Personal task manager with graphic feedback

Posted by Graham Rhind
Nov 15, 2009 at 12:31 PM

Thanks Pierre Paul, I can see that would work for a lot of people, and any feedback from the software is always a plus. I’m actually looking for something more graphic which doesn’t rely on my own input.

Let me try to explain using screen dumps from Watership Planner (http://www.watership-planner.com), which is the closest to my ideal I’ve yet found.

I can add tasks to WP and, like most task managers, it piles them up for me in this way:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/450542/wp1.png

For each item I can see how much time it will take, and the bar along the top tells me how much time I’ve planned in and how much is free. That would be enough for most people.

What I like about WP is that it also pops those tasks into a calendar (where I can, if I wish, also add my appointments), thus giving me a clear indication of how much I’ve planned, without me having to drag those tasks there:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/450542/wp2.png

As this is dynamic (it moves and rearranges itself as time passes and tasks get completed), I always have a very easy way of seeing how full the day is without having to look at any figures.

When I start a task I may turn on a timer, which gives me numeric (and graphic) feedback of how much time I’ve taken and how much is still planned, or I can minimise that so that I only see a small bar which counts time taken – useful.

Similarly, if I look at the week view:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/450542/wp3.png

it shows the tasks piled up, but looking at the calendar view:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/450542/wp4.png

I can immediately see that Tuesday is going to be a problem, so I should arrange a new task preferably for Sunday, which is clearer.

If one is careful about turning on the timers one can later get an overview of how the day actually went in terms of timings, and make adjustments accordingly:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/450542/wp5.png

I like WP and have a license – so why am I checking for other possible solutions? Because:

1. it’s not bug-free
2. the interface is not flexible – one can’t, for example, hide completed tasks
3. one can’t have more than one timer running at the same time (obviously designed by men for men ;-) )
4. Context cannot be added to recurring tasks
5. recurring tasks are always created all at once without the option of a task being recreated after the previous one is completed (as Zoot can)

So I remain curious whether there is anything similar out there that I’ve missed.

Thanks.