Task management help.

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 5, 2009 at 08:17 AM

Jim,

Reading your post I thought “the story of my life!” but I won’t go into it now; I am sure that others here will recognise a part of themselves in your post.

So, sticking to the way that a software tool can help you, I will shortly describe my own approach which I have been fine-tuning for some time now and it seems to do the trick.

1. The main characteristics of my ideal task management software are:
- Outlining, to breakdown my projects into specific tasks
- Filtering, to show only certain tasks, e.g. next, pending, by priority, by date etc.
- Importing/exporting to be able to view my tasks on various devices.

I have found two programs I am happy with: ListPro for Windows (and Windows Mobile) and Projekt for Symbian. Unfortunately they don’t work with each other. I have ended up with Projekt because I can do my task planning on my phone while I commute. Since you have a PDA, ListPro may be advisable.

I’ve also read good testimonials on Natara Bonsai (Windows & Windows Mobile)

Other programs that could do the trick are NoteCase, a cross-platform outliner (Windows, Mac, Linux & Nokia Maemo) and InfoQube (Windows only). MindManager 8 and Personal Brain 5 (beta) have added filtered views but I think they represent financial overkill for task management.

2. When I work, I have the outline on filtered view, so I only see the tasks that I need to see. That is the basis of my keeping focused.

3. Following a webinar on Mission Control, I added a Capture Tool—one piece of software into which all my little notes go- namely Evernote. When I do my task planning, I go through them and turn them into corresponding tasks or organise them accordingly to other iformation management programs.

I should add that since making my project outline and being able to view my task list anywhere, I have almost reached the state of nirvana described by David Allen in Getting Things Done, i.e. a sort of ‘offloading my brain’ (motto courtesy of Tasktop).

Cheers
Alexander