August 21, 2020
How To: Manage your day with Ayoa
We’ve all been there – those days where you feel like time has got the better of you and you’ve not been as productive as you’d hoped. While there will always be bumps in the road, managing your time effectively is critical to success – and having the right tools to hand to make this process easier makes all the difference. Read on to discover how Ayoa’s whiteboard software can help you manage your day for ultimate productivity!
From checking your emails to scheduling meetings in your calendar, the chances are, you’re using multiple apps to manage your day – whether this be your chosen task management software, instant messaging apps to keep in touch with your team, or anything in between.
You may not always notice it, but continuous app-switching throughout your day can eat away at your time, leaving you with that all-too-familiar feeling of staring at the clock at the end of the day, asking where the time went. While using multiple apps can have its benefits, Ayoa is designed with productivity at its core. We break down how you can use our handy features to make each day as productive as possible.
9 am: Plan your to-do list for the day
It’s the start of your working day; you’ve likely grabbed your morning coffee from the kitchen and set yourself up at your desk ready for a productive day. First things first? You’ll probably want to plan your to-do list for the day ahead.
My Planner is the ideal place for you to organize your tasks and to-dos from across every project and task board in the app. Split into 3 columns for ‘Now, Next and Soon’ you can easily categorize each of your tasks depending on their priority. Your planner is entirely private to you, so you can even add your own miscellaneous tasks (such as ‘Email report to Brian’) as handy reminders. We’re all used to a paper to-do list; however, these can easily become jumbled as your priorities change and tasks develop. Keeping your to-do list stored within the app keeps your work easily accessible and editable at the click of a button.
Top tip: Kick off your day with a daily summary email from Ayoa. You can switch these on in your settings to receive a helpful email to your inbox each morning with a summary of your upcoming tasks in your planner. Perfect for mornings when your brain needs time to catch up!
Want to keep your team updated with your plans for the day? Great for remote or dispersed teams, Ayoa’s Team Pulse dashboard (exclusive to our Ultimate plan) allows you and your team to post individual status updates – so you can keep track of what everyone’s working on and always stay in the loop.
10 am: Team catch-up
For those working from home, Zoom calls have become the holy grail of team communication. Make your video chats fit seamlessly alongside your tasks with our brand new Zoom integration and Ayoa video meetings (exclusive to our Ultimate plan). Keep conversations within the context of your work by video chatting alongside your task boards and mind maps. Ideal for keeping discussions on track and avoiding unproductive meetings, taking notes and discussing ideas has never been easier.
Don’t need a video meeting? Try setting up a group chat for your immediate team with our built-in instant messaging feature, Ayoa Chat. Perfect for catching up on work (or even a little midday natter) you can easily send each other tasks, add file attachments and keep up with messages without ever having to leave the app.
11 am: Brainstorm project ideas
Have an upcoming project that you want to brainstorm ideas for? Ayoa’s mind mapping features are the perfect space to capture and develop your ideas – then turn these directly into tasks that you can action in the same app.
Mind maps replicate your natural thinking processes by using radiating branches that stem from your central idea, allowing your brain to make easy and clear associations between ideas. Offering three different styles to suit your preference (including Speed maps, Organic maps and Radial maps) our mind mapping features offer a versatile and creative alternative to the classic brainstorming sessions with pens and sticky notes, which can easily become lost or confused. With mind mapping, your ideas will be stored in one secure place, which you and your team can refer to at any time.
1 pm: Popping out for lunch? Let your team know you’re away!
Heading away from your desk for a lunch break? Our handy User Status feature allows you to set a custom status so you and your team can see each other’s availability at a glance – particularly useful if you’re working remotely. User status also allows you to set specific time limits for each status you set, so you don’t have to remember to update it when you get back to your desk.
2 pm: Work on a task for a team project
If you’re spending your afternoon getting your head stuck into a task for a team project, Ayoa’s task boards are an easy and productive way to ensure your workload stays on track.
Perfect for all members of your team, our task boards can either be used in Canvas View or Kanban-style Workflow View, depending on your preference. For those who prefer to work more visually, Canvas View allows you to visualize your tasks as colorful bubbles, which you can split into different categories as needed. You can then easily switch this into Workflow View which will present your tasks and categories as listed columns – ideal for people who prefer a more linear approach that’s most similar to a traditional to-do list.
Each task created in your task board contains a bunch of handy task management features to keep you on track, including due dates, checklists, reminders, urgency tags, notes and more. Use progress percentage indicators to inform others how far along a task is to completion. Sick of searching through your folders or email inbox for specific documents? You can also add multiple attachments to each task to keep everything easily accessible in one place!
Task boards are a really useful tool for managing both personal and group tasks. However, if you have a task board for a specific group project (a marketing campaign launch, for example) you can easily turn your task board into a Gantt timeline for heightened time management. Perfect for teams, add milestones to your Gantt chart inspired timeline to keep your whole team motivated to reach the finish line together.
5 pm: End of the day
After a productive day’s work, head back into your planner to re-organize your to-do list for the next morning, if needed. That way, your daily summary email will remind you what you have planned when you’re ready to come back the following morning. Working from home and want to let your team know you’re signing off for the day? Your user status will automatically update to ‘offline’ when you close the app – so you don’t have to worry about your colleagues being unaware of your availability.
With our built-in features designed for optimum productivity, Ayoa is a digital whiteboard tool that seamlessly integrates task management, instant messaging and mind mapping features into one easy-to-use app. Ready to get the most out of your day? Sign up for FREE today to get started!