How do to manage your tasks ?

Hi,

I'm getting lost in my tasks.I'd like to now ,how to you handle it or any advice to help me with this mess.

When I start a new project I plan the structure and details in SS.Everything is fine so far. My actual work like reasrch, planning and other data gathering is done in :

ONENOTE: it offers good manipulation with text and images

EXCEL : for data,planning and also for notes due to columns

WORD: text processing

The problems are with mismanagement of tasks(derections) that I leave in onnote and excel. Here is the reason why I do it, but I'm looking for suggestion to solve this.

When I work in onenote sometimes I have to put a NOTE inside the open page ,that gives me some simple directions,but it's a still TO DO or a mini-subtasks. So I would have 15 lines of text about a new manufacturing process and then a TODO: find out the longetivty of this new material. Then I'll continue working on basic reasrch and by the end of the day I'll have about 40 direction or small to-dos inside. If I go back the very next day to it, then I'm fine but sometimes,I have to leave it for a week or two ,sometime we go back to it in 6month. If I open that notebook in 6 month ,I'll still remember the small to do 's ideas and sugestions ,but If I had those minitasks also in SS and then link to a onenote , I would work on the based on priorities as well until I'm ready to continue with that project . So having duplicates would be a perfect solution ,but doing it manually will just not happen. Maybe at first ,but if there is an emergency I'll not duplicate it. ALso duplicating tasks manually would require removing them also from onenote and then again from SS.

I have the same habbit in excel. I use a column A for directions-mini tasks , column B for Waiting for answer and column C for actual comunication ,reaserch ,gatering data. I need to have the todo or tasks in exce,l becasue otherwise I wouldnt know what they are all about if I just put them in SS. Again a sync with SS would be perfect but manual work and manual syns will create mistakes.

How do you handle your work , when direction or small todo just make more sense for you to be right next to the text or data you are working on ,as it simplifys the workflow?

Thank you for any suggestion, I 'm willing to change my work flow, as it is not perfect .

Also I just can't work with EVERNOTE that probably offers some sync options, I tried many times, but I can't do it.

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Comments

Shaine Greenwood

Hello,

From reading about your process, it appears a lot of your work moves between Smartsheet and OneNote. At this time, we don't have integration between OneNote and Smartsheet, but I'll get your vote down for this on our enhancement request list so our Product team is aware of the demand for this type of feature.

One potential idea that I can think of would be to create links from OneNote and place those links in cells on a sheet. I found a Microsoft support article that may help: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-hyperlinks-to-pages-sections-and-notebooks-35a2c5e3-87fd-400a-a4f5-ef82e778c208?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

That's what I'm doing now, but it would be nice to have sync option between excel and SS also SS and onenote

Also how will the new sync work with onenote? LIke with evernote?

Then It would't solve my problem much .

For example with onenote and SS sync.

I would image something like this:

You Have your PROJECT in SS and then a page in onenote that has some research.Then you add a task to ON page ,"call tom abut that R12 mateerial". You are jsut researching it ,and you can leave that simple note in ON ,but ON could give you an option to create a task that is being sysnc with SS.

So when you enter a note in ON page you can add maybe status ,importance and just keep it there. Then next day when you open SS that note="call tom about R12 material" is already in SS so if it has I=3 and status in progress you know you have you continue working on it . So you go back to ON ,when you are done with that task in ON ,you check it is done still in ON , and the status in SS in changed to done. This way you have a perfect sync without any mistakes. A hyperlink needs opening to find the notes/tasks. ALso sync comments or send comments from ONENOTE into SS comments section would be nice too in the similar fashion then tasks.

Af for EXCEL SYNC:

I have already 3 columns in excel that are identical to 3 of the 10 coumns in SS. Columns in excel that are identical are PROJECT/TASK NAME- STATUS- IMPORTANCE then fouth and the next columns serve as work area for data analyzing and comments. SO basicly a sync from column a,b,c of excel to columns with the same name in SS.

This would eliminate manual moving and manual syncing of tasks.