Master Projects The Zen Way

Nowadays most of us work on projects or manage them. It doesn’t matter if it is at work or at home. We all have projects such as planning for a new release, press launch, website update, (charity) event, wedding or holiday. Most likely you have multiple projects running concurrently at work and at home. Next, to that you probably have to-do’s such as get flowers for a new colleague, stop at the grocer for fruits, send the press release on time, call that important person and so on.

Get Things Done

Sounds familiar?
It seems we all have busy lives!

A lot of things need to happen at a specific time or others (colleagues, family and friends) are waiting for us or things go wrong. Planning your to-do’s and projects are important to provide an overview and make sure the right thing is done at the right time. Often you want or need to involve others in your projects to get things or projects done.

What Is The Right Tool And Method?

There is a multitude of task/to-do-list apps and tools around. My personal preference is a clutter-free, simplistic and visual tool. I have worked with many in the past. Whenever you are in a hurry, face it, we’re always in a hurry, you don’t want fancy animations bothering you and forgetting what to-do’s you want to input. Or you forget your notebook to note down info.

In the ExperTeaser Slack Group we have a dialogue on what is the best project management tool around. There is no ‘the best’ productivity methodology since these are subjective. There are many methods available that tailor to specific solutions such as a mind map, Kanban flow, to-do, calendar, Gantt chart, agile, sprint etc. Visualization helps in creating overview, prioritization, planning and execution.

We had a discussion should on what tools you should work with such as: Trello, TeamWork and Slack. People tend to not want to use to many tools and a reluctant to change. Since change means, learning a new tool, investing time and de-learning another tool. I have been using Zenkit for a while and started using on a more day to day basis lately.

Get A Grip On Your Life

Zenkit is a relatively new project management tool that combines different views, import and export functionalities in one tool. This article aims not to be a full review of the Zenkit but want to open your eyes to a possibility of seeing multiple views in one tool that improves and enriches your productivity. The tool is available online, via mobile (iOS & Android) and desktop apps (macOS & Windows) and works for individuals and teams.

Productivity is an increasingly important factor in our busy lives at work and home. What doesn’t help is working harder because that doesn’t get you to the finish line.

You need to work smarter and apply techniques such as:

• The Japanese Kanban (invented by Toyota) helps to get tasks done
• Mind maps help you to generate ideas, create an overview and see connections between ideas
• A simple to-do list suffices to note down and schedule when needs to be done
• A calendar allows you to see and plan what needs to be done by when
• The table view allows you to import a large amount data to organize

Zenify Your Life

Before Zenkit you needed a few tools to do all this. It allows switching between views with one click, making it a tool that saves time since you don’t need to re-inputting data. Is Zenkit the holy grail of project management? Maybe not fully, but the developers seem to be working towards an all-in project management tool with continuous feature updates. A few drawbacks: there is no Gantt view (yet) and no recurring tasks.

Zenkit: less tools needed, more overview, prioritize and get the right things done at the right moment (with your team).

Try out Zenkit for free and you might discover an array of nifty solutions in a zen and clutter-free environment. It worked for me and I have closed down my Trello, Wunderlist and reduced the number of mind map tools I use.

Don’t know where to start? They have a fully workable mars colonisation project installed so you can see all features in full swing.

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Alexis van Dam

is a member of ExperTeasers Group which is a Slack.com hosted platform where (non-)similar people meet each other for exchanging ideas, views and insights in the areas of media, marketing, communication, innovation, organization and entrepreneurship. Not only sharing information, but especially the discussions lead to better results. ExperTeasers Group stimulates dialogue, feeds the conversation and inspires thought formation outside of its own frameworks. Different, better, durable.

Photos use are from the Zenkit Press kit