I'm busy working on v2.0 of my Hyper Plan software and I wondered what the view was here on a card-based approach to productivity/planning.

Do you use card-based software such as Trello or any of the Kanban applications?

If so, which one(s) do you use?

If not, is it because you:
-don't like the card-based approach?
-you have never tried it?
-you prefer post-it notes/physical cards?

Any information gratefully received.

--
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com

Hi Andy,

Thanks for asking. I tried Trello, find it very well designed, and can see cases where it can be very useful. but, I manage a number of projects at once, and need to see and prioritize tasks for a number of projects and that is where Trello falls down IMHO. Context is critical for my workflow, and tagging/filtering is essential as I have a large number of tasks in a number of states at any given time. I know that my daily workflow is not the target market for these types of products, but I still feel it is important for folks to remember that not all projects look like the examples that are shown on the short introductory videos at software web sites. Speaking of which, when your new product is ready for release, please do not just give us a video of cartoon characters or beautiful actors making their way through their day. A demonstration of how your products works is useful, and I find it really frustrating when I go to a company's website and only see a lifestyle displayed with large scrolling photos and large font statements. Products screenshots are useful and can answer a lot of questions very quickly and easily.

Good luck,

--Ken

Hello Andy,

My requirements are probably similar to many other people's, but for what it's worth I'll lay them out for you.

I have a range of tasks and activities which I need to plan. At one end of the scale, there are "hard-landscape" (in the jargon of David Allen and GTD) duties and appointments, which I schedule in my Mac Calendar. Alongside them are relatively minor short-term-schedulable and repetitive or non-repetitive items, for which I use Due. Then there are more major non-schedulable or "soft-landscape" tasks, for which I use Omnifocus 2 (I know that, with two "trusted systems", this transgresses one of the GTD principles, but...); I have in the past tried similar list-based task-management applications such as 2Do, Things and Todoist. Finally, there are major longer-term schedulable or non-schedulable tasks, usually involving writing and editing, of which I do quite a lot, for which I also use Omnifocus 2, but have in the past used various project-management Gantt-chart applications, such as Omniplan and MS Project, and also kanban software such as Trello (or as you call it, card-based).

I do like the principles behind the kanban/card-based approach (in another context, I was first involved in writing about it in relation to companies in Japan in the 1980s). But I've several issues with it as it is currently offered to us (or, possibly in the way that I currently use it...). One is that, at least on the Mac, with the exception of your software and, I think, Kanban Kit, it is all online. Call me old-fashioned, but for reasons of security and access, for productivity planning with vulnerable data I like all my key software to be on my computer.

Another issue is that very few of the available kanban applications have iPad or iPhone applications, although of course the presence of nearly all of them on the Internet overcomes this problem, to an extent. Yet another issue is that the kanban apps aren't particularly well suited to dealing with long lists of small tasks. Another - important for me when writing - is that most don't easily indicate to you whether or not you're going to "miss your deadline". I know that some use various means to show that due dates are near, colour for example, but the means they use are not always as effective as those of, say, Omniplan or MS Project or, with a different methodology, Omnifocus 2 or 2Do. I use übersicht to place the Omnifocus tasks I have that are "on deadline" on my computer desktop - in my face, another words. As that implies, some of the task-based applications, Omnifocus in particular, have been around long enough to be surrounded by eco-systems of AppleScripts, macros and similar aids which at times I have found extremely useful; with the exception of IFTT and Zapier for the web-based software, very little connects the kanban apps with other applications or services.

Sometimes I think that the way to crack this would be to have software with several different views into the user's productivity-planning data, much as writing software such as Scrivener offers different views of the same text: an editor-view, an outliner view and an index-card view. Similarly, for task-planning these could be an indented list-type view like that of Omnifocus, a Gantt-chart view like Project's and a kanban view - but, of course, these views would only work successfully for and be of use to those users ready to bear the costs and the complexity. And if it happens at all, it's probably some years away.

In any case, I do own a license for Hyper Plan, which in general terms I like, and I'm about to start on a project for which it may be suited...

