I have always cycled between different task management systems. In this post I discuss:
1. PAPER
2. TRELLO
3. LISTS (MS TO DO, TODOIST)
4. TOO COMPLICATED (CLICKUP, NOTION)
5. ZENKIT
PAPER
Sometimes I use a paper notebook diligently. The format I use is a large notebook (at least 8x10), lined, and I draw three columns. The left column is To Do's (e.g. mail a check, wash the car), the middle column is WORK (e.g. six client projects, with a circled number estimating the hours it will take), and the right column is INBOX.
My written tasks rarely take more than the top half of the page which leaves the bottom half for miscellaneous - I might jot down five things to discuss in a new blog, or it could be a place to scribble phone numbers I'll need shortly.
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| Lined paper notebook, 3 manual columns (To Do, Work, Inbox) |
TO DO APPS
TRELLO.
I've mostly gone back and forth on two very different To Do apps. One is TRELLO and one is MS-TO-DO.
I've used Trello for years, just to store notes as "cards" for things like movies seen or that I want to see.
But for work: I can also set up a page for To Dos. Typically, I have a left column for INBOX, a column for TODAY and one for TOMORROW, and then several columns such as WORK 1, WORK 2, WORK3, where I informally and intuitively place tasks by priority for the next several day work period or longer. (This is my version of Kanban). TRELLO has a date-due function but I never used it consistently.
I've never used Trello for more than a week or two as my main work task app.
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| Trello is a classic |
TASK LISTS: MICROSOFT TO DO, TO DO IST.
Microsoft TODO should be the go-to app. It's free. It has a Windows app and a good iOS app. Online, it gives you a lot of space for comments, links and attachments (it's sort of a storage box for the task). Basically, you get a series of lists (e.g. Work, New Marketing Ideas, Shopping, Office Tasks) and you can tap on any combination of tasks to elevate them to a home page called MY DAY (today). It also has a calendar view (in the form of a vertical list by date) but I don't use it consistently, and therefore Calendar View becomes an outdated mess pretty soon.
I've set up TODO multiple times as my main work task app, but I like Trello, I drift away after a week. An app like TODO is good for storing fairly static lists, like "restaurants I want to try" or "movies I want to see."
TODOIST is pretty similar, but recently it added a KanBan (Trello-like) options. You can have a work list of 20 items in order, but then switch to a KanBan view where you can quickly drag and drop the tasks left or right on columns you find helpful. I believe to get comment fields and attachments on the back side of the tasks, you have to pay a premium. It's web-based plus an iOS app.
One issue with list apps is that each list is basically a silo (although they might be brought together by a calendar view). That's sometimes OK - a storage list of future movies I want to see really has no business mingling with a list of client work tasks for today and tomorrow. But a Kanban view where the different lists live side beside can be much better than an index view of the classic list apps, where each list is one entry in a vertical column at the left of the window and you click on them one at a time to see each categorized list of items.
NICE BUT TOO COMPLICATED
I looked at two services that are nice, but get too complicated and in particular, break down on iOS because they are complex. NOTION and CLICKUP are very interesting, and let you switch among views like calendars and Kanbans, and importantly, you can run a full complex notes system of memos and documents, just like an Evernote or OneNote. (You might think of these NOTION and CLICKUP as as "OneNote + TODO" put together).
If you stuck with it, and committed to it, either NOTION or CLICKUP could be very powerful solutions, with all your tasks and all your hundreds of research and meeting notes under one roof.
But the task manager function is really mission critical, especially for never losing track of anything and adding things easily, and I think these apps are too complex to use on a iPhone easily. (It's 10X easier to use MS-TO-DO in iOS).
While intriguing, CLICKUP has that design style with lots of white space and tiny faint gray lettering, which somebody thought was a clever idea, but it's not nearly so clear to use and read at a glance in Kanban format as Zenkit or Trello.
TRYING: ZENKIT
ZENKIT is a new app that is more powerful (at least to me) than TRELLO.
You can use it in KANBAN view and toggle to LIST view, TABLE view (which is very similar to LIST view, the rows of the table are basically the list with a cell for each task data element making it a table). You can also toggle to CALENDAR view.
