I’ve had a greater need for project management tools and apps as my business expands. Today’s round-up of tools are my primary ways for managing various projects, processes, and tools.
Things
Designed to follow the “Getting Things Done” approach but not sponsored by David Allen, Things is a collection of projects. In addition to synchronizing to tasks via iCal, Things has the ability to sync to iPhone and iPad devices as well. By collecting all my “to-do” ideas into action items in Things, I can organize them and get on with life.
Basecamp
Basecamp is the best item-by-item project list for clients. Rather than a long chain of email exchanges, clients can have their own unique logins. All exchanges regarding projects can be tracked inside Basecamp via the web or mobile devices. Documents can be stored, checklists created, and team members assigned to complete the projects. Clients can be granted access to view and/or modify various parts of the project as well.
I keep templates of typical client projects in my Basecamp. For instance, if I am setting up Google Apps for 4 clients in the same week, I want my routine checklist of information I need to gather available to me and the team. This can be then assigned to each client I am doing this for.
Remember the Milk
Whether you need to keep a grocery list or a routine set of tasks, Remember The Milk is an easy and free option. I use Remember The Milk entirely as a web application, though mobile applications exist. In it, I keep my normal social media routine.
Remember the Milk is also a great project management application when sharing tasks with co-workers. Lists can be shared with other users or made public, such as my social media routines. While you can track projects here, or keep repeating tasks in Things, I prefer this to be my springboard for all the sites I review daily. I want to open plenty of sites in a quick order, so RTM does well for me.
BusyCal
Yesterday I mentioned that I prefer BusyCal to Mac’s iCal for to-do lists. BusyCal still works with iCal, but in one view i can see my to-dos and schedule. To be clear, in GTD’s approach, to-do items are not the same thing as meetings on the calendar. However, I keep my calendar usually open to alert me about upcoming calls and appointments and like to keep the tasks and to-dos visible between the calls.
Mac Users Tip: Thanks to CalDev and WebCal, I can share BusyCal and iCal seamlessly with Google Calendar. My To-Do lists from Remember The Milk, Things, and Basecamp can be displayed in BusyCal for me and each stands alone on my iPhone. I still don’t sync my email locally, but use Gmail for all my mail needs. I can also see my Remember The Milk in Gmail.
How are you managing your projects? What tools, applications, and systems do you suggest? Leave some comments below:
Related articles
- David Allen’s advice on making GTD simpler to adopt (gtdtimes.com)
- Coming soon from 37signals: Basecamp Next (37signals.com)
