Simple Time Management Tools Are Best
Posted August 15, 2007 in Productivity
Over the years I’ve come into contact with various and sundry time management tools. I used the Covey system, a host of day timers, and even tried inventing my own tools. I finally gave up on time management because I didn’t want to put my life in a box. I figured if I ran out of time to do all the things I wanted to do on a certain day then I’d just pick up again the next day. I finally just started making lists and scratching the items off the list as I completed them. That proved to be the most effective time management tool I’d ever encountered.
Then I started an Internet business.
I don’t do much on paper any more. It’s all digital. So I struggled with ways to manage my time online. I have struggled with time management tools because I have found that they usually end up taking up time themselves – updating, planning, rearranging, etc. The time I took to stay organized took up more time than it was worth. I could get more done just by doing it. All I needed was a list.
I didn’t know digital time management tools could be useful. I’ve used Outlook’s calendar feature, but I don’t like it. I needed a list, a list I couldn’t put on paper. Enter Sidekick.
Sidekick is an old software program. They quit making. It’s not even available any more. But it’s a wonderful tool. So simple and it does everything I need it to do. No bells and whistles. It’s like a list on my desktop. And all I have to do is gone down the list and scratch things off when I finish them. Sometimes, simplicity is best.
The Old Man
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The Old Man is the operations manager for SEO Service Provider. If you want a copy of Sidekick just let him know. He’ll be happy to e-mail you a copy.
Related posts:
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- Selling Yourself On The Value Of Your Time
About the author: Allen Taylor is the operations manager for Blog Content Provider. He works from home managing blogs on behalf of NameCritic and owns Articles.pn, the article directory with social networking benefits.
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6 Comments
Shane
August 15th, 2007 at 6:07 pmThat’s hilarious! I know someone who’s been using sidekick since he was in Law School. It was Sidekick for DOS … he absolutely swears by it.
Me, I’ll stick with my pen and pad of lined paper. They keep running even if the lights go out.
Matt
August 15th, 2007 at 7:07 pmiGTD for Mac works pretty great for that. It basically allows you to put different task lists together (client contact, specific job tasks, etc). Slick – but perhaps a notch or two too “robust” for some :)
http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/
Jon - Freelance Folder
August 16th, 2007 at 2:26 amShane, hehe good point there, you can still check things on your to-do list even in case of a power outage.
But I’m a big fan of putting stuff in softwares and analyze stuff, I’ll probably try iGTD that Matt (thanx Matt!) linked to, looks interesting (and I’m a hardcore Mac user so)
;)
Daniel
August 16th, 2007 at 3:38 amHi, I’m moving to the same direction. I can only suggest one more simple tool AcePlanner (http://aceplanner.com).
Old Man
August 16th, 2007 at 9:42 amThanks for sharing your resources!
Bob
April 1st, 2012 at 4:19 pmI started using Palm Desktop back when it first developed. Although it is designed to sync with a Pilot, is all I need as a stand alone application. I can prioritize my goals in enough user defined categories, assign task, set due dates, view in calendar by day, week, month or year and print out task lists by due date, priority, and category. This program does not update, calculate costs, re-prioritize, re-sign tasks, nor track progress, but if all you need is a simple free to-do data base that is easy to use, you might find Palm Desktop useful. Note: I am not up on all of the newest applications, so if someone knows of a program that is simple and does update more items, please make a suggestion. On line programs are okay but I prefer to not rely on internet access as I don’t have the need to add nor sync tasks remotely. It would be nice to see a list that can be viewed by cost, then priority, as there are times when I would like to see what tasks I can accomplish given my available resources at the time.