As we continue this short series about saving time, we will now take a closer look at two of my favorite tools that I use regularly: Nozbe and Asana. As I explained before, planning well can save you time. Furthermore, you will have more peace because you won’t have to be constantly figuring out what you have to do. You will remember things better, be on time, take less time to do things, and have more time to rest and be with your family. You will have more time to spend with God who is the Ultimate Task Manager. (He manages the entire universe).
Nozbe
Nozbe is a task-management tool that can be downloaded to your PC, phone, and/or tablet. Nozbe can be compared to programs like Wunderlist, ToDoist, Wrike, and Remember the Milk – all of which are also very good task management programs. Nozbe comes highly recommended by many successful people including one Michael Hyatt, New York Times bestselling author and professional blogger. Though I think those other programs work very well, I prefer Nozbe over the others and I will soon explain why.
Nozbe Features Overview:
– Manage your tasks/things to do
– Organize your tasks in different projects. For example “Household/Chores”, “Work”, “Family & Friends”, and/or “Ministry”
– Tag (categorize) your tasks (like in Evernote).
– Give projects different colors
– Calendar view by week. (simple weekly calendar inside Nozbe). *note: most task management programs do not offer this.
– Specifiy date and times for the tasks
– Integrate with Google Calendar (work better than any other task manager I have tried)
– Attach documents, images, etc. to comments section of tasks
– Share tasks with others (not available with free plan)
– “Priortize” task which you can then view all your tasks in a “Priority” view tab, displaying only those tasks which you have marked as priority
I use the free plan with Nozbe and I use my five projects based on “Urgency” and “Most Importance.” I give each project a number along with a color. I place tasks and move them around from project to project based on their degree of urgency and how soon they need to be done. This isn’t a perfect system, but so far it’s working for me.
I will highlight my two favorite aspects of Nozbe and then provide a link where you can try it for free.
Google Calendar Integration
The primary reason that I am using and recommend Nozbe is because of its superior sync capability with Google Calendar. It is easy to set up the sync (see below). The information from Nozbe then automatically flows into your Google Calendar to include your project tasks and timelines. No other current time management tool has that seemless functionality.
You can integrate Nozbe with Google Calendar simply by going to “Nozbe” –>Settings–>Integrations–> Google Calendar
Best Free Plan
The other thing I like about Nozbe is simply the Free plan. There as some other good tasks management programs but none have a better Google Calendar integration and none have a better free plan than Nozbe. With the free plan you are limited to 5 projects; however, this can be enough depending on what your needs are. The Pro plan is reasonably priced if you need more than 5 projects. It will set you back about 120€ a year but it might be worth it if you find 5 projects is not enough. With the Pro plan you also get priority support and an additional member/user. Note, the pricing graphic says “Free for first 30 days” but it means you can try the Pro and Business plans free for 30 days, but the Free Plan remains free permanently.
To get started (free) with Nozbe, simply click on the link below! (Please note this is an affiliate link and I would get a very small commission if you were to decide to signup using the link. This helps me keep putting out great content to encourage and inspire you).
Asana
The last tool I will mention is Asana. I have only started to use it in the past few months but I like it very much. Asana is a bit of a hybrid between and task management program and project management system.
Asana Features Overview
– Manage your tasks/things to do
– Organize your tasks in different projects. For example “Household/Chores”, “Work”, “Family & Friends”, and/or “Ministry”
– Tag (categorize) your tasks (like in Nozbe)
– Give projects different colors
– Calendar view by month
– Specifiy date and times for the tasks and see them in the calendar
– Attach documents, images, etc. to comments section of tasks
– Share tasks with others (not available with free plan)
– “Priortize” task which you can then view all your tasks in a “Priority” view tab, displaying only those tasks which you have marked as priority
Many of the features that Nozbe offers, Asana offers as well. There is so much in common between the two that, one may ask why not just use one? That would be a good question so please let me explain:
There are two options for displaying projects, “List View” and “Board View”. List view, just as it sounds, places all your tasks as a list. These tasks can be moved up or down. They can be prioritized, tagged, labeled by color, assigned a date/time, and shared (among other things).
List View
Board View
The Asana Board view is something that makes Asana different from many other project managers. It can be compared to Trello, since it uses the Kanban Board System.
As stated on Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board)
“Kanban boards are perceived as a variation on traditional kanban cards.… At its simplest, the board can be divided into three sections: “waiting”, “work in progress” and “completed work”…boards can be created that visualise the flow of work…. Employees move cards to the section on the board that coincides with the activity it represents.
Asana Boards, like Trello, utilize the “card” feature. Each card represents a task. Each card/task can be dragged and dropped into a different column. The columns can be customized and titled however you want. Asana boards (and Trello) are very visual and have a unique style.
Project Collaboration
Asana is an especially great tool for team projects. Since collaboration is so easy, this is one of the main reasons why I use Asana. It helps me and my assistant to stay on track together with various projects. For example I am using Asana as I work on my next book. I can collaborate with the proofreaders, formatter, etc. You can (and I do) use Asana for personal projects. Before any person can access anything you put to a board, you have to “invite” them to the board which gives them access to the board. People can only access those boards to which they have been invited to.
Asana vs Trello
I used to use Trello but I have switched over primarily because of one feature: the ability to have card/tasks on more than one board. With Trello you can create a duplicate of a task and then “send” it to another project but if you make a change on one project it will not automatically update it in the other project. For me this is a big thing because I have assistants helping me on some tasks occasionally. I can have a task on one of my own project boards and the same task can be on an assistant’s project board. Unlike with Trello, when they update the task on their board, it will get updated on my board and vice versa. This to me is a very valuable feature. I really like Trello; Trello even has some advantages over Asana but this one feature of Asana is enough that I switched from Asana to Trello.
Asana Calendar View
Unlimited Projects
The Free plan with Asana includes unlimited projects and up to 15 team members! The free plan with Nozbe only includes 5 projects. So what I do is I use Nozbe for my day to day, week to week task management and I use Asana for my bigger, long term projects. As my Asana project tasks get closer to their due date, I copy them over to Nozbe where I can then integrate those tasks to Google Calendar and get reminders to my phone.
Get Started Today with Asana by going to www.asana.com
Nozbe and Asana: Side by Side
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