On task managers

If you take a look at the software market you’ll find that there is a multitude of task management applications out there – and new ones keep popping up almost every few weeks. I’ve been asking myself why that’s the case and have come up with a few possible reasons:

  1. Everybody knows how a task manager works. If you’re an app developer it’s probably one of the first things that comes to your mind. It’s kind of like a calculator. Of course, not many people need calculators these days, which brings us to my second point…
  2. There is an apparent demand for task managers out there. People love the idea of being more productive, especially as we all tend to have increasingly less time to do things. Still, do we really need so many different apps for that? Can’t there be one or two good ones that work for everybody? Not really…
  3. Everybody needs something different. Some people want the simplest solution they can get, others want a highly complex system to organise their tasks before they can even begin with their work. This “getting things done” part is hard enough by itself, so ideally the way to get there has to be tailored to your needs for it to really work. Whatever application does the job for one person, might not work at all for somebody else.

For example, this is what works for me:

  • cross-platform
  • automatic and reliable syncing
  • a pleasant interface
  • simplicity, especially in terms of functionality

With that in mind, here are my personal top three:

Wunderlist by 6Wunderkinder

This free (as of March 2011) application apparently fits many people’s needs quite perfectly – their growth rate is astounding. This is also leading to more and more people asking the developers to add lots of features. The next months will show whether this app can stay as simple as it is now, or if it becomes just as bloated as many of its competitors. The developers have been doing pretty much everything right so far, that’s for sure. Oh, and it’s cross-platform.  A version for Android and a web app is on the way.

Update: both of these versions have now been released.

TeuxDeux by swissmiss & Fictive Kin

TeuxDeux is a web based to do list, and it is great for a number of reasons. It looks good (the creators call it “designy”), it’s free and it has an interesting approach to task management. You can enter to dos in a calendar view where they follow you around until you cross them off or you can put them in a “someday” list. It’s a great way to organise your tasks if they are mostly date-specific.

TaskPaper by Hog Bay Software

Jesse Grosjean’s applications always seem to have a uniquely minimalist approach to doing things, and TaskPaper is no different. All it does is style your task list (which is basically a plain text file). Very flexible.

I can recommend all of these apps – but as I mentioned before, it depends on your specific needs. Now go make an app or something…

credits: all images were taken from the respective websites