Toggl, Todoist, Trello, Workflowy, KanbanFlow, etc.

Just a quick shout out to Toggl. It’s a time tracking app that I used to use a while back and have started using again now. 

I am an IT person. So why would I need to track my time? It’s not that I have to bill it to anyone, unlike say if I were a lawyer.

Reason I decided to start keeping track of my time is because I felt it might improve my productivity. And even if it doesn’t, at least I’d have a better understanding of where my time is going and how. Currently I get to work and start doing my tasks and whatever keeps coming my way, but I feel I am not getting a hang of the big picture. There’s no overall feel to what I am doing during the day. $hit just keeps coming my way, I deal with it. There’s a lot of other (non task related) stuff I want to do, but I lose track of that. Then when I get home I try and spend time taking care of those non task related stuff, and by the end of the day I have no idea where my time went. No sense at all.

I use Todoist to keep track of my tasks. I have been a fan of Todoist for years now. I was previously on Wunderlist (way before Microsoft bought it and re-released it earlier this month) but I moved to Todoist as I felt it better fit my needs (I don’t remember now how Todoist was better). I am actually a paid subscriber. Never thought back when I signed up that I’d actually pay money for a reminder app, much less continue doing it! :o) The good thing about Todoist is that it has extensions for Chrome and Firefox, apps for iOS and Android, and even a desktop version for Windows. So I have access to Todoist pretty much wherever I am. Even during my team meetings or 1-2-1’s with my manager, when I am giving a task I quickly note it in Todoist so it’s there. In short I am a fan! I use it to keep track of both personal and work related tasks. 

For a while I experimented with Trello for my work related task management. It was good but I absolutely hate the fact that I can’t delete my boards etc. All I can do is archive, and I don’t like that. It feels very limited. That’s when I started using Todoist for my work tasks – I just made multiple projects in that for stuff in progress etc. Today I came across another tool – KanbanFlow – which is similar to Trello but doesn’t seem limited like it, so I might give it a shot. I like the idea of having my tasks as a board. I guess there’s more sense of accomplishment when you see all your tasks as “Completed” or “In Progress” as a bunch of cards, as opposed to with Todoist where completed tasks get removed of the list. Not a big deal I know, and I might just stick to Todoist for work related tasks too, but I hope to give KanbanFlow a whirl. 

I must also give a shoutout to WorkFlowy – an amazing tool for making lists and keeping track of stuff. Before there was Trello and Todoist in my life, it was WorkFlowy. :o) And yes, I was a paid subscriber to them too for a few years. The best thing about WorkFlowy is its tags system and the way you can jump across lists – it’s simply amazing! I don’t remember why I reducing using WorkFlowy. I guess the transition was that I needed something to organize my work related tasks and Trello let me do that in a more visual style; and from there I could jump to Todoist as it let me add reminders and keep both personal and work tasks together. 

Back to Toggl. Found this page with a list of productivity tools that Toggl integrates with. I don’t know most of them – must check them out sometime. Also while on Toggl, here’s two funny cartoons from them. :o) On IT jobs. And how to save the princess in various programming languages. 

Going to hit ‘Publish’. I can see from my Toggl timer that I spent 29 mins typing this post up!