Hi Andy,
I am big fan of card-based approach, however after a couple of attempts with some digital solutions (first of all, NoteZilla and ndxCards) several years ago, I came back to paper... I'll be happy if you convince me that your software could make my life more productive, so I'll be watching development of Hyper Plan with great interest :)
What I expect from digital approach is in fact rather simple (maybe even naive): (1) I would like to be able to work with the piles of my cards as they were physical ones but more quickly and flexible; (2) to be able to easily mail, share, export to other applications, and print them; (3) to have special 'pickers' (plugins) that make possible easy import of data from other applications to a card (something like 'Send to Hyper Plan' option for web browsers, text editors, mail programs etc.).
All the best,
Wojciech

@Ken

Trello is quite simplistic: a list of lists. This works great for some things, not so well for others. However I think they have done a good job at implementing what it does.

I know what you mean about 'lifestyle' marketing. Lots of dreamy stock photos, animation and parallax effects, but no idea what the product does. I think you'll find that the Hyper Plan website is quite the opposite! It needs more work, but hopefully it at least shows that the product does.

Ken, I so agree with you re app and other software web sites. Many are a waste of space, and prime examples of bad design

Daly

Ken wrote:

Hi Andy,

Thanks for asking. I tried Trello, find it very well designed, and can
see cases where it can be very useful. but, I manage a number of
projects at once, and need to see and prioritize tasks for a number of
projects and that is where Trello falls down IMHO. Context is critical
for my workflow, and tagging/filtering is essential as I have a large
number of tasks in a number of states at any given time. I know that my
daily workflow is not the target market for these types of products, but
I still feel it is important for folks to remember that not all projects
look like the examples that are shown on the short introductory videos
at software web sites. Speaking of which, when your new product is
ready for release, please do not just give us a video of cartoon
characters or beautiful actors making their way through their day. A
demonstration of how your products works is useful, and I find it really
frustrating when I go to a company's website and only see a lifestyle
displayed with large scrolling photos and large font statements.
Products screenshots are useful and can answer a lot of questions very
quickly and easily.

Good luck,

--Ken

I use NoteZilla because it's so much more than a sticky notes program.

I once used ndxCards, and thought it had a great future. Unfortunately it has not been developed for several years. I liked its approach, and would hope it can be developed again.

Daly

Wojciech wrote:

Hi Andy,
I am big fan of card-based approach, however after a couple of attempts
with some digital solutions (first of all, NoteZilla and ndxCards)
several years ago, I came back to paper... I'll be happy if you convince
me that your software could make my life more productive, so I'll be
watching development of Hyper Plan with great interest :)
What I expect from digital approach is in fact rather simple (maybe even
naive): (1) I would like to be able to work with the piles of my cards
as they were physical ones but more quickly and flexible; (2) to be able
to easily mail, share, export to other applications, and print them; (3)
to have special 'pickers' (plugins) that make possible easy import of
data from other applications to a card (something like 'Send to Hyper
Plan' option for web browsers, text editors, mail programs etc.).
All the best,
Wojciech

@Hugh

I agree that it is pretty much impossible to have one system to cover everything and be usable. I put short term/transitory stuff on scraps of paper, longer term stuff in Hyper Plan and appointments in Google calendar.

Web based software is very much in the ascendant. But I still use a lot of desktop software and I think it still has a lot of advantages. I wrote about that here:
http://successfulsoftware.net/2013/10/28/is-desktop-software-dead/

Creating commercial software for iPhone/iPad is problematic for lots of reasons, including:
-low prices
-no direct connection with your customer
-lots of hoops to jump through
-lack of visibility in app stores
-different UI requirements (small screen+touch)

That's why I haven't produced a iPhone/iPad version of Hyper Plan (yet).

Card-based software seems to work best when you have tens or maybe a few hundred cards. The approach doesn't seem to scale well to thousands of cards. I am considering adding hierarchy (cards within cards) into Hyper Plan to handle bigger plans. I still haven't made a decision on that.

Omnifocus and Scrivner seem to be well regarded, I should have another look at them.

Some people have asked for more date specific features in Hyper Plan, but I am still deciding how far I want to go with that. I'm not interested in producing yet another weekly/monthly planner.

Hyper Plan gives card and tabular views of the same data. I have some ideas about other views. But there is a limit to how many types of views you can accommodate of a single data set.

In any case, I do own a license for Hyper Plan, which in general terms I
like, and I'm about to start on a project for which it may be suited...

I'm working hard on v2.0. So if you run into any issues with the current version, please let me know.

@Wojciech

Trying to match the ease of use and intuitiveness of physical post-it notes is certainly a challenge. But I think software really comes into its own where:
-you have lots of cards (no limitations on space)
-you need to put more than just a few words on a card
-you want to slice and dice them in different ways
-you want to access the information long term

to have special 'pickers' (plugins) that make possible easy import of
data from other applications to a card (something like 'Send to Hyper
Plan' option for web browsers, text editors, mail programs etc.).

