GNEO

[gneoday]

Designing Gneo for Apple Watch

We are excited to announce that Gneo for Apple Watch is here! Gneo intelligently puts your Calendar, Priority tasks and Reminders on your wrist to help you get stuff done on-the-go.

For most of us, Smart Watches are a very new device, unlike phones and computers which we are all very used to.

As one of the first companies to develop a full Apple Watch experience, we wanted to share our thoughts about how we designed Gneo for Apple Watch to bring you an incredibly personal and relevant experience.

We have known how to design software for phones, tablets and computers for years. Designing Gneo for Apple Watch made us rethink more than just the user interface. And this is why we collaborated with renowned Smart Watch Designer, Gabor Balogh to help bring Gneo for Apple Watch to life.

From the beginning, we knew if was not about trying to cram as much of Gneo for iOS onto the tiny device that the Apple Watch is. So before we started designing we thought long and hard about what were the most important things you would want to do on Gneo on your wrist. This made us stay very focused throughout the design and development process.

Here were our design principles:

Designed on-the-go

According to our thinking, Apple Watch will be used mostly on the go, walking along the street, on the subway. Our aim is to help you to recognize the information as fast as possible. Therefore we designed very clear and very focused screens with big buttons and texts. Showing you relevant and timely information in the few seconds it takes for someone to read the time on a standard watch today.

Focus on the now

Gneo for Apple Watch focuses on the present and the close future and provides quick access to the following:

Forecast: Your schedule for the week ahead.

Today: Today’s schedule of events and tasks.

Priority View: Your high priority tasks.

To Do List: Everything else on your to-do list.

Clues from real life

Similar to the week’s view on a weekly planner which is full of notes and doodles, the Forecast shows tasks and calendar events for the week ahead. this screen gives a visual cue by showing how busy the next 7 days are using an arc. Quickly, at a glance, you already know how full your day is. Lots of notes — full day. Lots of whitespace — plenty of time.

Relevant and personal in every way

‘Glance’ is an important part of Apple Watch. Think of it like the ‘Today’ view on your iPhone  where you can choose your favorite apps to swipe through the most up to date and relevant information.

We have created a unique algorithm to ensure Gneo’s Glance provides timely and relevant information. Every screen is designed to provide a clue to what there is left to do but still keep you motivated!

We also added a few other special touches to Gneo!

Color blind mode - We have also taken into consideration people who are color blind and offer them a color blind color scheme activated in Gneo iOS. This was inspired by the Founder, Anthony Keane, who is red/green color blind!

Japanese - We are excited to announce that Gneo for Apple Watch will support Japanese on launch!

Apple Watch AppのGneoと同様、日本でiPhone、iPad、Apple Watch用にGneoをリリースすることになりました！フィードバック、ご意見等ございましたら、是非お寄せください！

Our vision for Gneo is to help you to achieve what is important to you. It is with this vision that we bring you Gneo for Apple Watch, helping you to keep on top of your schedule and get your most important to-dos done, right from your wrist.

[gneoday]

Gneo for Apple Watch

Creating experiences and Achieving your Potential on Apple Watch with Gneo.

Will the Apple Watch do to wearables what the iPhone did to Smartphones? At Gneo we think the answer is a resounding yes!

Over the past few months the Gneo Team has been working hard on designing an Apple Watch app. Similar to Gneo for iOS we set a high bar for ourselves to make Gneo for Apple Watch a very personal and relevant experience. 

Gabor Balogh

To this end we teamed up with Gabor Balogh, one of only a handful of talented and thoughtful Smart Watch designers in the world. 12 months ago, Gabor published his concept for a Smartwatch. Gabor was one of the first designers to balance classic watch design of brands like Breitlings and Tag Heuers with today’s modern approach. 

We have designed Gneo for Apple Watch around a few core principles, the first is “on-the-go’. Today we spend only a few seconds checking the time and this simple concept formed the basis of our design. The second is “glance machine”, the ability to see relevant and timely information at a glance.

Gneo on the Apple Watch doesn’t replace Gneo on your iPhone, it complements it. That’s how Apple Watch is designed, and it’s exactly what Gneo for Apple Watch is all about.

The iPhone and Apple Watch versions of Gneo work together beautifully, see relevant content on your watch when you need it at a glance.

We’re incredibly excited to be on the Apple Watch at launch. Stay tuned for more.

[gneoday]

Gneo for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is here!

Gneo is now optimized for iPhone 6 and 6 plus and is looking sleeker than ever. You can now see more tasks on both the List and Work Canvas views and more calendar events on your Forecast. 

More iOS8 updates coming soon including Share Extensions so you can add tasks directly into Gneo from Safari, Mail attachments and Apple Notes. 

If there are any other iOS8 features you'd love to see, email us at [email protected] 

[gneoday]

Holiday Time Hacks

As the snow accumulates, the stress mounts, and all that rocking around the Christmas tree only leaves you feeling dizzy, you may begin to question whether or not this is actually “the most wonderful time of the year.”

  How can you survive this holiday season with style? A few simple steps can transform these few weeks from frenzied chaos into enjoyable merriment. So before you carve turkey and deck the halls, consider these holiday time hacks.

  Enlist an Elf

  You can’t do it alone. Meet your most vital holiday helper, Gneo!

