There are two essential steps to any effective productivity system: (1) collecting everything you have to do; and (2) making sure you do it.

The first requires good, easy-to-use tools. If it takes work to collect tasks, you won’t do it. Tim Ferriss, author of the four-hour workweek, recently talked about how he does it.

Here are the tools he uses:

1. Evernote
2. Gmail
3. Google Calendar (Gcal)
4. Anxiety
5. Jott

Visit his article to see how he uses them to never forget anything again.

How to Never Forget Anything Again | Tim Ferriss (via Zen Habits)

I do, to an extent, but I think I am in the minority in that respect. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, Plaxo, and Freshbooks to manage my email, calendar, tasks, contacts, and timekeeping and billing. I even use Google Docs for drafting forms and some documents, although rarely for specific clients.

While the cloud lacks the secure feeling of having my own data in my own office, the cloud offerings I use are backed up more often (sometimes near-constantly) and more securely than I could ever manage on my own. I do, however, sync all my cloud information locally so I have a backup copy if I ever need it.

The only time I regret relying on the cloud is when I follow my wife to a small town where the hotels still do not have internet access. But in such cases, a pen and paper usually works just fine until I am back in range.

Do You Trust the Cloud? | Lifehacker

I just noticed this morning that my Gmail quota nudged over 7 GB. With just over 5500 messages, that means I have used only 7% of my quota. Still not quite as good as Yahoo!’s unlimited storage, but then again, Yahoo! mail is not nearly as good as Gmail.

If you don’t already have a Gmail account, do yourself a favor and get one. You can check mail from other accounts and keep using those addresses, and you get to take advantage of the great productivity features of Gmail.

Lifehacker links to blogger Matt Cutts, whose guide to using Greasemonkey persistent searches opens up a world of possibilities for Gmail organization. In particular, you could use persistent searches to keep a running tally of all e-mails related to a case by tailoring your search to the names, e-mail addresses, and likely subject lines involved.

Now if Google would only allow me to use Gmail on my own server so I didn’t have to worry about security and backups, this would be a fantastic platform-independent solution to e-mail.