Task management help.

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 5, 2009 at 11:53 AM

Jim,

I too have a Mac at home and a PC at work, so I’ve looked at some cross-platform solutions. One that seems elegant and simple is to use TaskPaper on the Mac:

http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper

and its PC counterpart, ToDoPaper:

http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/

First, the disadvantages:

1. You’ve got to buy two different programs at $30 each (although I do think they offer specials at times).
2. You have to depend on two different programers to keep their programs up to date.

But here are the advantages, as I see them:

1. These are simple, elegant programs, easy to learn and use.
2. They each create a simple, sharable text file that the other reads just fine, so you can use a web cloud program, a USB drive or just e-mail the file back and forth to yourself. You can download the text file to your Palm device and refer to that, as well.
3. The system is fairly flexible. Implement a hardcore GTD program or something less stringent. Whatever works for you.

Now my disclaimer: I don’t do this myself, because I personally do not like having to do lists. I’ve always been pretty good about keeping it in my head. In fact, when I do write down what I need to do, I am usually not disciplined enough to check my task list regularly, and therefore—ironically—I’m more likely to forget what I need to do. BUT, if I were to begin tracking my tasks, this is the system, and these are the programs, I’d try first.

Hope this adds some grist to your mill.

Steve Z.