During the school year, I work from home on a part-time basis, and for most of the semester I kept track of my tasks and time on pencil and paper. At least, I tried. More often, when the time comes to write my end-of-day summary, I have difficulty remembering everything that I’ve worked on, let alone how much time was dedicated to each task. It’s typically at these points of crisis that I turn to technology to solve my problems (and though there is something to be said about the value of stepping away from the computer when planning and brainstorming, mundane time and task management is hardly an effort that should require creative juices. At least that’s my excuse for playing with new technology, as always.)

At any rate, this time the solution comes in the form of Grindstone 2 by Epiforge Software, a free program for the Windows platform. Linux users can consider checking out Project Hamster, but I’d like to detail my pleasant experience thus far with Grindstone here.

The most appealing aspect of Grindstone is that while it is relatively straightforward to use, the app includes enough tools to make the power user happy, too: diverse report generation allows me to export a nice-looking timesheet, glance at the summary for a task or for a given date/time range, and view a pie-chart breakdown if I’m feeling visual. Grindstone supports custom fields and values for sorting tasks, the ability to parse custom fields from task names (with a little Regular Expressions), multiple profiles, and a dozen seemingly minuscule features that nonetheless make a world of difference in usability.

After setting up a profile, selecting a task and clicking the Start icon displays the egg timer; this tiny window sits at the top of my screen and lets me select the current task I’m working on throughout the day without revisiting the main program window. The egg timer’s window opacity can be adjusted from the program’s Options dialog.

About half a dozen times throughout the day, I walk away from the computer without remembering to hit ‘Stop’ on the current task. But no worries: when I return, Grindstone’s inactivity timer triggers, yelling politely prompting to account for my time. If, on the other hand, I forget to start timing a task (which also happens more than I care to admit) upon returning from the 4th coffee break of the day, the application will display a friendly reminder.

(P.S.: Just in case you just noticed the change from XP to Windows 7, I must mention that Grindstone’s profile backup and restore capability is quite convenient.)

Confession time: as annoying as I thought these features would be at first, they have turned out to make a world of difference in rendering the time management system an effective way to manage my day. Of course, if the notifications are a bit too intrusive for your taste, their settings can easily be adjusted.

At some point, I decided I needed to be able to categorize my tasks based on priority. Grindstone easily accommodates this with custom fields, so I created a field named “Priority” and enabled sorting on that field.

So far so good, but manually adjusting every task that I had to enter after I entered it became tedious rather quickly. Luckily, the Advanced Entry tab of the custom fields box (under Profile Configuration) allows one to set a match and format pattern in order to parse a field value from the task name. In my case, I decided that I would like to be able to enter a new task such as “Begin world domination (high)” in the quick task pane and have the new task “Begin world domination” be automatically added to the “High” group. Unfortunately, the description of the “match” and “format” patterns is a little terse and there is currently no help topic available on how to use it. However, to my delight, my cry of distress posted on Grindstone’s user forums was answered in less than an hour. How’s that for customer support?

The result of the endeavor is shown in the screenshot below, which also attempts to explain the fields. (Thanks Daniel!)

Okay. I’ve saved the coolest part for last: the report generation.

In my opinion, this is invaluable asset both for reference — at the end of the day, as I wistfully look over the progress report wishing for better productivity (kidding!) — and due to the fact that it allows me to generate a summary of the time spent over the week (or any interval, for that matter). Below, the summary report is being used to copy and paste a pre-formatted table into Excel:

If your time tracking needs are a bit more advanced, Lifehacker reviewed some pretty heavy-duty time management solutions some time back. But as far as I’m concerned, Grindstone does the trick for the extend of my needs. Kudos to the guys at Epiforge for a great product!

Psst: when can we expect a Linux port?

If you’re looking for a free application (read: alternative to MobileMe) to synchronize your Google calendars and contacts to your iPod Touch or iPhone, without the need to install software, I have found NuevaSync to be extremely beneficiary. Arguably, its best feature is that the service uses a protocol (Microsoft Exchange) that your device already supports, so setup is as simple as creating an account with NuevaSync and then setting up an Exchange account to work with their servers. Synchronization works both ways and quickly, too, so that scheduling is convenient (as it should be). I’m holding out hope that the email push functionality will be added shortly.

For quick instructions on how to set up NuevaSync, see this original post.

And yes, I have digressed (already) from my plan to only use a physical planner. Excuse: doh, technology is cooler.

How much impact does your physical environment have on your study habits? I’m fairly convinced that one’s surroundings has a great deal to do with how much studying actually gets done, and lately I’ve done some minor re-arrangements with my home office to try and counter all the distractions that prevent or delay my homework from getting done.

My first challenge is that I have a corner desk. It does have good shelving, a hide-away keyboard tray, and a raised back area, which are pluses. I’ve tried a variety of arrangements, but since my laptop is my primary computer, none of them seem to fit. For one, setting my laptop on the main panel means I have to lean over the books and papers I am working on to reply to an instant message — or even worse, write an email. Another arrangement that I experimented with was using the roll-out tray for my studies; books, papers, etc. collected there and could be hidden at will. However, its lowered position made for back pain also, especially after hours hunched over working on physics problems!

Not to mention, having my computer as the central focus on the desk is an immense distraction. So, now for the solution to the problem. I’ve set up a meager desktop system for normal computing, setting the monitor on the back shelf, and my laptop has moved to the side (inside a little nook I used to store books in — these are now underneath and to my right). The laptop is delegated to reference material, pages need to stay up; generally things that will be open for some time to minimize that times I need to move to its keyboard. The main desktop, if used, will probably run Synergy so that I can use the same keyboard and mouse for both computers. The best thing is, my textbooks, papers, and all that are now at the normal level right in front of me, which I was surprised to find made for much more comfortable and pleasant reading (something I’ve been getting behind on).

So, there it is. Just some minor changes, but the goal is to create an environment that minimizes distraction and emphasizes getting the work done, without spending money on a new desk (yet). Do you have a preferred office space arrangment or system of organization that boosts your productivity? Let me know in the comments.

Perhaps somewhat odd for someone who loves technology so much, I have decided to take a break from Google Calendar and switch back to a regular planner. Not because Google doesn’t provide a great service; on the contrary, I have found that no matter how great or advanced any given technology is, if it’s not convenient for you to use, you won’t use it.

And thus has been my experience (since I’m not always around a computer when I need to check my schedule). Last semester I grew just a little disorganized for comfort. So, back to pencil and paper it is — low-tech, but hopefully a better choice for managing my ever-growing schedule.