I’m a tool junkie and often try out productivity tools. I found a plethora of task management apps, a paucity of project management tools, and a paucity of goal management apps.

Task Management App

Task management App, including common Things 3, Todoist, Teambition, Trello. Things 3 and Todoist are essentially enhanced reminders of what you need to do, fill it in, set a Deadline, and tick it off when it’s done. As shown in the figure below.

However, this type of App has a disadvantage — the task has only two states: unfinished and completed, and no state in progress.

Teambition and Trello go a little further and introduce the concept of kanban, which shows the status of tasks at various stages, as shown below. This is the Minority’s Trello kanban, which allows authors to choose a topic.

There’s a big problem with this type of App: you do a lot of tasks, but you don’t know what you’re doing them for. Task management App is suitable for recording and tracking various trivial tasks and tasks with low correlation. Just like each article of the minority, the relationship between the article and the article is not a series, they are independent, who can lead the topic to write the article, which topic to write which topic to write first, it does not matter much.

Once a project needs to be planned, task management apps will make people feel boring for both the planner and the person doing the project. For people who do tasks, they see each individual task and have no overall concept of the project. For the person planning the project, I don’t know if the tasks have been segmented enough, if there are omissions. As an example, here are some tasks:

  • Ask IT to apply for the server
  • Configuration Dockerfile
  • Configuration Docker Swarm
  • Build Jenkins
  • Configuration making Hook
  • Select three Repo tests

Looking at the tasks above, do you know what I want to do? I want to achieve continuous integration (CI), so that developers can push the Code to Github, and the system will automatically use Jenkins to pull the Code to the test server, check the Code style, do unit test and function test, and automatically generate Code Review application and send it to relevant personnel. Code Review then automatically integrates the Code into the trunk and deploys it. But for people doing tasks, it’s hard to find out what to do based on the tasks above. It is also difficult for the person planning tasks to see if they have been missed and if one or more of them can be broken up.

Another problem is that when setting time for each task, once there are many tasks, it is difficult to control the specific duration of each task. It’s also hard to figure out which tasks can be done at the same time, which tasks have dependencies that need to be done first and then done that, and which pre-tasks need to be done on time. Even if you set the task priority, you have no control over who comes first and who comes later for tasks of the same level. All you have to do is see which task comes first on the App.

I once wrote an article about Teambition, which combines Teambition with the outline tool Workflowy because of this problem. TeamFlowy — Combines Teambition and Workflowy

The project management

Due to the inconvenience of task management App, it is necessary to use some project management methods or software to improve efficiency when planning a project.

When it comes to project management, my personal favorite is the Gantt chart. In my other article, What do you Do project Management without a Gantt chart, I talked about what additional information you would get from a Gantt chart.

The Gantt chart is a two-dimensional diagram with time on the horizontal axis and tasks on the vertical axis. The Gantt chart allows you to see at a glance when a task starts and ends, whether there is overlap between tasks, and which tasks can be done at the same time and which must be prioritised.

In my opinion, in project management, the task cycle is very important, and the start and end time of the task must be well controlled. A Gantt diagram can do just that.

For those of you who plan tasks, if you use the Gantt chart to plan tasks, and you find that one task is so long that it will overlap with the next task no matter how you adjust it, you may find that the task needs to be broken down into smaller tasks. And since the Gantt chart focuses on the project as a whole, it’s also easier to spot if something is missing.

For task makers, gantt charts can also help them understand where the task they are working on fits into the overall project, so that they know whether the task they are working on is critical and needs to be completed on time.

If you’re developing an App, or writing a book, or working on some other project, as long as it’s a series of different tasks, consider using gantt charts to help you be more productive.

Management by objectives

Today is the first day of 2018. I wonder how many people have moved their New Year’s resolutions from the first day of 2017 to today. Why do so many people fail to achieve their goals? Because they didn’t manage by objectives.

For management by objectives, I prefer THE OKR system. It’s an enterprise management system that originated in Intel and has been promoted by Google, but it’s still useful for individuals. OKR stands for Objective and Key Results. Many people fail to achieve their goals because they set goals without setting performance checks. For example, a person’s goal is to learn English well, but because there is no set result, then he recited three words on the second day of setting the goal, in his subconscious mind, he will think that he has finished the task, naturally, he will become more and more relaxed later. But if a person sets a goal of learning English well, then sets several key outcomes, for example:

  • Chat with more than 10 Americans before April 1
  • Before March 10, open a page of the word book at random and know at least 90% of the words on the page
  • I will interview three foreign companies before April 1st, just for pleasure if not for work

This goal is much easier to achieve.

Using the OKR method, which is done with pen and paper, be sure to use the Smart rule when setting your goals for key outcomes:

  • Specific – concrete
  • 4. Measurable- Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant – related
  • Time-based- Time-limited

The key outcome needs to be specific enough so that it is measurable. And the so-called measurable, naturally is quantifiable, can use numbers to quantitatively check whether the key results are completed, if not completely completed, then how much is completed. If the goal is to learn English well, one of the key outcomes can’t be “eat vegetarian food once a month.” Because the key result is irrelevant to the goal. Last but not least, set a Deadline to prevent procrastination.

If you set a few goals and their key outcomes based on the OKR system, then you have achieved 100% of all your goals. So congratulations, your OKR system is not successful. Achieving 100% OKR based goals won’t help you much, because you set it too easy. A perfect OKR system would accomplish 70% of your goals with all the effort you could muster. It will push you to keep pushing your limits and keep getting better.

Based on the objectives of the OKR system, the time should not be set too long. Check the node quarterly to add new goals or key results. It is also necessary to check at least once every six months at most, otherwise it is easy to meet the Deadline.

In combination with

A goal is eventually broken down into one or more projects, and each project is broken down into one or more specific tasks. So in my own practice, I combine the three things I’ve talked about in this article. I used OKR to set my goals, gantt charts to plan my projects, and Todoist for task management.

When I developed a workflow like this, I found that they could work well together and not be too hectic. I make the OKR at the beginning of the quarter and then check in weekly. After drawing the Gantt chart, I only read it once a day after work, updated the project progress, and then added the tasks to Todoist for the next day. So Todoist is the one I use and update the most every day.

My official account: I have not heard the Code