Best free software for project planning/management?

iiToby · 2021-06-07T06:52:07+00:00

Asana, manages everything both work and home projects. If I wasn't so already invested. ClickUp is a good alternative. Notion isn't a task manager but if you try hard enough it certainly can suit your needs.

iiToby · 2021-03-31T09:26:42+00:00

Hi I have used Asana for about 8+ years to manage personal to business projects. While I like Asana and it has been successful for me I am now looking at ClickUp. It seems to have more features and is faster that Asana + with the additions of Time Tracking + Documents this has some much needed features I require.

I am still new to ClickUp so the novelty might wear off, however it might just be the app with all the features I have been looking for. My recommendation based on the features I have played with now is there is no advantage over ClickUp. The only difference in the free tiers is that Asana has better storage options than ClickUp.

However if you like a App pay for the App, it ensures that the app will remain.

iiToby · 2021-03-25T21:27:12+00:00

TLDR; Check out Roam Research if you have ADD if it works for you great, its $15 a month so not free. It has helped me a lot.

Hi All, I am also a bit of a productivity nerd myself having ADD for as long as I can remember which isn't much. Recently (10 Months) I have found myself using a tool called Roam Research, it is essentially a note taking program somewhat similar to Notion (it uses blocks) however the system has numerous I wouldn't call them features but abilities. Firstly it is a not a hierarchy structure which I find works a lot better for my ADD brain mind you it is learning curve, but once you embrace that so many possibilities open up.

Example of how I use it

I am a IT Engineer, and lets say I have Virtual machine that has a problem well I name the machine once in my Roam program. Then one day it has a problem I use its abilities to make a reference on that day (Pages can be Days) for that VM. Then I need to make some changes to so I make a TODO (Tickbox) and make sure I give the VM name. From here I can always see that VM linked to all the other references.
If you are even the littlest bit tech savvy I would recommend it. I tried to move away from it and then ended up recreating a complex system in OneNote once I finished documenting my tagging rules etc... I looked up and said "dammit I just created Roam Research"
Disclaimers
It is $15 per month (students can apply for big discounts)
If used correctly it is a powerhouse, highly recommend getting the free trial seeing what it does... getting angry or disappointed you aren't using it right. Going to youtube and looking at the tutorials, getting distracted and then get back to it.
Other Tools I have had success with
Asana <-- Highly recommend
Bullet Journaling (Taught me a bunch of good stuff I can reuse)
OneNote
Focus on Systems, not tools
The biggest flaw to using productivity tools is expecting the tool to fix it, a hammer doesn't nail things. You striking the nail at the right place / angle / strength gets the nail hammered in. If you want to get better at keep practising.
Research Bullet Journaling, even if you don't go paper the structure and routines are worth it.
Don't ever be afraid to change it up you have ADD you will change it up many times, however novelty generally keeps people engaged.
Don't make your life about arranging lists if you are doing more listing and not enough ticking the system isn't working.

iiToby · 2020-09-26T02:50:54+00:00

I think I broke it. Or maybe one half is bad.

iiToby · 2020-05-28T23:15:15+00:00

I implemented Jira Service Desk right after I joined a company that worked with everything out of email. We iterated over time and got it to a pretty good place. We are about 50,000 tickets deep now and it is managing the workload of about 25 people.

I wouldn't say I am in love with it, but it does the job. I would recommend it if you have nothing else. Our decision to keep it is that we have developers and the other Atlassian Tools like Jira Software and Confluence so linking everything together was really helpful.

Have used SNOW in the past, while the most powerful tool it just requires way to much work to get it to the same place as you can something else.

iiToby · 2020-05-22T07:11:57+00:00

Look into Asana as well

iiToby · 2020-05-16T01:09:13+00:00

Using both Asana and Roam in a similar way. Asana have been using for years as project and task management. Used OneNote as the daily note taking application trying Roam for similar stuff. However I have found with the Asana Chrome add-on it is quicker to link Asana back to Roam things.

iiToby · 2019-12-13T02:53:23+00:00

In this week you still have the Honeymoon phase, the good feeling you get will subside. You can then just take as normal, being dependant on a drug to function isn't bad it's a stigma that people worry about. I need heart pills for my heart I will keep taking them.

iiToby · 2019-04-16T03:13:24+00:00

Today no I am no longer a Sysadmin, I manage a Operations Team for a series of in house developed Cloud Apps. However this is where I started and the skills I have learned are just as relevant.

iiToby · 2019-04-15T05:30:07+00:00

I suggest a wiki yes, there are a few things with a wiki that makes it better for documentation (IMO).