  Gneo never sleeps, requires no food, and can work with little to no affirmation or compensation. Gneo remembers everything, reminds you without judgment, and can help you order your holiday chaos with ease.

  Perhaps you and Gneo are new acquaintances, or maybe you’ve been partners for years, whatever the case, it’s time to brush up on Gneo’s many capabilities and make full use of them during these next few months. Check out tips, tricks, and FAQ here (http://support.gneo.co/hc/en-us) and see how other people are using Gneo for maximum benefit.

  Plan, Prioritize, Perform

  As overwhelming as it can be to sit down and actually write your seasonal to-dos, the more daunting prospect is contending with an Abominable Snowman-sized unwritten list. When you write your tasks, they cease to be hypothetical. You make them real activities that can be accomplished and eliminated, thus clearing the mental clutter that can contribute to holiday stress.

  Once you’ve written your tasks, you can assign them categories (notebooks in Gneo) ensuring that gift-buying remains separate from holiday food prep, charitable activities, and other yuletide doings. Differentiated tasks can be prioritized based on urgency and importance. So yes, while erecting an exact gingerbread replica of your happy home would make even Martha Stewart envious, it probably won’t qualify as critical for Holiday Season 2014.

  Planning and prioritization alone are not enough. Be sure to take the next step and schedule time for everything essential. Set realistic expectations about how long your tasks will actually take, resisting the temptation to try squeezing 12 days of Christmas into 5.

  Build in Breaks, Rest, Say No

  Remember that just as this season is limited, so are you. Planning rest is just as important as planning activities. If you cannot take time for yourself spontaneously, include it in your calendar and mark it as both “urgent” and “important.” You will be the best holiday version of you with your sanity and schedule intact.

  This time of year is all about goodwill and generosity, but don’t let that preclude you from saying “no.” The multitude of good things you could do this season will always be in competition with the best things. Be honest with yourself about your limited time and capacity, and learn to say “no” to even the good things. Remember that quality, not quantity, of activity will dictate the success of this season.

  Expect Hiccups, Recover Quickly

  The car won’t start. The perfect gift will be back-ordered. You might burn the turkey. Your parent’s flight out of Buffalo will likely be delayed … indefinitely. The holiday season is notoriously prone to the unexpected and un-ideal.

  Expect it.

  Plan to be flexible and preemptively vow to not let chaos overtake your enjoyment of friends, family, and holiday frivolity.

  Overall, don’t forget to have fun and embrace every festive aspect of the season. Eat the extra sugar cookie, suspend the guilt, and set a reminder for fitness goals to start on January 2.

[gneoday]

Getting Out of Your Way

You know that person who is always thwarting your best efforts? It’s that same person who never keeps New Year’s Resolutions and fails shows up on time when he promises to be somewhere. It’s that same person who dirties your newly cleaned house. She throws laundry on the floor and leaves mail stashed in drawers. It’s that same person who can talk a big talk about all the great things he is going to do but is most likely found filling his days with endless to dos resulting in a whole lot of nothing.

  Have you ever noticed how much “that person” looks quite a bit like … you?

  Inconvenient as it is to recognize, the biggest impediment to your productivity and success is you. Like any good self-help program, you cannot go anywhere until you recognize where you are starting. Let’s start with this: you are the problem. But before you get discouraged, remember this: you are also the solution. Your goals, dreams, and life’s work are all attainable if you can simply get out of your own way.

  Stop Scapegoating

Someone or something will always stand in the path of least resistance. Take another path. Weak people believe that a roadblock is the end of the road and spend their lives blaming everyone but themselves. Successful people either find another road or knock down the barrier. If you truly want to accomplish your goals, make definitive statements that do not hinge on ideal circumstances and accommodating people. Expect resistance, and let it be something that invigorates you.

  Keep Your Promises … to Yourself

Compounding self-defeat often stems from failing to view yourself as trustworthy. Simple statements like, “I will wake up at 6 a.m.” followed by a morning of sleeping in can wreak havoc on your confidence. Do what you say you are going to do and start small. Set an alarm and get up. Make an appointment and keep it. Create small goals and watch your confidence grow as you follow through and start viewing yourself as someone reliable and dependable.

  Dream Big & Remember

Dreaming takes confidence and boldness. To make a lofty goal implies that you believe you are the kind of person who could actually attain it. But what is the alternative? Resist the urge to live in the safe zone of easy accomplishments that require no vision and no risk. Ask yourself what you really want, and then go after it. Believe in yourself, your abilities, and your dreams. Write down your goals as a way to remember them and hold yourself accountable. Check your progress periodically.

  Clear the Chaos

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink,” he discusses the power of the subconscious. In one scenario, he gives prospective managers two methods for getting to know potential hires. In the first, they met together for lunch once a week over an extended period of time. In the second, the boss was allowed to visit the candidate’s home unannounced and unaccompanied for only a few short minutes.

When comparing the insights gained from these two experiments, managers found that they could gain exponentially more unbiased and accurate knowledge from the second option. People are who they really are in their unobserved life, not when they are some manicured version on display. Make sure your unobserved world reflects the true you.

Silly as it may sound, you cannot take control of your life’s destiny if you cannot take control of your life’s details. How hard is it for you to make your bed, wash your dishes, and clean your car? These simple steps clear space materially and mentally, allowing you to focus on the bigger, more important things at hand.

