DonationCoder.com Software > The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009
Focuth - time management tool for IT people
mauzer_tim:
Hello,
Just would like to mention here another productivity tool: Focuth (I'm it's author). It's is an online free time\task management tool that allows you not only to manage your tasks but to track how productively you spent your time and help you concentrate doing things. Unlike many other time\task management tools it’s aimed to train your own productivity habits rather than to replace them with a software.
Aimed for people who find themselves being hard to concentrate on their work, those who are easily distractable due to their work online. Also it is for people who’s hard to force themselves creating todo lists every day but they wish being organized.
How it works?
Write any activity (or choose from the assigned for today ones) you are going to do and specify time to perform. Even time wasting activity like reading news\surfing the internet. After you have done it, check whether the activity was useful or not. Afterwards you can analyse how productively you spent your time, and how good you are in time estimations.
Also the project has built-in todo list with an ability to split complex things on steps (subtasks) and schedule them to a day, week, month and etc (not only days).
The project is in its early beta stage so any feedback highly appreciated.
Focuth's web-site's here: http://focuth.com/
P.S.
Hope this is a good place to get a feedback for a web app. If not feel free to remove it.
Paul Keith:
Sorry mauzer for the late reply - I haven't been on DC for a while. (got this pm via e-mail notification)
First impression of the login screen:
+1 on the demo - not enough services do that IMO
-1 on using the word minimalistic - this is more of a web design/web culture quibble but from my experience people tend to be very sensitive with any web service that advertises minimalistic but doesn't deliver Zen or Wordpress/Facebook like themes. Even twitter I think never got the minimalistic praise much because it had colors.
First impression of the demo:
* I think if you're advertising something "as easy as paper" it must have (or the option must be clear to spot in a demo) where a user may print or export their list
* A question mark icon should not lead to the FAQ page but show a quick tooltip
* Nice take on using a time tracker as the initial screen - makes it feel fresher than all the online to-do lists dashboard out there
* Not so keen with the use of a default time + drop down more button for that.
* Awesome implementation of quick additions to time estimate. I was going to suggest that to counteract the above issue but then I scrolled down and read about it. I do think the FAQ description can be shorter and clearer but even RTM has some trouble with describing their Smart Bar which uses the same principle.
* Awesome simple option on asking if the user felt productive or not after clicking complete. You definitely want to highlight this feature in the sign-up screen
* Awesome addition of sub-task. Seems minor but too many online to-do list managers sell this as a pay option or don't have this at all.
* -1 for no drag and drop feature to re-organize sub-tasks and turn them from main task and vice versa
* Steps sounds nice but I don't quite understand what that means based off on the FAQ
* Great job on separating the to-do sheet. A clear print and export option feature wise is the only thing that I can think of improving on it. For usability, maybe use the common e-mail term "inbox" as online productivity users are more used to that term. Then again this could be genius on your part because most paper users probably understand how this view is a todo
Summary:
All in all your online service really surprised me. No offense but my initial thought was..."great another minimalistic to-do list" but you really did a good job of making some basic features seem fresh. I'm sorry if many of my comments deal with design. I'm not a web designer but design (even the aesthetic ones) are such an important and often overlooked detail in productivity apps. That said, IMO, speed of input and convenience is still king.
If there's any big flaw I could think of is that I wonder whether you can get tons of users to sign up and use it long term especially with the many behemoths of online productivity having already captured the loyalty of most users and the rest of the free competition focusing mostly on aesthetics and simpler apps barring the occasional web app hiding beneath the "GTD" label.
Why I didn't sign up:
I probably don't fit your demographic but the main reason I didn't sign up for the service is because I no longer rely on structured to-do lists.
Not that I found a better system but it seems much faster to just <right click + new text document + name of the item> - although I still do on the rare times use RTM and TrackaMinute which is very similar to your service except it's a desktop app.
What would change my mind?
I'm not a Linux power-user but with Mint Debian being closer and closer to being a stable rolling user friendly Linux distro - I find myself using Linux more and more to the point that I forgot where I kept my XP drivers and the only reason I still switch to XP is because my headset won't work "out of fresh installation" in Linux.
The above details are minor quibbles except it keeps me from using TrackaMinute more often because I don't want to open VirtualBox just for that.
If you could provide a free downloadable app for Linux and Windows that has the exact same interface + features as your web service and have it sync to the cloud then the only other thing keeping me from signing up is an import feature. Not that there can't be improvements beyond that especially since your site is at the alpha stage but this is my minimum productivity requirement currently.
mouser:
i really like the look and feel -- very streamlined and pleasant to use. :up:
mauzer_tim:
Paul,
Wow, honestly I haven't expected so completed feedback! Many thanks for for it, it's inspiring!
+1 on the demo - not enough services do that IMO
-1 on using the word minimalistic - this is more of a web design/web culture quibble but from my experience people tend to be very sensitive with any web service that advertises minimalistic but doesn't deliver Zen or Wordpress/Facebook like themes. Even twitter I think never got the minimalistic praise much because it had colors.
-Paul Keith (October 26, 2010, 09:28 AM)
--- End quote ---
You are absolutely right perhaps I should focus on describing another benefits. Everything I wished to highlight is the fact that unlike the majority of others time trackers the process of adding things todo requires only one logical step: just write it, without any distractions on additional checkboxes or fields. Only you and thing description. The same way as you add things to do on usual sheet of paper. Of course we may not manage without additional fields or checkboxes on editing thing but when we adding things todo, or just looking at your thing daily list we shouldn't be distracted with these hassles.
