In today’s hectic world, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with tasks and obligations. Staying organized and on track is key to staying productive, so various task management applications have been created to help with this. Here are 10 options to consider, each carefully chosen to improve your productivity.
Task management apps are a good help in managing our valuable time, a great treasure that is not always easy to handle in the fast-paced era we have come to live in and when the new hybrid work culture presents additional challenges.
This management encompasses several aspects and approaches. Technology helps us and the software we have selected includes features of planning, allocation or tracking with which we can ultimately better organize ourselves to make the most of our valuable time on a professional or personal level.
10 task management applications
This type of software has been around forever, but in recent years a number of additional solutions have been developed and have become an integral part of the work activity. A lot has had to do with the coronavirus pandemic and the increase in remote work and its challenges at all levels.. However, its objectives have not changed since we were using paper agendas: that individuals and teams achieve the individual and collective goals set.
And the fact is that effective management will help us achieve new levels of productivity as deadlines and objectives are defined, tasks are prioritized, deadlines are set and, in short, time is managed at all stages. The following applications are just an example of the large number of existing solutions.
Google Calendar
A basic option to get started is the Google’s electronic address book and calendar.. It allows you to synchronize it with your Gmail email client contacts and thus invite them and share events. It allows you to quickly schedule meetings and events, as well as receive reminders about upcoming activities. You can share calendars very easily, in read-only or full control modes, as well as create multiple calendars for joint use with a work team.
Its interface is as simple and easy to use as other Google products, and has different views such as weekly, monthly and agenda. It supports the CalDAV protocol, which allows synchronizing calendars with third-party calendars. It is available for free for any PC using calendar.google.com in a web browser and can also be accessed from the application menu from other Google applications. It has dedicated apps on iOS and Android.
Week Plan
Create a weekly planning is a good start for managing your time. The application has its intellectual basis in the principles of the self-help book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but beyond philosophies, the truth is that its productivity rules are quite useful and Week Plan captures them in two distinct sections for tasks and goals. If you click on any day of the week you can add a new task and set its priority, important or urgent, with a priority planner that helps identify HIT (high impact tasks).
In addition to the weekly, Week Plan also offers monthly plans, daily agenda and a function they call ‘Life Planner’, which seeks to plan time off with families to friends, understanding that personal goals are as important as professional ones. There are three plans available, a free trial and other paid plans that offer additional features such as sub-tasks, analytics, SMS integration or Google Calendar.
Trello
The applications of project management are other good tools to organize your time. Trello is one of the most valued, because it allows you to organize the tasks of a work team, a professional or a user for the personal or family environment. Simple and powerful, just create a board to add lists with cards, dragging and dropping between them to update the project in real time. Its organization is extremely visual and you can see a whole project by looking at the board.
It allows you to post comments or upload files from a local computer or from cloud services and easily manage from small to large projects. It has paid and free versions, on-line versions from a browser and also desktop clients for Windows and Mac that bring features such as keyboard shortcuts, desktop notifications, the ability to set prioritized boards and others.
GQueues
A useful application for the calendar organization and integration.. With the look and feel of Gmail, it includes repetitive tasks, partial tasks, sharing, collaboration, comments, labels and prioritization. If you use a lot of Google tools it is a good option to take advantage of them, especially the Workspace suite.
The basic features of the app are available for free, although it has personal and business plans.
Toggl
A tool for weather tracking which includes project creation, client and team management, various workspaces and reporting tools. To start tracking an activity, simply click on the timer, assign a name to the task and click on the action button. You can also add tags for better organization.
Toggl offers integration with other applications, such as Basecamp, Asana, and GitHub. It has Web and mobile app access, with a free version and also a paid version with additional options.
Chanty
Focused for use by smaller teams that need to concentrate on shorter tasks, it is a all-in-one collaboration platform and a built-in task manager that also has its own chat system and supports video conferencing. The application allows you to convert messages into tasks, which can then be assigned to any team member, and filter by status, dates and people.
Allows to discuss any task in a related stream with relevant team members in separate conversations and can be presented as a Kanban board or as a task list. Very easy to set up and assign them, it also offers integration with third-party applications. A free plan for small and medium-sized companies and a paid enterprise plan are available.
SmartTask
Another good tool for project and task management. with which to plan, track and assign tasks to team members. It has added CRM and chat features, allows you to create custom reports, and offers advanced search and reporting on workload and performance. It has a powerful interface, yet simple to view between multiple views with list, calendar, dashboards and timeline.
It offers a free trial and different payment plans, general or customized for each client.
RescueTime
If you prefer to use a desktop application for time management.RescueTime is a good choice because it is available for Windows, Mac, or Linux platforms (as well as mobile platforms). Once installed, it tracks time spent to calculate the degree of productivity based on web pages visited and applications used in each category, which can be customized for each user.
It offers options for goal setting and has both free and paid versions.
Todoist
It is one of the task managers most popular task managers on the market. Very similar to the now defunct and popular Wunderlist, as this one allows you to plan and organize simple tasks of one person or large tasks of a work team. You can set color-coded priority levels, due dates and reminders, task assignments or notes. It also offers collaboration features, making it easy to assign tasks and workloads.
It is available as a free version via Web and mobile devices, and has additional paid options that offer additional features.
Microsoft To Do
Speaking of Wunderlist, you can’t miss its direct replacement as Microsoft acquired it and leveraged its technology and team to develop it. Like others on this list, it is a cloud-based task management application synchronized with its Outlook email client. Of course, it stands out for its integration with Office and Microsoft 365, the most widely used productivity and collaboration suite in the IT industry.
It allows users to manage their tasks from anywhere via a browser as it is cloud-based, although it also has an app for Windows, macOS and Android. It is completely free and only requires the use of a Microsoft ID account.
