated technology we built for Thready) to make that happen. Driftt will be keeping Fetchnotes up and running, eventually integrating it into the new product they’re building (just as we were planning to do with Thready). I’m damn proud of the work we’ve accomplished — especially having started as a bunch of college kids — and I have the utmost confidence in David and Elias to continue writing a story worth telling. Last May, a prominent CEO in Silicon Valley told me, “You’ll never build a great productivity company in Boston.” I’m betting on David and Elias to prove that person wrong. ☺ As for our team, we won’t be going away just yet — we’ll be helping out both during and after the transition in an advisory capacity. Otherwise, we’re all moving on to our next adventures. I’ll let them individually tell their stories if they so choose, but I’ll be telling mine in a separate post. It's been one hell of a journey to get here, and I can't even begin to thank all of the people who have been a part of it. I can't wait to see what the future holds. Onwards and upwards! Alex Schiff Co-founder and CEO Fetchnotes

Reminders are here!

In all my years on Earth, I've come to learn that life has a few unavoidable certainties. 1) The Detroit Lions will always find a creative way to disappoint its fans. Always. 2) Taxes. 3) I'm going to forget my Mac adapter when I have an important presentation. Apparently, I'm not alone, as the #1 feature request Fetchnotes has received since we launched has been reminders. While writing information down increases your ability to recall it, sometimes you need to remember something at a specific time (like the morning of a presentation). Plus, it’s hard to build a habit of checking a new app without anything reminding you to look at it later. We took a look at other reminder apps, and we found they're a pretty big pain in the butt to use. They cater to being reminded at specific times like 8:33am, when usually you just need to do something "tomorrow" or "later tonight" or "this weekend." So, we built reminders to work the way people naturally think about time.

You simply mention a time in your note, and we'll figure out the rest. If you want to set a reminder manually, just hit the new alarm clock icon in the bar above the keyboard. You can select from some easy shortcuts, or add a specific time like "In 2 minutes" or "8:33am." Click here to download the update for the iPhone app, and stay tuned for similar updates on other platforms. As always, if you have any feedback, just say hello! Alex Schiff is the co-founder and CEO of Fetchnotes. His team insists he needs reminders more than anyone on the planet, but he pleads the fifth.

#productivity #reminders #tools

Now accepting Springpad refugees!

Last week, Springpad (a fellow Bostonian productivity app) confirmed it was closing up shop. Needless to say, their 5 million users weren’t thrilled.

Springpad built a migration tool for Evernote, but we noticed a common theme around the web from their users. Here’s one comment on their blog post.

Christina says:

You should create a fundraiser! Springpad cannot shut down! You guys are 1,000 times better than Evernote. I am absolutely destroyed by this. I tell my friends to download your app all the time. It’s the best in the world.

Evernote isn’t the right tool for everyone, and it’s clear a lot of people are looking for an alternative.

Fear not, Springpadders! We’ve built an import tool to seamlessly migrate your data from Springpad to Fetchnotes. To get started, all you need to do is head over to our migration page at springpad.fetchnotes.com.

Fetchnotes is designed to be minimalist and flexible for all sorts of uses, so you’ll find the experience a little bit different. But if you were mainly using Springpad for keeping track of day to day notes, to do lists and other random thoughts, you’ll probably find our simplicity refreshing :)

Have any feedback or need any help? Drop us a line at [email protected].

Happy 2nd birthday to Fetchnotes!

It's hard to believe it, but Sunday was the two year anniversary of the initial launch of Fetchnotes. It's been another crazy year, and I want to continue with the tradition of last year's blog post by showcasing how things have changed.

To start off, here's a photo of what the Fetchnotes iPhone app looked like on April 13, 2012.

And here's what it looked like on April 13, 2013.

And here's what it looked like on April 13, 2014.

On April 13, 2012, we were an army of University of Michigan students pushing our first product to market (the first real product most of us had ever worked on).

On April 13, 2013, we were four full-timers, recently graduated from Techstars Boston. At the same time, we were a bunch of quasi-adults trying to figure out what the heck "real life" means while all of our friends were partying their way through senior year.

By April 13, 2014, we had grown to six full-timers, alongside several part-timers/interns still in school. Moreover, I think some of us are starting to get a handle on this whole "adulthood" thing.

