Task managers

Posted by Graham Rhind
Apr 19, 2007 at 02:41 PM

I’ve been searching for a good task manager. Not having found much about them in this forum, I’d like to solicit any experiences from users, and express my own experiences in case they prove useful to others.

I’ve looked at about 10 packages and, inevitably, I can’t make up my mind which of the short-list to go for. I’ve tried to summarise some of the pros and cons of each below.

1) UltraRecall. UR can be used as a task manager, and it has the advantages (for me) of Outlook synchronisation, allowing nested tasks and allowing task information to be integrated into the existing data repository there. Against this is its awkwardness in use when trying to quickly add, edit and list tasks, its poor handling of recurring tasks, its large footprint and its sluggishmness.

2) TaskPilot. This is powerful, and has something of the UR about it, though task orientated. It has a busy interface, though a version 3 beta is due out within a week and promises improvements in that respect. It has Outlook synchronisation, fast data entry and sorting by user-defined priority. On the con side, it (strangely) only gives dates in the US format, even though my system is set up to show European format; and its support department haven’t responded to that (and support is very important to me in any choice I make)

3) FusionDesk. This is young software with an extremely slick interface. It has a small footprint, fast data entry, the best reporting and export options I’ve seen anywhere, and task listing by context (i.e. place), and the developer seems to have big plans. Against this is buggy Outlook synchronisation, the inability to nest tasks, poor support of recurring tasks, and no “today” view. The developer seems to be a one man band, and posts to the forum are either not answered or answered late, so I would want to see more stability before going for this one.

4) ITSD. I’m leaning towards this one at the moment mainly because of their (ADM-like) capture icon which allows dragging of text to it, which then get added as a new task. It has a reasonable interface, small footprint and good support for recurring tasks. Against this is that it has no user-defined sort or nesting of tasks, and no Outlook Synchronisation (in fact, no import or export at all!). I’ve shot off a support request to see how well they respond .... it seems that some of the best packages have the worst support.

I’m curious about whether others have any input to make on these (or other) packages.

Graham