Plan with SmartPlans, Execute with SmartPad

Did you know that you can plan out your projects with SmartPlans, then execute them with SmartPad?  These two apps were designed separately for separate needs – planning and executing – but two things changed that: the iPad (which allows for a much larger space to operate) and our synchronization feature with Toodledo.  Now you can use SmartPlans to plan your different Projects out across weeks and months – and you can use the interactive Gantt view to lengthen, shorten, and move those projects around so that you maintain your overall goal of x # of hours per week on your Projects. Then, you can sync those with Toodledo and move them into SmartPad. In SmartPad, you can integrate those same projects into your other tasks (mow the lawn, hold office meetings, study for finals, whatever) and integrate everything directly into your calendar.  Here’s how:

SmartPlans & SmartPad

SmartPlans also has Projects and Tasks, like SmartPad. But because it is a Project manager, it handles them differently. Both Projects and Tasks contain a lot more information in them that Toodledo cannot hold.  For example:

SmartPlans Tasks contain:

• Durations that can be greater than 8 hours (Toodledo allows this, but SmartPad does not)
• A history of started date and time, pause status, completed date and time
• Nested tasks (tasks within tasks).  Toodledo free version, and SmartPad, do not support nested tasks. Toodledo paid version does support nested tasks.

SmartPlans Projects contain:

• Summary history of all tasks including their started date and time, pause status, and completed date and time
• Estimated hours for the completion of the entire Project
• Work balance: number of hours each week that you plan to spend on the Project
• Deadline, if any, for completing the Project

Information that is not compatible with another device or application, will not be syncronized. However, that information will not be lost either.  So the detailed Project or Task information in SmartPlans will not be lost when you sync to and from Toodledo.

Limitations:

The detailed Task and Project information contained in SmartPlans on your iPad, cannot be synchronized with the detailed Task and Project information in SmartPlans on your iPhone, because it is synchronized via Toodledo.  However, there is a work-around:

Work-Around:

Back-up your data from SmartPlans on one device (for example, your iPhone) then Restore it to SmartPlans on the other device (say, your iPad). This will copy all of the data, including Tasks and Project detailed information, to the other device. Note that ALL existing data on the other device will be deleted when you perform a Restore.

Workflow Case Study

You can use SmartPlans on its own to manage Plans, Projects, and Tasks.  But with SmartPad, you can integrate Tasks into your work day by using SmartTime logic to find time for your tasks in-between your scheduled events. Here is one example of how you can combine SmartPlans with SmartPad, to let you see both the forest and the trees:

1. Create a set of Project Plans on SmartPlans.
2. Be sure to give these Projects unique names that are NOT the same as your Projects on SmartPad. For example, name your Work project as “Work Plan”
3. Populate each Project in SmartPlans with the Tasks that you need to do, to complete those Projects.
4. Synchronize SmartPlans to Toodledo.
5. Synchronize SmartPad to Toodledo.

Now, all of those Projects and their Plans are contained in SmartPad. From there, use the many features of SmartPad to help you get those tasks done:

• View and manage your SmartPlans projects and tasks in context with every thing else you have going on in your life – your appointments and events, as well as your daily and personal to-do’s.
• Use the Projects view to track the progress of those Projects.
• Use the GTDo feature to focus only on the next item in each Project.
• Use the “Star” picker to select sets of tasks that you want to do, on each day.
• Use the Day Manager slider bar to help determine how many of the tasks you can accomplish, each day.
• Assign a specific date and time to any Task, by dragging it in the Calendar view or by changing it from a Task to an Event in the task detail view.
• Because your SmartPad projects have unique names, you can integrate the tasks from those Project Plans, with your other “unplanned” projects in SmartPad, such as your “Family” project/calendar or your “Personal” project/calendar.