Like I said, adulthood.

It's mind-blowing to me that it's actually been 3 years since I first started piecing Fetchnotes together during my sophomore year at Michigan. A lot of people I know "played entrepreneur" in college, but very few actually took the leap when push came to shove. I'm extremely proud, lucky, and grateful to have taken my team this far.

So far, I've spent my early 20's thinking about really hard, interesting problems with really talented people. As long as that holds true, there's no such thing as failure.

To this year and many more! Alex Schiff Co-founder and CEO Fetchnotes

Gotta catch 'em all!

Another quick update from Team Fetchnotes today...you can now catch Pokemon from directly within our iPhone app! Take that Google!

Alright, you caught us. April Fool's! We had to.

The first part is true, though. We do have another update to our web app today — you can now quickly grab a shareable link to any note!

Often, I'll find myself instant messaging with someone on my computer and want to point them to a note I have about a topic we're discussing. Now, I just click the link button along the bottom, and I'm instantly presented with a link I can send them. No need to be a user, or even to know their phone number or email address.

Boom! You can now send that link to anyone you want to have that information, over any channel (IM, email, Twitter, whatever). They'll see a page like this:

Happy Skepticism Day!

Collaborating with non-users comes to the web app!

Quick update from Fetchnotes HQ — collaborating and sharing with non-users just came to the web app!

This has been on our iPhone app for awhile, but it just went live on web. Just hit the @-sign...

Type any username, email or phone number...

And click enter to confirm. As always you can still just type a username anywhere in a note to share with that person.

That'll fire off an email or text message with the text of the note, so you don't have to worry about them having an account to see it.

It works on edits too, so if you ever need to send someone information you already have in a note, this is an easy way to do it!

#fetchnotes #productivity #apps

Autocompletion of tags and contacts comes to the web!

For a while we've had autocompletion of hashtags and contacts on our mobile apps, to make it effortless to categorize and share your notes.

Today, I'm proud to share that we've brought it over to our web app as well! Simply start typing a hashtag (#) or a contact (@) and we'll pop open a list of previously used options.

There's a nice little tweak we've added to the experience that'll make it simple to work with on the web: keyboard shortcuts. Once the autocomplete list has appeared, simply use the arrow keys to navigate, and the enter or tab keys to select and insert into your note. If you want to dismiss the list, hit the escape key.

We're really proud of having the opportunity to build the little features that make big differences in how Fetchnotes helps you get things done, and we hope you enjoy this one!

#new features

#Interview: Keeping track of Reddit co-founder's 200-stop tour with Michael Pope

Michael Pope is the chief of staff for Alexis Ohanian. Alexis is the co-founder of Reddit and author of “Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made Not Managed." Michael keeps the wheels spinning for him by helping Alexis with organizing, prioritizing, and scheduling.

1) To start off, tell us a bit about the person you’re working with, the role you have, and how you got involved.

I work with Alexis Ohanian, self proclaimed "start up guy", co-founder of reddit, and genuinely very nice person. I am his Chief of Staff. I do all the work a personal assistant would do, plus I take meetings on his behalf and generate leads for other business ventures that we might be exploring.

A friend of mine was the assistant to one of his TV agents. During a phone call her assistant realized that Alexis needed a new Chief of Staff and recommended me.

2) Walk us through a day in your life. What are some of the typical things on your to do list?

Everyone morning I wake up I have at least 20-30 emails already waiting for me. Email is pretty much the biggest part of my day. It's either answering peoples questions, fielding interview/speaking requests and/or scheduling phone calls, Skypes and in person meetings.

3) What are some of the things that Alexis never lets other people handle for him?

He won't make me pick up his laundry, or other menial tasks like that. If he's really in a jam, and he wouldn't be able to get it other wise then he probably would. If he needs someone to call AT&T about his bill or stuff like that he'll have Fancy Hands do it.

4) What’s the biggest thing on Alexis’ mind right now?

Probably his epic 5 month, 200 stops & 77 university book tour.

5) What are some of the tricks, tips and tools you use regularly to stay on top of things for Alexis? Does it differ from your personal life? Any weird habits or hacks you’d be willing to share?

