LeaderTask - Alternative to Outlook!

LeaderTask - Alternative to Outlook!

I once asked a friend of mine what is the best organizer? He said, "Microsoft Outlook, of course". Then he thought a bit and added, "The most popular one, anyway." But popularity is not the key issue for me. And since I have to write down (or keep in mind) a lot in my work, I decided to take it more seriously. I have studied a lot organizers and schedulers. LeaderTask from the Almeza company has turned out to be the most appropriate and convenient one for me. I will not compare it with all organizers, but only with the most popular one – Microsoft Outlook. No doubt Microsoft Outlook is a high-quality software product, but LeaderTask outdoes it in some things. Though Outlook is better in some other things. I will enumerate all these parameters in this article. So...

LeaderTask advantages.

1. Separate object groups.

There are different types of objects defined in LeaderTask. These include: projects, tasks, notes.

Projects in LeaderTask mean those things that have time limits. Something specific results from a project being completed.

A task in LeaderTask is the description of what should be done in order to complete a project (project steps).

Notes are chaotic records that can be assigned to projects and separate tasks (they may also deal with a contact/category/time, etc.). Notes serve as a convenient tool for taking down separate thoughts that can be useful for completing a project or a task.

A project may contain several tasks. For example, the "Writing an article" project may include the following: "Studying materials", "Writing a draft", "Sending it to the editor", "Correcting the article". The result of the project is an article. That is, something large is split into smaller parts, which is very convenient to use.

Besides, every project has the following properties: a name, a group (logical, the one the project belongs to), a contact (the list of project participants), a time period (the time the project will be completed within), notes (comments to the project). You can filter tasks by these properties (single out tasks from the list of tasks). I will dwell on filtering a bit later.

Each task can contain subtasks. For example, the "Studying materials" task may include the following subtasks: "Visit the library", "View information on the website", "View advertising materials". Any task has parameters (tags) that can be also used for filtering. These include: "Projects", "Contacts", "Categories", "Calendar".

Outlook has nothing like this - no different types of objects are defined in it. There are no separate projects, tasks, notes – there are only equal tasks. It means that notes (occasional thoughts) will be in one list, which will make searching for a particular note afterwards more difficult. It is completely unacceptable for a person who values time.

2. Tree-like tasks.

Tasks in LeaderTask are arranged in the form of a tree, which is achieved due to the task hierarchy (splitting tasks into subtasks). It allows you to classify tasks, combine them into one project (or into a task of a higher level). This way you get tasks that are not scatterred, but strictly structured. The tree-like structure allows you to see the heirarchy and understand what tasks belong to what at any time. It reminds the tree of folders and files in the operating system. It is much more convenient to keep tasks this way (since you are quite used to it). Besides, these hierarchies can have as much levels as you need.

Ivan Abramovsky is cofounder of Unattended Installation Systems. The company's flagship product MultiSet has become a "must-have-software" in homes and offices in more than 60 countries. http://www.almeza.com