One of the more fun perks of managing a technology blog is all the fun apps and extensions you come across with on a monthly basis. Yanado is one of those. Unhappy that Google Tasks wasn’t offering all the features I wanted, I hunted for a replacement and before long, I was in love. Yanado is the best task management tool you never knew you needed, and here to tell you all about is my team member Shastina, who I coerced into loving it too! Enjoy the review!
Yanado?
Yanado? How is this pronounced? That was my first question. My second was: will it help me with my email inbox? The third question was: will it help me be more productive in general? Before I get into why I liked Yanado, let me say that I am constantly looking for Apps that I have fun using and those that are useful on a daily basis. I have probably downloaded and deleted hundreds of Apps throughout any given year. Those that I stick with have stayed because they make my life or work easier.
I hate to admit it, but my email inbox is close to a digital hoarder’s paradise. Don’t get me wrong. I clean it out, but I have many emails that I keep. Like mental post its. The problem is that even though they’re meant as reminders, they just become more clutter, and to be honest, that leads to procrastination. This is the last thing I need, so when Caroline told me about Yanado, I had to give it a try.
Why Yanado?
If you are a small business, using some kind of project management software is essential. Project management software is ideal for organizing a system that will keep your daily workflow running at its best with less effort. In a nutshell, this is what Yanado does. Even if you only have one person in your business and that is you, there are are benefits to using Yanado simply due to the time efficiency it opens up. After using Yanado for a day, I realized I was less stressed and felt better organized. That’s because I was. Since it integrates with gmail, it is easy to understand which is a huge plus.
6 Kickass Features in Yanado:
These are just some of the ways that I found using Yanado was helpful.
1. Create a Task from a Webpage
Yanado has a small icon/logo at the top of each web page. One of the reasons it is there is so that if you are browsing online and you come across a page you would like to save you can automatically link it to a task and revisit it later with just one click.
2. Make Lists of Tasks
All you have to do to make a list is click on “Add New List.” Name the list whatever you want and start creating tasks that have to do with that list. For example, a list titled “Dad’s Birthday” could have all of your tasks that are related to your dad’s birthday like buying a cake, sending invitations, hiring a band, etc.
3. Track Status of Tasks
For each task that you create, you can place it under the label “Open,” “Doing,” or “Done.” This blocks out where you are in any given task. You can also make new labels that are more specific than these. This really helps when you have a team too, because you can track where everyone is on various projects. This also makes it so that each team member knows what they need to do next. That way, no stone goes unturned.
4. Set Alarms and Reminders
Each task you create and email you get can be linked to a specific date and time. For example, maybe you get an email that is an invitation to a wedding. You can immediately set an alarm for an early date and time to remind you of the wedding. You can also create a task that reminds you to send an RSVP and to get or send a gift. And don’t forget, if you are on a webpage and see a perfect gift for the wedding, you can also link it to these as well.
5. Allocate Work to Team Members
Do you have a bunch of emails that need to be forwarded or shared with other coworkers? If so, you can set up Yanado to send incoming emails to coworkers who can best handle that email.
Depending on what kind of list and associated tasks you create, you can integrate tags to keep you organized. For example, a list having to do with Christmas might have tags such as #Winter, #Season, #December, #Gifts, etc. Or maybe you want to create batch numbers for a certain days work. In this case, you could use number tags like #3000, #3001, #3002, #3004, etc. Yaaass!
More Yanado Features
- Work Visualization (Kanban boards)
- Add Emails as Tasks
- Integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar
- Integrates with hundreds of other Apps (Zapier, Slack, Trello, Todoist, Wunderlist, etc.)
- Project Management
- Notifications in Real Time
- Sharing Emails and Tasks (for collaborating)
- Set-up custom fields
- Group by Status, User, Due Date
- Customer Support (phone, email, social media)
Reasons I like Yanado:
Well, there’s a few, but here are the top picks:
1. Being Able to Save Webpages as Tasks
I do a lot of research and I go back and forth between emails for random purposes. There’s a lot of back and forth. For example, if I want to work on writing jokes, I need to scour the news for set-ups. Or let’s say I’m writing a historical piece on the wild west and found a great resource online. In either case, Yanado allows me to save different web pages and create a task from them under a specified list. I absolutely love this!
2. Being Able to Easily Collaborate
The fact that I can allocate emails and share them is a big time saver. Sifting through emails to find old email chains in regards to work can be frustrating. Yanado makes it way more easy.
3. The Visual KanBan Boards
If you are a person who likes to have your work visually laid out, you will most likely enjoy the way Yanado looks. You don’t have to view your lists and tasks in boards, but for me or anyone else who learns and remembers by seeing stuff, this is awesome.
Reasons I Don’t Like Yanado
That was a trick. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like. But, I do wish I could color-code the Yanado label that shows up next to the email I created a task for…not big deal though. The other would be that I can’t wait for the iOS App of it to be developed. They say it is coming soon so this is something to look for; hopefully soon!
Yanado’s Pricing & Plans
We love free here at DigitallyOrganized.net, but we also don’t mind paying for convenience, features, and quality, and we recommend you go in with the same attitude. If you can make your work better and easier for a few extra bucks, it’s well worth it! Here are Yanado’s plans as of today:
Free
- Unlimited tasks
- Unlimited TO-DO Lists
- Startup features
- 1 user
Startup – $7.5/user/month or $6/user/month (annual billing)
- Unlimited tasks
- Unlimited TO-DO Lists
- Startup features
- Up to 100 users
Premium – $18.75/user/month or $15/user/month (annual billing)
- Unlimited tasks
- Unlimited TO-DO Lists
- Premium features
- Up to 1000 users
Enterprise – Custom Enterprise Pricing
- Unlimited everything
- Custom integrations
- Custom infrastructure
- Unlimited users
Ease of Set Up & Tutorials
We also want to give a shoutout to the team at Yanado, and they fantastic resources because they offer endless education on all Yanado basics, how to manage your inbox, integrations with other services (like (Zapier, Slack, Asana, Trello, Todoist, Outlook, Wunderlist, Boing, etc), project management, team management, KanBan boards, and much more. We highly recommend that you visit them over at https://yanado.com/blog/ if you’re thinking about using this tool!
So… Did It Work?
Has it helped me be more productive? I would have to say it did.
Again, it hasn’t been a long time but the more clutter I get out of the way the more inspired I feel to do more. And yes, it did help me with my email inbox, and I haven’t been using it that long at all. Now that I have it working for me, I don’t think I can get rid of it because it is doing a good job and I’m using it everyday. Although, if you do get a free trial and decide not to use it then all of what you organized could turn back into an unorganized mess. Either way, you’re not losing anything if you want to try it. You can always delete it if it isn’t for you.
I did figure out how Yanado is pronounced. It is exactly as you would think. It rhymes with “Cana-do” like a “Can-a-Do” attitude. Except with a “Y.” So better yet, a Yanado attitude. 😉
