Task Management. It's a big problem. This page has
had 1612 visits so far.Task Management. It's a big problem. This page has
had 1612 visits so far.
Some lucky people get to work on one project for weeks at a stretch. The rest of us get to work on anywhere from 5 to 50 projects, in time slices ranging from 15 minutes to a day or two, all 50 projects having various deadlines and (agh) interdependencies.
The software industry has had a field day addressing this problem with Daily Planners, Project Managers, and so forth. The PC stuff is often 'very personal,' i.e. it schedules one person, or permits one person to schedule others without their participation. But what a team really needs is shareable scheduling.
In the big leagues, (Unix and mainframe world) project management software is generally on the Jurassic Park scale -- oversized, overfeatured, overpriced. Also exceptionally opaque: the few upscale P/M packages I've met require a couple of weeks' training to figure out, and even after that very few manager-types seem able to get all the benefits out of the software. For us peons on a limited (University) budget, who can't afford the license -- let alone take 2 weeks off to learn to use the stuff -- or spend half our lives just using the stuff -- the prospect is bleak.
My own ToDo list is usually out of hand. I've tried all kinds of methods: scraps of paper, large pieces of paper with preprinted form, preprinted calendar with scribbling, online textfiles, HyperNews, email, postits, you name it. The rest of my group has similar problems. Even if we find a method that works for us individually, no one else can see the data. And when our schedules intersect because of shared tasks and delivery promises made to each other, it gets ugly.
I got fed up with all this, and built xtask (with Tcl/Tk, about a week of actual programming). The backend is a Sybase table (that takes care of the shareable data). The front end is a simple GUI. It does only a few things, but it tries to do them easily and quickly -- you don't have to take a 2-week class to figure it out. Xtask is lean, mean, not too bright, but easy to use.
All we really want to know is:
Here's the main xtask screen: 
You can find out more by looking at the narrated Xtask Photo Gallery, or by reading the Xtask Overview and Xtask Introduction (imported from the xtask Help menu).
It shouldn't be too hard to convert xtask to use PostgreSQL or any other RDBMS for its backend. It's on my list; but if someone else would like to get around to it first, be my guest :-) The source is available (Xtask Source Kit); the usual copyrights and disclaimers apply.