You can already drag web pages or documents onto a card to create a link to that page/document. But perhaps there are things I could do to make that easier.

@Daly de Gagne

I use NoteZilla because it's so much more than a sticky notes program.

I once used ndxCards, and thought it had a great future. Unfortunately
it has not been developed for several years. I liked its approach, and
would hope it can be developed again.

So are you using card based software for a similar reminder function to sticking post-it notes on your fridge/computer? Or are you using it for more than that?

I have been intrigued by card-based information managers since I used an app called Instant Recall (I think that was the name -- I don't have instant recall anymore) back in the days of DOS. While it wasn't a graphical interface as we think of that concept now, it did present your information in what you would call index cards. When you created an item, you chose from one of four types:

- note
- event
- person
- task

You'd have different options for the type of meta data associated with the card based on the type of card, but they could be cross-associated, though I don't really remember how any more.

Anyway, I loved that approach and I've been hoping to find a Windows are Mac version, but nothing really comes close, though I can mimic the functionality somewhat in a program like Tinderbox.

I have dabbled in Trello, but I have the same hesitations as have already been mentioned. Tinderbox was very card like in earlier versions, but feels less so in version 6, which has moved more to a notes pane approach. I miss the older version, at least in some respects. Items opened as note cards instead of in a note panel to the side. What it still does very nicely is allow you to move your notes around freely on a whiteboard, which is helpful for sorting and conceptualizing.

Steve Z.

@Stephen Zeoli

A lot of productivity software seems to have a relatively short lifespan, judging by all the dead products I see mentioned on this forum,

Andy Brice wrote:

@Stephen Zeoli

A lot of productivity software seems to have a relatively short
lifespan, judging by all the dead products I see mentioned on this
forum,

there is only so much venture capital / media attention for too many simple yet powerful yet beautiful applications.

faustisch wrote:

there is only so much venture capital / media attention for too many
simple yet powerful yet beautiful applications.

True. It is a shame that the VCs and media have brainwashed so many developers into thinking that is the only route to developing products.

@Andy Brice:
Thankyou for posting about your software HyperPlan. Not having come across it before, I took a look at your website and the short video. Very interesting and a rather novel approach. Redolent of the MS Research affinity diagramming tool - you seem to have done what they shoulda ought to have done with that idea and taken it to the next logical phase of development.
I'm not sure whether you are doing it justice where you put it in the context of a "card-based approach". That could seem a bit limited, compared to what you would seem to have developed so far. Nice work.
As a CRIMPer, I usually trial PIM-related software, but, as I I don't actually have need of your software as it is designed, I won't trial it. However, I will keep a watch on it.

Slartibartfarst wrote:

Thankyou for posting about your software HyperPlan. Not having come
across it before, I took a look at your website and the short video.
Very interesting and a rather novel approach. Redolent of the MS
Research affinity diagramming tool - you seem to have done what they
shoulda ought to have done with that idea and taken it to the next
logical phase of development.

Do you mean Microsoft Stickysorter (another tool that seems to have died)? I only heard about that for the first time yesterday. Having watched a video of it, there are certainly quite a few similarities. I think the main difference is in Stickysorter the user positions the cards, and in Hyper Plan the cards are automatically positioned according to their properties. I think the Hyper Plan approach is more poweful, but I can also see where the user positioning approach could be useful - especially in the early stages of planning. I am considering adding a similar 'free placement' mode into Hyper Plan.

I'm not sure whether you are doing it justice where you put it in the
context of a "card-based approach". That could seem a bit limited,
compared to what you would seem to have developed so far. Nice work.

Thanks! I think its fair to call it card-based. Also I am very aware that it isn't appropriate to 'sell' here, so I am doing my level best not to.

Where Hyper Plan is different is that it allows you to construct a N-dimensional space and take 2 dimensional slices through it (more if you include colors and symbols). I'm not aware of any other software that takes that approach (although surely I can't be the only person to think of it). So there isn't really a name for it. So I am sticking with card-based for now. Feel free to suggest a better name.

As a CRIMPer, I usually trial PIM-related software, but, as I I don't
actually have need of your software as it is designed, I won't trial it.
However, I will keep a watch on it.

You can sign up for the newsletter on the website, if you want to be informed of new releases (around 1 email every 2 months).

