How do you keep work projects organised?

[EllaMenopee]

I've a busy job that I do solo - very small company, me plus one other staff member doing a different, specialised role, and a lot of latitude to just get our jobs done. I love it and I'm good at it (excellent recent review).

My boss is great and really trying to support me develop and grown the role and the organisation. I'm taking on a lot of higher level, strategic planning work as well as the day to day stuff (whihc is also expanding).

Up to now, I use a lot of scraps of paper, backs of envelopes and a messy but manageable desktop to keep on top of things, but I've started sending out a monthly update to some key stakeholders and frankly, I spend too much time trying to track exactly what I did, and picking up threads on things that don't need daily attention. I think I need some sort of project management tool so I can see things at a glance. We have MS office and I've tried planner before but I found it a bit finicky (maybe just need more time with it?). I've also used kanban boards and ansana in previous projects but a while back and not long enough to know how useful they are.

I suppose I'm looking for a to do/ list keeper more than a very strict project management tool. It doesnt need to be collaborative, its judt for my use. Does anyone have one they can recommend or should I persist with MS planner?

Hi, I recommend one note on Microsoft. Sounds just like you need. You can have a note book per project and then chapters / pages within

Thanks, I'll have a look

One Note is fantastic tool for capturing your own notes.

I currently use Team Channels, for projects, so I can communicate to everyone without adding more emails to everyone overflowing mailboxes. It becomes a central point for everyone, and easy to find docuemntation, messages, chats.

Planner for assigned tools
Project for Timelines Project Plans, Exc .
To Do is still my go to place for my own tasks

Book time in your own Calendar to work on regular tasks, e.g if you need to chase project X every fortnight, schedule that in so you don't have to remember and give yourself time to do it.

I'd recommend One Note too.

You can have separate project to do lists, separate project pages etc, and pages within tabs. it is easy to copy and paste into and jot notes into.

I use it to keep on top of a complex workload with lots of separate projects to keep an eye on.

I use OneNote too. easy to jot things down, make to do lists, place all relevant documents in one page for easy access (or put links) and also easy to switch between pages and notebooks unlike if all is in eg word where you have to manually open each one and wait for each document to open (but maybe I’m too impatient)

I use my Outlook calendar as a kanban board. As I pick up new tasks, I drop them into evening slots in my calendar, then when I’ve got a bit of time I drag them into free daytime slots, and then use those slots to get the tasks done. If I don’t finish something in the half hour allocated to it, I copy it into a new future slot.

This is also a really useful way of making sure you don’t end up scheduled into back to back meetings all day with no time to get anything done. Once I start filling up with meetings, I block out “to-do list” time- I colour-code the two in different colours so I can see at a glance what the week is looking like. It doesn’t always work, because I feel guilty about declining new meetings coming in, but I have about a 50% success rate.