I asked for this app review because I have a really hard time staying organized. This isn’t a great trait for someone who wants to write professionally – or for anyone else with deadlines, multi-step tasks, projects, ingredient lists, or any other number of things integral to GTD – Getting Things Done. My friends have often said it’s better to have a GSD (Gets “Stuff” Done) than a PHD. You can be brilliant and savvy and talented to no end, but that doesn’t amount to anything if you can’t accomplish your goals and tasks set before you. Some of you work in office environments like I do and may already have a task-management system in your calendaring or email program. That’s because usually, this is where it makes sense to put that kind of a system so you  can easily turn emails into actionable items and appointments. However, if you don’t manage a team or mostly have individual assignments to complete, a single-user task management system may be the key to getting your lazy bum organized.

Task List Guru is a system designed with simplicity in mind – it’s not exactly a GTD powerhouse, but for most of us that will work just fine. At the suggestion of a reader, I downloaded and installed Task List Guru for Windows from Dextronet. They also offer a more robust tool for $44.95 (at the

time of this writing), but TLG is the free offering that does just fine. The install was fairly standard, if you’ve installed any other Windows programs you should be fine here.

When you first start Task List Guru , you have a completely blank slate to work with to build your multi-level to-do list. This excited me, as a hopefully soon-to-be converted organized person. If you get started building a To-Do list and sub-ToDo’s and change your mind, it’s as easy as click-and-drag to reorganize different parts of your task list.

We can start with a very basic task list, with one sub-list and then look at adding an item to that list.

It’s pretty simple to add a task, just click on the icon with the green plus. Type in a name for your task, priority levels and types, set a due date, and on other tabs you can set more complicated reminders like “a day before” or “day of” and make notes on the task.  As your organizational style gets more complex you can pretty easily assign more complicated priority levels and task types. Once you’ve entered your task, you can either hit “OK” or “OK, add another…” in case you’ve got a laundry list of things to add.

As your organizational style gets more complex you can pretty easily assign more complicated priority levels and task types. As you can see below, my life is pretty complicated, so trying to map it all out really helps me get a grasp on what exactly it will take to eliminate all of my To-Dos. Give Task List Guru a try if you do not already have something that works well for you – it’s simple to get started . Maybe mapping out your To-Dos in TLG will help you realize “there ain’t nothin’ left to it but to do it!”

One of my favorite features of this program is the ability to back-up your tasks in a couple of ways. First of all, you can back-up your database to a file that you can then store off-site or on an external storage device like a hard drive or DVD in case the unthinkable happens. Secondly, you can use the “Deploy to USB” feature to deploy a portable copy of your To-Do lists in Task List Guru on your USB portable thumb drive, in case you’re always on the go but don’t necessarily have your computer with you.

I had lots of good things to say about Task List Guru, however I still think it lacks the interaction with communication methods I use everyday. For example, it has no tie-in to any form of e-mail client that I would use like Outlook or G-mail (even though Thunderbird), and I can’t reasonably get Task List Guru on my smartphone (yet). While some of you may express privacy concerns, I prefer my tasks and GTD activities plotted out through Google Calendar and Google Tasks. I get them easily through apps on my phone and they sync up with my work and home computers beautifully. They export to XML files for easy importing into other programs, and while Task Guru doesn’t have these features – its pretty fantastic for a free, non-cloud-based application.

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