OLLie here—after my last entry, I began thinking about what else needed to be said. I love LifeHacker, but I realize that pointing readers in the site’s direction didn’t help with the here and now issues of time management and project organization. Consider this an addendum to my last post.
Educators and their students seem to go against the grain of absolutely everyone else in the U.S. Sure, mentally, we know that the year begins on January 1st, but to those involved with education, we feel that the year begins in August or September (the beginning of the school year). So educators have a predicament each January. While everyone else is doing the “New Year’s Resolution” fad, we face the idea of “starting anew” smack in the middle of our year.
According to a story on NBC affiliate WOAI, almost 30% of resolutions are dropped within the first two weeks of January. By the end of March, only 50% of people who made resolutions on January 1st will be continuing to actively pursue them. The numbers are stacked against us, especially those of us who feel that we’re “upsetting the apple cart” mid-way through our year. The answer may be our mindset. In a press release from the University of Washington researchers from their Addictive Behaviors Research Center found that sticking to goals is, in large part, viewing the goal as a process rather than a one-time shot. Staying organized and charting progress are only two of the methods we can use to keep our eyes on our goals.
Below are a few tools I’ve gathered to assist you (and potentially your students!) to stay organized and on track for your goals.
This first group is from Sourceforge.net and are open source (meaning that they’re free!—a plus for anyone who has made financial resolutions).
GanttProject allows you to create Gantt charts and resource charts for project (or class) management.
TaskCoach is a simple task manager that helps manage personal tasks as well as to do lists
Calizo offers a calendar with a zoomable timeline—can be used to manage projects or even for classroom activities that deal with chronological data.
View Your Mind assists in building mind maps to help organize projects (basically a scaled-down open source version of Inspiration).
OpenProject is basically an open source version of Microsoft Project and can open MS Project files. Its functions include Gantt chart and Pert chart creation and management.
The Portable Sunbird is helpful for those who want to take their schedules and to-do lists with them without having to have the information online. The program is designed to be placed on a portable hard drive or flash drive and sports a calendar feature as well as a task management/scheduling system.
If you’re looking for something to keep your schedule and task management online, here are a few more offerings…
Taskbin.com is free and offers a simple-to-use task management/to do list that can be shared among workgroups (could be useful in organizing group projects in classes as well).
If you prefer something cute and perky, try Hiveminder.com. The site houses a “braindump” feature that can be useful in “getting it down on paper” prior to trying to organize and strategize your goals. It can also be used to share goals and tasks with a workgroup. The yellow-drenched pages and bee imagery makes even the most mundane tasks a bit more “happy.”
Toodoist has a simple interface with calendar and hierarchy functionality. With plenty of widgets and other extras, this free task management system can keep you up to speed through email or text reminders.
Remember the Milk is another free online service that allows you to manage tasks on or offline as well as share tasks within a workgroup. RtM allows you to organize your tasks by list or tag cloud and features extras such as maps and other widgets to help you organize your life.
Last but certainly not least is the program that this OLLie uses—Toodledo. Toodledo allows you to organize your tasks in many ways—by date due, importance, context, etc. and allows you to share tasks within a workgroup. It also includes a time tracking feature that helps you better estimate the actual time needed to complete each item. The basic subscription is free, but for 14.95/year, you get extra bells and whistles such as statistics readings to determine what most of your time is spent on as well as what days of the week/month are your most productive. There’s also a scheduler feature that can be used if you’re really at a loss. You enter the amount of time you have to work on a task and the context and Toodledo scans through your lists and tells you what you could be working on. Not going to be online for a while? Toodledo’s booklet feature produces a printable personalized pdf booklet of your tasks.
There are many (MANY) more programs than this out there. Do a bit of investigating and find the one that’s right for you. Get excited about the tools available to you—they’re there, waiting for you to put them to use. It doesn’t have to be the beginning of a new year or a new semester to decide to go for the goal, it just takes a little practice, a little commitment and a set of good tools—and you’re well on your way!
Happy webbing!!