  What steps will you take to get out of your way this week?

[gneoday]

Task Management v. Time Management

Becoming a productive person, someone who gets more of the right things done, hinges not on task management, but on time management.

  Simply managing your tasks and shuffling around your daily to-dos without regards to time is like living in a hopeful state of suspended reality, desiring that things somehow “just happen” and you find your “to-do” list done at the end of the day. It’s like wanting to lose weight and achieve a healthy lifestyle by researching nutritious recipes and exercise regimens but never scheduling time to go to the grocery store, buy the ingredients, and make the meals or carving time to hit the gym.

   At Gneo, we don’t want to manage your tasks; we want to manage your time.

  The Gneo Difference

  Tasks unattached to time rarely get done. Efficiency and effectiveness are lost in the shuffle of the many things that unintentionally crowd our days. And just as often, our lack of time assignment causes us to schedule too many things in too little space, producing a discouraging backlog of task overflow that compounds day after day.

  When you purchase Gneo, you are not buying an app; you are buying time. As you utilize the many features, you recoup valuable time that can be spent doing more things that are important to you. Think of Gneo as your very savvy Time Management Assistant. She works nights, weekends, and does not require a benefits package. Gneo is the perfect partner!

  What You Don’t Need

  You don’t need another to-do list cluttering your life. You need a way to get those to-dos done.

  Gneo’s approach takes you from dreaming to actually doing. Our approach to achieving your full potential consists of four steps:

  Step One: Write down your tasks. Empty your brain and input it into Gneo.

Step Two: Prioritize. Look at your list with a critical eye and organize those tasks in relation to your goals. Which will further your progress toward achieving your goals and which are expendable and unimportant?

Step Three: Schedule time in your calendar to do these tasks. Be honest with yourself about just how long they will take and realistic about how much you can fit in each day.

Step Four: Do it.

With Gneo, these four steps are all facilitated within the app itself. You can maximize your time and effort in one consolidated place instead of managing multiple tools in hopes of managing your time.

  True, there are other task management apps on the market but rarely do they move beyond the simple step of writing down your tasks. The handful of apps that allow calendar import miss out on the crucial step of prioritizing your tasks. This either leads to scheduling clutter where urgency trumps importance or simply, an unorganized list of to-dos.

  Time is easy to loose and hard to manage. It is the only truly limited commodity in our lives and must be approached with discipline. With Gneo, you can wrangle that wily animal known as time and make it a vehicle for achievement instead of an enemy you fight.

  How will you choose to look at time management differently this week?

[gneoday]

It's About Time

Time. We can waste it but we can’t make it. We can save it, but only in theory. Despite our best efforts, time is the limiting reagent that dictates our days. No matter how loud our protest or how determined our efforts, there are only 24 hours composed of 60 minutes containing 60 seconds daily. That’s it.

  Until we learn how we view time, we cannot utilize it effectively. At Gneo, we believe in doing the right things, not just doing more things. Trading busyness for productivity hinges on time management, not task management. Next week we will talk about the difference but this week let’s take a look at time itself and our misconceptions in need of a renovation.

  Overriding Urgency

  Track coaches often comment that as you run, every muscle in your body is competing for the limited available energy and oxygen. Your pounding leg muscles are the most deserving but that pesky thinking muscle, the brain, screams “Stop! Stop! Stop!” so vehemently that it’s hard not to obey and simply quit. Overcoming the natural reaction to stop or slow down and appease the selfish brain requires a manual override of your natural tendencies.

  It is the same with your time. Everything is in competition for it.

  Urgent tasks compete for your limited time resource. They are loud and demanding and it’s hard not to respond. In order to shift from daily survival to true productivity you must manually override your natural tendency to give your time and attention to urgency. By establishing clear goals, you can differentiate tasks to see what is truly important instead of just resoundingly urgent and choose to do the important.

  Limits Exist

  Everything takes some amount of time to accomplish; there is no timeless task. To do lists often fall to the wayside because we forget or ignore this fact. We load up a list and believe we will actually cross each item off before our head hits the pillow that night. Yes as the “done” items diminish and the “to do” items compound, each day gets increasingly overwhelming and we become discouraged.

  The problem in this scenario is that a to do list without a calendar is a recipe for futility. Knowing what you need to accomplish only grows legs and can run when you have a realistic understanding of how long it will actually take to accomplish. By giving yourself 4 hours to complete a 4-hour project you allow adequate space and reduce the possibility of frenzy and frustration from insufficient planning. The restrictions imposed by time will never go away, it’s simply a matter of how to work within the confines, instead of against them.

  Just as there are time limitations, there are also “you” limitations. You have only so much energy, availability, and capacity. As you understand your time and the tasks that must fit into that time, you must also understand the amount of “you” that is available during that time for those tasks. You are not unlimited. While you may have 24 hours each day, practical needs like eating and sleeping consume a large portion of hours. Less survival-based needs also exist and recreation, socialization, and simple down time are key ingredients for overall success. More can be done in less time if you have a greater personal capacity during that time.

  What lies about time will you debunk this week?

[gneoday]

Getting There: Achieving Your Life's Work

Anyone who has ever traveled with children, or been a child himself, knows the inevitable question that accompanies any good road trip, “Are we there yet?”

