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Achieve Planner + Goals to Action

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Armando:
I've been testing Achieve Planner (AP); I don't remember seing anything on DC about it (when and if I have more time, one day, I might do a mini review) : it's a great application in active development; + the developer is really nice and responds himself to comments. Of course, AP's got some flaws (I've posted about some of them under zarmando at AP's forum), but what are flaws for me might not be for someone else...  :)

There are 3 different versions. $49 for Achieve Planner Standard, $79 for Achieve Planner Pro, and 99$ for the Achieve Productivity Suite. (of course, there is a fully functional trial download - 30 days). I found that the Productivity suite is the real deal for anybody looking for an Outlook/Covey/Allen mix... AP doesn't do email per se, but synchronizes with Outlook in special ways (will transform emails into tasks, etc.). For a features comparison see http://www.effexis.com/achieve/feature-comparison.htm

(Right now, I’m not using AP, but might be in a few months. Am waiting for the next version. I want to see how the search function, outlook integration and contact management will evolve.)

Linked to AP, there are also these 2 web sites :  http://www.timethoughts.com/goal-setting.htm and http://www.goalstoaction.com/. Some nice stuff, well synthesized. [edit : but, shall I add, a bit too salesmanish for my taste...].

Some Screenshots. (I will post some more personal ones in a little while)

I’m willing to answer questions about AP, if any. There’s also the Achieve Planner forum : http://www.effexis2.com/forum/ .

iphigenie:
I'm  kind of curious, but just have to point out that you can transform emails into tasks in outlook just by dragging the email to the tasks tab - it can even take the attachments with it and all

You also can give emails a deadline and make them appear on your calendar without making them into tasks, by using the due date and the "flag for follow up" option (you can make all emails flagged and with due dates appear on your calendar :D)

Armando:
Sure iphigenie.

But I was not mentioning the Achieve Planner email trick as "the" great particularity, but just as a mere example of how AP deals with emails (because it *doesn't* really deal with emails natively). So it's absolutely NOT what makes Achieve Planner an interesting software, but, mostly IMHO, the ability to manage and link together tasks and projects with goals, wishes, results area, etc.

What I also like : the time charts feature, the calculation of priorities and adjusting of the "scorings" to ones preferences (in the task chooser panel); the nice and coherent tabbed interface; some of the "syncing with Outlook" ability (priorities, categories, projects, contacts) and the fact that one can customize how some the AP’s task fields will be transferred to Outlook (and in particular the customization of “user-defined” fields);  some of the exporting feature (to excel et rtf format), etc.

iphigenie:
does it do task juggling? sounds interesting

Best tool i ever found for this was "above and beyond" where you entered priorities not only by class (a,b,c) and number (a1,a2) but also entered numbers about the value / cost of the task (value of doing it vs cost of not doing/delaying it) and then the system would dynamically rejog your tasks based on those priorities and time available to suggest what you could be doing in the 2 hour slot you had now

It doesnt seem to get developed anymore, just when i finally could justify the cost of registering it

I cant remember whether i tried achieve planner or not in my long quest for a similar tool

Armando:
AP does "prioritize your lists using the ABCD system Automatic scheduling", it "computes the start/end dates of your projects and tasks based on expected effort, priorities, and weekly schedule", and will also compute scores for tasks and projects according to task priority, project priority, Date, Focus, Status, and maybe some others that I forget -- obviously, all these can be changed according to the context, etc.

Achieve Planner's feature -- and there are many -- can be found at the web site (make sure you click on the "learn more" links to get more detailed explanations). The Feature Comparison is helpful too.

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