I have 3 To Do lists -

1. Highrise To-do’s
2. Basecamp To-do’s
3. Mac Mail To-do’s (which I was hoping would work with iPhone by now??)

There has to be an easy way to streamline these. What’s everyone else doing?

Cheers,

Peter

I have more problem and nobody is willing to solve it.
- Basecamp To-Dos
- Highrise To-Dos
- Outlook Tasks etc.
- Bakcpack stuff

I am not sure whois going to offer an integrated solution ?
I think an Integrated CRM would have millions of HAPPY members right away.
Lewis

This is exactly why I’ve had a love/hate relationship with 37signals products for some time. I love them, but I tend to accumulate to-do lists in Basecamp, Highrise, and Backpack. It’s way too much to properly prioritize what to do when you’ve got three to-do lists. My dream for a long time has been some integrated page where you have all tasks across 37signals products (not unlike the consolidated to-do page in Basecamp).

Because my tasks had become way too scattered, I’ve just about phased out Basecamp, and am doing the same with Backpack. Now that OmniFocus is out for the iPhone, I think that will be a better solution for me; Highrise is the one app that has become indispensable for me. What I have been doing is making repeating tasks in OF that say, “Clear Highrise ‘Today’,” “Clear Highrise ‘This Week’,” etc.

Remember the Milk

This pulls everything together – Mac, Blackberry, iPhone (very nice implementation), Google, email to-dos…. so you can enter and marshal task via any of these methods and they’ll all sync together. Fantastic.

I’ve wrestled with this too, and I think seeking a single solution is a fool’s errand.

There is almost NO time that seeing everything we have to do in one place actually helps us, other than by making us anxious. Theoretically, it sounds nice, but I don’t think there’s a practical application.

Instead, I think keeping tasks somewhat separate allow you to focus on what is important right now.

I’m using Basecamp to-dos for detailed lists of followup tasks with my team, on a complex project, or tracking bug fixes. When you’re working on that project, it’s the only place to be. But Basecamp todos don’t remind you or carry due dates, so they’re really just good for punch lists.

• receive tasks by email (sent from my phone or desktop)
• remind me when they’re due
• tag according to context

I use a variation of Chemnitz’s strategy above, to create a Highrise task like “TODAY: clear Basecamp todos on ABC project” if it really has to be done for a client expectation.

Hope that helps.

i love things on mac… i fully disagree with isaac it’s good to have everything in one place and filter by area of concern

I believe you need more then ONE application to get your to-do’s EASY DONE.
I believe it is simple how I do it now:

I use Highrise to-do’s for PEOPLE related stuff (NOT PROJECTS).

Such as:

-Get the oven repaired (linked to the company that repairs it – notes of previous phone calls)
-Arranging and claiming my money of a water damage (linked to my insurance company)
-Scheduling a staff meeting for a raise (all previous talks and salaries are in notes)
-Buying a present for a friend

To know more about how I use Highrise and the to-do’s read here

I use Basecamp for PROJECT related things:

-Develop Overview of department mobile phones
-Make sketch of floorplan
-Make monthly invoices (bookkeeper logs in to the project)

If 37s or any other company would combine the functionality of both applications it would become way to complicated.
As Jason stated in Businessweek: Craftspeople who really know their trade, like carpenters or metalworkers, have very specific tools for each job. In fact, they may have five different types of hammers and 15 types of nails. If you really want to do a good job, you need to use very specific tools for the job.

People who try to get everything done in one app is like trying to get a folding bicycle that is easy on public transport but still is great to go mountain biking….... You really believe in this?

If you give up to hunt for one solution and go for two, your live will be already double easy :-)

Just my experience….

Hi,
I use Highrise to do my general todo list and stuff which is not particularly project related (well, sometimes a project one will creep in there).

Project specific todo lists are either in Basecamp or in the Lighthouseapp.com ticketing system – but these tend to be for other people.

I don’t think it’s an issue having multiple todo lists – the key is just to know what you are meant to be working on next (ok, easier said than done!). In my role I tend to create a lot of tasks for other people so my Highrise is my READ/WRITE todo list whereas others are mainly WRITE only…if that makes any sense :)

Joel

hi gobstopper, does Remember the milk, (RTM) help sync todos with Highrise? I am a fan of RTM, unfortunately, it does not have shared contacts, like highrise has, which make it easier for collaborating with team members on customers etc. It would be great if I could somehow sync, RTM with Highrise, or if RTM gets its own shared contacts.

All the apps I use for managing my tasks have the ability to send me an email of that task.
I have a Mail folder called ACTION that collects all these tasks via various rules, processes and the use of Mail Act-On.

I then process this list in a couple of ways:
1/ Oldest First – sort the list of emails based on the dates received and do the oldest ones first.
2/ Context Search – using Mail search, I type in a context such as “call” or “review” and all the tasks that use that word in my ACTION folder are filtered.

I also use the Inbox Zero method of processing my Mail inbox so some of the smaller tasks get done during that process.

Hope this helps.