Keeping Track of All of Your Tasks? 99
An anonymous reader asks: "I work for a Fortune 500 Company as a Unix sysadmin and at any given time I may be working with 10 different project teams, each with their own milestones, tasks/to-dos, notes and reportable status. I'm constantly losing track of tasks that I need to do, notes I've taken and status reports that I've written. I've tried paper solutions, PDAs, Microsoft Project and groupware type stuff and nothing really seems designed to allow me to track mulitple project with mulitple tasks and to-dos as well as keep up with the status and notes that I generate from each of these tasks. How do you keep it all straight?"
it takes practice (Score:1, Insightful)
first, you need basic organization skills and then maybe you will be ready to supplement those skills with software.
Hardware can help! (Score:2)
So...I bet as soon as someone rigs up one with a hard disk drive and a voice-controlled filing system, saving AND quickly finding recorded memos will attract a lot of buyers.
Re:it takes practice (Score:2, Insightful)
My guess is that donniejones belongs to a group of creative problem solvers who simply are less capable of staying organized in a systematic way - perhaps that "disability" is precisely what makes them (us) good problem solvers.
In the good old days I suspect such people would have had a personal secretary assigned to deal with all the paperwork, deadlines, schedules, mail, etc so the
Xoops + xHelp (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Xoops + xHelp (Score:1)
E-mail (Score:3, Interesting)
I just made subfolders for each project and to-do list. then if someone wants me to do something and they're yelling it at me i just say "Send me and e-mail with it" that way i sit down, can organize it. or if i need to put something on a to-do list. i e-mail it to myself.
Might not work for you depending on your spam count but for me it works perfect. And if spams an issue how bout just making an internal e-mail account to handel just that.... call me lowtech but it works for what i need.
Re:E-mail (Score:2)
Sometimes, lowtech is best. I find myself too often getting caught up in the wow-ness of technology that I find myself not actually using the technology. You know, getting excited about features, extendibility, wizz-bang stuff, but not actually using it as it to get stuff done. (The curse of a bleading-edge technophile!) My biggest hurdle is finding somthing that works and works well, but doesn't suck me into is inner workings, distracting me from its usef
Re:E-mail (Score:2)
So simply putting your email into different folders wo
Re:E-mail (Score:1)
As for organization by day i still use folders. lots of folders. one for each day. so if i get something on monday that needs to be taken care of on thursday i forward it I put it in my thursday folder mark
Re:E-mail (Score:4, Informative)
Living in text files:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7567 [oreillynet.com]
Plan first, tech after (Score:5, Insightful)
(Then jump straight to ShadowPlan [codejedi.com]... heh heh..)
Re:Plan first, tech after (Score:2)
Anyway, I just tried beta of ShadowPlan since the web site looked promising... the prc installs fine on POSE w/ Palm Vx emulation 3.5 ROM.
But on running and trying to create a "File" It crashes all over the place with pointer exceptions.
New, type a filename, click OK, then you get:
Shadow (4.2.1) just read from memory location
0x00004D52, which is in an unallocated chunk of
memory.
Hmm... too bad it's not open source, I'd be tempted to make some bugfixes.
-- John.
Re:Plan first, tech after (Score:1)
Re:Plan first, tech after (Score:2)
Having said that, I don't doubt it will get fixed sharpish. The writer of ShadowPlan is VERY on the ball, if a little insane in his business practices.
Will.
GTD that doesn't sound like an Amway convention (Score:1)
Geeks using GTD on Macs:
http://www.43folders.com/ [43folders.com]
A great merger between GTD and 7-habits using a PDA:
http://www.dkeener.com/keenstuff/index.html [dkeener.com]
Re:Plan first, tech after (Score:2)
-- John.
Re:Plan first, tech after (Score:2)
Another vote for that book (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone else commented, learning to organize takes practice and I do have a way to go but I have already seen a significant jump in my organization and productivity since I read the book a few months ago and started using some of its ideas.
As you say, it's "tech agnostic" - it's a book about
Re:Another vote for that book (Score:2)
The seminar isn't about hyping products, thankfully. It's really go
Re:Another vote for that book (Score:2)
If it works for you, great. I haven't had much luck with the pre-printed organizers although I could see that for certain specific job categories or styles they could be quite useful.
