I finally decided today that I have to get a handle on my task list or just go hide under a rock somewhere. Since hiding under a rock doesn’t pay well enough to cover T’s tuition (or Snickers’ rawhide addiction), I decided to go with the former.

This evening I took time off from scrambling furiously and ineffectively from task to task to research, download, evaluate, uninstall and delete various task management solutions.

History: I’ve kept my task list in my Palm software for ages. Simple and convenient with a clean interface, but unfortunately not cutting it for me any more. A few weeks ago, I moved my calendar data out of Palm and into Sunbird (Mozilla’s standalone calendar project). This was GREAT because Sunbird is iCal compliant and now I can publish and share a calendar with my daughter. Unfortunately, the task list leaves MUCH to be desired - namely the ability to set up recurring tasks.

The Quest: After testing a couple solutions tonight and realizing I wasn’t getting anywhere, I made this list of requirements. (As a project manager you would think that I’d make that list BEFORE starting the quest, but, alas, I wasn’t thinking clearly.)

• create multiple categories and sub-categories
• assign priorities and due dates
• set up recurring tasks with flexible recurrence rules (daily, weekly, monthly by date, monthly by pattern (3rd Sunday of the month), exceptions, etc.
• DEPENDENCIES! This is a big one. I don’t want or need to use MS Project to manage my daily life, but I do need dependencies Sheesh!
• manage, sort and filter on all of these things
• oh, and last but not least… not web based

The Contenders: I googled and searched and read about a lot of applications, but I’m just going to list the accomplishments and failures of the ones I seriously considered.

• Pen and Paper: Can’t manage, sort and filter effectively. Too time consuming to maintain.
• Palm: Palm has categories, but not sub-categories. It sorts on priorities, due dates, or categories and will manage recurring tasks. It does not do dependencies.
• Sunbird: At first glance, Sunbird looks like it has everything except dependencies also. The recurring task set-up is VERY COOL, but then it turns out that the recurring tasks don’t actually work.
• Outlook: Bloated and obnoxious. Never a consideration.
• Life Balance: I tried this one a few months ago and had a real problem with setting it up. I tried it again for a few minutes tonight. Technically, it started out strong. It has everything I need, but its system of entering life goals makes it impossible to manage and priorite tasks the way I want to. It has a touchy-feely algorithm that… I dunno how to explain it. This excerpt from their website probably says enough… "A task may be urgent, which means that it is scheduled soon, but still be unimportant, meaning that it does not contribute to your life’s ambitions and goals very much. Just because a task happens today does not mean that you should necessarily strive to accomplish that task."
  I also didn’t like that the calendar took up so much of the screen and I couldn’t get rid of it to make the task list easier to read.
• Orbisoft Task Manager: Good GRIEF! Almost $400 and it doesn’t do sub-categories OR dependencies!?!?!?!?
• VIP Organizer: I was so excited about this one when I first installed it… loved the layout, the flexibility, the endless sub-categories… but NO DEPENDENCIES. This was when I realized I couldn’t live without dependencies.
• Checklist: This one tracks the time you spend on tasks, which is cool. It has categories and dependencies, but no sub-categories and not a very flexible display.

For the rest of the story, see the next entry.