When I was employed as a web developer my tasks typically came as one or two major priorities for the day or week and small support/update requests that came in during the day. I worked at my position in the assembly line, taking proposals and designs and making the website. There wasn’t much need of organizing myself as all the immediate need tasks were laid out, part of the routine or sitting in my inbox.
Life as a freelancer is not so simple. There is typically no project coordinator, manager or boss. At least not one that is handling scheduling your time for all the various tasks you have to work on. I’ve heard of the getting things done approach before, but it was always overkill for my limited view of my pipeline. Being a freelancer I have a better view at the pipeline. Luckily for me The Omni Group is doing a public beta of their new personal task management program called OmniFocus It’s modelled on the getting things done principles. While I might not utilize all of the features, it has proven useful to be able to get a brain dump of what is on my plate now and getting it organized and done.
In the week of solid use it’s proven useful in scheduling my time and priorities. Before the end of the year I’ll be putting it through the paces as I’ve got a 30~40 hour project to be done alongside a few smaller projects.