Best tools for task management

Quality of tools define the quality of our performance.

The higher performance we want to achieve, the better tools we want to use.

In this article we will explore best tools for task management and personal organisation.

To-do list is better than fancy apps

Some time ago I read an article by Omer Matityahu “Why I started using a paper task management instead of an app“.

In this article the author describes his unpleasant user experience with such applications as MS Task, Keep, Trello and Todoist. To the point that he decides to move back to writing a simple to-do list by hand on a daily basis.

The reason why Omer decided to drop off online apps and return to a daily to-do list is clear – task management applications, which by definition should be very convenient and simple for everyday use, were in fact just opposite of that.

It turned out that none of the applications he tried could comply with such simple requirements. And a to-do list written by his own hand was still a better option. It was way more simple and efficient to organise his tasks in this way.

We are not going to argue with the personal experience of Omer. We just want to point out that a daily to-do list is still a very basic form of task management and can be applied only to handle some simple ongoing work.

To-do list is only good to handle simple everyday turmoil

Quality of tools

Like any human activity, work planning is a skill which can be developed and mastered. And improvement of our skills is always accompanied by improvement of the respective tools.

Musical instruments and music recording equipment would be a good example.

• When we learn basics of playing a guitar, we can totally use one, which our grandpa used to play to entertain fellow hippies.
• When we want to record an album or give a concert, we would also want to utilise a top notch Axe.

For good performance you want a cool Axe

The very same logic applies to any other professional activity: sports, manufacturing, cooking, design, construction and so far and so on.

The higher the quality of our tools, the better our performance will be.

And the quality of a paper to-do list for task management will always be low.

To-do list is by far not the best task management tool.

Order versus Chaos

Chaos and order are completely opposite to each other.

They are like hot and cold, or full and empty, or smart and dumb – the more of one the less of another.

In other words, the more organised we become, the less chaos we allow in our lives. And this is the core idea of personal organisation.

We do not want to become more organised, we want to become less chaotic.

Chaos means randomness and this is the main issue with low quality task management tools. They allow to much chaos and randomness in our lives.

Chaos destroys creativity and makes us feel miserable

Tools for reducing chaos

So, depending on the quality of tools we are using for personal organisation, we can determine how chaotic we are.

To-do lists.

Despite the personal opinion of Mr Omer, the to-do list is the most basic tool for work planning.

It does not have crucially important functions (calendar, task profiles, time scheduling, reports etc). Therefore, a daily to-do list is the most chaotic tool for personal organisation.

Besides that, writing and rewriting our plans on a daily basis is just annoying, to say the least.

Daily to-do lists are the most basic tools of personal organisation

Fancy task management platforms.

Online tools provide some useful functionality and allow some organising routines which to-do lists lack: managing projects, cooperating with teams, scheduling workflow and reporting.

Unluckily enough, most online platforms are exact copies of each other and reproduce all the same fundamental UX/UI mistakes.

Because of that, online task management tools are highly inneficient and inconvenient for everyday use. They leave the impression that their designers had little to no understanding of how work should be organised and what are the basic principles of web design.

Major task management tools are still very chaotic and, with that, they considerably limit our performance.

Excel.

This software was not developed for work organisation. But surprisingly enough, the rich functionality and flexibility of Excel makes it a simple and reasonably efficient tool for personal organisation.

Excel considerably reduces chaos and allows us to handle regular projects, upon the condition that we are able to create and integrate organising forms.

In other words, we should possess some skills for working with Excel, and prepare some environment before we can start using this program for work planning and organisation.

Besides that, Excel was not meant to be a project management software, so it contains a lot of irrelevant functionality and provides a rather unpleasant design.

Still, in respect of dealing with everyday chaos, Excel is a much better tool than any fancy task management software.

Excel is a cool tool with poor design

ByCycle.

ByCycle was developed upon Excel forms and, therefore, it is a direct improvement of Excel.

It has only practically useful functionality and keeps our focus on high priority tasks.

We applied fundamental principles of web-design, which makes ByCycle a really pleasant to work with.

As a result, ByCycle is the tool of the highest quality and manages to deal with chaos in the most efficient way. According to the current level of available technology.

Statuses in Weekly Plan help to keep focus on the high priority tasks.

ByCycle is better than Excel

The unreasonable complexity of existing task management tools is widely known and this is the exact reason why ByCycle was developed. We really wanted to keep everything as simple and minimalist as possible.

ByCycle was developed by practicing entrepreneurs, which makes it particularly useful for managing various types of business activities.

As Excel is better than fancy task management tools, the same ByCycle is better than Excel.

ByCycle is the best tool for task management and personal organisation.

ByCycle is a beautiful and simple tool for work planning and team collaboration.

Try ByCycle for free and see how it works for you.

Check our gallery for more pictures of ByCycle.

For any questions or comments, feel free to contact us here.