Juggling your personal, school, and work life and actually getting things done (GTD) can be very challenging. Task managers can help you stay organized and keep you on track. There are a number of web-based applications out there that can get the job done. Most are free and allow you to upgrade for a small fee to gain access to extra features. I have collected a list of them below and graded them according to their ease of use, design, number of features, and integration with other Web applications.
Remember The Milk (A+): Remember The Milk (RTM) is my personal favorite because it integrates with Gmail, it has a nice and simple user-friendly design, I can access and edit my tasks from my mobile phone (m.rememberthemilk.com or direct messages), add tasks via email, and it offers tons of more features. It also works well with Jott, Google Calendar, iGoogle, NetVibes, Twitter, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, iPhone, and iPod Touch. In addition you can access your account offline via Google Gears and sync tasks on your Windows Mobile phone with MilkSync, which enables you the ability to sync your RTM tasks with your email client’s tasks (Outlook, Entourage). Finally, you can receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! are all supported).
Smartsheet (A): Excellent corporate project and task manager with spreadsheet design that works great for sharing live to-do lists as well. Integration with Jott and lots of features including file uploading and sharing
Nozbe (A): Very well designed project and task manager with mobile access (m.nozbe.com) and integration with Jott, Twitter, Jabber, iPhone, iGoogle, NetVibes and Apple Dashboard
I Want Sandy (A): Great personal assistant, task manager, and reminder utility that works seamlessly with Jott and integrates with many calendars (e.g. Google Calendar, 30 Boxes, iCal, Outlook 2007) and others apps (i.e. Twitter, Widgetbox, Jabber) as well.
UPDATE: I Want Sandy sadly had to close her doors and is no longer available. We will all miss her dearly.
Toodledo (A): Great task manager with many extras including integration with Google Calendar, Jott, Twitter, Firefox, iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Apple Dashboard, iPhone, RSS, iCal, etc…
Vitalist (A-): Very nice with lots of features, can integrate with Jott and Twitter, and can access from desktop using VitaDesktop application
Todoist (B-): Fairly elaborate task manager with some integration with other apps
Voo2do (C+): Nice to-do manager with some good features
Tudu Lists (C): Simple to-do list with sharing
Bla-bla List (C): Basic to-do list with sharing and emailing of tasks
RoughUnderbelly (C): Simple to do lists with nice point system integration and performance graphs to track your productivity
OrchestrateHQ (C): Basic to-do lists with drag and drop feature
Ta-da List (C): Bare bones to-do list
Tasktoy (C-): Basic to-do lists with notes
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Thanks so much for your interesting blogs I always learn so much and it saves me a ton of time for you to do all the leg work and testing these programs and task managers and much more…
Thanks for a great blog! I think I’ll go try the I Want Sandy application today.
Kevin reply on April 28th, 2008 12:30 pm:
You’re welcome, thanks for the comment
You can add wikimobile which is a java tool on mobile phone to manage your tasks (vocal tasks too) without the need of a data plan or a web connection. It is much faster, always at hand and use also the event and contacts of the phone. See it on our website!
Twitter/Share/BookmarkTry out ActionThis at http://www.actionthis.com. It not only delivers a free task management service that’s easy to use, there are also add-ons for Microsoft Outlook and other Microsoft products so the business users out there can create and manage ActionThis tasks alongside their email messages.
Kevin reply on April 28th, 2008 12:34 pm:
I’ll take a look, thanks Tim
Good list, the integration details are especially helpful. A list of about 100 to-do apps specifically focused on the GTD system are found here:
GTD Software Comparison Table
Kevin reply on April 28th, 2008 12:35 pm:
Great list, thanks Kevin
For implementing GTD you might try out this new web-based application:
http://www.gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use
checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Hope you like it.
Kevin reply on April 28th, 2008 12:36 pm:
I’ll check it out, thanks Dan
Now Gtdagenda has full Someday/Maybe functionality, you can easily move your tasks and projects between “Active”, “Someday/Maybe” and “Archive”. This will clear your mind, and will boost your productivity.
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