I'll usually archive every email after I respond to it. That way I know it's already taken care of, and I don't have to worry about it until I get a response. The only time I'll keep it in is if it's to Alexis and it's time sensitive. I need to remember to bump it if I still haven't heard. I also use Evernote sometimes, but that's usually only for things that are a month or more away. It definitely differs from my personal life since I don't generally need organizing in my personal life. I'm a pretty organized person and so is my own life, but when dealing with someone else's life, the things that work for you don't always work for them. No hacks really. It's all trial and error, I made a bunch of folders and stuff in the beginning thinking that it would help keep everything in order, but I learned that I'd rarely use them, or even remember they existed, which could mean that things would be forgotten about. My email is my filing cabinet, and the search bar is way more efficient.

6) Talk to us about what’s it like balancing your own personal day-to-day to do’s, activities, and other things to keep track of with that of Alexis. Do you segment your day into personal/work time? Try to knock things out ad hoc?

A lot of the time my personal to-do's don't get done, unless they're really important. I'm a procrastinator when it comes to errands so even if I wasn't working for Alexis that would probably still be the same. Even though I work from home I have a pretty strict schedule for when I'm working and when I'm not. I generally only work 9a-7p. I avoid answering emails as much as I can on Saturdays, and will turn on the "do not disturb" function on my phone on Sundays. If there's an email outside of those times that is a real "the house is on fire!" type emergency I will reply. Otherwise, you'll have to wait.

7) What’s the strangest thing Alexis has asked you to do? Don’t skimp on the details!

Really nothing that strange that I can think of. I'm paid to keep my mouth shut anyway ;)

8) I’m sure your job is pretty fast-paced. What is your best stress relief technique?

Getting up and walking around has always worked for me. Also for boredom when I worked in an actual office, I would get up and take a lap around all the cubicles. Generally during that walk you can plot out what your next moves are before you actually act. Think of it like a pause button while you give yourself a pep talk.

9) What’s one interesting thing about you that Alexis doesn’t know?

Alexis knows everything interesting about me at this point...

10) When you get off work, what’s the first thing you do?

Pour myself a glass of whiskey.

Geography and productivity — a peek inside Fetchnotes

Since November, Fetchnotes has had a roughly 50% international user base spanning 180 different countries. It's pretty crazy to think about, since Fetchnotes was hatched by a couple guys in an apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan!

This week, we decided to scratch some intellectual itches around our users and geography — thanks to some Mixpanel and Excel wizardry, we found some pretty interesting results. Enjoy!

Which country opens Fetchnotes the most (per user per day)?

Taiwan! Followed by Japan, Italy, South Africa and Poland.

Creates the most notes?

Japan! Followed by New Zealand, Turkey, Poland and Australia.

Share the most notes?

Our very own USA! Followed by Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Poland and Canada.

Edits the most notes?

Japan again! Followed by Taiwan, Italy, New Zealand, Poland.

Archives the most notes?

Aaaand Japan again! Followed by China, the United Kingdom, United States, and Netherlands. A lot of people use archive as "complete," so this is a pretty interesting one to watch.

This is obviously a skewed sample representing only our user base, so we're not saying the Taiwanese and Japanese are the most productive people on earth. Nonetheless, we wonder what kind of cultural factors might lead them to open our app more!

*Data pulled from our Mixpanel activity in January 2014. Everything is on a per user basis, so it controls for varying numbers of users across nations.

#productivity #geography #notes #fetchnotes

Making it easier to find the tag that you want

Today, we're introducing a small feature that'll make finding the categories you use even easier: Tag sorting.

In the upper right of the tag list on the web, you can toggle between alphabetical and numeric (based on number of notes with a particular tag) to sort the list.

See the new feature by checking out the web app.

#new features

What Happens Two Years After You Swear At Your Users

One of the joys about using Timehop is that it elicits such a wide spectrum of emotions. Joy over a positive memory, sadness over a negative one, and self-loathing when I see what kind of idiotic statuses I use to post in high school.

And then there was today's Timehop, reminding me that we accidentally sent this email to 2,430 people 2 years ago today:

A few weeks later, I wrote a follow-up detailing what transpired called "What Happens When You Swear At Your Users." That alone got 50K hits, as well as kicked off a fascinating debate on Hacker News.

In the ensuing two years, a lot has happened. We...

Publicly launched our product in April 2012 to rave reviews

Left the University of Michigan to join the Techstars Boston program, and eventually permanently relocated to Cambridge, MA.

