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Task management help.
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Posted by jamesofford
Jan 5, 2009 at 06:22 AM
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is the new year, and while I am not one to make New Year?s resolutions, this seems like as good a time as any to try to turn over a new leaf.
My problem, like many of us, is that I have a hard time keeping up with my different tasks. I have tried many different approaches to tracking tasks, and what it comes down to is that I need to have the tasks that I need to complete staring me in my face.
By that I mean that I need to be able to see what tasks I have at any given time. I can do a pretty good job of setting priorities, it is making sure that all of the tasks that I need to accomplish are someplace where I can see them, and remember that I need to do them.
I know that part of this is establishing habits. I need to focus on what I need to do during the day, and then do it. Again, the problem is keeping the tasks in front of me. I am one of those people who puts stickies on my monitor when there is something that I need to do. That works, but is inelegant, and I have to be in front of my monitor to keep them in my sight.
I have a PDA, an HP IPAQ. That works great for keeping me on schedule, but the whole task thing is a problem.
Finally, at work I use a PC, and at home a Mac. I would like to have something that would let me use both. Also, I want something that is not dependent on synchronizing through a website. My company is concerned about security and that would be a big no-no. If there is a compelling solution that is Mac dependent, I could probably make the case to get a Mac for work, and then run VMWare Fusion to run the PC specific stuff.
The solution must be something that allows rapid entry. I need it to be as invisible as writing on a pad. However, that being said, I don?t want anything that relies on handwriting entry on a PDA. Typing is fine, I can type faster than I can write clearly, but the typing must be something that is as unobtrusive as possible.
Like many of you, I have been CRIMPing for years. This is different. I have had some new responsibilities added to my job. It?s exciting stuff, but it means that I need to be able to enter, keep track of, delegate, and also complete tasks better than I have in the past.
Training is not something that I need. I have done different time management courses, and what it boils down to is me keeping stuff in front of me so I can?t forget it. So, no classes.
Finally, another problem that I have is that I have a tendency to wait until a deadline is about to hit me, and then I do the work. I need to be able to keep things like this in front of me, work on the job a bit at a time, and preferably track progress.
I know that these are big issues. I don?t know if there are any simple solutions out there. I also know that part of the solution is modifying my own behavior. I can do that, but to do it I need to keep the new behavior as simple as I can, and as easy as I can.
Given the cumulative experience of this group, I am hoping that you can help me.
At any rate, I put my plea to the group. And given the information put forward by this group, and also the questions that are asked here, I am hoping to gain some insight in to how to solve my problem.
Jim
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
Posted by Chris Thompson
Jan 5, 2009 at 09:11 AM
For me, the key to effective task management is outlining. I find I need to drill down and list each small individual step that it takes to complete a task, otherwise there’s a tendency to just stare at a list of tasks and not want to get started on any one since it may well be overwhelming or require several pieces of information I need to assemble, and it’s not obvious where to get started. Outlining works great for this, because you can arbitrarily add detail/subtasks to tasks.
This concept of breaking tasks down into individual steps is a big part of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system. In the book, it’s much more important than “contexts”, which are what people normally associate with GTD. Contexts let you filter/view your todo list by what’s possible right now. i.e. You might have a “computer” context for tasks you can accomplish at your computer. Beyond these two concepts, I don’t recommend buying or reading Allen’s book. It’s dry as all get out and nothing earth-shattering. If your main problem is procrastination/waiting to get started on things, it won’t help anyway. (There are a variety of good books on procrastination though.)
You should definitely try OmniFocus on the Mac. The previous version was a little complex, but 1.5 is quite accessible and changed my mind about the application. It’s a very comprehensive outliner/task manager. A particular strength of OmniFocus is how you can narrow down the tasks it presents you with at any one time by marking parts of your outline as having to be done in parallel/sequential order. Unfortunately, mastering this adds a bit of complexity to the program, and the interaction with contexts takes a bit of time to understand. But it is quite a nice application now. It also has a syncing, full-featured iPhone/iPod Touch application for mobile use which doesn’t require syncing through a website. The iPod Touch isn’t too expensive and it meets your discreet typing needs (though the lack of a physical keyboard is a bit of a pain, but it’s not awful).
If you find OF too complex, be sure to give Things a try. It also has a companion iPhone/iPod Touch application. Its downside is that it isn’t a single-pane outliner, but it has a user interface that many people find intuitive, some novel ideas (particularly in postponing tasks), and a splendid recurring tasks implementation.
If you’re a computer geek, give Emacs org-mode a try. This does everything OF does, as well as a superset of what Ecco used to do (with a few restrictions), and you may well actually be able to run Emacs directly on your current Windows Mobile PDA—I’m not sure about this though. Unfortunately the user interface is inaccessible for anyone who’s not familiar with Emacs.
—Chris
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 5, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Jim,
I too have a Mac at home and a PC at work, so I’ve looked at some cross-platform solutions. One that seems elegant and simple is to use TaskPaper on the Mac:
http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper
and its PC counterpart, ToDoPaper:
http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/
First, the disadvantages:
1. You’ve got to buy two different programs at $30 each (although I do think they offer specials at times).
2. You have to depend on two different programers to keep their programs up to date.
But here are the advantages, as I see them:
1. These are simple, elegant programs, easy to learn and use.
2. They each create a simple, sharable text file that the other reads just fine, so you can use a web cloud program, a USB drive or just e-mail the file back and forth to yourself. You can download the text file to your Palm device and refer to that, as well.
3. The system is fairly flexible. Implement a hardcore GTD program or something less stringent. Whatever works for you.
Now my disclaimer: I don’t do this myself, because I personally do not like having to do lists. I’ve always been pretty good about keeping it in my head. In fact, when I do write down what I need to do, I am usually not disciplined enough to check my task list regularly, and therefore—ironically—I’m more likely to forget what I need to do. BUT, if I were to begin tracking my tasks, this is the system, and these are the programs, I’d try first.
Hope this adds some grist to your mill.
Steve Z.
Posted by Ken
Jan 5, 2009 at 04:27 PM
Chris Thompson wrote:
>If your
>main problem is procrastination/waiting to get started on things, it won’t help
>anyway. (There are a variety of good books on procrastination though.)
>—Chris
Chris,
What do you recommend reading?
—Ken