Who masters the Task Master?
Posted on September 15, 2005, under General.
Over the years, I’ve discovered my personality type really struggles with task lists. It’s not that I don’t like accomplishing tasks; There is a great feeling in marking something off and seeing progress. I just really struggle with task lists. Finding a way to keep track of tasks that I enjoy or at least will find that I consistently use has been hard. This was made more obvious to me when I married a woman who was raised on Franklin planners. I’ve come to think I need a task manager that isn’t invasive, and let’s me focus on getting stuff done, rather than focusing on entering tasks.
E-mail
I’ve gotten in the habit at work of just using my inbox as a task queue. This works pretty well. If something is in my work inbox, in theory, it’s something I think I need to reference in the near-term future, or it’s a task/issue that needs to get handled. I generally am able to keep my inbox clean and prune out old stuff to file away or delete. I am in my e-mail everyday, which keeps reminding me of existing tasks. So using my e-mail inbox at work as a task queue ends up working out decently for me.
My personal e-mail client on my home machine is another matter. Personal e-mail is different in nature, in that a lot of the e-mails are conversational rather than task driven. Also, once I download my e-mail to my machine, I can’t access it anywhere else. Just on my home PC. Plus I don’t prune my personal inbox out as much, because I usually want to do something else with the few waking ours of the evening at home. In that environment, e-mail doesn’t serve me well as a task list manager.
Handspring Visor (like a Palm Pilot)
The Visor was somewhat handy. It was mobile, you were able to have categories, due dates, priorities, sync it up with your PC at home and work, etc. On the downside, it didn’t quite fit well in any pockets, so it was hard to carry around. Plus, the core software started acting up, crashing the system and eating batteries. Too valuable to lose, too hard to carry, and it just finally became a portable canker sore.
Mozilla Sunbird
Mozilla Sunbird definitely has potential, with its task list and calendaring combination. I got into using it for awhile, but there were still bugs in the software due to it being an early beta. I generally liked the interface, but once again, it wasn’t mobile. There was work starting to make it so you could sync up with a server, so I could access it from home and work for instance, but there was some issues at the time. I ended up scrapping it for the time being, but as it gets more mature I might revisit it.
Tasks Jr
Tasks Jr is a web application focused solely on handling personal tasks. What I liked with Tasks Jr is that it seems to have a good developer behind it, and I could install it on my personal home web server. No installing it on my main PC and dealing with software crashes or messy registry junk. Drop in the web files, hook up a database, point a browser to it, and you’re off. The interface was fairly snappy, and overall I liked it. The downside for me was that Tasks Jr is the free version, and doesn’t come with any login authentication/protection. This meant I didn’t feel safe enough to put it up on my public web server, because anyone who found it could have read it or even created/deleted tasks! That doesn’t quite fit my goals of getting things done. There are pay-for versions that support this, but I still struggle at this point (being a family guy) putting money down for a task list. I might put money down on a software app that included a task manager, maybe, but I just can’t do it for a lone task manager.
Nag
Horde is a set of free web applications anyone can download to their own server and use if they wish. IMP is the name of the webmail piece of Horde. Recently, I switched over to use IMP as my personal webmail client. Once I made that change, I realized I could check out Horde’s task manager, called Nag. Nag is now my task list manager of choice. While supporting categories, priorities, and due dates, the interface is pretty simplistic. It’s not noisy, and doesn’t get in my way with all kinds of options that probably aren’t that relevant to my normal to-dos’. For me, Nag has several things that make a match with my schedule and personality type:
- Normal Task Junk: Categories, due dates, priorities, task description, etc. I can also search my tasks based on the descriptions and keywords.
- It’s a Web App: I like web apps. I’m a web developer. Computers are a hobby. All make for an odd combination, I know.
- Mobility: I can access Nag anywhere I have an internet connection, and expect it to be reasonably protected from prying eyes and hands. So if I have a task come to mind at work, I can quickly add it to my personal task list for later. Beautiful.
- Simplicity: Nag just handles tasks. The interface doesn’t get in my way.
- In-my-face-ility: I’m in my e-mail every day, and since Nag is basically integrated with my webmail client, I see my tasks every time I log into my webmail. This helps me remember things I want to get done, or reminds me to add a task I’ve been mentally backpacking around.
So for now, Nag is my.. nag.. of choice. I know there are several other choices out there, but I like owning the data on my own server, and not paying for it. If some of the newer choices fit within those criteria, I might consider moving to one of them instead.
For now, I’m happy.
As an aside, if you are someone who likes paper task lists, you might check out PocketMod: The Free Disposable Personal Organizer. You can design and print out your own little planner, all from a web page!