Status Update - 3.24.13

Last week flew by thanks to a mix of time spent helping Citizen University with digital media support, attempting to build a "perfect" city on Sim City, and working on Jumpstart. I always fail at staying idle for extended periods of time. My gears are turning again. Short post this week about what I’m up to. Completed...

Social media support for Citizen University
HTML and CSS Level 2 class at SVC
My first independent new business pitch Started...
Creating to-do lists with Evernote focused on big tasks for the day
Using Foursquare to search for new experiences in the real world
Managing my calendar with Sunrise
Storing documents in the cloud using Dropbox
Exploring the world of digital payment with LevelUp and Square Wallet
Attempting to build the “perfect” city on Sim City
Learning more about content strategy
Discovering recipes via Pinterest
Reengaging with Google+

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Schnitzel]

Sunrise Reinvigorates the Calendar Management Process

After months of struggling to seamlessly integrate my various calendars, I discovered Sunrise - a calendar service created by former Foursquare employees. Using data from my Facebook, Google Calendar, Eventbrite, and LinkedIn accounts, Sunrise creates an itinerary which is emailed to me every morning in an easy to read newsletter format. This personalized email includes weather information, friends' birthdays, and upcoming appointments. Sunrise even adds a bit of visual flair into the calendar process by including photos of people I'm meeting with and clever icons that match the activity - e.g. wrapped packages for birthdays and speech bubbles for meetings.

Sunrise also recently took a step outside of the inbox by creating its own iOS app. A natural evolution of the service, the app allows users to effortlessly add new appointments, view their complete calendar, and wish friends happy birthday with a Facebook message or text. Perfect for professionals on the go, the Sunrise app creates extra value for this fantastic service. 

If you're sick of your current digital calendar, give Sunrise a try. Its  integrated approach to calendar management is a welcome change. After using the service for over a month, I've found Sunrise to be a good replacement for iCal.

To learn more about Sunrise, visit www.sunrise.am and read more about its development on the Sunrise blog. I've also included a video explaining the service below.

How do you stay organized? Do you stick to traditional paper bound calendars or does your digital assistant know more about your whereabouts than some of your closest friends?