It's not that the Palm is the end-all either. Mine had pretty much become a paperweight until af
Re:Another vote for that book (Score:2)
Re:Another vote for that book (Score:2)
Also, I current use the "hipster PDA" with the NextAction SPADE app: http://trimpath.com/demos/nextaction_static1/next
Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:2)
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:2)
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh, all well and good until your next project that has several thousand(!) discrete tasks spread out over several dozen people and at least another dozen or so checkpoints/milestones for integration with other projects that you, by the way, have no control over.
It's very nice to be able to print out a Gant chart that's about 10' by 10' so you can visually demonstrate to the powers that
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:1)
If that's your situation, and you're using MS Project to deal with it, then we should all offer our sympathy.
Personally, I've found MS project inadequate for planning even small things, and most of your time is spent trying to manage the project m
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:2)
I'm not saying it's great, but it does the job. My only real objection to it is that it's a Microsoft product!
So, now that we know you don't like it, what do you use?
(As an old boss used to say, "C'mon guys! Don't give me complaints - give me solutions!")
Re:Only very slightly related to the topic... (Score:2)
You also might want to check out Gantt Project [sourceforge.net] which is a java Gannt drawing tool. It does tend to be, in the way of java GUIs, slow. But if you have a well specced machine or do not need huge charts it should do you just fine.
Sharp Zaurus & K/OPI (Score:5, Informative)
I went out and bought a Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100. Google it. They're a great PDA, clamshell design with a real keyboard you can actually use. You can get one cheaper if you look at the SL-C3000 or SL-C1000 models.
I'm using the K/OPI package todo function to do all my task tracking. It includes start dates, percent completed, etc. I blieve you can sync it with KDE and if you want to fuss with it even Outlook.
Every week I look at my list of completed tasks and copy that information down as my weekly status report.
Putting the PDA on WIFI gives me ssh access and I can actually get into boxes and look at things to answer question during meetings.
It's a great solution for a UNIX admin.
--Chris
B-B-B-But.... (Score:5, Funny)
Hipster PDA. (Score:2)
Yes, it requires some organizational skills, but there isn't any system that will effortlessly make you organized if you naturally arn't organized.
Just switch jobs every few months... (Score:3, Funny)
Mike
Outlook (-1, flamebait) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:My manager (Score:4, Funny)
When you grow up and become an adult you no longer need your mom to yell at you to manage your projects.
You'll have a wife doing it.
Re:My manager (Score:1)
When I was CTO of an interesting Caribbean comms company I found trusting staff to do their job was vital to getting anything done, part of this trust is to trust them to keep track of their own milestones and projects. Seriously, the best way to keep track of things is to have a good team and work together.
Get some Ginkgo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get some Ginkgo (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
And "Hello!" to the nice folks at the unemployment office!
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
If you are known for good work you can negotiate your workload/assigned tasks. I've been doing this for 27 years.
Check it out!
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
It's called "Humor" my friend...
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just plops on the ground and stinks up the place...
Honestly... (Score:1)
And on a more useful topic... for a long time I used to have my homepage setup such that the center section (bounded by links, quotes, and news) highlighted all my upcoming activities. Everything from birthdays to deadlines. I didn't keep up with it mostly because I had to hand edit it at the time and I hadn't learned P
Sysadmin's little helper (Score:1)
Re:Sysadmin's little helper (Score:2)
How 'bout:
/etc/rc.d/coffee restart
GTD TiddlyWiki (Score:3, Informative)
A single GTD might be enough to manage all the projects, using Tiddlers for notes and such. It's a single file that can be carried around on a stick, and needs a browser to be edited, so it might be simpler to set up than a more complex server-side tool like Trac [edgewall.com] (which you might look into, although I don't know how good it is for non-software projects).
Biggest drawback of GTD TiddlyWiki seems to be the lack of timelines. These might be implementable via macros if/when GTD will use the most recent version of Jeremy's TiddlyWiki.
Time Management, not Document Management (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone in my company is aware that I need to do this paperwork and it gets factored into the time I can spend on doing a task. In other words, if the PHB pops into my cubicle and asks me to change the font on a web page, he knows it's going to take at least an hour.
I suspect your problem isn't so much that you can't find one solution, it's that you can't find enough time to fully utilize any of the solutions you do have. Even a plain old notebook works wonders if you have only one task to do each day and can devote several hours to managing your records for that task, each day.
My suggestion is... and I admit it's paradoxial; jot down on a piece of paper the "title" of each and every meeting minute, form, document, record, spreadsheet, calendar entry, whathaveyou that you create or access during the day, for a week.
