Keeping Track of All of Your Tasks?

An anonymous reader asks: "I work for a Fortune 500 Company as a Unix sysadmin and at any given time I may be working with 10 different project teams, each with their own milestones, tasks/to-dos, notes and reportable status. I'm constantly losing track of tasks that I need to do, notes I've taken and status reports that I've written. I've tried paper solutions, PDAs, Microsoft Project and groupware type stuff and nothing really seems designed to allow me to track mulitple project with mulitple tasks and to-dos as well as keep up with the status and notes that I generate from each of these tasks. How do you keep it all straight?"

Comments

E-mail

[Meest]

I just personaly use e-mail as my To-Do list/Project list/Notebook

I just made subfolders for each project and to-do list. then if someone wants me to do something and they're yelling it at me i just say "Send me and e-mail with it" that way i sit down, can organize it. or if i need to put something on a to-do list. i e-mail it to myself.

Might not work for you depending on your spam count but for me it works perfect. And if spams an issue how bout just making an internal e-mail account to handel just that.... call me lowtech but it works for what i need.

Re:E-mail

[PerlDudeXL]

I just found this interesting approach:

Living in text files:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7567

Plan first, tech after

[MadChicken]

I've just finished reading David Allen's "Getting Things Done" http://www.davidco.com/ and it's remarkably tech-agnostic. You can achieve all of your requirements with paper and pen. I'd recommend getting a good solid view of WHAT you want to record, and how to arrange it before deciding on any kind of tech solution.

(Then jump straight to ShadowPlan... heh heh..)

Sharp Zaurus & K/OPI

[crstophr]

Hey there. I'm also a UNIX Admin for a Fortune 500 company. Recently I was promoted to "lead" and I just got slammed with tasks to track.

I went out and bought a Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100. Google it. They're a great PDA, clamshell design with a real keyboard you can actually use. You can get one cheaper if you look at the SL-C3000 or SL-C1000 models.

I'm using the K/OPI package todo function to do all my task tracking. It includes start dates, percent completed, etc. I blieve you can sync it with KDE and if you want to fuss with it even Outlook.

Every week I look at my list of completed tasks and copy that information down as my weekly status report.

Putting the PDA on WIFI gives me ssh access and I can actually get into boxes and look at things to answer question during meetings.

It's a great solution for a UNIX admin.

--Chris

B-B-B-But....

[wbren]

I've tried paper solutions, PDAs, Microsoft Project...

But I was just reading Microsoft's Project 2003 website, and they clearly indicate they have the right solution to meet all your project management needs:

Whether you manage projects independently or need a solution to align people and the objectives of your organization, the Microsoft Office Project 2003 product offerings have the right solution to meet your project management needs.

You are clearly doing something wrong. Maybe you did not look hard enough for Microsoft's solution to your problem.

Get some Ginkgo

[linzeal]

Also eat healthy when you are dealing with a lot of stress. Diet can be as important as any new shiny peice of software in helping with memory.

Re:Get some Ginkgo

[Trepalium]

Sometimes it's just good to simply acknowledge that you have more work than you can handle. Often the best tactic for handling stress is avoiding unnecessary stress, and if you have so many projects on the go that you need a complex project management system to manage your tasks only, then you probably have a lot of unnecessary stress. Chances are, you're doing this to yourself.

GTD TiddlyWiki

[TeXMaster]

I don't know if it's fit for "pro" use, but you might consider the Getting Things Done TiddlyWiki. It's an extension/spinoff of Jeremy Ruston's TiddlyWiki, with enhancement specifics to getting things done.

A single GTD might be enough to manage all the projects, using Tiddlers for notes and such. It's a single file that can be carried around on a stick, and needs a browser to be edited, so it might be simpler to set up than a more complex server-side tool like Trac (which you might look into, although I don't know how good it is for non-software projects).

Biggest drawback of GTD TiddlyWiki seems to be the lack of timelines. These might be implementable via macros if/when GTD will use the most recent version of Jeremy's TiddlyWiki.

Re:My manager

[hoggoth]

> I usually just use my mom. I have so many projects going on here at the house it is crazy. When ever she starts yelling I know I missed something and I get told what it is.

When you grow up and become an adult you no longer need your mom to yell at you to manage your projects.

You'll have a wife doing it.

Time Management, not Document Management

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in a similar situation, but perhaps the key difference is that my company requires me to maintain paper records of everything that I do. If I change the contents of a script, I have to print and file paperwork stating that I checked out the script from my configuration management tool, estimated how long it would make the change and what impact it will have, got management approval, made the change, tested the code, recorded actuals, and checked everything back in. Anal, yes, but...

Everyone in my company is aware that I need to do this paperwork and it gets factored into the time I can spend on doing a task. In other words, if the PHB pops into my cubicle and asks me to change the font on a web page, he knows it's going to take at least an hour.

I suspect your problem isn't so much that you can't find one solution, it's that you can't find enough time to fully utilize any of the solutions you do have. Even a plain old notebook works wonders if you have only one task to do each day and can devote several hours to managing your records for that task, each day.

My suggestion is... and I admit it's paradoxial; jot down on a piece of paper the "title" of each and every meeting minute, form, document, record, spreadsheet, calendar entry, whathaveyou that you create or access during the day, for a week.

Then go to your boss and say "I have to create, modify or review this many artifacts in a typical week, and it takes X hours of my time (where X is a rough number). Either reduce my workload so that I can complete all of the necessary paperwork, or consider dropping some of these artifacts."

The important thing is that you're describing the cost of doing business. It's up to your management to decide if the value of the paperwork you produce outweighs the cost. I would imagine there's considerable value in a change log, especially if you apply patches every day, but in contrast, a status report that no one reads is a waste of company resources.

XPlanner

[Dr. Bent]

http://www.xplanner.org/

You don't have to be eXtreme to use it. We're not.

Discipline

[rueger]

It sounds as if your problem isn't with technology - honestly, some to-do lists in Excel would be adequate - but with self discipline.

Any of these systems will help you, but it is imperative that you get into the habit of writing or entering details and logged items immediately when they happen or are brought to you.

I suspect that only half of what you need is being entered into MS Project or whatever system you have tried, with you relying on memory to fill in the gaps.

That seldom works well, especially when handling multiple complex projects.

big freaking whiteboard (admittedly low tech)

[Clover_Kicker]

There's something about seeing all your info at once instead of scrolling around all the damn time.

If you're really busy, get 2 big freaking whiteboards.