Andy,

"I am considering adding a similar ‘free placement’ mode into Hyper Plan"

That's good news. Right now, I use Scapple in the pre-planning and early planning phase. But that feels clunky for me.
When you presented Hyper Plan in this forum, some time ago, I trialled it. I find the approach (have the cards arranged in various but fixed ways) interesting but have no use for it - I do not use Kanban any longer on my computers, and for my project planning needs a spreadsheet is more than good enough.

So: A free placement mode in Hyper Plan would justify getting the app. And maybe use it for more :-)

Could you keep us posted? TIA, Franz

@Andy Brice:
Yes, it was Stickysorter. It was only ever a prototype demo output from MS Research Labs, so it didn't actually "die" per se.
It caught my attention as I realised that it effectively built a database behind the scenes, and you could output that as a CSV file, edit it in Excel and re-input it to Stickysorter. So it had potential for development.
I wasn't sure whether you would have seen it before. Evidently you hadn't.

I appreciate that Hyper Plan allows the user to construct an N-dimensional space and take different dimensional slices through it.
That was the sort of thing that you could do with the DOS-based Lotus Agenda (by building what was effectively a category tree for all the Items of information), and I found something that does something similar only the other day in the form of planning tool TaskCoach (by building what is effectively a category tree for all the Tasks).

I avoid newsletters as they necessitate email management, so I won't sign up for the newsletter on your website, but if/when you have an RSS feed URL for your website, I will put that in my Bazqux feed-reader (which is where I read OutlinerSoftware.com and many other blogs and forums, for example).

Franz Grieser wrote:

So: A free placement mode in Hyper Plan would justify getting the app.
And maybe use it for more :-)

I can't promise that is going to make it into the v2.0 release.

Could you keep us posted? TIA, Franz

Will do!

Slartibartfarst wrote:

I wasn't sure whether you would have seen it before. Evidently you
hadn't.

One of my customers mentioned it yesterday. I hadn't heard of it before that. It is probably the closest thing I have seen to Hyper Plan, but with quite a lot of differences also.

That was the sort of thing that you could do with the DOS-based Lotus
Agenda (by building what was effectively a category tree for all the
Items of information), and I found something that does something similar
only the other day in the form of planning tool TaskCoach (by building
what is effectively a category tree for all the Tasks).

I am not familiar with Lotus Agenda. I will take a look at Task Coach. Thanks.

I avoid newsletters as they necessitate email management, so I won't
sign up for the newsletter on your website, but if/when you have an RSS
feed URL for your website, I will put that in my Bazqux feed-reader
(which is where I read OutlinerSoftware.com and many other blogs and
forums, for example).

I don't mind getting newsletter I signed up for. Its the ones I didn't sign up for that drive me crazy.

I haven't bothered with a RSS feed so far for http://www.hyperplan.com I'm not sure how many people use RSS. It would be easy enough to add though.

Just to add my two'a'porth. Yes, I love kanban managers, and use Trello extensively with my team. As others here have said, Trello's major weakness is its lack of an overview function (covering all boards, not just the one you're on at any given moment). Of course it does have such a function, in the form of filters, a powerful search function and so on, but really you also need a one-click solution for this (a GTD approach, if you like).

A combination of kanban board concept with a GTD concept would be very cool: currently I encourage colleagues to use Xccello, a Trello client that basically mimics the Trello web page but without all the browser chrome, and notice to my amusement that we all tend to keep the multiple board view open (on the left-hand side), making Trello resemble a more traditional task manager.

It's about slicing and dicing: a traditional task manager handles tasks vertically: higher priority/nearer due dates go to the top. Categories such as Today, Tomorrow, Later and so on are extra trimmings (desirable, but not essential).

A really cool task manager would handle tasks horizontally as well, to show degree of completion, for example. But ideally, this set of horizontal categories should be highly customisable, so people can use their own sets of priorities. There are a number of online kanban solutions with "swim lanes", allowing you to group cards horizontally, or by specific category, as well as vertically (usually the vertical categories are completion-related, the horizontal ones department/project-related). This is a very desirable model, but I've not seen a desktop/mobile app that really does this yet (for me, a task manager only becomes a major player if it has a mobile client as well as a desktop one).

Of course HyperPlan does do this, to an extent. But there are fairly significant constraints. IMHO, it might be better to allow users to specify their own categories (I agree, HyperPlan is already impressively flexible in this respect, but sometimes you want ultimate flexibility, combined with considerable simplicity).

