Help me organize tasks at work

March 28, 2019 7:52 AM

I'm good at my job but disorganized. This is because of my nature as well as well as being overworked. My boss will NOT help with the latter. I need a free service or some advice on how to set up something myself, with the following features: -Create groups or types of tasks (i.e. sales, quotes, issues, returns...etc) -Add tasks into these groups -Change the color/status when the task is done, or I'm working on it -Place within each task line item to add notes.

There are some nice online services that accomplish the above, but they are too exp per month. I am hoping to find something free or very low cost, or maybe one of you brilliant people can help me to figure this out.

posted by lakersfan1222 to Work & Money (18 answers total)

Workflowy does all of this - it's very simple, just bullets but that is the beauty of it. Nothing to learn and nothing to code. The only caveat is to get different colours you need a browser extension or something.
posted by el_presidente at 7:58 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wunderlist possibly?
posted by TwilightKid at 8:09 AM on March 28, 2019

I just recommended Asana in another thread and would recommend it here as well.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:12 AM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

Bullet journal!
posted by bfranklin at 8:18 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: WCityMike, I do use Outlook at work!
posted by lakersfan1222 at 8:38 AM on March 28, 2019

Trello does more or less what you'd like to do.

If you want something even simpler, you could also just start a worksheet (Google Sheets, Excel, etc) with a field (i.e. column) for each of the groups, task, status, description, or however else you want to categorize your tasks. Filtering by those fields would be an easy way to see which tasks are complete, which are in each group, etc.
posted by golden at 8:49 AM on March 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

from your description, I think Trello is the tool you're looking for.
posted by entropone at 8:51 AM on March 28, 2019

emacs org-mode TODOs works well for this kind of thing. It can do types. You can add unlimited notes to each TODO. TODOs can be broken down to sub-TODOs. A list of items to do can be generated with an 'agenda'. TODOs can be quickly added via org-capture.
posted by bdc34 at 8:55 AM on March 28, 2019

It would be trivial to set this up in Excel. Put a filter on the top, and use conditional formatting to get the color change that you want.
posted by slidell at 8:55 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

3rding Trello
posted by aka burlap at 10:45 AM on March 28, 2019

I use an Excel spreadsheet for this. It's super flexible and great if you're mostly at a computer with a keyboard.

I have columns for task, context (e.g. desk, lab, field, errands, or waiting, if you're waiting for info), due date, completion date, comments. I've previously also used columns for project and time tracking.

I manually highlight the most important tasks for the day and have the filters set so that I only see things with a blank completion date - that way if someone has questions about a task I can see where to start looking in email / etc. I usually sort by context, with "waiting" at the bottom and out of the way.
posted by momus_window at 11:02 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Look at Notion which is free and would, I think, meet your requirements. It synchs between your various devices too.
posted by carmicha at 11:54 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's less about the tool and more about the framework.

There's a website if short videos called The Secret Weapon. That shows you how to use the project framework of Getting Things Done with a tool called Evernote.

Read Getting Things Done. It's about 100 pages I think.
posted by jander03 at 4:13 PM on March 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Try out Trello. The free version probably meets all of your requirements.
posted by reeddavid at 6:10 PM on March 28, 2019

If you for any reason don't like the system laid out above, all of this is also possible within Outlook's tasks system. You can set up a custom view as you can with email, and can also use conditional formatting so that when you change a task to "In Progress" (this is a default field), it changes colour or font. Categories are also a default aspect. You can create a custom field for notes if you want your notes to be visible, or otherwise use the description field in the task itself.If I recall correctly, you can establish new lists that only include tasks meeting particular criteria, so you could use categories to designate more and less important tasks and then use multiple lists if that helps you. When setting this up, I recall it being easy to google how to do each thing.

When I get an email I need to respond to and can't immediately, I usually just flag it and assign a category and deadline. I leave emails that require response marked as unread until I've given it a deadline. For another task, I switch to the tasks view, Ctrl-N to start a new task, type the name, Tab, type the due date (it will accept plain language, for example, next Tuesday), add any other details (you can tab through the fields), and Alt-S to save and close. This is fast enough that it doesn't interfere with my workflow. At the end of the day I take a look and reorganize and edit any tasks added throughout the day.

You can use Outlook's reminders if you find it helpful - I don't, and prefer to save those for really important deadlines or calendar events. Instead I just take time before and after each work day to review and edit my tasks list.
posted by lookoutbelow at 9:18 PM on March 28, 2019

A few years back, I connected with Michael Linenberger author of Total Workday Control. I really recommend reading the book and Michael's blog.

Its basically modifying Outlook to work for you, and focusing on using your tasks in a better fashion. The focus is on removing future dated tasks from your view, and removing the impact of the red underlined past-due tasks. This method really allows you to focus on what you need to do, and eliminates non-value-add tasks.

Can't recommend this enough. No matter what you choose, I wish you the best of luck!
posted by Draccy at 6:41 AM on March 29, 2019

I really, really love Asana. I've tried Trello and did not find it to be a helpful tool for my team but see the value - so just putting in a plug for both Asana, and shopping around if your first couple tries don't seem like a good fit.
posted by seemoorglass at 1:45 PM on March 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Check out Freedcamp as well as Trello.

-Create groups or types of tasks (i.e. sales, quotes, issues, returns...etc) -Add tasks into these groups

You can have multiple projects and subsections within those projects.

-Change the color/status when the task is done, or I'm working on it

Tasks have three statuses: No Progress, In Progress, Completed. I believe the item's icon changes color depending on the status.

-Place within each task line item to add notes.

This is built in.

Freedcamp has a free plan. It's pretty great.
posted by kristi at 12:08 PM on April 3, 2019