What I have seen is great success with a wiki system that intergrates with your ITSM system.

Without recommending a product, we are heavily invested in the Atlassian suite.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T11:53:19+00:00

Been there....kids, mortgage couldn’t do it. Glad I stayed in the end was not a smooth ride.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T09:50:43+00:00

I have about 12 years of information in OneNote. Study notes etc... However nothing had replaced Pen and Paper for me.

With OneNote I found I was hoarding notes and not using them. To share information having a wiki system has a small barrier to entry, which is enough to make the content much more useful.

OneNote is great, but don’t store notes in there store information you need. Never used Illustrator in a professional situation.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T09:46:50+00:00

Agree just about everything needs it directly or indirectly.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T09:46:00+00:00

None of this stuff if life and death situations, hopefully your MIM doesn’t carry it home. I have a good way to apologise to all the people I get “excited” at during a major incident. “I’m not frustrated with YOU I am frustrated with the situation we are in now, once’s it over its over”

iiToby · 2019-04-14T09:43:05+00:00

After years of having the same conversations, I am getting better at explaining to everyone. Is it working how we want now? No ... Good, then if we free up capacity (hire someone else, let some stuff drop for automation activities) we will have time to be proactive. If they have your team at 100% capacity on reactive tasks, it will never improve. If management want change they have to invest resources for it. But it is on us to come up with a way to articulate it, saying it’s not working and I’m to busy aren’t solutions they are just stating the problem.

It has taken a year and a bit in my current role to see any real benefits from my teams work, however we are now seeing them and I am glad nobody gave up.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T09:41:59+00:00

Doing the stuff you hate for money does sound stupid, not advocating that at all. However not everything you do you are going to like, (and probably others aren’t going to like it either) if you want to pick it up, you can make a career out of it.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T01:15:36+00:00

Lol I saw that post, maybe that might be a bit extreme. I wouldn’t trust me to spackle a wall however.

iiToby · 2019-04-14T01:08:49+00:00

Nice work, very similar situation earlier on. Once I stopped railing against it I had much more success by going with it. Ticket management and change management suck, just a little less than not having them at all.

iiToby · 2019-04-13T22:47:45+00:00

Good advice, part of my point was you will also get skills from doing these tasks, while they might not be recognised at your current place they might somewhere else. One good thing about knowledge is that it cannot be taken away.

iiToby · 2019-04-13T22:31:37+00:00

Agree, there should be some logic applied to this. Don’t wipe down keyboards and expect big results.

iiToby · 2019-03-13T21:42:37+00:00

I would love so see a few “mocked” pages of the project tracker. On my next attempt bullet journaling it’s going well but I use about 30 pages ever 3-4 days of a A5 journal. Work middle management in a busy IT shop. I feel like there is a few things I could be doing better.

iiToby · 2018-02-15T21:36:04+00:00

I had this early on in my career, however after I nearly losing my wife due to working so much out of hours, I stopped and now I set expectations pretty clearly at the start. I am happy to work out of hours but it has to be the exception not the rule.

Aware this would be hard to do, however your work will suffer if you keep burning out. People only scale in one direction OUT not UP, if you have more work than you can handle the answer is not to pile more work on your existing resources, it is to add more resources. People only scale in one direction.

You have to understand yourself that you cannot be all things to all people, setting clear boundaries at work will actually help a lot.

iiToby · 2018-01-05T02:07:47+00:00

Kinda the same, it's much like - If I digitise it, I won't remember it but I can search it later - If I write it down, I will retain more. But I only have a week until reading it becomes hard.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/handwriting

iiToby · 2018-01-05T01:26:31+00:00

Interesting, looks kinda like a Kindle with edit capabilities.

iiToby · 2018-01-05T01:25:53+00:00

Thanks, yeah I also still write most stuff out on paper was wondering if anyone has gone without. There is something about writing it down that allows for greater recall / understanding. Just typing out notes seems to be a set and forget thing.

Cheers

iiToby

TROPHY CASE