I received an email today (surprise!) from a blog reader on an aspect I have never written about – managing my tasks. The question was (snipped for clarity),

“Hi

I need some software/tool to manage my tasks. I am not yet ready for frameworks like GTD, but need something that can help me in my daily work.”

I thought the best way to respond to him was to show him how I managed my tasks myself. Out of my response grew this post.

Over the past few years, I have tried many ways of keeping tracks of tasks. The ol’ paper, spreadsheets and even MS Project (that was truly overkill). Within these mediums, I invented new ways of managing my work. It didn’t work. And one day, it happened. I read the book Getting Things Done. I was excited, because the book showed me exactly what I was doing wrong.

My mistake was a common one – I was not capturing all inputs and transferring into a written form (I don’t mean “written” literally, of course). I dutifully downloaded some GTD software, bought a moleskin and sat back for a smooth ride. Oops.

A couple of months later, I realized I was doing worse than before. Now, I left the mechanics of GTD and delved deeper into the principles and philosophy. What did I find? I had trusted my capture system, but was not really capturing all of them, I couldn’t do contexts right and more importantly for me, I was not breaking up composite tasks.

In my frustration, I threw out everything and started with paper and pen. One thing I learned is that it doesn’t scale up well. After asking around in forums and speaking to a lot of people, I decided to simplify and create my own version of GTD. A bit of planning and introspection told me that there are a few important things to keep in mind

Image courtesy Klaxon

  • Break out composite tasks (or what GTD calls Projects) in as much detail as possible with separate end dates for each of the sub-tasks
  • Self-appointments don’t always work, as I work with large teams and there are a lot of on-the-fly interactions (I wouldn’t take the more negative word “interruptions”)
  • Use your smartphone for the really, really important tasks and personal tasks
  • Use Weekly reviews consistently (Read this article from StepCase Lifehack on how to do them well)
  • If you can’t note down some idea or task immediately, record it in your phone and then transcribe it. Schedule it on your phone as well with a reminder.

My biggest problem, thankfully, was finding a simple software that could handle my projects and tasks effectively. After a lot of installations and un-installations, I found TaskCoach, developed by Frank Niessink and Jerome Laheurte. It is a wonderful piece of software that, unlike many other task managers, can handle composite tasks very well [It is also free and comes with a GNU license].

TaskCoach can track effort through its built-in clock, has pop-up reminders, color coding based on completion dates, filters and other great features. You can add attachments and notes to your tasks and the most helpful point for me – I can drag Outlook items to create new tasks quickly with the email as an attachment

With this software, I have not missed any dates, although I still have to improve in the “ubiquitous capture” aspect. After the stabilization period (I have set 6 months and in month 4 now), I am planning to move on to the next level of GTD.

Resources:

  • If you want to know more about GTD, get the book here or the audio series here
  • If you are more of a visual person or need an image to get the big picture, here is a good one
  • A simplified version of GTD that has become very popular is Zen-To-Done (ZTD) by Leo Babauta

How do you manage your work, with all the complexities of modern life? Do you use an electronic system or paper or a hybrid? Let us know in the comments.