Best way to manage my TODO's?
Netanel Benami
15 replies
I tried everything. Notion, notes, monday.com, sticky notes, and reminders from Siri. I didn't find a satisfying solution, and I don't know what to look for. Suggestions?
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Garland Coulson (Captain Time)@captaintime
Can you tell us more about what the drawbacks of the ones you tried are? What came closest? What was missing? As a time management coach, I work with a LOT of task systems for my clients, so I would probably have some insights for you.
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@captaintime Such a cool profession Garland! Thanks for your comment.
First it might be valuable to mention that I am in the marketing field.
The main drawbacks in the tools I mentioned is the ability to attach sub-info to tasks or projects, and I think the main reason I couldn't stick to any of those is the visualization of the work I need to do. Means, when I start my day and approach to my task management tool, it is not clear where should I start, or how should I manage the different tasks. I'd love to hear your insights!
@netanel_benami From this and your other comments, I am guessing you want a clean look and the ability to visually create your day. You could have a look at Microsoft Todo which has a nice "Add to My Day" feature you can use to build your day from your existing task list.
I work with a slightly different approach:
1. Time Blocking using Google Calendar - first I block off the time for each of my projects in Google Calendar - https://captaintime.com/google-c...
2. Any Task System: Then I work on the highest priority tasks within that time block until the time block is over. Then I move to the next project.
Another nice, minimalist task management program is ZenKit ToDo. https://captaintime.com/zenkit-t...
If you are a dev who lives in the command line like me :) you should check out CLI-based todo lists such as ultralist. Ever since I have started using it, it has made me much more efficient as there's no reason to even leave the development enviroment to an extenral site or application.
I recently build otxto because I wanted contextual todos per project. It sounds pretty similar to @danielshinall suggestion
based on your comments it sounds like trello with the calendar view plugin might be good to try.
Pomofocus.io/app
It really depends on your wishes and goals. I usually use Google Calendar as a task manager together with all meetings I need to follow.
@serhii_uspenskyi So basically you set a task as a schedule? How do you manage projects that include many sub-tasks?
@netanel_benami Yeah, this is about my personal-related tasks mostly. If we talk about some project things, I usually use Trello Boards and Hubspot CRM. These tools helps me a lot in managing projects and other tasks.
I use a spreadsheet with the following headers:
Type, Component, Priority, Task, Description, Status, Comment1, Comment2, Comment3...(and so on if I have more notes to add)
This has been working really well for helping me to keep track of things.
Occasionally, however, I'll get started on a new feature, where I'm building fast, and at those times I just write easy to-dos on pen and paper.
Some of those may get copied over to my spreadsheet if I don't knock them out quickly.
@danielshinall Sounds easy! I am glad it works for you. I managed a team in the past, using spreadsheet and one thing that freaks me out - is the difficulty of managing a clean look for it. Somehow, when you copy-paste fields/make changes, it masses up the design, and I guess one of my issues is that the tools I mentioned are just doesn't look "good" enough or require too much work to customize. Thanks for your comment Daniel!!
@netanel_benami ah, yes, my spreadsheet is just used by me.
If I was working with a team, it likely would be a pain for some people to use and keep up with.
But I use different colors to visually separate my three 'Types' (currently just the three) - 'Backend', 'Front End', 'Task'. And different colors to highlight my 'Priority' and 'Status' options.
It took just a little bit of time to design, but it's actually been pretty easy to keep up with, and very helpful visually.
I understand what you mean about copy/pasting, and that changing the formatting in some places.
I've pretty much resolved this issue by just learning one hot-key! Cmnd+Option+V will paste the 'Format only' of a cell. So if I copy paste some text to a new cell, and the colors/fonts are off, I Copy a cell with the correct format, then use the 'Format only' pasting to correct it's styling. It's pretty quick and easy!
I'd be happy to send you a copy of my spreadsheet - empty, but with all the fields, colors, and a legend key. Let me know!