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Looking for advice/opinions on Task & Project Management apps


N00B

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Hi Evernoters. First post here, so please excuse any genuinely stupid mistakes on my part.

 

I use Evernote pretty consistently for note taking (duh), web clipping, and turning emails into to-dos. It's this last one that I'm looking to expand my capabilities on. I'd like a SIMPLE 3rd party app for task/project management that would:

  1. Run on iOS, Android, and web browser. Of these, frankly the web browser interface is the most important.
  2. Flag items in Evernote to create Tasks (and in a perfect world, groups of Tasks as Projects). Another bonus would be for these Tasks & Projects to carry Tags & other attribution from Evernote over to the Task/PM app.
  3. Organize and assign dates & people to Tasks & Projects
  4. Share Tasks & Projects with at least five and as many as 10 people on my team, through the web interface. Allow those team members to update status, add comments, alter dates, etc.
  5. Be able to view Tasks & Projects as either grouped lists or Calendar events. Integration with Google Calendar, iCal, etc. preferable, but a native Calendar view would be adequate
  6. $0 cost for my team, $0 or minimal ($5/month) cost for me as the PM lead.

I've looked at Azendoo (nice, but pretty simplistic), Asana (requires another app for Evernote integration), Zendone (can't figure out what this one can/can't do from the web page!), and SmartTM. Based on the above requirements, what would you Evernote geniuses recommend?

 

Thanks in advance for helping out the N00B.

 

***** 10-Jul-14 Update to my original post.

 

Again, thanks to everyone that's provided input & ideas. I've decided to pilot using Azendoo for a couple quarters & see how it works out. Why Azendoo? 

  1. It's free for me & my entire team (although I'm only piloting it for myself & my six direct reports).
  2. The Evernote integration works well, although you cannot (yet) create net new tasks in Azendoo & have them show up in an existing Evernote note.
  3. It has a functional web client. Not everybody on my team has an iOS device, and some of the other apps are platform specific.
  4. It's functionality is simple enough (in other words, pretty limited) that we won't be tempted to over-complicate our task and project tracking goals. 
  5. Out of the box it supports the kind of collaboration on tasks - albeit very simplistically - that I need to keep my directs on task.

So… thanks again and if anybody is interested they can ping me on "how's it going" in a couple of months.

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The only one I'm familiar with is ZenDone.  I use it every day and I love the Evernote and Google Calendar integration.  I don't think it's as strong on the group and team integration that you are looking for.  But, for a personal productivity app focused on the GTD method, Evernote, and Google Calendar, I think it stands out.  It doesn't have a lot of bells & whistles but focuses on providing a framework to practically and efficiently use the Getting Things Done concepts.

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  • Level 5*

Hi - firstly a 'simple' to-do system is a contradiction in terms;  a good system is a combination of diary, social media,  reminder process and database - and even with Evernote doing the heavy lifting for the database bit you're going to notice the learning curve.

 

Second - it's a very personal choice:  unless you're running a collaborative system here in which case you need to ensure that the system into which you eventually buy does exactly what you need it to.

 

I've just taken a vow of task-management "poverty" having spent too much time in the recent few weeks debuting some of the various options.  I'm back to Excel and a mind-map.  Designer systems have too much of a learning curve and too many bells and whistles and I lack confidence that I can remember to process everything I need to every day.

 

That said the App Store (see my sig) has a few Evernote-friendly entries,  and Azendoo and IQTell currently seem to lead the pack...

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I'm also looking for a task managing software that actually works. I tried all the task scheduling apps in the market. I have noticed that everyone are saying they are market leaders but none of them was able to satisfy our business needs.

Recently, I have come across one such app from Replicon. It allows to distinguish between our planned meetings, routine tasks and our project goals. So many different calendar options are available to stay organized. I'm going to try out this application.

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First, thanks to everyone for their input and ideas. A couple of things I probably should have put in my original post are:

  1. I have a LOT of experience with enterprise project management tools (most recently Primavera)
  2. The core problem (IMHO) with enterprise tools is their need for complete and accurate data at the lowest level
  3. This granular data requirement requirement basically kills any ability for a manager like me to quickly assess the impacts of changes in priorities. Why? Because it's basically impossible to keep that much detailed data updated sufficiently, so any analysis based on it can't really be trusted.

So, since the bottom-up approach described above simply doesn't work in my environment, I'm looking for top-down tools instead.

 

Thanks again for your input and ideas, and I understand the perfect solution does not exist. Just hoping to leverage ideas and lessons learned from this community.

 

Thanks!

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Evernote gets a bad rap when it comes to task management, I do not think its justified - personally I love it for managing tasks, and it delivers according to my needs. I have tried many dedicated task managers, but have come back to Evernote for the following reasons:

 
- I use evernote for everything in business, from meeting notes to contacts to starred emails in gmail to business ideas, to product details, I like to keep things simple and usable and Evernote delivers for me on task management too- I  use their reminders feature in a "2do" stack where I break down business & personal 2do's - it works very well, sorry for those who think otherwise..
 
Other reasons it works for me:
 
- meeting notes can make reminders if contain actionable items quickly and easily
- I really enjoy working within evernote
- syncs very well (after learning the hard way with Wunderlist which lost all my subtasks a while back )
- one place not switching between systems
- one system on Evernote makes everything a lot more visible
- presentation mode is awesome :)
 
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  • 1 month later...

I have been back and forth on To-Dos and Evernote integration for almost 1 year now.  Tried Omnifocus for iOS, Wunderlist, Trello, Informat, etc.  I keep coming back to a Notebook called To-Dos, with individual Notes for Todos <insert month>, Proposals Needed, Customer Action items.  Everything is in one notebook on all my various devices and OSs, all in Evernote.  

 

Sigh.  Until the Elephant comes out with a new add in, I'm sticking to what works. 

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  • Level 5*

I have been back and forth on To-Dos and Evernote integration for almost 1 year now.  Tried Omnifocus for iOS, Wunderlist, Trello, Informat, etc.  I keep coming back to a Notebook called To-Dos, with individual Notes for Todos <insert month>, Proposals Needed, Customer Action items.  Everything is in one notebook on all my various devices and OSs, all in Evernote.  

 

Sigh.  Until the Elephant comes out with a new add in, I'm sticking to what works. 

 

"Whatever works for you"...

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