It is quite common to feel overwhelmed and disorganized when working on projects or managing projects. ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and task management software to keep things organized, increase accountability, communicate more efficiently, and keep everyone on the same page. It is one place for all your projects, teams, and work-related information. A long time ago, Things was my first task management tool as a new Mac user, but with the slow development times at Cultured Code and a lack of sync support, I made a move to OmniFocus. For the better part of 5 years, I never gave Things any further consideration. When I first tried Things 3, something clicked for me. Trello, Informant, and Todoist are probably your best bets out of the 27 options considered. 'Works well for visual thinkers' is the primary reason people pick Trello over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision. Get more work done with Planner. Create Kanban boards using content-rich task cards with files, checklists, labels, and more. Collaborate in Planner and Microsoft Teams and check visual status charts—all in the Microsoft cloud. Empower everyone on your team, no matter their role or expertise, to. Easynote is another easy-to-use task management tool which is nicely affordable. It provides you with the tools to create, assign and track tasks. Targeted at both everyday users and businesses.
- Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools Free
- Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools Excel
- Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools
I’ve never found a task manager app that worked the way I wanted it to.
My frustration with Fantastical as is task manager is in order to have a task with a due date you have to have a reminder. A lot of times I don’t want or need reminders but I do sometimes want a due date. This led to constantly rescheduling reminders.
In Things, I can create a task with a due date and no reminder or with a reminder. I can also have tasks that I can through in Someday (kind of like a bucket list) or Anytime.
When I used Todoist it never felt right. It was too advanced for my simpler task management needs. I hated seeing unimportant tasks from the day before show up as overdue the next day and then have to reschedule them.
In Things, tasks placed in the Today simply move to the next day when unfinished.
The Upcoming view lacks the level of detail of Todoist, but I never used those features anyway. All I need is to glance at what’s coming up in the next few days, and that’s what Things 3 provides. Tasks can be easily dragged from one day to another, and each day has its calendar items displayed here as well for a sense of how busy I’ll be.
Things 3 just feels like it’s made for the way I think about tasks.
Check it out. There are Mac and iOS versions of Things 3 and sync works across all your devices.
Our life is about goals. Rare person lives without an ultimate aim or a dream bird fluttering somewhere over a horizon. But reaching this goal implies performing thousands of petty tasks, everyday chores, meetings and actions. Planning these activities effectively is what time management is about. Actually, time management is not exactly a right word since we cannot manage or control the given time but can only manage ourselves, our actions to fit into the time limits. That is why some prefer 'life management' or 'tasks management' terms.
Basic idea of tasks management is to organize your daily life so that you could easier and quicker reach your ultimate goals. However, only a bunch of disciplined minds manages not to lose their hearts dealing with complex time organizers, schedulers and heaps of papers. The majority of common people consider them an attribute of corporate life while still too boring and time-consuming thing to implement in a daily routine.
Here's another idea: no day without planning. The main reason for this is that human memory abilities are very limited in terms of simultaneously stored elements. It was found that most of us can hold no more than 7 (±2) objects in a short-term memory. Which inevitably means that we have to put some of our thoughts or tasks in paper or type in a computer. Thus, we free the brain from burdened need to remember irregular stuff, for example, that August, 12 is your aunt's wedding anniversary.
Another reason for daily planning is that it dramatically saves your time. The idea of GTD (Getting Things Done) is getting very popular nowadays because thousands of disorganized workers and housekeepers have found their peace and harmony only due to the free time not spent on planning and memorizing. They now have got a chance to use the time more effectively on creativity or just having a rest.
Getting Things Done is a method created by David Allen and described in a book of the same name. GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.
![Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools](https://static.macupdate.com/screenshots/239814/m/things-screenshot.png?v=1600362543)
Here are the basic principles of GTD:
- Collect your ideas: capture everything (stuff) that is necessary to track, remember or take action on and put it into a so-called 'bucket': a physical inbox, an e-mail inbox, a tape recorder, a notebook, a PDA, a desktop, etc. This will make your head off-loaded and prevent information overflow in a situation of abundant choices, tasks or events.
- Process the stuff: determine whether some action needs to be taken or not. If a task is doable (i.e. takes less than two minutes): a) DO it immediately, b) delegate it, c) defer it.
