Task Management - Gootodo versus Highrise
Posted by: Carl Smith on Tuesday June 10, 2008
Like many small business owners I have way too much stuff to get done everyday. To try and get myself organized I read the books everyone is reading, and try the techniques for getting my shite together that a lot of people do. Ultimately though, nothing in the past few years has really helped me as much as a little application called Gootodo.
At first glance there is nothing overly impressive about Gootodo. It’s just a very simple application that helps you keep track of things you need to get done. In a bout of temporary insanity six months ago I cancelled my Gootodo account. The reason? I was focusing completely on new business and Highrise was going to be my new best friend.
Highrise is great at organizing your contacts, tracking leads and conversations. The to-do list, though, isn’t so special. Type in the info and, if you want, you can assign it to a time and a category. It seems really similar from a first impression. But after six months I decided to go back to Gootodo. Here’s why.
Viewing Tasks
Highrise shows all tasks on one page with a visual break between things that are due today, tomorrow, this week, next week and later. The downfall is they are all on one page. Gootodo only shows the tasks for the day you’re looking at, with an easy calendar interface to navigate between days. That gives the perception that you have less to do by focusing on the day you’re viewing. To be more accurate, Highrise gives the feeling that there is more to do than there is for a given day. Most importantly when there is something I have to do next week that is an involved task I don’t want to think about it this week. With Highrise I have a constant reminder it’s there even though it’s low on the list. In Gootodo once I move something to the future it’s out of sight and out of mind. That makes the list feel manageable. That gives me a sense of control, and that’s huge.
Emailing Tasks
With Highrise I was starting to miss things because I couldn’t easily forward an email and change it’s title later to reflect what it was. So basically I wouldn’t shoot an email from my phone when I thought of something, I would wait and hope I remembered the task when I was back in front of my computer. Often, too often, I’d forget. With Gootodo the body of the message is included in the task detail. Not so in Highrise, there is no detail field for a task. So if I forwarded something and didn’t remember what it was based on the email subject, I had to log into email and search for it. Do that ten times a day and it starts to suck your productivity away. The other huge advantage of Gootodo is I can forward an email to a specific day such as wednesday[at]gootodo.com or july30[at]gootodo.com and it will automatically create a to-do for that day. Not so with Highrise. You can’t send an email to a specific day in the future. You have to forward the email to your main list, then manually assign a date to it once it’s in the list. It may seem like a small step but they add up.
Managing Tasks
I move tasks around a bunch and Gootodo wins that battle also. I can easily redate a to-do by clicking on the task and then a date on the calendar and it disappears into the future. I can set recurring to-dos such as paying rent. When a task is completed it is tied to the day it was finished, so it’s also a trail of what I completed when. By un-checking it it shows back up in the list on the current day. There’s just more flexibility and control.
To sum it up Gootodo is easier for me to keep current and it only shows what’s important to me when it’s important.
Highrise does a great job of tracking leads and conversations so I’ll keep using it for that.
Increasingly in our world of simple web applications, creating a custom collection of single-focus tools seems to be the best solution for many of us.
Comment RSS Filed under: Interweb
Rohan
06.11.08 at 11:21am
Another alternative is http://www.statuswiz.com
Carl Smith
06.11.08 at 12:59pm
@Rohan, thanks I’ll check it out.
Conrad Decker
06.11.08 at 5:15pm
Hey Carl – I didn’t notice any mention of remember the milk (http://rememberthemilk.com). Have you had a chance to look at it? If not, I think you’ll be pleased. If so – I’m curious what GooToDoo does that RTM does not. I use RTM on a daily basis and find it pretty helpful in remembering stuff – apparently that skill fades as you get older.
Let me know what you think!
Carl Smith
06.12.08 at 6:07am
@conrad I never heard of Remember The Milk. It looks really cool, I’ll definitely check it out. Do you use it?
Conrad Decker
06.12.08 at 7:42am
Oh man…if you haven’t given it a shot yet, it’s worth playing with. I’m a big fan, and I use it on a daily basis. The basic plan is free – and handles everything I need, but they do offer a paid version if you feel the need :-)
There are many ways to integrate with it – twitter, e-mail, im, api, google calendar, mobile web, etc. It’s a pretty smooth product that is simple enough to make it easy to use, but robust enough that it meets all of my needs.
Have fun, and let me know what you think if you try it out.
Alan Doucette
06.12.08 at 10:27am
As a RTM user myself, I love it’s integration. I have integrated with my gmail interface, google start page (igoogle), and a good api for my projects.
Jen
06.15.08 at 3:25pm
I tried both, RTM and Highrise, but I went back to Gootodo, it’s simply more intuitive and faster to work with.
John
06.16.08 at 10:57pm
Check out Intervals. The task management may be more robust than what you need, but the time tracking and reporting round it out nicely.
Carl Smith
06.17.08 at 8:35am
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I had no idea these other products were even out there. Just made a Gootodo to check them out. ;^)