[continuing from Task Management - Part III]
Last time I wrote about Task Management I was struggling with finding something that I could use to apply my (admittedly odd) way of mixing Task Lists and Project Management. After much experimentation I found myself back to using OneNote for the particular project I was working on. I made the post here and moved on.
It wasn’t 2 days later that I realized OneNote just wasn’t the answer to all my prayers. Don’t get me wrong, I find it very powerful and perpetually underrated — it truly can be many things to many people. But aside from my one desire to blend task and project management, everything else I do with it is rather similar to swatting a fly with a buick. Overkill. And sharing my OneNote files over a VPN got to be a bit tedious.
Two weeks later, I realize I’ve been spending most of my time in ZohoPlanner. Right where I was before my “big switch” back to OneNote. Blogger, thy name is fickle… But yeah, it just works.
I have multiple pages set up for various purposes. A page for general work stuff with a “Do it Soon” task list, a “Someday would be nice” task list and a section for random notes. Each client gets a Page with, at a minimum a task list. The ability to email files in to become attachments is quite nice too (each planner page has its own email address, sweet!). I have some pages for assorted in-house projects as well.
Wish List Item 1: I’d love to be able to organize pages a bit more than I can. There’s no page “hierarchy”. Would be nice to have a “Client” page and then have sub-pages of projects (for example) underneath. Tagging pages helps, to an extent I suppose, but I’m not quite sold on it.
Wish List Item 2: Be able to attach files is awesome. Would love to see some tighter integration with the other Zoho Office products… like a simple way to add a zoho sheet to that attached files list. Embedding would really rock! Today’s zoho blog post has me hoping for it.
I also have pages set up for Home stuff (aka the “honey do” list items, reminders, etc) and for my blogging. Notes for article ideas or fragments. Task lists to remind me to take care of various things. Oh, and one last page with just notes for some quick copy/paste of commonly asked WordPress Support questions. Eventually, that’s stuff I’d blend into the codex, but for now this helps.
At first I was nervous about having tasks in (sometimes multiple) lists on all those pages. But I’m now in the habit of putting due dates on the ones that need them. Each morning I just check the built in “Reminder List” and see what’s coming due. [updated for clarity: that's under "To Do's Overview" and is a slick little calendar view] On the more critical tasks I add a reminder and get an email notification ahead of time.
So there you have it. I think I’ve settled on my “main” organizer. I’ll still use a bit of OneNote from time to time I imagine, but in general, this one’s working out quite well.
Previous Articles in this thread
- Going back to (mostly) paper
- Another run at Task Management – Wallnote
- Task and Note Management – and a glance at Zoho Planner
- More Task Management
- Task Management – Part III
Apparently this is something often on my mind!
Possibly Related posts:
Thanks for switching back to Zoho Planner
Your wish list items sound fine. We will soon be addressing embedding of Zoho Sheet into Planner. Folders/Sub-folders may take time though.
And there is an update of Planner coming up with a few goodies like collapsible todo lists & more.
[...] Last week I snuck a couple wish list ideas into a post on task management. I’ve got two more that should have been there but I had spaced off until now: [...]
[...] Seems like I’m always looking around for a new or interesting way to keep track of task lists. I’ve even had a series of posts on the topic (here’s the most recent). I stumbled over a new option earlier this week and finally had a few minutes to poke at it this evening. TaskFreak is the name and tracking tasks in a GTD type fashion is what it seems to be all about. [...]
[...] of OneNote — in fact, I’ve tried to make it work for me in the past as task tracker (with little success). I still use it constantly for notes and such though. I even have a handful of “shared [...]