ZENKIT has several very nice features.
First, the native task cards have two HTML comment fields, and I think you can add more of them on "the back of the card." You can also add Checkboxes for subtasks.
You can sort the KANBAN by multiple labels VERY easily and intuitively. This is great. For example, if every task has a CLIENT label and a KANBAN label (what is usually called a STATUS label), I can instantly toggle between seeing the cards in columns under either form of organization. KANBAN VIEW for me uses the master status labels Inbox, Today, Tomorrow (yes, I use those manually with Kanban even if I use a calendar), WORK 1, WORK 2 storage lists, and so on. Each ZenKit card has a field for HOURS (Time) and both the KANBAN or the CALENDAR view automatically add up the work hours currently assigned to that column or day.
ZENKIT lets you have several INDEPENDENT label fields. When you view by CLIENT (a tag field I created and added my dozen clients), you see a Kanban column for each client, with active tasks on top and finished tasks below, which makes it handy if you are writing up a verbal summary of what you did for that client in the past month by skimming the top layer of finished tasks. (FN1)
Unlike Trello and MS TO DO, you don't get attachments. And you have to rely on some other software (e.g. Evernote) for memos, research, and meeting notes, which would have been integrated in CLICKUP and NOTION.
In the first pic below, my tasks are ordered by KANBAN STATUS and you also see color tags for CLIENT. (FN2) In the second pic below, I've toggled to CALENDAR view. Uncalendared tasks line up on the far left.
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ZenKit in Kanban ("Status") view
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ZenKit now instantly in Calendar view
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Many ColumnsMy KANBAN lists go wider than one screen. Here are two reactions. First, you can make the screen magnification (typically shift and MINUS) and they are still readable. Second, I realized my mouse (MX Master) has a sidewheel for left-right scrolling, which I've never used but which might be handy for these columns.
OTHERS
I've played with FLOAT, which has a monthly fee, and lets you move around projects in blocks sized by the number of hours the tasks is expected to take. Each card has a "back" with a comment box. FLOAT is a nice planning idea, but I don't use it normally. It's one of the things I try for a few days and drift away from.
TEAUX DEAUX has a style I really like, which is a calendar day by day in columns that runs across the top half of the screen, and on the bottom half of the screen, an independent series of columns you name any way you like. For example, at bottom you could have four columns which store tasks - Shopping, Urgent Work, Upcoming Work, Home Tasks - and then you can freestyle drag and drop each task onto a calendar day up on the top half of the screen. Any tasks that are calendared and don't get done roll forward overnight to land on the new day. (This almost means if you set up 6 tasks a day for a week, and and drift away from Teaux Deaux, when you come back to have 42 tasks piled up on "today.")
TEAUX DEAUX is a very clever idea, both simple enough and complicated enough, and unlike anything else I've seen. (FLOAT adds a feature to show task by hour size/height, but FLOAT lacks the lower storage area for future tasks you've listed but haven't faced yet by assigning a day.)
However, one problem with TEAUX DEAUX is there is no "back of card" - all you get is 20 letters or so on the front of the card to name the task.
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Teaux Deux: Store tasks bottom, drag to day top, that's it
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FN1
Re: Kanban Views in Zenkit:
The view style is KANBAN, the label set is CLIENT, and the top to bottom vertical sort is STATUS, where I have placed "Done" at the top of the STATUS rankings, which makes it sort to BOTTOM in this column view. See a short explanation in PPT,
here. The "Checkbox/Done" status in ZenKit isn't an independent function, it is just the tag in an existing list of your choice which is assigned as the action target of the checkbox square. For example, if you have Label Set 1 (10 labels) and Label Set 2 (8 labels) you could set Checkbox to force the label (Label Set 2, Label #4). But that means the checkbox status is only in operation as a sort function if you are sorting (either horizontally in Kanban columns or vertically) on the same label field that holds teh Done checkbox value.
FN2:
Re: Seeing Labels in Kanban view in Zenkit:
Go to Kanban, Edit, Size. As you slide left to right, more features are added to the view, first adding including descriptor text, then hours, and then any additional labels.
