Time Management Software
TIME MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
In this section we will discuss different time management software setups for maintaining optimal personal productivity. The most crucial part for anyone using time management software is choosing the best Personal Information Manager (PIM, for short). With a PIM software you should be able keep track of the following things:
- contacts
- appointments
- tasks
- to-do lists
- birthdays
- email.
There exists many stand-alone PIM:s on the market, but they often lack email. I strongly feel for that you should also be able to manage your email through your PIM. Therefore, you use one of the following: Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Mac Mail or Microsoft Entourage (Mac).
In many cases your workplace will provide one of the above for you. In the following I have collected some information about products I know something about.
There also exists a few quite good web based solutions. In some cases they are a welcome complement to your main PIM.
PIM SOFTWARE
Microsoft Outlook
Outlook is the software I currently use. Outlook is quite good in managing both email, calendar and tasks. It can be configured for quite nice time management. You will find some nice tips for this e.q. in Michael Linenberger’s book that you can find in our time management books section. David Allen Company also sells a configuration report on their web site.
Clear Context Outlook Add-on
Clear Context offers an Outlook Add-on that will make your Outlook more GTD enabled. I do not use it, and it is not necessary, but I did give it a shot for a while. But even if I prefer a hand crafted plain vanilla configuration, doesn’t mean you have to. Take a look at the Clear Context site. The software ships with a complete GTD documentation, so you can start without reading a book on the subject.
WEB BASED SOFTWARE
Web based software may be the way we are going on the long term. However, as long as networks are slow and unreliable I will not recommend on-line software as a first and only choice. Still, they are a great to complete mobile setups, as they sometimes make integrations possible that otherwise could be hard to do.
Toodledo
Toodledo is a web based task management website, that requires registration. It integrates nicely to Outlook with an extra software (instructions on the site). Toodledo was one way to way integrate my Outlook to the iPhone.
Remember the Milk (RTM)
RTM is Another popular on-line solution for task management. This one does not, however, integrate to your Outlook.
MOBILE – Windows
Windows mobile phones have an advantage with Microsoft Outlook… gee, wonder why? The built in calendar and email features should integrate nicely with your Exchange server. For the tasks you will still need an external software.
Oxios ToDo List
When I was still using my HTC Windows Mobile phone, this was the task management application I used. It worked fine, and synced the tasks directly with the Outlook Exchange server.
MOBILE – Nokia/Symbian
Read about my Nokia GTD solution in a separate article. Decent Nokia phones now ship with a software called Mail for Exchange, which will integrate your mobile phone to your Outlook Exchange server for email, contact, calendar entry and task synchronization. I have written a separate article about GTD on Symbian.
MOBILE – Apple iPhone
Read about my iPhone GTD task management solution in the GTD iPhone post.
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