Personal project management tool

[woolypants]

At work I have to manage maybe 10 projects at a time, and having ADHD, I just forget things.

What I've wanted for a LONG time is a kind of rolodex app. Each project is a card, and I can just dump everything onto the card. Notes during meetings, a To Do list, and drag files or folders to create aliases so I can't lose the files. EVERYTHING in one place for each project.

I've tried pretty much all the apps people usually suggest and none are right. Many are over-engineered, and just too complex. Many are great on Windows but are just Electron apps on Mac, so don't understand the file system etc. and don't index in Spotlight.

The best I've found is to use the macOS Notes app. This lets me drag files to a note and create aliases to them. It's indexed by Spotlight. I can create checklists. Simple but effective, but perhaps too simple and too easy to delete things/mess things up.

But is there anything else? These are the apps I've already tried and set aside:

1. Notion: Too complex, not integrated fully with macOS.
2. macOS Freeform: Very nearly right, and each project could be its own board. But it creates copies of files dragged to the board, so any edits aren't reflected - and I work with shared files, so this is an Achilles' Heel.
3. Evernote: Won't work on my work laptop, perhaps because of how it tries to access the internet. Says it can't access the server.
4. Microsoft OneNote: Almost there, but not quite intuitive and a bit clunky. But probably the best choice for what I'm thinking about.
5. DevonTHINK: Way, way over-engineered, and just not quite right.

 

[it wasnt me]

If you happen to use (or always wanted a reason to try) GNU Emacs, org-mode is exactly what you need.

 

[ksmith80209]

Try Craft.

 

[PlayUltimate]

Try Craft.

Agreed. The latest version of Craft looks pretty good to get these things to work for you.

 

[woolypants]

Thanks for the Craft recommendation. I tried it but like all these apps, it wants to manage files for me. Any files I drag onto the window are uploaded to its own cloud storage 😡 I wish wish wish these apps had a way to create aliases to files. I don't need yet more storage space. With iCloud and OneDrive and Creative Cloud, I've got enough storage space. I collaborate on files at work, so a literal straight alias to the file's location on my hard disk is all I need.

 

[PlayUltimate]

Have you looked at Noteplan? I would consider moving to it if I wasn't "locked" into Craft.
Here is Noteplans's comparison: Noteplan vs Craft according to Noteplan

 

[PlayUltimate]

Thanks for the Craft recommendation. I tried it but like all these apps, it wants to manage files for me. Any files I drag onto the window are uploaded to its own cloud storage 😡 I wish wish wish these apps had a way to create aliases to files. I don't need yet more storage space. With iCloud and OneDrive and Creative Cloud, I've got enough storage space. I collaborate on files at work, so a literal straight alias to the file's location on my hard disk is all I need.

I understand the frustration. If you are utilizing multiple devices to access the application and associated data, having an accessible source is essential.

 

[MacBH928]

have you considered a website builder? You can create one website that has everything you want and each "roblox card" will be a website you open in a browser.

blocs
sitely
rapidweaver

 

[neutrino17]

You might take a look at Keynote (should already be on your Mac). Make a separate folder for each project and put the Keynote file in that folder along with any other information you need..

Keynote can be used like Freeform but with more flexibility for shapes and such. If you want more space you can go into Page Setup and make a really large, poster sized, page. I used to make my 6 foot by 4 foot posters in Keynote.

I’ve been laying out my travel plans in Keynote. I make a timeline on one slide, on the next I paste in clippings of all the flight information and hotel reservations. Once I get a format I like I can easily duplicate or copy the slide to avoid redoing it.

You can view thumbnails on the side. I like this a lot because for me out of sight is out of mind and I forget what is there.

I don’t think you will get live updates for documents, but I think you could put in a link to that document to quickly access it from the slide in Keynote.

 

[-Jodorowsky-]

I'm about to open a pandora box, but try Obsidian. And check out the plugins that handle project management.

Powerful, free, local/private cloud/provider cloud or no sync. You get to choose.

Excallidraw is a must for you I think.

 

[ignatius345]

You might take a look at Keynote (should already be on your Mac). Make a separate folder for each project and put the Keynote file in that folder along with any other information you need..

Keynote can be used like Freeform but with more flexibility for shapes and such. If you want more space you can go into Page Setup and make a really large, poster sized, page. I used to make my 6 foot by 4 foot posters in Keynote.

I’ve been laying out my travel plans in Keynote. I make a timeline on one slide, on the next I paste in clippings of all the flight information and hotel reservations. Once I get a format I like I can easily duplicate or copy the slide to avoid redoing it.

