TaskPaper - for simple task-management
I needed an iOS solution for interfacing with
my own approach to getting things done on a mac. I finally settled on
TaskPaper. I've found TaskPaper to be very effective for basic task-management on the iPhone / iPad. It's clean. It's simple. And there's less to tinker with. And it's formatting as a basic text file makes it easy to interface with other programs.
But it wasn't until I made two fundamental shifts that I was able to make the most of it on the iPhone:
#1: Individual Docs for Each Context
I originally began with one large Taskpaper document for my location contexts, but I discovered that making separate documents for each context is actually faster to use:
Online.taskpaper
Home.taskpaper
Work.taskpaper
You can tap a new document faster than you can type into a search box. (I like to keep taps and typing to a minimum).
#2: Individual Docs for Each Person
Another change was to create a separate document for each client I would meet with. The format for each of these documents would consist of the following:
Delegated to Me:
- task for me to complete
- another task John Doe asked me to complete
- a task I've delegated to myself to do for John Doe
Agendas:
- item 1 I need John Doe to do
- item 2 to delegate to John Doe next time I meet with him
Waiting For:
- Waiting for John Doe to get back to me on this
- Waiting for John Doe to return this item for me (sent email 6/1/12)
Archive:
- List of completed tasks.
Once I made those two changes, my productivity got a huge boost. I now have two folders. One for "CONTEXTS" and another for "PEOPLE" with each of these Taskpaper documents in them. Simple. Fast. Probably not for everybody. Some will need bigger and better functionality. But for basic, bread-and-butter task-management, TaskPaper does a pretty good job.