  This locational badgering can begin as soon as the trip commences and continue across county borders, state lines, and highway infinitum. Simply put, we are impatient. A journey is ultimately motivated by a destination and we are lusty to get there as fast as possible, but why?

  What drives us to question the process and what does achievement and “getting there” really look like?

  As we’ve discussed achieving your life’s work, we have talked about necessary characteristics to cultivate along the way such as insatiable curiosity and a desire to know yourself and your motivation. Now on to the grand finale that we will precede with a spoiler: we have no specific plan for you or your life. That is the beauty of it. Your actions, your goals, and your life’s work are inextricably and intimately yours.

  We can give some guidelines, but the journey is personal. Onward!

  The destination: As you look toward your life’s work you absolutely, empirically, unequivocally need to care about where you are going: Most journeys end as fast as you can say “New Year’s Resolution.” Why? Because they are compelled by obligation instead of desire. Before you begin anything, make sure that you really, really want it. That initial desire and excitement is a useful motivation for future times of discouragement.

Challenge yourself: Your life’s work should be just that, something that endures for a lifetime. Set goals that strike the tenuous balance between compelling, but achievable. Impossible goals lead to despair while too simple goals produce boredom. Find the middle ground.

Differentiate and diversify: Make specific goals for different areas of your life. You are a multi-faceted individual and achieving your life’s work is similarly stratified with professional, personal, relational, emotional, spiritual, and physical goals. Look at each of these areas and to identify where you are and where you are going.

Make it official: Write down your goals and share your desires with close family and friends. Written and spoken goals make you accountable to both the idea and to others. Resist the temptation to minimize what you want for yourself and be bold enough to make it known.

Check and review your progress periodically: As we always say at Gneo, productivity is not about doing more, it is about doing more of the right things. After you have identified your overall life’s work and broken it down into goals, go one step further and set weekly, monthly, and yearly goals within those goals. Be honest with yourself about what you have done well and what you can improve on as you move forward. 

Evolve: As you grow, learn, and change, allow your view of your life’s work to expand similarly. Be restless with status quo and always hungry for more. Enable your vision to be bigger than originally intended

Plan for discouragement: It will come.

Have patience: The journey is fun but the road is long. If you are still breathing, your life’s work is still ahead of you. “Are you there yet?” Of course not.

[gneoday]

Achieving Your Life’s Work through Knowledge

Knowledge, education, learning—while seemingly related, these are not the same things.

  For the first couple decades of our lives, education is our main activity. For better or worse, our days are spent traipsing off to school and back again, sitting in classrooms and heading home to complete the assigned, correlating work. Whether we learn is a completely personal choice. And what we learn is more individually selective still.

  Upon graduation, it would appear that the education phase of our lives has ended and the execution phase of our lives commences until retirement. However as we discussed last week, curiosity is a trait that marks the successful and the knowledge of lifelong learning is a complement and a byproduct of that curiosity. The most important kind of learning happens far beyond the walls of a classroom and continues throughout life.

  As you look to pursue your life’s work and set goals accordingly, ask, “Am I gaining the right kind of knowledge along the way?”

  Knowing Yourself

  Before you can embark on any kind of journey, you must know who you are and where you are beginning. Personality tests such as the Clifton StrengthsFinder (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx) and others can be useful tools to see yourself from the outside and understand why you do what you do. Spending your energy and spinning your wheels in an attempt to bolster your weaknesses is a waste of time. Focus on improving your strengths and utilizing what you are inherently good at to achieve maximum benefit instead.

  Know Your Motivation

  In knowing yourself, it’s critical to unearth your motivation. Two kinds of factors drive our action, intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation hinges on reward or avoidance of punishment while intrinsic motivation stems from a desire for personal satisfaction from achievement, enjoyment, or accomplishment. Simply put, if you do something intrinsically it is because you want to. If your action is driven extrinsically, it is because you have to. The action may look the same, but the end goals are completely different.

  Let’s say a man went running, sprinting really, every morning, an admirable activity, right? Let’s zoom out from that picture quickly and realize that his morning sprints result from the fact that as soon as he walks out his front door a tiger begins chasing him. His running is a matter of survival, not a thoughtful action stemming from foresight or vision. He is completely extrinsically motivated.

  While the man may develop muscles, endurance, and let’s be honest, nerves of steel, his action will not lead toward a desired end. The only way for the man to shift his vigorous action from “need to” to “want to” is to kill the literal tiger and then reassess what he is doing and why.

  Sure, this example is unrealistic and far-fetched, but every day we avoid setting goals and pursuing productive action because we are too distracted by the tigers nipping at our heels. While extrinsic motivation can produce results, it is intrinsic motivation that produces the kind of satisfaction necessary to achieving your life’s work.

  Knowledgeable Benefits

No education or knowledge acquired is ever a waste. The more you know, the more context you have to develop relationships and form meaningful connections as well as set big goals and chart a significant life course for yourself.

  Studies show that successful people are not the ones who have never failed, but the ones who rebound quickly from their failures, improvising and innovating on what did not go well the first time. Knowledge is a critical ingredient for developing alternatives and being a flexible person who can change course and address adversity.

  What kind of knowledge do you need to acquire to pursue your life’s work?