Finally, I have come to the conclusion that most task managers suffer from a major shortcoming: they don't attach high enough importance to (extensive) notes. Anybody who's got complex projects to manage needs plenty of note-taking space! One of the few task managers that does this is TickTick, but unfortunately it doesn't support rich text - a major shortcoming. If you're taking extensive notes, you need some way to emphasize certain words or phrases (especially if you're sharing them). Which is where Trello is actually rather good, because it supports Markdown.

Just my thoughts.
Cheers,
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

Finally, I have come to the conclusion that most task managers suffer
from a major shortcoming: they don't attach high enough importance to
(extensive) notes. Anybody who's got complex projects to manage needs
plenty of note-taking space! One of the few task managers that does this
is TickTick, but unfortunately it doesn't support rich text - a major
shortcoming. If you're taking extensive notes, you need some way to
emphasize certain words or phrases (especially if you're sharing them).
Which is where Trello is actually rather good, because it supports
Markdown.

Bill, that is such an excellent observation. I agree completely. Extensive and easy to organize notes are essential for effective task and project management. They shouldn't be an afterthought by developers.

Steve Z.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Of course HyperPlan does do this, to an extent. But there are fairly
significant constraints. IMHO, it might be better to allow users to
specify their own categories (I agree, HyperPlan is already impressively
flexible in this respect, but sometimes you want ultimate flexibility,
combined with considerable simplicity).

There is a inevitably a trade-off between flexibility, power and simplicity. I have tried to provide a fair amount of power and flexibility without too much complexity.

Finally, I have come to the conclusion that most task managers suffer
from a major shortcoming: they don't attach high enough importance to
(extensive) notes. Anybody who's got complex projects to manage needs
plenty of note-taking space! One of the few task managers that does this
is TickTick, but unfortunately it doesn't support rich text - a major
shortcoming. If you're taking extensive notes, you need some way to
emphasize certain words or phrases (especially if you're sharing them).
Which is where Trello is actually rather good, because it supports
Markdown.

Hyper Plan has a notes field. But currently it only supports plain text. A number of customers have asked for rich text, so that is somewhere on the 'wishlist'.

Do you have a particular preference? Markdown, HTML or something else? HTML is almost certainly easier it implement in Hyper Plan's tech stack. Can you point me at some desktop software with a particularly good implementation of rich text notes (no point in re-inventing that wheel),

Thanks, Steve. It's the one thing that's driven me away from some really excellent task managers, from OmniFocus (which does at least support rich-text notes, but has such a clunky structure in iOS!) to 2Do (brilliant, but again - not enough note space) to The HitList (extensive support for notes, but no rich text and slightly clunky format) to Things (again, just not enough note support).

I've spent a lot of time with LetterSpace (excellent for notes, but slightly limited as a task manager) and even Ulysses (again, excellent for notes, bloody clever structure - ability to view multiple notes simultaneously, aggregate notes etc., but not optimised for task management).

Finally, I discovered Trello. And after not being super-impressed, I've gradually realised what a powerful model it is, especially for collaboration. The ability to link cards in particular is easy to under-estimate: very useful indeed.

I've been trying to set up a HackPad server on my own in-house machines (HackPad was recently acquired by Dropbox, and the server code was open-sourced), but haven't had much success so far.

I've also been experimenting with the Wiki function in Apple Server. It's really rather good, but not suitable for task management. Same applies to Synology's Note Station, which does have a task management function, in fact, but is rather slo-o-ow. The next version (6.0) of the Synology OS may solve this. And Synology do publish iOS apps, too, which are actually quite good.

We used to share tasks in our team on a Kerio Workspace setup. Worked rather well, but alas! Kerio Workspace was discontinued, and the ghastly SamePage produced instead (only available as a hosted service). The latter is a desperately inadequate replacement for Kerio Workspace, and we've abandoned it. We do still run a legacy Kerio Workspace server, but the SSL component is so out of date that modern browsers don't recognise it.

Frustrating. Maybe I'll put together a visual spec for The Perfect Task Manager, and contributors to this forum can look at it and make rude (or maybe even constructive) remarks!

Cheers,
Bill

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Bill, that is such an excellent observation. I agree completely.
Extensive and easy to organize notes are essential for effective task
and project management. They shouldn't be an afterthought by developers.

If the notes are extensive, wouldn't it be better to put them in Evernote (or similar) and hyperlink from the card?