You can view thumbnails on the side. I like this a lot because for me out of sight is out of mind and I forget what is there.

I don’t think you will get live updates for documents, but I think you could put in a link to that document to quickly access it from the slide in Keynote.

I would actually suggest you could do a lot of this in Numbers. Each tab of a spreadsheet is actually more of a canvas, with a lot of the same graphics tools. The document comes with a table in it by default, but you can actually delete that, or shrink it down and use the space around it for all kinds of things. And I'd argue that for a lot of information will want to be living in a table anyway.

 

[ignatius345]

At work I have to manage maybe 10 projects at a time, and having ADHD, I just forget things.

I manage about the same number of projects at my work.

Maybe my needs are a little different, but it's very important that everything I'm tracking is visible to my whole team. Since we use Slack already, I started using a feature they rolled out last year called "Lists" which I find very useful. You can set up a board which tracks tasks in various states of activity, and move things between them. It's not as slick as some of the stuff people are posting above, but since the company is already using (and paying for) Slack, it was easy to implement.

 

[neutrino17]

I would actually suggest you could do a lot of this in Numbers. Each tab of a spreadsheet is actually more of a canvas, with a lot of the same graphics tools. The document comes with a table in it by default, but you can actually delete that, or shrink it down and use the space around it for all kinds of things. And I'd argue that for a lot of information will want to be living in a table anyway.

Agreed. Actually, there is a lot of overlap between Pages, Numbers and Keynote. I like that compared to the old days you can create a really large canvas (poster size) and post lots of data at one time.

At conferences, compared to giving platform talks I now favor poster sessions for this reason. I can show all my information at once and when people come by to talk we can move around the poster as the discussion flows.

 

[novagamer]

If you happen to use (or always wanted a reason to try) GNU Emacs, org-mode is exactly what you need.

Came here to post this. Totally changed my working life.

It took me a FULL MONTH to learn and integrate but I stuck with it for years which I can’t say about anything else. I had a research (published multiple times in ACM etc.) manager force me to use it to collaborate and I am forever grateful. Learned org-mode from there and my entire career was in some text files with instant searchability.

Remap caps lock to control if you do this. I use ctrl+ n, p, b, f, a , e, all over the place on Mac which supports that stuff is most text fields.

Obsidian is good but emacs once you learn it is faster. I use Obsidian for personal stuff only because I save a lot of images and pdfs for my own research work which Emacs doesn’t do super great with.

 

[it wasnt me]

Obsidian is good but emacs once you learn it is faster.

The one disadvantage of most Emacsen is that they won't work well on an iPhone, while Obsidian does. But org-mode works just well on my iPhone too (I use orgro). That's another advantage of GNU Emacs: org-mode is very portable.

 

[ignatius345]

Agreed. Actually, there is a lot of overlap between Pages, Numbers and Keynote. I like that compared to the old days you can create a really large canvas (poster size) and post lots of data at one time.

At conferences, compared to giving platform talks I now favor poster sessions for this reason. I can show all my information at once and when people come by to talk we can move around the poster as the discussion flows.

Another thing I absolutely love about Keynote (and probably the others) is that if you're a graphic designer you can paste vector objects directly from Illustrator into Keynote. It's a massive boon to ease of use. Also means you can use it as a repository for graphic objects.

 

[JamesMay82]

I manage building projects and I've struggled with so much to remember. I just use apple notes with a folder for each project.

I have a checklist on notes and then a daily reminders to remind me to check the list.

I tried to use the reminders app on its own but found it a bit tricky and not to intuitive

 

[MacBH928]

I would actually suggest you could do a lot of this in Numbers. Each tab of a spreadsheet is actually more of a canvas, with a lot of the same graphics tools. The document comes with a table in it by default, but you can actually delete that, or shrink it down and use the space around it for all kinds of things. And I'd argue that for a lot of information will want to be living in a table anyway.

thats actually a good solution

 

[ForkHandles]

If you are anything like me (ADD) then the software isn’t the issue. Whatever you use, you will struggle to record everything consistently, and have difficulties checking that you’ve put everything is in that list.

For this, I’m afraid, I’ve found no solution.

 

[berb]

Keep It could be considered a simpler version of DevonTHINK. The macOS version is a one-off payment, the iOS/iPadOS versions are subscription.

