Task Management Guide – List of 10 Best Apps to Manage Tasks
Projects are made up of a bunch of tasks. Right from the development of an idea, you need to plan, track, test, monitor, and report all the tasks that are involved in the project. Task management comes in handy with all these, helping you complete the project efficiently and in the most effective way possible.
What is task management and how it is different from project management?
Task management is defined as the process of handling the entire life-cycle of a task, right from planning to tracking to execution. It helps teams track tasks from the beginning, setting deadlines, prioritizing tasks, and assigning them to the right people. It ensures projects stay on track and get completed on time.
Task management, a part of project management is a pretty simple idea. It’s how you break complex projects into simple, bite-sized tasks so you can manage them quite easily.
Projects have a clear start and end date and have milestones in the middle to know how close you are to completion. Tasks, on the other hand, are units of work. They are actions that need to be accomplished as the project progress. They create an ongoing process that forms a part of your daily work.
Task management focuses on organizing tasks (that may be spread across multiple projects), prioritizing them, setting deadlines, and delegate tasks. Project Management is far more encompassing.
In addition to task management, it also focuses on resource allocation, budgeting, and dependencies. Usually, task management capabilities are built within project management software.
Why do you need Task Management Software?
The simplest form of a task management solution is pen and paper. It’s an inexpensive and effective means of organizing all your tasks and to stay organized at work. But, its use is limited to only individuals and doesn’t work for slightly larger teams.
However, using tools to keep track of tasks and sub-tasks helps with many things:
- Everyone’s tasks are on the same system and it ensures that team members know what others are working on
- Since all the tasks are organized, it’s easier to find information and collaborate with each other
- You have access to your tasks from anywhere and anytime
- You can easily keep track of tasks and know which ones need immediate attention
- Prioritize tasks, set deadlines, and assign tasks to people
- Generate reports to identify bottlenecks
Popular Task Management Tools To Consider in 2021
If you are looking for the best task management apps to increase productivity at work, there are a few good options available. Here are some popular task management apps to look for in 2021.
1. Kissflow Project
Kissflow Project is a complete project management suite that supports task management as well. It is intuitive and simple to use, even for absolute beginners. You can customize your forms to ensure the right details are captured for each task and extraneous fields are deleted, giving your team the best possible picture of what needs to be done.
The Kanban boards help you effectively track all your tasks and keep them organized. Once complete, you can generate powerful reports that help you make better, data-driven decisions and fix inefficiencies. Also, it’s ideal for non-project managers and creative teams to manage their team tasks.
Kissflow Project gives you easy access to create your own project board, assign tasks, and create reports. It’s the perfect tool for people who want to get the work done and not be distracted by the tool. You can sign up for free today.
2. Podio
Podio is meant to function as a virtual “social workspace,” an online hub for project collaboration that engages users and is easy to customize. Podio has an app marketplace, from which teams and users can select apps to meet their needs, as well as a function to design apps if there’s not one to suit your team’s purposes. One challenge in task management on Podio is that assigning a task to multiple team members results in duplicate tasks, which makes tracking difficult.
Pricing: Podio is free for five users but it’s limited by minimum functionalities. Paid plans start from $9 to $24 per user per month.
3. HiTask
HiTask is a task management app that’s easy to use and works well for businesses of all sizes. Users can upload documents and attach them to specific tasks for easy storage and organization, but the free and low-cost plans have relatively low storage allowances.
Teams handling sensitive information may find the lack of security features problematic. Users like the intuitive drag and drop interface. HiTask has only a few integrations, but it does sync with Google Calendar, and a Chrome extension lets you create tasks directly from the browser’s toolbar.
Pricing: HiTask has a free plan for up to five users. Paid plans go from $5 to $20 per user per month depending on your feature requirements.
4. MeisterTask
With strong integrations and solid security features, MeisterTask is a good choice for teams that need a central communication hub for tasks and projects that involve sensitive information. MeisterTask was created for agile project teams and has kanban boards as well as static project boards.
