Process is good

For several months, I have been using OmniOutliner to keep track of my multitude of simultaneous projects, and iCal to manage the daily to-do items that I have with due dates. Earlier this week, a few different blogs noted the release of Process, an outliner for Mac OS X designed specifically for project management purposes. I’ve spent the last couple of days getting used to it, and I’m now totally sold on it as a replacement for the Omni/iCal combo. It adds a few features that make a big difference to me for the purposes of project management, aside from the obvious ability to use one application where I currently use two. First, the ability to color label individual items makes my gigantic to-do list much easier to read. Secondly, I was just thinking last week that I would like it very much if OmniOutliner supported a tabbed interface, and the “Projects” that Process handles are a perfect substitute. I can also prioritize each item, and assign it a to-do alarm. These alarms aren’t limited to your run of the mill alert message and sound. They can be an alert, automatically open a fill or application, play a sound, or even execute a unix command. Finally, the application allows you to link specific tasks to files in the filesystem, making it easy to remember where that specification or diagram is currently located. Process fits nicely into the way I work, and the way that my mind breaks up projects. I recommend checking it out if you already use an outliner of some sort for project management.