 

[ignatius345]

If you are anything like me (ADD) then the software isn’t the issue. Whatever you use, you will struggle to record everything consistently, and have difficulties checking that you’ve put everything is in that list.

For this, I’m afraid, I’ve found no solution.

I don't have ADD per se, but I do struggle with keeping focus when there are tons of emails and Slack messages and everything else happening on my busy computer screen. The other day I hit on something that's been helping me a lot when I get "lost" and wander away from the task I want to get done.

I open up Stickies (which is already on every Mac) and type in big bold type the name of the thing I'm doing. I park that as a floating window on the upper right of my screen as a constant reminder of the task at hand. This just says "finish task" as a placeholder but obviously I make it more specific than that

 

[PlayUltimate]

I open up Stickies (which is already on every Mac) ...

Completely forgot that Stickies still existed. There are days that it would have been handy and I just assumed it was NLA. Thanks.

 

[woolypants]

Thanks all for your replies so far. I'm open to more suggestions if anybody else is reading this.

I've diligently tried all the suggestions mentioned so far and, for my personal circumstances, found that they weren't right. All of them just don't handle files like I want, and that's possibly the biggest bugbear. None have the option of creating aliases to files. All want to manage files. This removes the possibility of adding OneDrive, Sharepoint or Creative Cloud files that others might be collaborating on.

I just need a "dump" app. If anybody wants to jump onto ChatGPT to create it, here's the specs:

• The program window is an empty, infinite canvas, with the ability to add sticky note-like text boxes, and also text without it being in a box (so labels can be created etc). Zoom in and out by holding Cmd and scrolling.
• I navigate around in the usual way, by holding space so a grab hand appears and I click and drag.
• I can do basic formatting with text, like ordered/unordered lists, font sizes, font choices, colour backgrounds etc.
• I can elastic-band select items and choose to move, copy, delete etc. Just like files in a browser window.
• If any file at all is dragged onto the window from Finder, an alias is created.
  • If I select a file and hit Space, I get a Quick Look of the file, just like in Finder.
  • Any file at all also means also images. No, I don't want to insert the image. I want an alias created to its location on the file system.
  • File aliases it's possible to add could be PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, Excel sheets, emails dragged from Outlook, even applications.
  • I should also be able to drag and drop text from another app and have it insert as a new note. This way I can take excerpts from emails and Teams chats.
• If I double-click any of these file aliases, the file opens in the native app on my system. I can also drag the alias to a Dock icon to open it there (useful for images – e.g. double-clicking opens them in Preview but I might also want to drag them into Photoshop).

And that's it. It's very simple.

 

[MacBH928]

Thanks all for your replies so far. I'm open to more suggestions if anybody else is reading this.

I've diligently tried all the suggestions mentioned so far and, for my personal circumstances, found that they weren't right. All of them just don't handle files like I want, and that's possibly the biggest bugbear. None have the option of creating aliases to files. All want to manage files. This removes the possibility of adding OneDrive, Sharepoint or Creative Cloud files that others might be collaborating on.

I just need a "dump" app. If anybody wants to jump onto ChatGPT to create it, here's the specs:

• The program window is an empty, infinite canvas, with the ability to add sticky note-like text boxes, and also text without it being in a box (so labels can be created etc). Zoom in and out by holding Cmd and scrolling.
• I navigate around in the usual way, by holding space so a grab hand appears and I click and drag.
• I can do basic formatting with text, like ordered/unordered lists, font sizes, font choices, colour backgrounds etc.
• I can elastic-band select items and choose to move, copy, delete etc. Just like files in a browser window.
• If any file at all is dragged onto the window from Finder, an alias is created.
  • If I select a file and hit Space, I get a Quick Look of the file, just like in Finder.
  • Any file at all also means also images. No, I don't want to insert the image. I want an alias created to its location on the file system.
  • File aliases it's possible to add could be PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, Excel sheets, emails dragged from Outlook, even applications.
  • I should also be able to drag and drop text from another app and have it insert as a new note. This way I can take excerpts from emails and Teams chats.
• If I double-click any of these file aliases, the file opens in the native app on my system. I can also drag the alias to a Dock icon to open it there (useful for images – e.g. double-clicking opens them in Preview but I might also want to drag them into Photoshop).

And that's it. It's very simple.

I am afraid you will not find an app the meets your exact criteria. there will always be compromise unless you build the app yourself

 

[MacBH928]

Keep It could be considered a simpler version of DevonTHINK. The macOS version is a one-off payment, the iOS/iPadOS versions are subscription.

how is this different from apple notes?