Two Awesome Digital Apps for the Analog List Maker
A review of two project / task management apps for organizing day-to-day to-dos as well as tracking larger projects.
This article was written by featured writer Ashlee Christian
Over the years it’s safe to say that I have experimented with just about every project/task/life/time management tool in existence. At my core I am a list maker, I derive great joy from writing down a task with a little corresponding square, and filling that little square with a neat little “x” when all is said and done. While the analog lists will always probably be the most psychologically satisfying thing to me, it’s certainly not the most efficient.
Simple lists also fail to capture the details involved in a task, it can tell you what your ultimate goal is, but it’s certainly not going to break out sub-tasks or milestones. Furthermore, my cute lil’ post-it notes do not integrate with anything other than a 3 dimensional surface, which is handy sure, but it has very obvious limitations. Since I have cobbled together a rather messy assortment of full time and freelance work, I needed to cobble together tools and methods that worked for me for ALL of the kinds of projects and tasks I did, a Goldilocks Zone of efficiency if you will.
Google Keep is the most recent addition to my arsenal. It’s been around since 2013, however, I had never heard of it, or ever heard of folks using it. It’s a pretty basic note taking / list making app that doesn’t have a whole lot of frills, but what it does offer, it does very well. At this point, it has become an invaluable part of my day-to-day full time work, and completely replaced analog lists for me (RIP hand drawn check boxes).
Here’s why it’s great: Anything that integrates into the Google suite is a win in my book. I do literally everything in Google Drive, so having something that I can open easily from my email is ideal. It has very few frills. It’s basically just digital post-it notes, however, you can turn those notes right into Google Docs or set follow-up reminders that will integrate with your calendar / email.
It has very basic color formatting and labeling which allows you to keep things sorted either visually or by label (or both!). I have my Google Keep sorted by my favorite list style: Today, Tomorrow, Someday. Which helps me prioritize shit that absolutely must be done NOW, stuff that can wait until tomorrow but still needs to be done, and things that I have sitting on the back burner that I don’t want to forget about, but that aren’t pressing.
While Google Keep is great for helping me keep track of the easy day-to-day tasks, Asana is my go-to program for keeping track of all my freelance projects. Since I tend to do multiple projects for the same clients, I have my clients listed out as “projects” and each project that I do for that client is listed as a “task”. Within each task I can customize when it is due, add collaborators, and connect it to the corresponding project in Harvest so that I can keep track of hours.
Here’s why it’s great: Asana is an amazing and powerful tool for both solopreneurs and small teams. It allows for so much collaboration within the program as well as through the Slack integration. Best of all the free version has pretty much everything you’ll need as a freelancer. You can add up to 15 people to your account for free which is AMAZING for working and communicating with clients.
As a freelancer, I use Asana to keep a more detailed project list including notes to myself about when I last reached out to the client, client feedback, etc… However, having used it with teams as well I can say that it’s a remarkably powerful (and very reasonably priced) project management tool.
Freelancers, what apps and methods live in your project / task management Goldilocks Zone of efficiency? Share them in the comments!
