Looking for a minimalistic way to keep track of what you need to get done? Wunderlist is a great application for the job.  I have tried many of the to-do list mangers out there and Wunderlist is by far the best looking, and possibly one of the most functional I have used.

Once installed, the first thing you will notice is that this is a great looking program.  It is very stylish and sleek. 

On the right side menu, you can add categories of to-do lists you need to create.  For example, you could have one named personal (for your personal to-do list items) and the other named work (for your work related projects). Then all you need to do to add things to your to-do lists is type out a short message in the box labeled, "Add your task here" and then hit the Enter key on the keyboard.  Add stars to give certain to-do list items more importance and clear things off by clicking on the check mark box to the far left. 

Now, that is not to say Wunderlist is without its flaws.  One thing that bugged me was there was no real documentation on how you use the program.  You just pretty much have to figure it out. Right now, there is no way to sync your usage either to a mobile device (however, that should be coming soon). Wunderlist also needs to be able to minimize too.  I’d rather it live by my clock rather than take up space as another item in the task bar.

Pick up the task management application Wunderlist (available for both Mac and Windows) and let me know what you think.

RescueTime – It is a web-based time management and analytic tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

FreshBooks – One of the best tools to easily and quickly track your time and invoice your clients.

Cashboard – Time tracking, invoicing, estimates, and online payments done your way. Cashboard does it all, and does it for free.

Motismo – a simple time tracking solution for creative professionals.

LiveTimer – This is a flexible and easy to use online time tracking service. It can be used by anyone on the Internet to track time for billing purposes or to improve accountability and productivity.

TrackMyPeople -This system is entirely web based meaning you can access your teams data everywhere in the world allowing you to easily track your employees time spent on a project or just analyze a graph for optimization.

Torch – This application allows you to communicate simply with your colleagues, clients and suppliers.

FreeTimeManager – FreeTime was conceived and developed by a team of designers who were looking for a simple yet logical real-time management solution.

BubbleTimer – A personal time management solution that helps you spend your time on what’s most important to you.

If you are looking for more time saving solutions, be sure to check out the previous list of ten application to help you get more time back.

tick – Want to focus on hitting your budgets?  Tick is a simple and friendly time tracking application that will help you do just that.

1time – this tool is a web-based time and expense tracking application that allowse you to easily keep track of projects in real time.

tempo – another time tracking tool, this one also comes with powerful reporting and mobile access.

Santexq -  here is the answer to the time reporting, task managing and billing needs of your dynamic business.

toggl – the time management tool you want to use.

Klok – this app is a little different because it is a personal time tracking tool.  It can tell you how much time you have spend on past projects, which in turn can tell you how much time you might spend on future projects too.

Paymo – this tool acts as an assistant for anybody working as a freelance adgent out there as well as a time manager.

SlimTimer – time tracking, without the time sheet.

Harvest – this tool lets you and your staff track time, log expenses, and create invoices in one simple, integrated workflow.

Clocking IT – this keeps track of all your tasks and the time you spend on them.

Have another suggestion, tip or application that is helping you get more of your time back this year?  Let me know about it.

With Scrumy, all you do is point your browser towards scrumy.com/ and then after the / type in any name you want.  For each job you might need to get done, add a new story.  Then you can add the tasks for that job under the “To Do” list.  In addition to the “To Do” list you also have sections for work in progress, that are verified, and that are done.  As the work progresses, you can drag and drop to do list items to other boxes.  The process is simple, yet very effective for organizing your team’s ideas and tracking the progress.

The service is totally free, but if you want a few more features – I suggest you shell out for Scrumy Pro.  With Scrumy Pro, you can password protect your project. You get the Dashboard to help you manage multiple sprints. You get Burndown Charts to help you schedule. You can rename your project at any time. Your project will never be deleted for inactivity. Ever.

If you need help organizing your next big project, give Scrumy a shot.

Hosted by them and edited on their servers, you can quickly create your content, with no worry about installing software or learning any programming languages. They say that your final product will be a standards compliant (and search engine friendly) masterpiece that can not be beat.

CushyCMS promises to be the easiest way to get a web site up in no time at all. I do have to say it is an interesting idea (and I wish them all the best). Curious to see how many people will turn to these types of solutions over your normal web hosting account and Joomla install for example?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am totally happy with WordPress – but, there are several cool alternatives that might be worth checking out for your next web project.

Drupal – Drupal is a little more of a WordPress on steroids. Lots of goodies and better membership system in place too.

Nucleus CMS – Possibly the best WordPress alternative out there. Gives you all the same features, add-ons, plugins and support.

Textpattern – Flexable and open source blogging solution – much of the same WordPress look and feel.

Serendipity – This is a PHP-powered weblog application which gives the user an easy way to maintain a weblog or even a complete homepage.

Joomla – Like Drupal, might be too feature rich for the casual blogging fan – but a good engine for in depth web sites or basic blogs.

LifeType – A “state of the art blogging solution” is how LifeType describes themselves.

Habari – Looking at more blogging script alternatives, I ran across one that promises to be, “next-generation blogging.”.  I don’t even know what that means, but I do have to admit Habari has a bright future in t-shirt slogans if nothing else.

Wikiblog – This one tries to mix the blogging and wiki sides of things into an interesting mashup of content creation.

eggblog – While a little light on documentation, Eggblog looks to be a nice alternative blogging script for those of you who might not want to follow the fold and use WordPress or one of the other more popular solutions out there.

There you have it – nine other tools you can use to get your content published and your articles out there to the world. Have one I missed?

One good way of getting more productive is to make yourself a list.

Now I know some people poo-poo this idea because it sets a goal that you can not reach. Your to do list might be really huge, and looking at it might discourage you from moving forward. For me though, a list is a good way to help me remember what my daily tasks should be and what my weekly tasks should be.

You shouldn’t put things on your list like “brush your teeth” or “take a bath”. Hopefully those are given tasks that you know that you will do by the time the day is over with. Things marked on the lists should not be everyday goals you set out to do. They should be the odd little things that take up your free time.

I want you to create two notes to yourself. One should be what you want to get done in a day (normal day to day tasks that you need to make note of). The other should be things you need to get done by the time the week is over with (these can be bigger tasks or jobs that you do not need to do every single day).

For example, if I know I have to write five articles, I could try to write them all in one day – but then they would probably be a little suckstatic in their quality. Instead, I have five days in the work week, so I can write down on my daily to do list – write an article. This way one job that would take several hours can now be spread out through the week and take only a few minutes.

Now what is a good way to write these notes to yourself? Here are a couple of program that should help you out in that department. Both allow you to put little sticky notes on your desktop to write things down on.

+ StickyPad
+ ATnotes
+ Stickies

The great lesson to be learned is to not overwork yourself. Instead of doing one big job today, make it into several little jobs you can spread out through the week. This way you can have more hours of your day to do other things you need to do.

Well so far, making lists of things for me to do has been working. I have a daily to do list with all the things I need to do every single day. For other tasks that I do day by day, I have a daily to do list for each day of the week.

So I might have five things I need to do every single day that is on my daily to do list, and everything else gets spread out on smaller to do lists for the days of the week.

So far it has been working out. The only hard part about it all is making myself stick with it, so I don’t have a boatload of work left for me at the end of the week.