[gneoday]

Achieving Your Life’s Work with Curiosity

A wise Haitian proverb says, “Beyond mountains there are mountains” and anyone who has ever summited a towering peak can attest to this truth. Once you reach the top, you encounter a horrible and wonderful reality: this high point is merely one of many. The journey is not over and in fact, you’ve simply gained a vantage point of the many peaks you have yet to climb.

  As you recover from tired muscles and oxygen deprivation you reflect on the fact that the physical climb parallels the climb in life toward your goals. Those “mountains beyond mountains” epitomize the continual challenge and adventures that await you. The question is: will you dare to keep climbing?

  Achieving your life’s work is much like climbing mountains…and more mountains. It is a journey that requires planning, determination, endurance, vision, flexibility, and perhaps most importantly, curiosity. Curiosity is the catalyst that keeps you moving despite exhaustion. The need to know more, do more, and delve into the unknown is addicting, and rightly so.

  Albert Einstein advised, “Never lose a holy curiosity.” And he couldn’t be more right. Perhaps your own particular brand of curiosity will not produce a new theory of relativity, but an inquiring mind yields numerous benefits in all aspects of your life.

  Curiosity for your health

Let’s start with the basics. Being alive is a critical component to you achieving your life’s work. In 1996, researchers rated 1,000 older adults between the ages of 60-86 on their level of curiosity. After a five-year period, the more “curious” individuals were more likely to be alive. Curiosity can reduce the risk of, and even reverse, the effects of degenerative neurological illnesses that occur in senior citizens.

  Subsequent studies have shown that curiosity also decreases the possibility of developing hypertension as well as diabetes. It’s not merely wishful thinking; curiosity is just what the doctor ordered.

  Curiosity for your mind

Inquiry heightens our powers of observation and prompts us out of the mental “rut” to which we easily succumb. Novel experiences and deviation from routine allow us to sharpen our mental skills and prevent mental decline later in life.

  Studies also show that curiosity positively correlates with intelligence. Curious toddlers become curious children who become curious teenagers with enhanced scholastic skills and reading abilities. As adults, they proceed to reap the benefits through superior analytic ability and problem-solving skills.

  Curiosity for your relationships

When we are curious, we feel more alive and engaged. Instead of being passive spectators on the sidelines of life, we are active and participating. This vigor cannot help but translate into our relationships with others. When we are curious, we want to know people and know about people. Every individual represents an unknown world full of information and possibility.

  The number one reason that couples end relationships is cited as “boredom.” Yet curious people are shown to enjoy more satisfying relationships and marriages and describe their significant others as both “interesting” and “responsive.”

  Curiosity for your emotional well being

We often find that “lucky” people are simply the ones who deviate from the norm. The person who finds a priceless piece of artwork at a garage sale was the person who took a different way home from work one day that happened to route them by the sale. Upon seeing the sale, he stopped the car, got out, and started to browse. Curious people take new roads. Curious people explore unknowns.

  Harvard University professor Daniel Gilbert studied the idea of happiness and the many attempts we make to achieve it. He surprisingly found that joy results as a byproduct of encountering the unexpected, not as the result of a planned pursuit.

  So as you climb that mountain, remain open to the possibility of other mountains. Embrace the unknown and be willing to take the detour that may result in the true journey. Make peace with the unfamiliar, remember to play, and be a voracious seeker of knowledge and experience as you strive to achieve your life’s work.

  How can you hone your curiosity today?

[gneoday]

Achieving Your Life's Work

At Gneo, we just returned from the annual Evernote conference in San Francisco. Dynamic and energizing, the 2-day gathering emphatically confirmed why Gneo and Evernote are such good friends and productive coworkers. Surrounded by fellow businesses, developers, individuals, and freelancers we heard keynote speakers and participated in smaller breakout sessions, collectively esteeming Evernote’s ability to hack life’s frustrating glitches.

  Yet beyond the practical solutions that Evernote provides, we resonated most with the underlying purpose that drives its mission: helping people achieve their life’s work. This same battle cry drives Gneo’s work and compels us to ask the question: What does it mean to achieve your life’s work?

  It Exists

  Just as the first step to conquering an addiction is recognizing that you have one, achieving your life’s work begins with admitting that you have one. It’s true, calling it what it is can seem daunting. It can set you on a path toward something big and looming, something you might question your ability to reach. But this journey starts when you break down the bigness of the question with the approachability of the everyday.

  Michelangelo did not look up one day, climb a ladder, paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and then head home for dinner. He worked, toiled, and struggled for four long years. He lay on his back (a not-too-comfortable position to work in at length) and committed to bringing a vision to life. He endured plaster falling on his face and plans foiled and reformed. Today we are the great beneficiaries as we look up at the soaring frescoes that stand as a testament to that commitment.

  Humble Beginnings

  At age 84, Warren Buffet is one of the most successful and notorious business magnates, investors, and philanthropists of the 20th century. But like Michelangelo, his success did not spontaneously happen overnight. His success began some 75 years ago when as a child he recognized an interest in business and began honing his skills selling chewing gum and magazines door to door. It continued as a high schooler when he bought a used pinball machine and placed it in a barbershop. Now, as the head of the highly successful Berkshire Hathaway holding company, he is a billionaire… a billionaire that started with bubble gum.

