My project management tools - April 2016

Early in my post-corporate days I wrote a detailed post on how I expected to do project management going forwards. Since then I’ve experimented with various tools and services.  

Today I updated a Simplenote/nvAlt [1] summary of my project management tools including how I archive completed (or abandoned) projects. All of these tools have multiple substitutes on iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS so I’m hopeful this toolset approach should work for years to come. Sometime I’ll write an update on my methodology, it basically shifts between Agile-Kanban and Agile-Scrum. Lately more Kanban than Scrum, but I go back and forth.

Principles
- minimize proprietary data formats and data lock (or at least tool lock) - always have an exit strategy
- archived indexable by Spotlight
- easy backup and restoration [Trello fails here, it’s the tool I’m most likely to replace.]
- integrated with Google Calendar
- scales to single person or team projects
- formal project archiving process

MacOS
- create a folder in Project hierarchy
- in some cases also have a shared Google Drive folder
- I don’t make much use of Tags in MacOS at this time.
- Mac file folder has aliases to nvAlt Simplenote, Trello (URL), MindNode (in iCloud Drive), may contain Scrivener files if a writing project, presentation files, etc.

Simplenote/nvAlt (iOS, Web, MacOS)
- Create a simplenote entry for the project, tag it with project.
- Simplenote title has prefix “Project: “
- Describe the project and where things are
- Define project tags: use tags in OS X file system
- project tags have prefix p_
- save as text file in project folder when completed

Trello - Agile Project Management (iOS and Web) (review)
- create Board for Project
- 2 lists: Queue, Active
- when Task/Card Done archive it
- Milestone Cards have dates
- Cards can have checklists
- Subscribe to Calendar on gCal
- Print as PDF when completed and export JSON

MindNode (MacOS and iOS)
- release planning, hierarchy, overview of project (alt OmniOutliner)
- store in iCloud drive but create shortcut
- export to PDF when completed

Scrivener (MacOS)
- for writing projects

Google Calendar (Trello project calendar, iOS, MacOS)
- scheduling and time/capacity management
- project calendar to PDF when completed

Google Drive (iOS, MacOS)
- for collaborative file sharing projects

Email (iOS, MacOS)
- Gmail with web interface and MacOS Mail.app IMAP client.
- Drag and drop selected emails from Mail.app to desktop (creates standard file) to a folder in MacOS project (“Mail Archive”) 
- Careful use of Subject lines to optimize search, typically I don’t file emails or use tags with emails. 

- fn - 

[1] nvAlt is post-maintenance but it still works on El Capitan. Simplenote still has active development, but search has been broken on the Mac app for over a year. I’m not worried because I keep all my notes in plaintext; I have multiple exit strategies. (Not including Apple Notes.app, it needs an exit strategy, a backup strategy, and significant updates. None of which I expect from Apple in its current state).

See also:

• Trello - an orientation review 11/2013, updated 4/2016
• Tools: emulating (Rally) Agile work using Appigo ToDo.app and ToDo Cloud: 7/2015, includes extensive links to productivity posts, Getting Things Done and so on.

GTD: Email to task with Toodledo

There are a lot of things I don't love about Toodledo. I really, for example, dislike their lack of full text search.

It's good then that they do some things very well. Import and export for example.

It's even better that they do one very important thing extremely well. You can mail a task into Toodledo.

Ah, you're not impressed? You think other task management services do this?

Perhaps, but so far only Toodledo does it right. I use this all the time. When I email someone and I want to track the response, I BCC my secret Toodledo task address. I create tasks from just about anywhere I can generate an email.

Creating tasks by email is a killer feature.

See also:

GTD series:

• GTD: Introduction to a series
• GTD: Create appointments not tasks
• GTD: Creating a project vs. editing a persistent task
• GTD: grouping tasks into Projects using Context with ToDo.app and Toodledo

and elsewhere ...

• Gordon's Tech: Toodledo gets it 8/2008
• Gordon's Tech: Toodledo: How you can give me the search I need with your current architecture 9/2011
• Gordon's Tech: Email to Task: Remember the Milk gets it wrong, Appigo and Toodledo do it right 10/2011
• Gordon's Tech: Tasks from Palm to iPhone via Toodledo 9/2009
• Gordon's Tech: Using Outlook Tasks: a mini-tutorial 8/2008: I don't use Outlook for personal tasks, and I switched from using Outlook tasks to focusing on creating Appointments - but that's a longer story. Work and home are different; I need a task list at home because they are small and opportunistic.

GTD: grouping tasks into Projects using Context with ToDo.app and Toodledo

Emily and I started using Appigo's ToDo.app on our iPhones years ago. In those days Toodledo didn't have an iPhone app and ToDo didn't have a web app.

Now both Toodledo and Appigo market both web apps and iOS apps. Alas, Appigo hasn't figured out how creating tasks by email should work, and I don't like Toodledo's iOS app. So I still use ToDo.app with Toodledo. It works pretty well, and now that Google has turned Evil I'm happy to avoid their world.

It works pretty well -- except when you want want to group a series of tasks as a project. The project models for Toodledo and Todo don't mesh.

Most of the time this doesn't bother me -- I like to edit and move forward tasks rather than create small projects. Sometimes, however, a complex project deserves a set of tasks.

Since the Toodledo and Todo project models don't sync, I instead steal the "Context" feature - which both ToDo and Toodledo manage similarly. A "Context" is supposed to be a location or environment for doing a task; but I've never found this "Getting Things Done" idea very useful. These days I have a computer everywhere, and that's the context for most of my tasks.

