What is AgileTask?

AgileTask is a to-do list application that follows many agile project management philosophies. We focus primarily on having a backlog (Icebox) of all tasks you need to accomplish and selectively moving those backlog tasks up to your current iteration of work (Today). We also focused on making it easy to add tasks, allowing software integrations (through a RESTful API), and creating an achievement system to encourage you to use AgileTask as much as possible.

The AgileTask Story

One day at work, my coworker Pol Llovet mentioned that he wished there was a task tracking application that followed an agile approach. He thought that being able to organize his to-do list into things he needs to work on today and a backlog of items that he needed to work on would be flexible, agile, and more productive. I agreed and soon approached my friend Rob and Mark about trying to build an application that did just that.

Why another To-Do App?

Because no other did exactly what we wanted! While there were some desktop apps that came close, but we had a feeling that agile principals were important enough to warrant their own application.

What’s Next?

Bug Squashing – We’ve already received a couple bug reports, so we will be constantly squashing the ones that are found!

User Interface Polish – We plan to clean up the user interface and add a little more polish

More Achievements – These keep the application productive and fun, so we will be adding more constantly (the only way to find them is to use the app!)

Thanks

Big thanks to Rob and Mark for being an awesome team with me on this project. Also thanks to my wife, family, and friends for being supportive and tolerant of my lack of free time. And finally, thank you to everyone that has let me talk about the app, used the app, tested the app, given me advice, and gave me encouragement. You all kick ass, thank you.

Create a “Action Needed” Label

The second best thing I ever did for email (the first, coincidentally is switching to Gmail) was to create a label telling reminding me that I need to do something for that email. Even something as simple as needing to read the email in detail later can save you when you are plowing through 20+ emails in 30 seconds. Quickly labeling something with “Action Needed” allows you to keep your inbox empty but still remember that the email still needs your attention.

Create a “Waiting for Reply” Label

This is the hardest step of the process, but it will save you time and time again. When you send off an email and are explicitly waiting for a reply be sure to label it with “Waiting for Reply”. While this process will help you get YOUR email in order, many other people out there will forget to reply to you (don’t worry, your “Action Needed” flag will prevent you from doing the same!). This label is a great tool to help remind you of who you are waiting on, and whether you should nudge them to reply back to you. Also, don’t forget to remove the “Waiting for Reply” label when the person actually replies to you!

Use “Multiple Inboxes”

Multiple inboxes is a Google labs feature that helps you put multiple inoboxes on your Gmail home page. Why would you want multiple inboxes you ask? Simple, with this system you can create an “Inbox” for your labels! That way on your Gmail home screen you have your regular inbox, an inbox with emails labeled “Action Needed” and finally an inbox for emails labeled “Waiting for Reply”. This way you can archive the email from your regular inbox, but still see prominently on your Gmail home screen emails requiring some action or ones you are waiting for a reply to.

To enable multiple inboxes go to Settings ->Labs and enable Multiple Inboxes. You now should have a “Multiple Inboxes” tab in your settings. There just set Pane 0 to “label: Action Needed” and Pane 1 to “label: Waiting For Reply”. Now you have your GTD labels on your Gmail homepage as special inboxes!

Use “Move To” to keep things right

When someone sends you an email that requires you to eventually do something, use the Gmail “Move To” button to quickly move that email to the “Action Needed” label. The Move To button in Gmail allows you to quickly move emails from one label to another.

And there you go! Some simple rules and procedures to help keep your email in order. If you have a different system (or one similar) let me know in the comments!

There are quite a few ways to prevent this. For example, if you are noticing a slow down because of social “add to” buttons or subscription chicklets, make your own image for them! This will also ensure that your buttons match your sites design and won’t create site loading slow downs. If you are using another site’s API and think that it might be the culprit, do things like cache the API information and update the chache periodically.

Remember, using an API or other people’s storage is great, but don’t do it at the cost of a snappy page load.

Remember that if you have suggestions or ideas for Faceoff to go to our feedback page and let us know!

You can read his article on Nixtutor to find out how yourself!

If you are into video games you should check out some of these great posts from Montana Fragfest:

1. 5 Biggest Differences Between PC and Console Gaming
2. My Stance: Spawn Camping
3. Top 10 Mario Paint Song Recreations
4. Lan Party No-No’s
5. I Spy a Spy

The short version is:

Montana Fragfest is Montana’s local connection to the lighter-side of video games.

The long version is:

Montana Fragfest is Montana’s local connection to the lighter-side of video games. We do this by using our sense of humor to look at the funny side of gaming, using that perspective to create content that is both humorous AND useful,  and by providing services to our community in the form of game servers, local LAN party advertisements, local video game organization sponsorships.

If you aren’t interested sorry for the spam in the next 31 days, but if you are interested please give me some feedback!

1. Stop Smoking and Drinking Soda. I have been an on again, off again smoker for the past two years. I desperately need to stop smoking. . . . permanantly. While I don’t personally judge anyone who smokes, I am personally making the decision to stop for my health. While I don’t drink a bunch of soda, I drink more than I should. Why should I stop drinking soda? Diabetes and tooth decay are the primary drivers, but I also believe I need to drink way more water than I do and stopping the liquid sugar train can only help me drink more H2O.
2. Control Eating Portions and Food Quality. In the past year I’ve made large strides in the quality of food I eat, but the one thing I still have a hard time controlling is my eating portions. The drinking of more water should help this as well, but primarily I need to eat slower and dish/order smaller portions so that I can recognize I’m full before I eat more than I should. I also plan to snack more regularly (healthy snacks like nuts, fruits, and vegetables) which should help spur my metabolism and help me not be in “OMG I’M STARVING” mode when I go to eat a meal.
3. Exercise Regularly. Whether it is actually going to the gym or hiking/walking I need to be physically active at least once a day. This isn’t as much of a problem in the summer being I can hike, but I also need to make sure I go to the gym or do physical activity in between summer activities.
4. Get more sleep. I’ve lived off about 5-6 hours of sleep since High School and while I can function fine on that much sleep I think that getting more (and getting into a regular sleeping regiment) will give me more energy throughout the day. I tend to try and get less sleep because I want to do things, but I also think that getting more sleep will help me be more productive during the hours I am awake, so hopefully my net productivity will increase.

So I am asking for YOU both my friends in the flesh and friends via the internet to help me be more healthy! How can you do this? By encouraging me as much as possible and reminding me of my commitments when you see me slipping. I’ve been very encouraged by LeVar Burton‘s progress with quitting smoking using the internet so I need your help! I am a firm believer in personal accountability and transparency so I’m hoping you folks will hold me accountable for my actions and maybe even find strength to make better health commitments yourself. So ask me how I am doing via Twitter or write on my Facebook wall to yell at me for eating unhealthy.

Thanks for your help and interest! I hope to post status updates here on my blog and on my various social networks so stay tuned!