  Have you met those people who have big plans and lofty visions of themselves? They are the non-starters who can tell tales of their future greatness but never take the first step because it does not carry the title “CEO.” Great people begin in humble places. They work hard and maintain a vision of where they are going, not allowing current and temporary positions to define them.

  The Un-glamorous Process

  Writer Wendell Berry gave up big city life in New York to return to his Kentucky farm home. There, on the rickety keys of an old typewriter, with the help of his faithful wife, he writes as one of today’s most prolific authors, poets, and cultural critics. His writings, seemingly about agriculture, are actually a microcosm for life and living.

  As we consider what it means to pursue the “brick by brick” work of achieving your life’s work, consider Berry’s words about saving the world and what it really means to pursue something you love, “The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous. The great obstacle may be not greed but the modern hankering after glamour.”

  Your life work may indeed result in fame, fortune, and renown, but it will certainly entail plenty of figurative brick laying and bubble gum sales along the way. The glorious successes will absolutely be coupled with the instructive failures, and Gneo understands. We know that it’s not the to-do lists that are sexy and admirable, but the byproduct and commitment to these tools that make dreams come true and life’s work achievable.

  What does it mean for you to take the first step toward achieving your life’s work today?

[gneoday]

Gneo Gnatives

The individuals who use Gneo are as unique as the ways they use it. We call this tribe of fascinating people our Gneo Gnatives and it’s time we all get acquainted.

We will introduce you to Gneo Gnatives in a quirky job interview meets pub conversation kind of way. Our ultimate goal is to highlight and share the creativity with which these Gnatives live life and use Gneo. Discover a new aspect of the app or an alternative way to utilize it and find a new friend along the way.

Today's profile is not only a Gnative, but the chief of the tribe, Gneo founder Anthony Keane.

Gneo Gnative, nice to meet you!   Name: Anthony Keane   Location: San Francisco    Childhood Dream Occupation: Have you ever seen the scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off where the Dad was looking out the office window on to New York? Whatever it was that he did, that’s what I wanted to do.   Current Occupation: Founder of Gneo   People think I’m... good at fixing techy problems ..but I’m actually.. just good on Google (almost as good as Gary Quigley!)   Current goals: To take Gneo to the next level and bring Gneo to more platforms.   Favorite food: The traditional Irish Cabbage and Bacon. Yum.   The worst haircut you ever received: My first experimental San Francisco barber shop - never to be repeated. Don’t believe the hype.   Current playlist: I listen to Sound Cloud, my current favourite is Mario Baptiste  

How long have you used Gneo? Since it was a twinkle in my eye     Favorite feature? Follow up - I love being able to take things off today’s list until I need to check in on them in a few day’s time       Gneo saved the day when… Gneo saves my day every day. When there are so many demands on my time and only so many hours in the day.               If Gneo was a color it would be Teal (of course)       If Gneo was an animal it would be a Connemara pony, graceful and majestic.       If Gneo had a theme song it would be Little Dragon’s Looking Glass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHv_Cr7zdxw - energetic and unique, just like Gneo.       How can we make Gneo even better? We’re excited to be launching a brand new Cloud Gneo shortly and we can’t wait to get Gneo on Mac.

[gneoday]

Richard Branson: Month of Influence

Richard Branson’s resume is both extensive and distinguished. While we here at Gneo certainly admire his many accomplishments, what makes him this week’s Gneo inspiration is his sheer grit, determination, and motivation that drives what he does.

  Big Vision

  Before Branson’s Virgin empire was quite as empiric as it is today, he dreamed of owning an island. While vacationing in the British Virgin Islands Branson stumbled upon the idyllic Necker Island and his bank account stumbled, and stuttered, and stopped at the £3,000,000 asking price. Undeterred, he offered £150,000 and was unsurprisingly refused. However, three months later he received a phone call saying that the island was his for £180,000 and although he didn’t have the money he accepted, believing that the plan would follow the vision.

  He now owns the island.

  The Beginning

  Richard Branson trusts that determination and grit are not innate qualities that one is born with but instead traits that can be taught and developed. As a child he suffered severely from dyslexia and as a result performed poorly in school. Despite academic setbacks he realized that what he did have was an uncanny knack to connect with people. Capitalizing on that he found a different kind of notoriety and success that made one headmaster comment that Branson was the kind of guy who would either end up in prison or a millionaire.

  He jumped into the business world as a teenager, raising a specific breed of parakeet and later founded his record trading business out of a church basement after being perpetually aggravated by the high prices charged by other outfits. Branson later commented “there is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration”. Virgin (as it was named because of his newness to the business) eventually outgrew its basement beginnings and moved to a record shop in Oxford Street in London. In 1972, the record store was profitable enough to support the launch of the Virgin Records record label.

  Beyond Records

  Branson’s empire dreams were not limited to the music industry. In addition to Virgin Records (which he sold to EMI in 1992 to bolster his other businesses) and V2 Records (the reincarnation of Virgin Records after the sale), Branson also founded Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia), Virgin Health Bank, Virgin Galactic (an aspiring space tourism company), Virgin Comics, and Virgin Fuels. Richard Branson does not self-limit, reflected in his diverse and ever-growing portfolio of businesses. He attributes his sprawling empire and prodigious wealth from setting, “huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.”