To-do lists can be divided into sub-lists, and users can assign relationships among tasks with alerts to notify a team member when an upstream task has been completed, but there are no WIP limits (work-in-progress limits). While the interface is attractive, some users find it cluttered and complain of a lack of flexibility in display options.
Pricing: MeisterTask’s basic plan is free while the higher functionality versions are paid. The Business plan starts from $6.29 per user per month and supports workflows and sophisticated permissions. There’s also an Enterprise plan that can be tailored to your needs. They also have a Pro plan for small teams and it starts at $4.19 per user per month.
5. Proofhub
SaaS-based Proofhub has both kanban boards and Gantt charts for task management and allows users to track the time spent on each task. Group chat and direct messaging features facilitate easy communication among team members. Proofhub has very few integrations, so it may not meet the needs of all organizations. Some users feel the app isn’t able to handle the demands of large organizations or complex projects and that it’s best suited for small teams.
Pricing: ProofHub offers a flat fee irrespective of the number of users unlike a lot of other tools in this list. There are two plans: the Essential plan is priced at $50 per month while the Ultimate Control plan costs $99 per month.
6. Workfront
Formerly known as AtTask, Workfront allows teams to collaborate on tasks and projects and makes use of social features to facilitate a collaborative virtual workspace. Workfront supports the implementation of project management methodologies such as Waterfall and Agile and has all the essentials of time tracking, reports, and task assignment.
If you’re looking for a simple task management app, Workfront may have too many bells and whistles as it’s meant for businesses with complex workflows.
Pricing: Workfront does not have explicit pricing plans but offers them upon request.
7. TaskQue
TaskQue offers a combination of features to maximize productivity and organize tasks while keeping distractions at bay. You can easily assign tasks and know when team members are available. You can dig deep into the performance of individuals, thereby increasing transparency. You can collaborate and share files from within the app.
Pricing: The free plan supports up to 10 users while the Premium plan starts at $5 per user per month. There’s also a 60 day free trial period.
8. Asana
Asana lets you create visual boards with different color codes and lists to see what stage your project is in and know which tasks need your immediate attention. It also allows creating project templates to save time when managing similar projects in the future. While not as powerful as others, its easy-to-use interface is a massive selling point.
Pricing: There’s a free trial, basic plan, and paid plans start at $9.99/user/month.
9. Trello
Trello is a leading task management software that lets you work with your teams. It uses boards, lists, and cards that are easy to use. It’s ideal for individuals or small teams that manage a handful of tasks. The basic plan is free to use.
Pricing: However, there are paid plans that add automation, integrations, priority support, and more.
10. Zoho Projects
With Zoho Projects, you can keep track of tasks, collaborate with your team, and run intuitive reports. It comes with powerful features like Gantt charts, task dependencies, milestones, and feeds for easy communication. You can share documents from within the tool
Pricing: There’s a forever free version with basic features and limited users.
Essential Features of Task Management Software
There are plenty of project management tools that perform task management and finding the right one is a daunting task. Depending on the organization, the requirements, and the approach to work management, you have many options.
Though there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, there are a few key features you need to look out for:
1. Task Planning
It’s important to plan your tasks ahead of time to ensure smooth execution. The tool needs to accommodate due dates and deadlines.
2. Task Assignment
Once all the tasks have been planned, they must be delegated to different team members. The system should let you invite team members and assign tasks to them.
3. Task prioritization
With so many things on the to-do list, it’s easy to spend so much time on meetings deciding what tasks need to be done first. The system should let managers prioritize tasks to manage tasks better.
4. Kanban Board
The kanban board view keeps everything organized and allows users to drag and drop cards into different lists as soon as they’re complete.
5. Track Status
With a number of tasks on the board, it’s a struggle to keep up with them. When you keep track of the status of each task, you can easily identify bottlenecks.
6. Notifications
The system should notify whenever a task needs your action. A mobile app comes handy so you’ll be notified no matter where you are.
Manage All your Tasks with Kissflow Project
With Kissflow Project you can easily organize all your tasks in multiple kanban boards and invite team members to collaborate with you. You can assign priorities, set deadlines, and ensure that your task management in projects is right on track.