* I think if you're advertising something "as easy as paper" it must have (or the option must be clear to spot in a demo) where a user may print or export their list
--- End quote ---
Yes that'll be added in future. But actually I just meant that the way you work with Focuth is similar to the way you work with paper sheet. Just you and thing's text and there's no other additional complications like checkboxes or new terms.
BTW, what about you, do you actually need to print your things on a paper?
* A question mark icon should not lead to the FAQ page but show a quick tooltip
--- End quote ---
Agreed.
* Not so keen with the use of a default time + drop down more button for that.
--- End quote ---
I agree, that time re-estimation should be changed to editing the time directly on the thing (like we edit thing's description).
Regarding adding default time at all I sometimes also find this feature a bit annoying (e.g. when I'm creating the draft of todos and do not want to think of estimations). However I like it when we need to do something right now (so we need just to write "Respond to Paul #go" without adding time estimation). This is a kind of a double-edged sword now :)
* Awesome implementation of quick additions to time estimate. I was going to suggest that to counteract the above issue but then I scrolled down and read about it. I do think the FAQ description can be shorter and clearer but even RTM has some trouble with describing their Smart Bar which uses the same principle.
--- End quote ---
Do you really have known about this feature only after reading the manual? Or you mean this little double arrow button that displays the small description on the blue background?
* Awesome simple option on asking if the user felt productive or not after clicking complete. You definitely want to highlight this feature in the sign-up screen
* Awesome addition of sub-task. Seems minor but too many online to-do list managers sell this as a pay option or don't have this at all.
--- End quote ---
I'll probably sell something else. Like synchronization between desktop\mobile versions and the web. Or maybe enhanced reporting on your productivity change.
* -1 for no drag and drop feature to re-organize sub-tasks and turn them from main task and vice versa
--- End quote ---
Thanks for noting. Yes, it'll be added ASAP.
* Steps sounds nice but I don't quite understand what that means based off on the FAQ
--- End quote ---
You mean that the term "step" sounds unfamiliar and it's better to change that to "sub-task"?
* Great job on separating the to-do sheet. A clear print and export option feature wise is the only thing that I can think of improving on it.
--- End quote ---
Printing & export will be added without doubt.
For usability, maybe use the common e-mail term "inbox" as online productivity users are more used to that term.
Then again this could be genius on your part because most paper users probably understand how this view is a todo[/li][/list]
--- End quote ---
You're right. I actually do not like any additional terms that a new user should learn. I meet this term many times in software todo lists but to this moment I still do not understand the difference between "today's todos" and inbox :) Anyway thanks for mentioning this I'll think about it.
All in all your online service really surprised me. No offense but my initial thought was..."great another minimalistic to-do list" but you really did a good job of making some basic features seem fresh. I'm sorry if many of my comments deal with design. I'm not a web designer but design (even the aesthetic ones) are such an important and often overlooked detail in productivity apps. That said, IMO, speed of input and convenience is still king.
--- End quote ---
You do not need to sorry, you just describe the things that makes the first impression and they are very important.
If there's any big flaw I could think of is that I wonder whether you can get tons of users to sign up and use it long term
--- End quote ---
It's interesting for me too :) However Focuth is not a yet another todo list or time tracker. This is aimed to be nothing more than a tool to train your productivity habits :) There's much more another tools that promise you make you organized like pills in drugstore that promises to make you healthy in a click after you accept them :). But actually no one pill helps if you actually do not want to be health and do nothing except eating pills. My tool, on the other side, requires you to work (much), but that work may actually improve your productivity habits (like habit to create todo lists and do what you write on them) thus making your more productive. So my service is more like a usual gym. Of course pharmaceutics is more richer industry than sport, but gyms exist and do it well.
I probably don't fit your demographic but the main reason I didn't sign up for the service is because I no longer rely on structured to-do lists.
--- End quote ---
I absolutely agree, me too :) In future I'd like to make Focuth even less structured allowing you to navigate things only with keyboard. BTW you may take a look at http://checkvist.com (if you are not aware of it yet). They have made a very good unstructured todo (check) list.
Not that I found a better system but it seems much faster to just <right click + new text document + name of the item> -
--- End quote ---
You are right. I also used this system, however it has some lacks: the things may be lost and you do not have time tracking, and you can access them only with your computer. However in some cases this may be simpler :)
If you could provide a free downloadable app for Linux and Windows that has the exact same interface + features as your web service and have it sync to the cloud then the only other thing keeping me from signing up is an import feature. Not that there can't be improvements beyond that especially since your site is at the alpha stage but this is my minimum productivity requirement currently.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for noting on this. Desktop app is in my plans, but for the first I'll probably release Chrome & Firefox plugins. Just because that's much easier :)
Thanks again for your feedback!
P.S. BTW what do you think on the project's name? I'm not a native English so I wonder how does it sounds for native English speaker.
mauzer_tim:
i really like the look and feel -- very streamlined and pleasant to use. :up:
-mouser (October 26, 2010, 11:22 AM)
--- End quote ---
Hi mouser,
Thanks for your kind words :)
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