In that same spirit, Richard Branson has made several attempts at world records in sailing, power boating, and hot air ballooning, just to name a few. He has crossed the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and an expanse of other international waterways, at times by amphibious vehicle. Richard Branson, in addition to his belief in anything being possible, also lives by the tenant of doing what you love and having fun while you do it. Obviously.

  Branson & Gneo

  Among the many reasons that Gneo finds Richard Branson an inspiration is that he understands the importance of setting goals and pursuing them. Effort without an end in mind, no matter how admirable or noble, is futile. By understanding your motivation you can focus your efforts and be more successful. Goals enable you to differentiate between the important and the expendable.

  While we don’t know if Branson is a Gneo user, we certainly know that he is one of the reasons that Gneo is what it is today.

  In the spirit of Richard Branson, what self-limitations can you abandon this week as you think about pursuing your goals?

[gneoday]

Gneo for iOS8!

According to Apple, iOS8 is "The biggest iOS release ever' and Gneo's got some great new features to show off! 

The Today View is perfect for Gneo Gnatives to check what tasks they need to get done today. You can mark them as completed directly from the Today view - super handy. 

Action Notifications are another super smart feature in Gneo's iOS8 update. Simply pull down to mark as completed or go directly to the task in Gneo.

We're working on bringing you more Extensions soon so you can create tasks directly from Safari, Photos and Mail. Stay tuned!!

What Extensions and iOS8 features would you like to see in Gneo? Leave a comment below! 

[gneoday]

Jony Ive: Month of Influence

As Gneo grew from an idea to an app, it gained a physical appearance that required decisions about design, functionality, and form.  During those crucial times, Gneo creators looked to the influence of Apple Senior Vice President of Designer Jony Ive. Ive’s belief that “design defines so much of our experience” and that good design reflects a company’s care for the people it creates for resonated with Gneo.

  As we continue our “Month of Influence” and give credit to those individuals who made Gneo what it is today, this week is dedicated to Jony Ive.

  The Man

  Heralded as Steve Jobs’ “spiritual partner” at Apple, Jony Ive was influential, if not integral, in the creation of the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch, and iOS 7. Yet before he was crafting history and channeling the direction of design at Apple, Ive was a kid from Chingford, London who liked to make things.

  Ive’s father was silversmith and lecturer at Middlesex Polytechnic and his treasured yearly Christmas present was one day of time alone with him in his college workshop. It is no doubt that Ive’s belief in the relationship between design and caring stems from these collective afternoons when he says his father would simply help him “make whatever I dreamed up.”

  A persistent desire to create led Ive to study industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic and eventually to a career in product design upon graduation in 1989. Around the same time he began flirting with Apple products, finding them a welcome relief from the clunky, non-intuitive computer models of the day.

  As he moved through the design world, Ive crafted products ranging from toothbrushes to microwaves. Yet his patience expired when a client rejected his bathroom designs for a toilet, bidet, and sink trio regarding them as “too costly” and “too modern.” In that moment, Ive knew that in order to do great work he needed to care greatly and work for clients he liked who possessed the same principles.

  In 1992, he made the move the Apple and began to make history.

  Gneo & Ive

  Despite his vast accomplishments, Jony Ive is a man of great modesty and inherent simplicity, traits synonymous with his design. Ive claims that simplicity is about more than merely an absence of clutter; it is about bringing order to chaos. “Designing different things is easy,” Ive claims, “designing better things is difficult.”

  As Gneo grew an appearance, this same ethos drove the self-control and simplicity in design. Everything needed to have a purpose and provide a good and valuable service to the user. Every button and position of button was agonized over and considered repeatedly. User experience and user interface were driven by stringent standards of simplicity coupled with effectiveness.

  While technology can seem like the least likely place for compassion and caring, Gneo borrows from Jony Ive’s example that by designing great products we are designing a better world.

  How can you create a better world through design? 

[gneoday]

Tim Ferriss: Month of Influence

After fully ascribing to Dr. Covey’s “7 habits,” Gneo needed to put it in a framework and Tim Ferriss’s “4-hour workweek” sounded obviously appealing. While Ferriss’ time-minimalistic mantra seemed misaligned with the sleepless nights and 24-hour schedule of a nascent app startup, his ideas on mastering new skills inspired Gneo from the beginning.

  As we continue celebrating our month of influence, this week goes out to you, Tim Ferriss. Thank you for the continued inspiration!

  The Man

Before he began peddling his “4-Hour” magic and finding fame as an author, entrepreneur, angel investor and public speaker, Tim Ferriss was your average kid from East Hampton, New York. He attended Princeton University, first studying neuroscience and then making the not-so-obvious switch to East Asian Studies.

  Post-graduation, he jumped into a career in data storage and concurrently began developing his own Internet business, BrainQUICKEN, an online nutritional supplements company. Before selling his company in 2010, Ferriss partnered with the History Channel to produce a show called “Trial by Fire” where he dared to learn a skill in a week that typically requires years of practice and perfection. He then starred in a similar concept show for HLN called the “Tim Ferriss Experiment” in 2013.