Then go to your boss and say "I have to create, modify or review this many artifacts in a typical week, and it takes X hours of my time (where X is a rough number). Either reduce my workload so that I can complete all of the necessary paperwork, or consider dropping some of these artifacts."
The important thing is that you're describing the cost of doing business. It's up to your management to decide if the value of the paperwork you produce outweighs the cost. I would imagine there's considerable value in a change log, especially if you apply patches every day, but in contrast, a status report that no one reads is a waste of company resources.
XPlanner (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have to be eXtreme to use it. We're not.
Wiki and plaintext (Score:2)
There's an article here, Getting things done with VooodooPad [mistercharlie.co.uk], which combines the GTD concept. I've got my own notes here [celsius1414.com] as well. I use the app for meeting and project notes, and the auto-linking wiki goodness puts it all together.
Lately, though, I'm experimenting with the single plaintext file [celsius1414.com] todo list using
TiddlyWiki (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, that said, I'm currently using a customized TiddlyWiki [tiddlywiki.com] at work to track tasks, notes, and other useful information tidbits that I run into on a daily basis.
TiddlyWiki [tiddlywiki.com] is a single, self-contained, self-updating, HTML file that contains HTML, JavaScript code, CSS data, and the content data all wrapped up in one file.
The content presentation is Wiki-like, but differs in that the linked content (called Tiddlers) opens right on the same page, in context with the calling text instead of one page at a time. This makes working with and navigating the content very useful and easy.
Its new Tag features let you organize the data, and it has a built-in Search feature that's quite quick. In addition, a new Macro feature has been developed to allow for feature extension by simply creating additional Tiddlers containing the appropriate extension code. Lots of new Plugins have been and are meing developed. Its community of users [google.com] and developers [google.com] is rapidly growing.
TiddlyWiki [tiddlywiki.com] just has a real coolness and elegance about it that's hard to match. But most importantly, it's useful!
[self-serving plug]
I set up a TiddlyWiki Tips site [tiddlywikitips.com] with some Tips on using and customizing it.
[/self-serving plug]
Re:TiddlyWiki (Score:2)
Unix-way... (Score:2)
http://www.rc0.org.uk/tdl/ [rc0.org.uk]
It is a very small TODO manager, it manages tasks which are described by date, priority and so on. The most interesting part is that its hierarchy is mostly based on directories in filesystem, so you can have different TODO lists per project tree etc. It is also a text based application so it can be easly binded with shell scripts and entire unix userspace... Quite nice.
I've tried a lot of similar (by tasks that they want to accomplish) tools, GUI,
I've had great luck with track+ (Score:2)
It is a bit rigid, but if you have any coding skills you shouldn't have any problems.
I like it is web based, others here like its reports.
It has things like role seperation; so you can allow a developer to log bugs, bug not close bugs; or allow test engineers to close bugs, but not open new ones.
Over all a nice little system. Never had any problems over the last year or so using it, or more impor
TaskPerfect (Score:1)
http://www.taskperfect.com/ [taskperfect.com]
Discipline (Score:5, Insightful)
Any of these systems will help you, but it is imperative that you get into the habit of writing or entering details and logged items immediately when they happen or are brought to you.
I suspect that only half of what you need is being entered into MS Project or whatever system you have tried, with you relying on memory to fill in the gaps.
That seldom works well, especially when handling multiple complex projects.
Kontact (Score:3, Insightful)
Trac (Score:1)
Are you new here? (Score:2)
(This is less insane than it sounds, interestingly. Grep is a powerful tool.)
Anyhow, I too am a fan of GTD (see above posts), but that is of no use to you at all as it is totally agnostic as to how you store your stuff, it merely insists that you must store your stuff in something that you trust absolutely.
Of course there is a deeper truth here that fancy tools do not fix bad processes, they just h
Use a group wiki.. (Score:2)
Anyway, I'm finding it really cool having a tasks page, and separate pages for each project. Makes it real easy to copy/paste from emails and docs, add bookmarks, even pasting into Word for status updates. Having the history is handy for reviewing what I've done. And it's all o
big freaking whiteboard (admittedly low tech) (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're really busy, get 2 big freaking whiteboards.
Re:big freaking whiteboard (admittedly low tech) (Score:2)
On the plus side, I was out sick for 3 days once and no one noticed I was gone because the whiteboards were there.
