iCal handles basic time and task management fairly well with the
addition of a few utilities (see Unleashing the
Power of iCal and Managing Tasks with
iCal's To-Do Feature). But what about working through larger
projects and working with other members of a project team? Do
Apple's applications serve as a suitable replacement for Entourage
in this case? Can iCal step up?
I say yes, but not because of an elaborate project setup like
Entourage.
Project Center - Thumbs Up or Down?
Entourage's "Project Center" is, admittedly, a pretty sweet
tool. Those who require this kind of project management power will
appreciate how Entourage handles them - the direct integration with
the mail, calendar, and task-list functions of Entourage is an
obvious strength. It also integrates well with Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint via the Project Gallery and the Toolbox.
Project Center can help organize documents, emails, tasks,
dates, contacts, and other files all into one conglomeration. There
is a lot of power in Entourage's Project Center - I'll be the first
to admit that.
I have a few complaints about it that shape my use - or lack
thereof. To begin with, Project Center seems like a thin version of
Microsoft Project, which is only available for the Win-d'ohs
platform.
Think of it this way: Project Center is to MS Project what
Outlook Express is to Outlook. While I don't particularly like MS
Project or Outlook, I can at least appreciate the power and
usefulness that each includes (ones their scaled-down counterparts
often lack). If I'm going to the trouble of setting up a project in
Project Center, why can't I at least have a Gantt chart to
accompany it?
Also, there are a number of features that are prominent in
Project Center, but there is no easy way to figure them out. What
is a clipping, after all? Okay, so after some digging I find that
it pulls things from the Microsoft Scrapbook. What's that? Do I
have one? Yes, it turns out - think of it as a "permanent
clipboard" of sorts, but it's apparently available only through
other Microsoft apps.
Another one: Do I need both "Projects" and "Categories" for my
items? There's a place for both, and while neither are required,
there's a good bit of overlap. Microsoft doesn't want to give me
much guidance with figuring out when I should use which - or both,
for that matter.
My biggest complaint with Project Center - and Entourage as a
whole - is that it is inflicted with the common Microsoft problem:
being overly feature-rich. The default algorithm in Redmond appears
to be this one: If faced with a choice of simplicity or
feature-richness, always choose feature-richness.
This defeats the Mac's zen-like appeal every time.
There is just too much stuff to manage, set up, check off, or
import with Project Center. Like I said, it is an admittedly sweet
tool for those who need it. Though I would like to think of myself
as someone important enough to need such a tool, I just don't need
that much project management. (And, frankly, I'm probably happier
that I don't.)
Project Management, Mac Style
When it comes to project management, I mostly rely on the
built-in elegance and integration that exists in the Apple "suite"
of applications. As I've covered in previous articles, there's
already plenty of integration among Mail, Address Book, and
iCal.
Let me take a moment to liberate some of you Entourage folk:
Just because Microsoft designs it that way doesn't mean that it is
the only way it can work. To unpack that a little - like many of
you, I had gotten so used to programs working "the Microsoft way"
that I had difficulty adapting to other ways.
It's okay to admit it if you feel this way too. So many of us
believe that the only way the functions of an application can
"integrate" is if they all appear in the same window - or at least
there must be a button, tab, or menu to invoke them.
I, too, was skeptical that it was possible to break outside of
this paradigm.
To those of you still locked inside it, I have two words for
you: AppleScript. Spotlight. (Okay, one more: Macintosh.) Apple has
been building a system that allows more and more integration,
collaboration, and cooperation between applications, and dadgum if
they haven't just about hit the nail on the head.
So when I set out to manage a project, it's sometimes as simple
as creating a set of folders - or better yet, smart folders - in
each application to organize the "stuff" for that project. Believe
it or not, this might be all that's needed.
Make It a Little Simpler, Please
All right, if you must have a shortcut, try Working
Pathways's ProjectMaker widget. When you install it, you'll be
surprised (and probably a bit disappointed at first) at its
simplicity: clean, bare, Mac-like. Choose which folders you want
created, give it a name, and you've just made new folders or other
units in (you pick): Address Book (creates a group), iCal (creates
a calendar), Mail, and your Documents folder. Now you have
ready-labeled repositories for everything related to that
project.
