Armed as I am with my business plan, and my best intentions for the year, I am testing new productivity tools, and giving you early feedback.

A new client asked me for a tool to keep track of the Action Plan projects that his business plan will generate when we finish that part of our work together. Until now, I've been using an Excel spreadsheet as my master To-Do list, which was workable but clunky, so I was delighted to discover and begin playing with a free web-based productivity tool that my research uncovered.

Toodledo is an intuitively easy-to-use, web-based to-do list. The free version offers the following capabilities:

Organize Your Tasks

Use folders, subtasks, due-dates, priorities, tags, contexts, goals, notes, time estimates and other information to easily organize, search and sort through your tasks.

 

 

 

For a mere $14.95 a year, I opted for the ProAccount version, which offers a free 7-day trial without asking for your credit card information.

The useful features of the Pro Account allow me to create subtasks, track tasks on a calendar, use a Scheduler ("...when you are feeling indecisive or don't have the energy or motivation to be as productive as you could be. All you need to do is specify how much time you have available to work and Toodledo will tell you what to do" - isn't THAT alone worth $14.95?), collaborate with my virtual assistant if I wish, and make the cutest customized foldable To-Do lists to carry in my purse.

Every night, I receive an email with a summary of my To-Do list for the next day, including the inconsiderate reminders of what I have forgotten to do to date!

For the goal-oriented, you can set short-term, middle-term and long-term goals to which you can then assign the specific tasks.

Toodledo is intuitive, although I did struggle to add the dates -- I eventually had to type them in backwards (e.g. 08-01-07). I like the ability to sort my list by Project Folder, by Due Date, and by Priority. It is also handy, as your Action List expands enormously, to be able to search for those missing To-Do items using tags that you assign each task (e.g. child's name, or project title, or subject matter) 

Here is Toodledo's Memorable Marketing Message: "Keeping track of all your tasks will help you avoid disorganization, stay motivated and be more productive. Check it out."

I'll be playing a whole lot more with it, but so far, I'm impressed. Oops, just spotted three items I was supposed to take care of today that I haven't gotten to yet. Must go now.....!