Management tool - history
In last two previous jobs, we used project tracking / management tool Jira. I really liked it and I used it a lot. I always noted down task description and short to do list. And it was very helpful, especially when you needed to check older tasks.
Before
Now when I work independently with my projects at the begging I did not use any project management tool. When my task list got bigger and I had more ideas about what to create later, I wrote them down in new Google Drive sheet. After some weeks, maybe months that sheet got really messy, there was too much information, notes, tasks, ideas. I read about MVP and tried to reorganize everything. I created a new page and put all important tasks there.
After some time I got the idea to start track time for my tasks. At first, I searched for Jira, but turns out there is no free version. And at this moment, when I do not make any money from my current project this was very important for me. So no Jira for now.
TeamClerk
Then after searching and reading reviews, I found TeamClerk. It has free version and good UI. I put all my tasks from Google Drive sheet and started to using it. When creating a task you can choose tasks priority(Low, Medium, High), difficulty(Low, Medium, High), and status(Unstarted, started, finished). All tasks are ordered based on priority and difficulty.
Pros
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TeamClerk project analytics[/caption]
I really liked Project Analytics tab, where I could see three graphs about task status distribution, finished tasks by day, started tasks by day.
I really liked the UI, it was functional and modern.
Cons
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TeamClerk new task[/caption]
Adding task description was really bad, it was designed for maybe like one short sentence.
There were no time tracking options. Always when I assign a task to me, I get an email about that and that was really annoying.
So basically I stopped using it because of no time tracking and task description problems.
Trello
Again after some searching, I found this tool - Trello. It supposes to have time tracking and task description, commenting, checklist options.
Pros
Basically, in Trello you can create a board(project page) in which you can create many lists like to do, ideas, etc. And for time tracking you have to use third party tools. Trello offers a lot of third party integrations and those are called Power-Ups (Dropbox, Evernote, GitHub, Google Drive, and much more). For time tracking you have to use Power-Up called "Harvest". I again created my boards, put all task in the respective lists.
Cons
I again created my boards, put all task in the respective lists. I tried to use for some days, but I kinda didn't like it. UI was not as good as TeamClerk and time tracking was not easy to use. And switched back to TeamClerk.
hiTask
Found this tool - hiTask. Again put all my tasks there. Started using it.
Pros
hiTask offers more features the previous tools. You can plan tasks for a specific date, estimate time, make it as repeated task, tag and color tasks.
Cons
I used it for some days and found some things that annoy me. You can order tasks only by alphabet, priority, last modified, start date, due date. I was not using calendar and dates so for me really was only two options - alphabet and priority. Of course, I needed my task to be ordered by priority, but there were only three options. I had about 40 tasks and I could no distribute them by three priority options.
UI was too complicated for me and there were too many features that I don't need. So I slowly stopped using it.
KanbanFlow
Again started my searching adventures. I found - KanbanFlow. I put all my tasks in it and already felt that this is the one.
Pros
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KanbanFlow new task[/caption]
At begging, you can add additional columns for other projects, ideas list, etc. In a task, there is much more space for description than other tools. You can color your tasks by your custom categories, I created colors for every project. In task description, you can use text formatting tags.
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KanbanFlow subtasks[/caption]
In other task tabs, you can add subtasks(checklist).
The most part that I love is you can you view task description and subtasks. If a task has a description, subtasks then it has these additional icons which you can click and description or subtasks will appear and stay.
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KanbanFlow features[/caption]
To track time you have to use built in widget Pomodoro timer which uses Pomodoro Technique. You just select one task and press Start. After the time is elapsed, you will receive notification that you need to take a break. Breaks are usually 5 minutes and after four cycles you can take 15 minutes break. And when break time is elapsed, you get a notification that break time is over.
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Pomodoro timer[/caption]
Cons
I would like some summary graphs like TeamClerk has. And some reports about spent time, cause now you can only see total day times in work log.
After
I am now using KanbaFlow and I recommend it to others. It really helps boost my productivity and all my tasks are well organized. UI is good and easy to use. Pomodoro timer is really useful and I enjoy using it. Premium version is $5 per user and month, it includes some useful features like Time spent report, Cumulative Flow, Cycle & Lead time, Forecasting, Time estimate & Task count and others. In the future, I could upgrade to premium version, cause there are some features that I am missing now in free version.