Raised money from a fantastic group of angels and venture funds from all around the nation.

Grew the full-time team to 6 people (want to be our 7th? My email is below!)

We've helped over 100,000 people take the stress out of keeping track of information, ranging from the obvious (to do lists, shopping lists, music, etc) to the awesome and weird (great cheeses, random facts, dreams).

We've learned an unbelievable amount about entrepreneurship, team-building, productivity/collaboration (much of which is only just starting to make its way into the product), and, most importantly, ourselves.

That all said, this incident specifically had a lot of lessons.

1) NEVER try to cover things up.

Admit you screwed up, take responsibility, and hope that your users are as cool as ours. Don't be a Snapchat.

2) Be authentic.

People don't want to talk to brands — they want to talk to other human beings. This principle guides ALL of our interactions with users, particularly our emails. They're quirky because we're quirky people. Building a product is art, and just like a painting or film it inherits the collective personality of its creators.

3) It's a small world, and weird stuff makes you memorable.

Since this email was sent out, I've met three people in real life that heard about it. The first was a fellow passenger on the Caltrain in San Francisco (we started talking after a schizophrenic assaulted him for thinking he was trying to blow up the train). The second was one of the first people I had a mentor meeting with during Techstars, Mark Kasdorf.

The third was Giles Van Gruisen, who actually was one of the 2,430 people who received that email. Our first-ever correspondence was on that day:

It was a pleasant surprise. From here on out I'll do the best I can to provide feedback and offer suggestions! I certainly hope you will be able to look back on today's little hiccup as a minor road bump. As a website designer/developer/founder (especially a young one), I know what it's like to mess up, and mess up big. But those mistakes, however minor or major, are what grow ourselves and shape our products. I like to look back on them as learning experiences and hopefully you lot can do the same. I wish your team the best for Fetchnotes. May it have a long prosperous life!

Giles became the 5th member of our team in April 2013, on the one year anniversary of our launch.

tl;dr version: Be humble. Be authentic. Be memorable.

Alex Schiff is the co-founder and CEO of Fetchnotes. Hit him up any time at [email protected] to share thoughts on our product, or if you have any so-bad-they're-good movies to recommend.

#Update: Fetchnotes now supports non-English tags!

Today, we launched a big update for our international users — we now support non-English characters in hashtags!

In the past, these characters would show up but they wouldn't be included in the actual tag. That made using Fetchnotes difficult for non-English speakers, which is now nearly half of our user base — check out this graph of the percentage of our users opening the app from non-English speaking countries!

Whether it's for your #inköpslista or #书, all new notes will correctly parse hashtags with such characters, and to re-parse any existing notes/tags all you need to do is log out and back in again.

We hope this makes Fetchnotes a little more useful for keeping track of every day life. Check it out now on the web here, or just open up the app on your iPhone or iPad (Android support coming).

Apple Notes, we're breaking up with you.

If you're reading this, you might be trapped in a dead-end marriage. It was the first thing that came along, and you didn't know what else was out there. Your parents were pressuring you to get your act together, and it just seemed to make sense.

We're talking, of course, about the Apple Notes app.

Things worked at first, but over time, you realized that Notes wasn't growing with you. It was fine when you were high school sweethearts and only jotted down a song recommendation here or a confirmation number there. But in college you suddenly had a lot more to keep track of — you were going grocery shopping, scribbling down ideas, managing classwork and bookmarking interesting opportunities. Then you entered the working world, and the rift became too large to repair.

Notes just couldn't keep up with your busy life, eclectic interests and personal goals. Everything just ended up in one note with a billion things you could never find, or a billion individual notes you had to sift through.

There have been no shortage of alternatives to catch your eye — if we're being honest, you know you flirted with a few of them over the years. Perhaps you even had an extended affair. But Notes always convinced you to come back — you two just have so much history together, and you couldn't just throw all that away. And there's a lot to throw away.

You can change all that today with the release of one of the first-ever Apple Notes importers! You can now migrate your existing iPhone notes directly into Fetchnotes — no wires or programming required.

We're flexible; we can handle anything from day-to-day reminders and shopping lists to crazy ideas and interesting links. We're low-maintenance; hashtags organize your notes as you type, no extra clicks. We get along great with your friends, family and co-workers; you can collaborate instantly with anyone, even if they don't have the app.

