Can You Recommend A Task Management System?

J

JakeStratham

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Oct 28, 2009
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I'd like to organize some of my larger projects in an environment designed for task management. I'm hoping some of you use
(or have used in the past) sites like the following:

- wunderlist
- rememberthemilk
- any.do
- todoist
- trello

... and can offer your thoughts about them: pros/cons, missing/useful features, ease of use, etc.

My preference is an environment that is visually simple, like Trello (sorry for the large image size):


skitch.jpg



Do you have a recommendation? If so, would you highlight the features you like about the environment you use?

Thanks.
 


JulianTrueFlynn said:
It depends a lot on:

  • The kind of projects you will be working with. Is it design, programming, marketing, etc. related?
  • Will you be working with others?
Click to expand...

Sorry for the omission and thanks for the prompt.

I'm writing several books. As you can imagine, there are numerous steps between writing the first word of a book and promoting it during its launch. The steps are simple, but there are so many of them that it's difficult to manage, particularly with multiple books at various stages of development.

I'll be working with other people, but in a limited fashion. They include an editors, proofreaders, cover artists, and folks for various marketing duties. None of these people should have access to my task management environment. So I'm shying away from using something like Flow (getflow.com). It's more than I need (I think).

I've been keeping track of things on paper (I'm a Luddite). But I'm hoping to find a simple environment that gives me a bird's-eye view of all of my projects and their respective steps to completion.

The image of Trello comes close to what I'm seeking. But because I'm ignorant of task management software, I don't know what I don't know.

I'd like to get some in-the-trenches feedback before I commit to an environment.
 
I'd recommend Trello. Has good integration with automation services such as Zapier and is easy to use with a good mobile app.
 
Don't really like any of them. They all lack features for my purposes. Asana is pretty simple and easy tasklist, but like any of them, there is a lack of customization.
 
I'm a big fan of Google Spreadsheets. For personal stuff I use spreadsheets to track what I'm working on and what's in the pipeline. For shared projects I create and share a spreadsheet with the people I'm working with. This works really well for me.

I've dabbled with a few different management systems in the past and I don't like how I always feel like I spend a lot of time organizing and not a lot of time working. I also don't like how I feel trapped on other systems and I don't fully own or control my data.
 
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JakeStratham said:
Sorry for the omission and thanks for the prompt.

I'm writing several books. As you can imagine, there are numerous steps between writing the first word of a book and promoting it during its launch. The steps are simple, but there are so many of them that it's difficult to manage, particularly with multiple books at various stages of development.

I'll be working with other people, but in a limited fashion. They include an editors, proofreaders, cover artists, and folks for various marketing duties. None of these people should have access to my task management environment. So I'm shying away from using something like Flow (getflow.com). It's more than I need (I think).

I've been keeping track of things on paper (I'm a Luddite). But I'm hoping to find a simple environment that gives me a bird's-eye view of all of my projects and their respective steps to completion.

The image of Trello comes close to what I'm seeking. But because I'm ignorant of task management software, I don't know what I don't know.

I'd like to get some in-the-trenches feedback before I commit to an environment.
Click to expand...

I actually do a lot of book publishing. Over 100 books up on sites now. I would recommend Basecamp and it's what other people in the business are aware of already. Its layout works better for a lot of text compared to Trello.

Trello typically works well in other fields like web dev/programming.

I'm on TeamworkPM now, used Basecamp for years though. I wouldn't recommend Teamwork because it's more complex than what you're looking for now.

Basecamp has the same simple appearance of Trello but organized in a more traditional way. If you ask me just from introducing a lot of clients to PM systems, Basecamp was the most intuitive even for people who weren't computer savvy (which you actually face a lot of in the publishing area too btw).
 
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I think the choice depends on how your brain works. If you were doing good with pen & paper you might do well with an outline based system like workflowy.com. I've been using a similar system in Emacs called org-mode.

Basically, it's infinite nested lists where each list is like its own sheet of paper. Each list item on any one piece of paper is the topic/header of another sheet of paper, to infinity levels deep.

So you can keep "zooming out" until you get to the very highest level of organization, or you can zoom in to the most minute details of any given part of what you're trying to organize as if it's the only list you need to worry about. From there you just keep breaking things down into lists of lists. You're also able to just write freeform text anywhere with basic formatting.

It gives you a lot of flexibility and doesn't really prescribe any particular project management approach while still giving you an intuitive interface for getting organized. It also scales pretty fluidly between huge projects and tiny projects.

I've never written a book but if I were going to I would definitely use an outline based organizational tool.
 
probably not an universal solution, but for my routine tasks Smartsheet works just great. Someone recommended it here and I can't imagine already how I lived without it.
 
Thanks to all of you. I appreciate your recommendations.

At slayerment and Fatbat, I never thought to use Sheets despite spending time in Drive every day. Weird. It's a solution hidden in plain sight. And I love the "feel" of working in spreadsheets, so it's an intuitive one. Thanks for the idea.

Incidentally, if any of you would like to see how one business owner uses Sheets to manage his search agency, here's a link (warning for Fishkin detractors: it's a moz link)...

Use Google Docs to Manage your Digital Projects, from Freelance to Large Agency - Moz

At Lucidity, I've looked at Workflowy. In fact, I recently turned a friend onto to it. But I was actually turned off by the interface. My friend's comments mirror your own, so I may have been hasty in dismissing it.

At golan, I've never heard of Smartsheet. It seems to be a little more than I need. But I'll definitely take a closer look.

At JulianTrueFlynn, thanks for comparing Trello and Basecamp. That's helpful. I used BC years ago, and wasn't keen on it. But that may have been due to my ignorance regarding how to use it properly. I'll take another look at it.

JulianTrueFlynn said:
I actually do a lot of book publishing. Over 100 books up on sites now.
Click to expand...

Damn.
 
I am using a combination of two: Kontact's kOrganizer plus Calligra's Braindump (if it wasn't obvious, I am a Linux user).

In short, I use kOrganizer to keep a to-do list and BrainDump to create a visual mind map of the track I need to follow... It's very useful to understand "the big picture" which caused all the items of the to-do list.

About the to-do list, I would add one tip: Atomize it. Every little task should be there so you... (a) won't forget and (b) feel the pleasure of striking it out once it's done.

I hope this helps. :)
 
Evernote, and Wunderlist for daily tasks.

Curio looked cool as it is so customisable and visual but it is just for Mac and not mobile.
 
I'd recommend to consider Basecamp as personal task managment app.
I'm also using google spreadsheets and best of it that it is easy to integrate with Analytics API
 
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