That's Not Enough
You're a madman! Okay - and this is it, I promise! - now go get
Indev's MailTags
and install it. Be sure to get the latest version, v.1.2.x.
I've talked about MailTags before, but the new version offers
the missing link for doing even fairly complex projects with Mail.
The new features include the ability to make a Mail message into a
task-list item - yes, you read correctly - and it coordinates with
the message and tags.
Further, you can have it added to a specific calendar if you
wish. Add some meta-tags and other data via MailTags, and your
stuff will show up in Spotlight more efficiently. (For the
double-whammy - now this is not for you lightweights - install
Indev's Mail
Act-On and set up rules that will drop it into your project
with whatever metadata you want.)
Beyond the Apple Trifecta
Mail, Address Book, and iCal end up being a solid bet for
project management. But what do I do when I need more project
management capability than the Apple apps can provide?
This is where Entourage really goes awry. Everyone is looking
for the "magic bullet" productivity application, and Microsoft puts
Entourage up as their "magic bullet" - or at least, they figure if
there is no magic bullet, then at least they can give you a big,
heavy, complicated-looking gun loaded with regular bullets.
The truth is that there is no magic
bullet.
The truth is that there is no magic bullet. The beauty of
working productively on the Mac is that there doesn't have to be.
Instead, you can collect the small, clean, elegant apps that you
like - and that do what you need them to do - and very often watch
them integrate in a way that makes Entourage users and others
drool. (In a sense, then, you could call OS X the "magic
bullet" killer app, since it enables all of this to happen.)
So here's where it gets fun: When the projects I'm managing gets
bigger than what I've already described, I turn to Ethan
Schoonover's Kinkless GTD.
Kinkless GTD (or kGTD) is an OmniOutliner Pro template and a set of
AppleScripts. That's it. But for the hardworking,
productivity-needing efficiency guy what it does is just short of
amazing.
Well, okay, it is amazing.
kGTD lets you plan out projects in detail, following (as loosely
or rigidly as you'd like) David Allen's Getting Things Done system.
While this is a thorough and well-developed productivity system,
the gist of it is this: You'll get a lot more done if you can just
get all of those things that you think you need to remember into a
trusted and accessible system - something you know you can count on
- so that you can finally forget them. Then just focus on the next
thing; your trusted system will remind you of what's next after
that.
kGTD provides that trustable system. Get it all out - whatever
you need to do - into the system, and then let it do its job.
Here's what you'll find: a way to look at your comprehensive
project (or projects) by action item, project, context, start date,
end date, or priority. You can view them as complete projects or as
a list of "next actions". And the best part is this: You sync it
with iCal, and all of these become task items in your iCal
world.
Like MailTags, kGTD has just seen a new release that brings some
major additions and new tools. Besides simplifying the interface
considerably (since kGTD uses AppleScript buttons in OmniOutliner
Pro), one of the really big ones is the ability to sync both ways:
Not only can kGTD inform iCal about new tasks and projects, iCal
can also create new tasks and projects in kGTD.
And you can also use MailTags to create a new task in kGTD:
You'll need to set your "MailTags" iCal calendar as a context for
kGTD, and when you use the "shorthand" for kGTD in MailTags, you
leave out the context. But once you've got it in kGTD (and in the
right project), you can edit the context and use kGTD for what it
is best at, organizing project tasks.
Here are a few things you need to know: First, kGTD requires
Omnigroup's OmniOutliner
Pro, which costs money (US$70). But, as software goes, it's
pretty affordable, and there's student pricing available if you're
eligible. Second, it's very helpful to be familiar with, if not
actively practicing, Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) method of
task management. Finally, there's a whole lot more information
available about GTD, Kinkless GTD, and using both. A few mandatory
starting points are Schoonover's Kinkless site and Merlin Mann's 43 Folders (be sure
to check out his series on using kGTD).
In large measure, these tools cover my project management needs.
When it comes to working with others on projects, that's a
different story - and a different article. Check back on Thursday for some ideas about tools
for working on projects with others. 
