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What is tasktoy?
Tasktoy is a task management program that I wrote for myself after reading
Getting Things Done by David Allen.
While I wasn't trying to build a complete implementation of his system, the book
inspired me to start keeping track of everything I need to get done.
I decided that I really needed the following:
A Homepage. Task lists are useless unless
you look at them regularly. This meant that it would need to load quickly, have
a clean design, a Google search box and customizable links.
Place dependent lists. If I'm at work, I only want to see things that
I can do at work. Same thing at home. The site needs to know where I am.
Time dependent tasks. Tasks should appear only when necessary and not
clutter up my lists in the meantime.
Low resistance. One click to add to the current list. Two clicks to
add to a different list. A screen where I can paste in several items at once.
Repeating tasks. I need to be reminded to move my car for street
sweeping, and that it's been two weeks since I last vacuumed. I used this feature
in Outlook and I wanted it in tasktoy also.
Lists of "whenevers". I'm often at work when someone mentions a
restaurant or a book. I wanted to add these quickly and easily but have them
not show up on my to-do lists.
Simple project management. Sometimes I have a list of things that
need to be done in order. There's no point putting an item on my to-do list until
the previous items have been completed.
I now have a weblog, where I'll
be continually posting tasktoy feature enhancements and tips
Why is it here?
I use tasktoy many times every day. Knowing that everything I need to do has been written
down and is accessible from any computer or from my Treo is extremely calming.
Other people saw me using tasktoy, and were interested in using it too.
So I made it a multiuser system and made it available for anyone to use.
You're welcome to sign up and use it. I don't even ask for your email
address, although you may want to add it later to use some of the
Advanced Features. Also, I make no guarantees as to the
security or reliability of the software.
Other features
These are the features I've added since I wrote the first version. This list will
be updated frequently.
Printable Lists. These are formatted so that they can be printed on
index cards. Your printer probably has an envelope feeder where you can feed
index cards for a nice portable task list.
Task archiving. Anything you complete is saved in the archive
for that project. I use this feature to write my status reports or to remember
what I was working on.
Color coding. You can select the color of a task when you create it,
or change its color by clicking on it and changing it in the task detail view.
Mobile access. This is experimental, but it works pretty well on my
Treo 600. If you have a similar wireless device, you can point it at
http://www.tasktoy.com/mobile and
try it out.
Shared lists. I never intended for this to be much of a collaboration
tool, but sharing, say, a grocery list with a fellow user could come in
very useful. Click on "Customize" from the main page to set up shared lists.
Email forward to task. Sometimes I get an email which becomes an
"action item". I want to be able to forward it to tasktoy and have it turned
into a task with the email body as notes. If you've set your email address on
the "Customize" page you can send emails to [Location].[Project]@tasktoy.com and
they will appear as new tasks.
Any tips for using this?
Make tasktoy your homepage or at least devise some other way to look at it
very frequently. Remembering to look at your task list is half the battle. Once you log
in, you'll stay logged in until you click "logout".
Use tasktoy in multiple locations. When you set your location on a particular
computer, tasktoy will remember it.
Start simple. If you just want to try out tasktoy, just enter some tasks
for your home and office and see if it helps you. Don't worry about organizing stuff
into projects right away unless you really want to.
Use colors. Colors are very useful for highlighting the importance of a
task, or making it stand out for any reason.
Upcoming features
These are the new features I'm working on, because I believe they will make the
program more useful to me. The point is not to get clutter the interface
unnecessarily, but to create ever easier ways to get all my lists into tasktoy.
Most of them are not ready yet, but some of them may
be, as documentation doesn't necessarily keep up with features.
Email list to tasks. The web interface on my Treo is slow, but the
email applications are pretty good. I'd like to be able to create an email
containing a list of different tasks and have them added to one of my lists.
Programmatic interface. I have lots of reasons for wanting this, particularly
around synchronizing with other software such as the Palm task list or Bugzilla.
Windows Active Desktop. It might be nice to actually have the to-do list
as part of my desktop. I'm not sure about this one, but it's worth trying.
Technical Info
Tasktoy was written using Zope (no DTML, all page templates and python scripts)
and is hosted by Zettai.
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