It amazes me how difficult it can be sometimes to find a piece of software that will perform the functions I need. This week I must have spent 8 hours researching different software packages to manage my growing to-do list.
Now admittedly, my to-do list requirements are probably a bit more stringent than most people’s since I literally have thousands of to-dos in dozens of categories, and subcategories.
The main sticking point, however, seems relatively trivial especially since it fits so well with the Getting Things Done method that has been embraced by so many people.
Basically I have this list of thousands of tasks, and I need the ability to go in to my lists every morning, mark the tasks I want to concentrate on that day, and be able to see a list of just those tasks. Sounds pretty trivial, at least to me, but it’s amazing how difficult it is to find a program that will do this well.
After downloading and installing about a dozen different programs and trying another half-dozen web-based applications, the only program that even came close was My Life Organized which appears to have been developed specifically with Getting Things Done in mind.
But, alas, even My Life Organized isn’t perfect. First, it lacks a calendar feature, and it would be nice to have a calendar and task system integrated. But I can live without that.
The second thing is the price — $59.95. And that price apparently will not include the upcoming PocketPC edition.
Damn, that’s expensive even for me. But it’s important enough that I’ll probably pay it — the software does exactly what I need, unlike practically everything else I tried.