- Organize: if a task does not require action: a) define next action, b) file it for reference, c) throw it away, d) keep it for possible action later, e) put it into 'someday/maybe' list, f) wait for other actions or events to complete.
- Review ('tickler filing'): all outstanding actions, projects and 'waiting for' tasks should be reviewed at least once per week, making sure that any new tasks or upcoming events are entered into the GTD system and that everything is up to date.
To-do lists: advantages and tips
Generally, to-do lists are lists of paper or computer files where you write down tasks, planned activities in relation to a certain date or a period of time. To-do lists provide a number of important benefits to your regular planning:
- organizing your life: increase efficiency and therefore productivity, allowing more time for leisure.
- setting priorities: in to-do lists you may focus on the most important tasks and items to improve productivity and achieve more goals much faster. Prioritizing allows to give the most important tasks more attention, energy and time. Having your tasks prioritized also means that you know exactly what will you do next when this or that stuff is done.
- coordination of similar tasks: avoiding repetition of labour. For example, if you have to bring a document to some department and inform its workers on planned meeting, these two tasks can be done altogether.
- tracking progress: mark off the tasks you have completed. This can be especially important when you are engaged into some self-development trainings or processes that involve several concessive steps.
- reminding: being placed on your refrigerator (in case of sticky papers) or featured with audio notifications (in case of electronic devices) it will remind you on all important tasks beforehand.
10 Basic tips for tasks management and creation of to-do lists:
- Find the right method of keeping your to-do lists: some people like putting tasks down by hand on tear-off papers, daily planners or A4 lists while others use Excel spreadsheets, Outlook bars or special software tools that can create tasks, track their performance, play sound notifications and perform other useful functions.
- Prioritize tasks: put your tasks in order of importance/urgency and give higher priority to the tasks that get you closer to your goals.
- Be realistic: check if you can really accomplish the task you are getting into. Be also sure that the task is actual for the planned period of time.
- Be specific: each item on your list should be an understandable, short and measurable task.
- Break down complex tasks into smaller manageable pieces and focus on one at a time.
- Group and categorize similar tasks: for example create several to-do lists by categories - purchases, meetings, events, etc.
- Delegate your work: if there are other people available who can help you with your work, ask them to help you.
- Be flexible and not too much detailed: remember that the tasks may sometimes be interrupted or delayed, so allow some variations or reserves for them.
- Leave spaces for unexpected activities: you may not know exactly what you'll need to do, but if you plan the time to do it, then other important things will not get pushed out of the way when the demand arises.
- Make to-do lists a daily record: at the end of the work day, take the time to review the day's accomplishments, cross them off of your list and plan your work for the next day.
Many time management experts advice to introduce a system based on a carrot-and-stick principle: think of a reward you'll get in case of accomplishment and sort of punishment if a task will not be completed by the end of planned period.
It is also a good idea to evaluate regularly how you are spending your time. In some cases, the best thing you can do is to stop doing an activity that is no longer serving you so you can spend the time doing something more valuable. Consider what you are giving up in order to maintain your current activities.
Advantages of MindDecider's task management tools:
- easy creation of to-do lists
- setting priorities for tasks (GTD)
- arranging tasks in order of importance and selection of the most important tasks (GTD)
- adding comments, pictures and hyperlinks
- applying attributes for tasks for measuring and monitoring
- easy placing of tasks on a timeline and tracking their progress
- unlimited number of tasks (GTD)
- categorization of tasks and subtasks (tasks tree)
- preset checks, question and other marks
- zoomed in/out calendar showing periods from hours to years.
Click here to download a sample project of weekly to-do list created with MindDecider's task management tools.
References:
Things 3 4 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tools Free
- David Allen, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, Penguin (Non-Classics), 2002.
- Morgenstern, Julie. Organizing From the Inside Out, Owl Books, 1998.
- Marc Mancini, Time Management: Business skills express series, McGraw-Hill Professional, 1993.
- To-Do Lists: the key to efficiency (MindTools.com)
- Getting started with 'Getting Things Done' (43folders.com)
- A Primer on Getting Things Done (7pproductions.com)