Re:big freaking whiteboard (admittedly low tech) (Score:3)
Whining 'I've got 100 tasks in my to-do list and 250 unread mails' doesn't have the same effect on job-droppers as a wall covered in post-its, scribbled reminders and illustrations of dripping knives to highlight the 'important' tasks
Of course, if you're not busy, it's a dead giveaway - but no-one ever cheks to see if what's on there is accurate
Mark
One word - Ecco (Score:1)
Project management tips (Score:2)
You're having trouble managing all your projects. Take a project management class. Don't necessarily go for the certification. Then take a time management class. Get those fundamentals.
On the topic of an organizer, organized people can make just about anything work, disorganized and undisciplined people can't make the most simple and efficient system work. With that said, I enjoyed the Q4 [q4systems.com] (a Franklin Planner type of system) as long as I followed the system precisely. If started skipping steps, then I
Zentrack (Score:2)
ok ok (Score:2)
If the teams are trying to make you work within your team structure that's a separate issue to task management. You need to inform them of the task management structure your department uses, and have them submit requests for work under that structure. If your deliverables are project deliverables, they c
10 projects at a time is too many. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately the OP could be reporting to 10 managers (or more). In a matrix organization (I work in one) you have a "line" manager, who owns you, and project managers who have money and hire you to do work. When the project is done, they "go out of business" and your line manager helps make sure there's more work in the pipeline. If I work on 2 projects, I have at least 3 bosses-- one line, and two project. If I worked on 10 projects I'd have
Franklin (Score:2)
I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I am a happy customer of fifteen years.
-Peter
Above & Beyond from 1soft (Score:1)
It supports multiple projects and tasks, with text notes behind each. The downside is that it's Windows only and doesn't run under Wine, so it may well not be any use to you.
EPM Tools would help (Score:1)
Possibly massive overkill, but what about RT ? (Score:2)
Re:Possibly massive overkill, but what about RT ? (Score:1)
The ultimate solution (Score:2)
Tiny Task Manager (Score:1)
No Problem! (Score:1)
Have one (1) boss.
Have one (1) girlfriend
that's it! whenever you are within earshot of either of those two people, THEY will tell you exactly what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. The why they keep secret on a "need to know" basis..... They are completely capable of accounting for your time 24/7, so you don't have to sweat it!
%^(
Re:No Problem! (Score:1)
Have one (1) girlfriend
I don't know...being married and having a girlfriend can get pretty tricky.
Backpack! (Score:1)
Paper not perfect? (Score:2)
This usually works well by just using multiple pages of a notebook for different subject; post-it's stick you know
I usually leave a decent margin on the left so I can numerically prioritize them should the need arise.
It also helps to
Orchestra (Score:1)
knotes (Score:2)
1) You don't have to save
2) you can access it from the taskbar (it minimizes as an applet)
3) a lot of things for quickier finding: you can rename, change background color, put always on top
But you can't put images. For urls you can, as in any application, just select them and middle click on a browser window.
Too bad you don't want it for Open Source. . . (Score:2)
Of course, it's mine so I'm biased.
** Martin
Sunbird (Score:1)
Ta-da List or Backpack (Score:2)
Getting Things Done (Score:3, Interesting)
DIY (Score:1)
i mean if you can't get a PDA or microsoft project or outlook to organize your projects, then you are either completely retarded or suffer from a very unique situation that no one else's solution will solve. certainly ask slashdot isn't the place... these people obviously have problems with their work schedules to be bothering themselves with your problems.
PlannerMode (Score:2)
In the spirit of the endless text editor wars, may I recommend the emacs planner mode [emacswiki.org]? But seriously, if your personal choice of text editor is emacs, then this really is the major mode worth looking into for keeping up with your tasks.
Do less. (Score:2)
Simple internet sites (Score:1)
Populicio.us pointed me late last week to voo2do [voo2do.com], and I am impressed.
Shameless plug for Brett Walker [vertabrett.com]
Ahh *perfect* (Score:1)
I'm also a sysadmin, and I find myself with the same problems in logging and keeping things organized. A couple of issues that I haven't seen any project management app address include:
1) Overlapping projects (i.e. projects which shar resources such as computers or software components) with contextual views. If I want to make a note about the Exchange server's antivirus autoprotect status, I want this particular system (and the note I
Two suggestions (Score:1)
2. Use your favorite source code control application to sync text files with your
Multiple task management (Score:1)
I had the same problem; so I built a product. (Score:1)
I agree with what many others said: getting a handle on this is more about personal discipline than software. But software can help develop good discipline.
I wrestled with this problem for 15 years. I started as a developer, became a product manager, then a VP, then a CE