Software That Shouldn’t be Ignored
July 23rd, 2008Productivity, organization, and collaboration software excite me. Just recently I decided to upgrade my task tracking system, and that is just so fun! The following is a review of some desktop task management suites. After many hours in review of online project/task management, I wasn’t prepared to go that route. We already use Trac internally for dev teams, and each of them has their own way of tracking tasks. There is just no killer project management suite as of today, sorry.
Certainly there is a fine selection of personally task management software, or so I thought. After all, mastering ourselves is the key to mastering our dreams. Let me explain what tools I tried, and my opinion of them.
TaskJuggler
This project is attractive because of its robustness. You can do nearly everything. It might very well be a pain to do it, but you can. See, this program manages tasks via its own markup. I would be able to pull out reports with any level of abstraction and specificity I wish. That’s HUGE. But a new markup to learn? Well, darn. But I figured it was worth learning because the task management landscape is terribly malnourished.
I make my way to the download page and………surprise…Linux only! You can get it running under Cygwin, virtualization, or just run it remotely on your Linux server. Gees. No thanks. Looks like a great project, but until its ported, or I move to Linux full time, I shall look elsewhere.
Nomad Pim
My hopes are once again high. This PIM is programed on the Eclipse platform. That means programmers can focus on functionality over platform robustness, and the ensuing app has great potential. The app has a short learning curve, and the interface for contacts and tasks is the same. That’s a new take, but it seems to work. You can search through your contacts quickly, and schedule tasks. Its usefulness ends there for me. When I flick on the PC, and open my task lists, I can’t have 100 tasks staring me in the face. I need abstraction! In other words, give me the top priorities. That’s the essence of GTD, except they are called next actions. Note: “GTD” suites suffer all the same problems in my opinion.
A neat start for Nomad, but that’s all. It really would leave me stressed at the end of the day from not knowing exactly what I need to be doing. I am starting to think my requirements are impossible, but they seem simple to me.
Abstract Spoon’s ToDoList
Deciding I have to disperse PIM functions into different apps, I look solely for a task management application. So many! I am not going to list everything I have tried or researched.
Do you know that I fell in love with ToDoList? It is open source, a few minutes to learn, only has minor bugs, and you can truly arrange and filter tasks. If you are looking for an app that is great for collaboration, keep looking or hire Bixly to build one that considers such usability topics as abstraction. ToDoList is magically simple and smart. Sure, it can be a bit awkward to use at times, but it just leaves these other programs in the dust when it comes to getting things done without stress. Good work!
WikidPad
For a neat desktop wiki that tries to employ a task system, try Wikidpad. It’s the best desktop wiki I have seen. Its attempt to tackle “globals” such as tasks, is darn interesting. I think my dream PIM app lay somewhere in WikidPad, just not yet. It’s rather cumbersome right now as a task or contact manager. But the idea that you can create tasks or contacts from anywhere on any wiki page is fantastic. Also, having the navigation tree decided completely by the wiki script is cumbersome. I just haven’t given thought to exactly how it should work, because the alternative is quite robust. I am truly rooting for this project.
Another program that really disappointing me was TaskCoach . It just…..doesn’t get it. Nothing is intuitive or easy, and it certainly doesn’t help me manage tasks very well. Now I am thankful to all these programmers for giving us free software, so don’t misunderstand my purpose here. I hope to save you time in your search for great software.
Also you might find collaborative mindmaping useful for knowledge management and simple tasking within the enterprise. The earliest program to do it right was Comapping .