These past couple weeks, I’ve been struggling to keep up. I have at least one dozen projects, at least 5 partner companies, a full-time employee and 2 part-time resources. I’m trying to keep up on selling as well as fulfilling the projects that I’ve sold. We’re at that uncomfortable point where we’ve got enough business for another full-time employee… but we don’t have that resource yet (he starts in two weeks!).
To get organized, I purchased Things a couple months ago. It was a very simple task management application for the Mac that integrated with my calendar. It’s amazing software and it really helped me to generate a backlog and continue to prioritize my work.
The problem, though, is that it’s only good for my work. Many of my tasks are collaborative and require multiple team members to fulfill several tasks in a single project. I didn’t need project management software – that would have been overkill. I just needed a simple application where assignments could be made, all tasks could be tracked, and completed work could be archived.
It took a while, but I found a perfect Software as a Service solution, HiTask.
HiTask allows me to categorize, view tasks by priority, date, project, or owner. I can tag each task and even filter the task list instantaneously. Best of all, the business account is only $15 per month and allows you to use a branded subdomain, your logo, have 24-hour support and the ability to share your tasks and projects.
My only wish for HiTask? A Droid application (they have an iPhone app already). For $15 a month, though, this is one heck of a system!
Every trusted adviser I’ve followed have all shouted the same thing…”Don’t spend money online for anything you’re not absolutely 100% certain you will use in your E-Commerce work immediately!
Again appreciative for your heads-up on this, Doug. I’ve just signed up! 😛
Beautiful web design on HiTask. I recently re-evaluated my own task/project management tools and moved from a spreadsheet (for projects) + RememberTheMilk (for tasks) to ManyMoon (http://www.manymoon.com).
ManyMoon is basically free (unlimited projects) and integrates with Google Apps right out of the box. Hopefully it will keep me on track.
While the interface has come a long way, I still miss my RTM hotkeys and need reporting, but these are things I can write Greasemonkey scripts for. 😛
I started with HiTask and them gradually I moved to Comindware task management system which is organized much better and it saves even more time for you as you can work in a team and see how the other team members work and how they meet the deadlines. And besides you can attach the docs to the system and work with Outlook.