So instead of a list of "Contexts" I have "Projects" that group tasks. The UI and views are very efficient for this purpose, and synchronization works perfectly.

See also:

• GTD: Introduction to a series
• GTD: Create appointments not tasks
• GTD: Creating a project vs. editing a persistent task

GTD: Creating a project vs. editing a persistent task

Both Appigo ToDo (app/web) and Toodledo Pro (app/web) have the idea of a "project" that can contain subtasks.

For small projects I don't bother with the overhead of project creation and task maintenance. Instead I create a single task that I edit when I complete a 'step' in the project. It lasts the life of the project.

Each time I complete a step, I edit the task to add a new "next step" and I date stamp the completed step. I also keep short notes in the body of the task note.
For example, if the task is "Update Passport" I might have the following my "notes" section:

• schedule photograph
• download form
• complete form
• schedule appointment .. etc.

In practice I don't usually write out all the next steps. I just write out the one that's up next. For A tasks I may schedule a calendar appointment too.
Similarly I don't bother with repeating or recurrent tasks. I create one task, and just reschedule it as needed. My "pay visa bill" task has been moved forward one month at a time for years. (Periodically I delete the list of dates I paid to shrink the notes section).

See also:

• GTD: Create appointments not tasks
• GTD: Introduction to a series
• Appigo Todo.app and Todo Online: best solution for most
• Toodledo: power user solution, best import/export/integration. Lacks full text search (!).

 

Why does Apple suck at calendars?

Apple can produce decent software. There are, for example, some nice improvements in Lion. Lots of bad stuff too of course, but eventually we'll see 10.7.4 as a good OS. iWork is buggy and into heavy duty data bondage, but it shows some thought. iOS is elegant.

Calendars though - they are really bad at Calendars. 

There was a brief time when Apple did Calendars well. Ok, not Apple, but Claris - which has been in and and out of Apple over the years. Claris Organizer was pretty good. It was, I believe, during the Apple 2.0 era, when Jobs was gone.

During Apple 1.0 and Apple 3.0 though, when Jobs was around, every calendar app Apple did was unspeakably bad. iCloud sounds no better than MobileMe calendar -- and they were just bad. iCal for OS X is beyond miserable. iOS Calendar? Try setting a two week alarm so you get a birthday gift in the mail. Right. You can't.

I haven't read Jobs bio yet, but I've read the excerpts. My guess is the man hated, from the very depth of his soul, boundaries. Being told what he had to do when. I suspect the only way he ever made an appointment was because he was rich and powerful enough to have people whose entire mission in life was to manage his time.

I think that's why Apple sucks at Calendars.

Apple 3.0 was a reflection of Jobs. His virtues, and his defects.

Apple 4.0 is a different show.

Maybe they'll do better at Calendars.

GTD: Create appointments not tasks

Since nobody will make the software I want I often have to choose between creating a task and creating a calendar appointment. Sometimes I do both, but mostly I do one or the other.

If it's a task I really need to get done (A) I schedule it on my calendar. I don't create a task. When I schedule it I add a note on what I want to do and what the next steps are (if any). I schedule the time I need to do the work. Sometimes there are some related tasks, but I try not to get fancy.

B Tasks are things I want to do. Sometimes I need to do them, but I may not have any capacity to schedule them. I put B tasks in my task/todo software and I usually assign them a target date based on their size and my predicted capacity. If they get more urgent I make them A tasks and schedule them (so in this case I have both a task and appointment, but it started as a task).

C Tasks are often ideas or future projects. Sometimes they're important, but can't be scheduled (too big, too expensive, etc). C tasks are a "backlog" of work. Periodically I purge them if they don't get done, but they mostly sit quietly in the queue, not bothering anyone. A C task can be promoted to a B task -- and it might even get a date. Or, if time/money arrives, they go straight to A.

See also:

• GTD: Introduction to a series
• Appigo Todo.app and Todo Online: best solution for most
• Toodledo: power user solution, best import/export/integration. Lacks full text search (!).

GTD: Introduction to a series

With this post I'm starting a 'gtd' labeled series of posts. GTD is an acronym for "getting things done", a productivity methodology that was fashionable a few years ago. It's less fashionable now, but it will return under another name. After all, the base approaches have been rebranded many times over the past two thousand years.

These will be short posts - shorter than this introduction and much shorter than my old GTD posts [1]. I'll space them out. If you're interested you can experiment and add things to your own way of working. If you're not interested, they should be easy to ignore. There won't be anything truly novel - this ground has been well worked.

Posts will focus on things I've done since at least 2004. I'll mention the tools I use, but the main focus will be methodology. Each post will be limited to one component spanning tasks/projects, calendaring, and email. They will incorporate my more recent experiences with Agile development methodologies.

See also: [1]

• Getting Things Done and Managing Email with Lookout for Outlook 2004
• The Fallows Summary of Getting Things Done (GTD) 2004
• Getting Things Done: integrating the Outlook add-in with Palm synchronization across multiple machines 2004
• Google - please give me tasks that appear on my calendar 2009
• Using Outlook Tasks: a mini-tutorial 2008
• What the iPhone needs is Gorilla Haven’s DateBk6 2009
• Tasks and calendar items - what I'd like 2009
• Task management: a feature request 2008
• Inbox zero - mastering email 2010
• Inbox zero - zero - at last 2010
• Toodledo gets it 2008
• TAGBAG Dashboard Widget: spotlight metadata management 2005
• Ed Eubanks articles on OS X task, project and data management 2009