Not to mention we're younger, just got a makeover and really, really want you.

Here's how you can import your Apple Notes into Fetchnotes in a few easy steps:

1) Go to applenotes.fetchnotes.com on your computer and hit "Download". This will download a zipped folder to your computer called NotesExporter.zip.

2) Double click on the file to unzip it, open the folder and double-click on "Notes Exporter."

3) Follow the instructions on screen.

Let's get it on.

Notespark Users, We Want YOU!

Dear Notespark Users,

You’re sad, you’re hurting, we get it. Your beloved companion has decided he’s just not that into you anymore (kidding, we know Notespark is being very responsible in this decision). Nonetheless, you need a rebound. Any luck, this will be the person you marry.

HELLO, WE ARE FETCHNOTES, AND WE WANT TO BE THAT PERSON.

But really, who are we? Well, we are a group of note-takers, of frankly all different sizes and hairstyles, but with hearts of gold. We have a cloud-notes based app, and we want to hold your notes.

How might this new transition work, you ask. Easy! We have built an importer for you. We can help you with all of those memories, leftover items you have already boxed up and entries for your journal. We can put them directly into our- well our notes app! (where did you think we were going with this?)

We promise to keep them safe, we are a bunch of ladies and gentlemen from the Midwest (well one from Rhode Island), and our mothers raised us to be gentleman.

Anyway, here are the steps to import your notes:

Step 1: Sign into your Notespark account and export the file.

Step 2: Visit our Fetchnotes importer

Step 3: Login to Fetchnotes or create an account (if you don’t already have one, you won’t regret it, we send cool emails, so we’ve been told)

Step 4: Upload your CSV, and see this-

Step 5: Go to Fetchnotes, and see all your notes!

In all seriousness, Notespark will be shutting down service on December 31st, 2013. After fighting the good fight since 2008, the co-founders Sho Kuwamoto and Mike Schiff (no relation to our CEO- that we know of...), have explained that-

“[they can] no longer do a good job of supporting the service. It’’s difficult for us and doesn’t serve your needs either.”

We wish Sho and Mike the best of luck on their newest adventure, and welcome everyone who wants to join to the Fetchnotes family!

To our new Notespark...friends, also be sure to check out our iPhone and iPad Apps to access your notes while on the go.

And don’t forget to give us feedback, we love hearing what you think.

Welcome to the Fetchnotes Family!

By Chelsea Hunersen. Fetchnotes expert and trapeze artist.

#Notes #fetchnotes #notespark

3 Ways your Posture is Ruining your Productivity

Have you ever noticed that wall you hit a few hours into work? That unbearable feeling that you just can’t anymore?

That might have to do with the way you are sitting right now. Shoulders hunched, looking down at your laptop? Yup, resting that way is not doing your productivity any favors. This is coming from someone who has spent most of her life with shoulders permanently hiked up to her ears.

Having just procured my first standing desk, I can tell you there is hope. These are three ways your posture is destroying your productivity — and how to fix them.

(1) Hunching Over Your Computer

This is easy to do if you are particularly tired, looking at a small screen, or peering down at your small laptop. Did you know that crouching deprives you of about 30% of your oxygen? This makes it harder to perform at your maximum level. The crazy thing is you might not even realize it since crouching is the default for most people. Now try pulling your shoulders back, and sitting up straight. I dare you. Doesn’t the world suddenly seem that much brighter?

The way that you sit at your computer is also one of the many ways your body language affects your life. Social psychologists (like Amy Cuddy) have found that opening yourself up and taking up more space actually helps decrease your level of Cortisol. In excess, cortisol can cause fat buildup, decrease bone density, and impair cognitive performance. Minimizing it also increases your level of testosterone, which in moderation can help you feel more brave and powerful.

HOW TO FIX IT: Try to open your body as you’re working. Get a laptop stand to put your computer closer to eye level, sit straight up in your chair with your shoulders back and adjust to power poses.

(2) Spending too Much Time Sitting

According to the National Institute of Health, sitting for more than 6 hours a day can increase your risk of heart disease up to 64% and of breast/colon cancer by 30%. It has also proved to increase levels of cortisol — not to mention putting you at risk for that hunching problem above. The more time you spend sitting, the worse it gets.

