TRELLO.COM - you create 'white boards' that are completely flexible (unlimited), editable (speaks for itself), repeatable (i had the same dilemma as you - recurring events for clients &/or projects)
EACH whiteboard comes with 3 elements to it:
TO DO / DOING / DONE
but if you want to change the headings and have 6 or 7 of them, you can do that too as its ALL customisable.
sticking with the out-of-the-box layout though, you create a new board for a type of project and put all your tasks into the TO DO section. when you start work on one of your tasks, you move it into DOING and it stays there until youve completed every individul element of that task at which point, you move it into DONE.
sounds simple, maybe even too simple, but once youve got your head around the possibilities and power of this highly effective tool, you'll realise that its strength lies in its simplicity.
oh, an important feature is that you can
allow other people access to your boards (did anyone say 'outsourcers'?)
i only learned of this free service about a fortnight ago and it was (probably) off the same bhw thread that you were looking at. checking it out, the website itself didnt really tell the full tale, but i was encouraged to spend time with it when i saw the following videos by a creative ad agency who use it for managing their clients work:
as well as this peach which shows trello boards of a talent finding company, a software developer and a venture capital business:
since then ive adopted it as my main project management tool and have customised boards to suit my needs. specifically, the way i use it, is to implement the same strategy discussed in Stephen Coveys THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE - i.e. create a 4 tiered hierarchy of tasks that fit into the following categories:
1
urgent AND important
- if a task is in this category, its an
emergency and you concentrate on it til its done. no ifs or buts. you just FINISH it
2
IMPORTANT not urgent
- ideally, your main work flow is in this category and you work at clearing your desk as fast as you can, with the primary intention of stopping anything from ever overflowing 'upstairs' into category 1
3
urgent NOT important
- define it yourself by your own senses of urgency/importance (for instance, returning your wife's 5th call of the day to tell you 'blah blah blah')
4
NOT urgent NOT important
- things that we like to do as a bit of relaxation, for me it could be visiting westhamonline.net
watch the videos and if theyre of interest, you'll find that it really doesnt take long to get to grips with it and im talking in terms of within less than 20 minutes youll have a system in place similar to the one ive described. of those 4 boards, im only really using these two: URGENT AND IMPORTANT / IMPORTANT NOT URGENT.
give it another week or so and i'll have cleared my backlog of urgent and important ;- )
ive also got other boards for specific areas of my business such as PRODUCTS TO BUY - COMPARE AND REVIEW and that will have a list of software that im thinking about buying - any new software that catches my attention now goes into the TO DO section of that board and i will look at it
when it suits me rather than there and then because im worried that if i dont act on it NOW i'll forget about it and miss out.
i check out the products, by putting them into the DOING category and i either buy or i dont. either way, that task is moved into the DONE category and i move onto the next one.
following on from that, ive got another board called PRODUCTS BOUGHT - TO BE IMPLEMENTED/INSTALLED and with this one, i put any product ive bought into the TO DO category and it sits their 'til i get round to moving it into DOING which is where i begin the installation/watch training videos etc and once completed, that task is moved into DONE.
so, in total, ive created something like 11 boards, out of which i spend most of my time on these four:
URGENT AND IMPORTANT
IMPORTANT NOT URGENT
PRODUCTS TO BUY - COMPARE AND REVIEW
PRODUCTS BOUGHT - TO BE IMPLEMENTED/INSTALLED
is my life perfectly organised now? no, not at all. what i will say is that its getting there and one of the primary benefits is that i no longer have to wonder whether or not ive forgotten anything, because everything is locked up in my cloud based trello account and i log in, open up all of the boards, see if any projects have gone past their scheduled dates (yes it happens, sometimes i dont accomplish tasks on time. honest, guv!) and then concentrate on my priorities as outlined for me by the system that ive created...
YES, im strongly RECOMMENDING that you use this......