  Ferriss’s diverse resume of experiences undoubtedly led to the authoring of his wildly successful book, The 4-Hour Workweek, a battle cry against a workaholic lifestyle. Although 25 publishers initially rejected the book, Ferriss’s ideas resonated universally as shown by its 1.35 million sales and presence on the New York Times bestseller list for 4 years. Since the initial release, Ferriss has scribed an updated version of the book as well as several others including The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, and his virally popular blog.

  Tim Ferriss’s wide influence seeps into the business world as well as he serves as an angel investor and advisor to new businesses. His partnerships include now-well-known names such as Uber, Evernote, StumbleUpon, Shopify, and DailyBurn (to name only a few).

  The Ideas

A look at Tim Ferriss’s life and accomplishments spur two questions: “How did he do that?” And then, “How can I do that?” Hailed as this generation’s “self-help guru,” Ferriss builds on the foundational ideas of Stephen Covey and other productivity and leadership experts to develop his own brand of advice for living expertise, with a characteristic twist of extremism.

  Simply put, Ferriss promotes the idea of mastery being possible and personal limits being surmountable, if not illusory. He puts ideas to the test on himself, creating experiments where he is the human guinea pig. Ferriss begins each experiment with deconstruction, breaking down a complex practice or skill into its component parts, carefully avoiding “failure” points that could build bad habits. He next employs the Pareto principle that states that 80% of your value arises from 20% of your work, thus catalyzing personal productivity.

  The next step is the most critical: timing. Ferriss believes that what you learn hinges greatly on the order in which you learn it. Don’t force yourself to learn to cook when you are under the gun to cater a dinner party. Hone skills in a “no stakes” environment for optimal mastery and growth. However after this initial learning, make sure that you put yourself in situations where you indeed have something to lose. Throw that daring dinner party and create the motivation to follow through with a daunting prospect.

  Tim Ferriss & Gneo

Gneo loves Tim Ferriss’s boldness to create big goals and actually accomplish them, an ideal to which we hope all Gneo users aspire. Gneo employs Ferris’s advice of taking large goals and breaking them down into smaller, more chewable tasks. With notebooks, these goals can be differentiated in Gneo and progress can be measured through finished tasks.

  Whether your goal is French cooking mastery, ancient Japanese horseback archery, or simply getting in shape through daily exercise, using the ideas of Tim Ferriss and the tool of Gneo can help you get there more effectively.

  What goals will you dare to set today?

[gneoday]

Month of Influence: Stephen Covey

While Anthony Keane is credited for the actual creation of Gneo, the many thinkers and productivity gurus who influenced him provide the real catalyst for the Gneo of today. In honor of those inspirational men and women, we are dubbing September as the “Month of Influence” and taking each week to profile and credit these integral individuals.

  To kick off the month, we begin with the esteemed Stephen Covey. Although he passed away tragically in July 2012, his ideas and principles live on, especially in the Gneo community.

  If Dr. Covey had a fan club, Gneo would run for president, that’s how crazy we are about him.

  The Man

If you are a highly successful person whose triumphs can be traced back to seven habits, then you are likely a disciple of Stephen Covey. Renowned productivity and leadership guru, Dr. Covey’s best-selling book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” sold more than 25 million copies since it was first published in 1989.

  Covey began his life in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a boy, Covey was highly athletic but a severe leg injure forced him to switch his focus from sports to academics. After graduating early from high school, Covey went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Utah, followed by an MBA at Harvard University, and finally a Doctor of Religious Education from Brigham Young University.

  Following his education, Dr. Covey went on to pursue a variety of projects including the authorship of his many successful books, the establishment of FranklinCovey, the Stephen Covey Online Community, and involvement at Utah State University including teaching as well as the Stephen R. Covey Center for Leadership.

  Beyond his professional work, Dr. Covey’s personal life included similarly prodigious accomplishments. He and his wife Sandra, were the proud parents of nine children and fifty-two grandchildren.

  The Ideas

Stephen Covey pioneered the idea of character over personality in relation to success, presenting the idea of aligning personal values with universal principles. Principle-centered living and principle-centered leadership stand at the core of the Covey teaching, and resonate with a large audience as they transcend individual differences of politics, philosophy, religion, socioeconomic level, gender, lifestyle, and age.

  Stephen Covey’s teachings stood on a foundation of three constants that he defined as “change, choice, and principles.” His most popular principles from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” include being proactive and having personal vision, beginning with the end in mind, putting “first things first”, thinking in a win-win way that promotes the interests of others, pursuing empathy by seeking to understand before being understood, practicing creative cooperation, and finally “sharpening the saw” by living in a state of balanced renewal.

Stephen Covey & Gneo

  Where to begin?! The teachings of Stephen Covey are like Gneology 101 but perhaps the strongest shared idea between Covey and Gneo is the idea of beginning with the end in mind. With Gneo, goals are the guiding principles by which tasks are either pursued or discarded. Through the assignment of “urgent” and “important” distinctions, individuals can see how their daily activities either contribute or detract from overall success.

  Gneo also encourages people to establish goals that balance the personal, professional, and relational aspects of life. Professional success at the expense of personal health is only a partial triumph. Like Covey’s sharpened saw principle, Gneo espouses the idea that taking care of oneself allows for any effort to produce greater impact.

  Are you a similar Covey fanatic? What are some favorite ideals that you have integrated into your life?