Getting your ducks in a row

Dear PropellerHeads: I have been meaning to write you for quite a while, but I can't seem to get organized. I make lists, actually dozens of them, but they seem to make things worse. Can you help?

A: What you lack in organization and planning, you make up for in timing. So, take a breath and relax. Your partners at PropellerHeads central have arrived just in time.

Similar to you, I did some looking around and noticed I had about a dozen lists lingering between Outlook's tasks, notes, post-its and paper lists. Despite what looked like serous planning, I never knew what to work on next and my lists continued to grow instead of shrink. Frankly, it was depressing.

Several of your favorite prop-spinning writers have just started using a product called Workflowy (workflowy.com) that might just be your salvation. It worked for me.

Workflowy is a great tool for organizing your thoughts, prioritizing your tasks and supporting collaboration. Thankfully, it is a breeze to learn and use. That means you won't have to add "learn workflowy" to your soon-to-be-managed to-do list.

I have now combined my tasks and plans into a single Workflowy list that I leave open on my desktop, iPad and Android phone all the time. This allows me to update or add to my lists as the need arises. In fact, I used Workflowy to help organize my notes for this article. Hopefully, you noticed positive results from the awesome planning.

Workflowy is a sibling of the hundreds of Y Combinator (ycombinator.com) venture capital startups. It was founded by Mike Turtzin and Jesse Patel in 2010 as an organizational tool to keep your "brain on a piece of paper."

Workflowy is a browser-based application, so you can easily run it from your office computer and most smart mobile devices. It requires a simple email registration before you start creating your own lists. The site has some very short, well-produced videos to get you going quickly. Because there is nothing to install, it can have advantages over products like Evernote (evernote.com). Because the list "lives in the cloud," it has some advantages over some of the simple task manager and collaborative tools you may be using now.

The interface is so simple it can be intimidating. There are no predefined types, groupings or categories. Instead, you have a blank slate to create hierarchical lists. You simply type and press Enter to create more entries. If an entry belongs to a grouping, you press Tab to reflect the relationship. Common groupings include: Tasks, Goals, Projects, Plans, Clients, Shopping, Follow-up... you get the idea.

You can drag items around to reorganize, and collapse and expand groupings to help navigate through your lists. Items can be marked complete or annotated easily. You can add tags (like #urgent, #today, #Monday, #future) that can be used by the Search function to conveniently cross-categorize items.

Collaboration is pretty neat. You simply hover over a grouping and select share. Workflowy then gives you a link (with a unique URL) that you can send to folks to let them see or update the group. Updates can occur simultaneously, allowing for very efficient collaboration. The sharing function does not require collaborators to register; all they need is a browser to participate. We used this recently to develop a meeting agenda and used Workflowy to record notes from the meeting results.

After using Workflowy for a couple of weeks, I sent some improvement suggestions to their support team and was pleased to find them very receptive to continuing to improve their product.

If nothing else, just combining your various task lists into one and having it so readily available is a step in the right direction. You still might not do your most important task next, but it won't be because the string on your finger fell off.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.