Side note: Mountains are also much harder to climb when sitting.

HOW TO FIX IT: Make sure to stand at least once an hour — set an alarm if you have to to remind yourself; take the stairs and not the elevator; and walk to talk to a co-worker instead of emailing them.

BONUS TIP: If you can, you should try using a standing desk. Standing desks strengthen muscles, improves blood flow and prevents blood clots. It also helps open your body to be ready for action. The fact that my co-workers have witnessed some high energy dance parties due to my new-found energy is just a bonus!

(3) Scowling

This one relates to facial posture, but it still has a big impact on your attitude and outlook on life. Just as opening yourself up and taking up more space can help you feel more powerful, smiling can help you feel happier, and vice versa.

According to a study published by The Journal of Pain (yes, that’s a real thing), people who frowned during procedures experienced more pain. Work by psychologists such as the Netherlands’ Judith Grob has also shown that people who repressed any emotion, tended to have worse performing memories, and more negative associations. Think of that scowl you have on at work as part of a nasty perpetual cycle, and remember that when things seem to be just too much.

Conversely, studies show that smiling causes a release of neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. These are responsible for making you feel more relaxed, lifting your mood and making you more productive. Not only does being happy make you smile, but using your smiling muscles makes you feel happy, too.

Plus, smiling is contagious, claims CEO of HealthTrap Ron Gutman in this TED talk. Your smile actually might help lead to a happier workplace for everyone.

HOW TO FIX IT: Try to smile as often as you can. This only works if its a natural smile that engages the muscles near your eyes, so try to conjure up some good memories if you have to. I find that if I even type out or write a smile, it helps me do it subconsciously :)

Now that we have you standing, smiling and dancing, we bet you’re knocking that report out of the park — even if your co-workers are giving you some pretty strange looks. So keep your chin up, stand up tall, and get back to work!

#productivity #posture

One small step for a dog, one giant leap for Fetchnotes

We’ve got some really exciting news!

Last year, we launched our first iteration of Fetchnotes while we were still students at the University of Michigan. A bunch of kids, really, this is what our team looked like on our original launch day on April 13, 2012.

Now we're a group of 6 full-time, and...well, sometimes we still act like kids.

We added new features, rebuilt the front-end, rebuilt the back-end, but the basics were all the same — hashtags organize notes, @mentions share them with other users. That was it. And it helped over 80,000 of you take nearly one million notes. Not bad, but we knew something was missing.

Since that launch in 2012 and graduation from Techstars Boston that winter, we noticed some interesting trends. The people who lasted about 3 weeks stayed users long-term (the product gets stickier the longer you use it), but forming that initial habit was really difficult — except for the people who shared with others. Sharing users built habits because they would repeatedly open the app to check if there was anything new. To be honest, this was with a product where sharing was not easy — no notifications, only sharing with existing users, and a not-so-great experience. 10% of our active users were sharing with a product that put up ridiculous obstacles to its completion.

At the same time, we looked at what was happening in the market for consumer productivity and communication apps. No one in this space was building tools that worked for people individually as well as they worked for people together. Products either focus pretty much entirely on the individual, or start with social and work backwards (most collaboration products, but usually just email). Or worse, they’re simply too complicated for the average person’s needs in the first place.

Today, we’re proud to announce our second “true” iteration of Fetchnotes, which we’ve been calling “Project Dachshund” internally. This iteration maintains the single person utility you’ve always enjoyed (using hashtags to offer the simplest, most flexible way to keep things organized), but tightly integrates the family you share your shopping list with, the friends you recommend music to, the co-workers you exchange tasks with, and more.

Some of the new features you’ll be seeing:

-Notifications, both in-app and push

-Address book integration to share with non-users

-An archive for notes you no longer need but don’t want to delete

-An always accessible tutorial

-An easy way to invite the people you want to use Fetchnotes with

-A more intuitive way to filter by tags, contacts or text

-A total aesthetic overhaul

Stay tuned for similar updates coming to the Android app and web app, with more new features on deck. What are you waiting for?

Download it today!

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Have ideas, feedback or want to join our cause? Hit us up at founders(at)fetchnotes(dot)com — there are real people on the other side. Or, if you want to learn more about how we think about this space, check out these essays on the future of productivity and communication.

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