TaskPaper 2 Review: Simple Task Management with Style

If you’re new to TaskPaper…

TaskPaper lets you manage projects and tasks in a simple and effective way. It behaves much like a piece of paper, only that it automatically formats entries based on your input. For example, enter Clean Garage: (note the colon) and TaskPaper will automatically turn that into a project. Type in - Bring out the trash (note the preceding dash and space), and TaskPaper turns that into a task. Enter any text without a prefix or suffix, and it’s turned into a note. Add any text preceded by an @ and it’s turned into a tag. To mark a task as done, simply click the dash preceding it.

There’s more, but those are the basic functions of TaskPaper. And now, with version 2, managing your projects and tasks gets even better.

TaskPaper 2 adds features, but stays lean

At its core, TaskPaper aims at being a very simple, lightweight and lean task management application. So while version 2 is definitely a considerable step up in terms of features, the app loses nothing of its original accessiblity and ease of use.

New search system

TaskPaper 2 introduces a powerful new search system that makes it easy to navigate large documents. Since you can add as many projects and tasks to a TaskPaper document as you like, it soon becomes a bit unwieldy to find specific entries simply by scrolling up and down. Now you can enter a search term such as “@priority=1″, and TaskPaper will filter the list of projects and tasks in real time to only show those tasks with a tag @priority(1). Or, if you like to start your day off by selecting a handful of tasks you want to tackle, add the @today tag to those tasks and simply filter your document by that tag to get a handy to do list for the day.

The search system also lets you combine multiple search criteria by using AND or OR between individual parameters. For example, searching for @priority=1 AND @today will return all important tasks for the current day.

There are a lot more ways to use the search function, but discussing them all would go beyond the scope of this review. The User’s Guide that comes with TaskPaper gives you a full introduction to searching.

Projects sidebar and toolbar buttons

Another good way of getting around a document is by using the projects sidebar and toolbar button. For quickly navigating to a certain project, select it from either the project list toolbar button or the projects sidebar, which can be enabled in the View menu.

There’s also a button in the toolbar that lets you quickly filter a document by tags. Select a tag from the list and the document will only show entries with that tag. This is the same as entering the tag into the search box.

Quick Entry window

If you subscribe to the Gettings Things Done® (GTD®) way of task management, one thing you will probably be looking for in any GTD app is a way of adding tasks “on the fly”. GTD is all about collecting and storing “stuff” as it occurs, so you can get it out of the way before it starts distracting you from what you’re doing at any given moment. This is why apps such as OmniFocus, Things and now TaskPaper 2 have something called a “Quick Entry Window”. This is a window that you can invoke with a system-wide shortcut key, no matter which app you’re currently working in. Fire up the Quick Entry window, enter a thought that just crossed your mind, and continue working as if nothing had happened. Anything entered into TaskPaper’s Quick Entry window will be added to the project you select. Only projects in the active window in TaskPaper can be selected.

Customizable theme system

The default styling of TaskPaper documents is a nice and clean black (or grey, for notes) on white design. You can change that to anything you want using the built-in theming capability. Select one of the predefined themes or create your own and change fonts, foreground and background colors to fit your preferences. The theme setting is global, meaning it applies to all TaskPaper documents.

Drag and Drop & keyboard shortcuts; AppleScript support

TaskPaper features keyboard shortcuts for virtually all available commands. So, if you prefer mouseless navigating and editing, these will come in handy.

If TaskPaper is missing a feature you deem essential, chances are you can add it yourself via Applescript. If you’re not proficient in AppleScript, the Hog Bay Software user forums are a great place for support and some TaskPaper users have gone through the trouble of whipping up some pretty useful AppleScripts. For example, you will find a very handy script that lets you manage recurring tasks. And there’s a script that adds tasks to iCal, too. With some tweaking and twiddling you can make TaskPaper do almost anything the larger task management apps do out of the box.

Conclusion

TaskPaper’s power lies in its simplicity. If you find yourself spending more time managing your tasks in your current app of choice than actually doing them, TaskPaper will likely increase your productivity by staying out of your way and making task management as easy as using pen and paper.

If you’re looking for a bells and whistles app, though, search elsewhere. TaskPaper, for example, currently has no easy way of reminding you of deadlines via alarms or managing recurring tasks. As mentioned above, this can be achieved via AppleScript, but it’s not as elegant as in, say, OmniFocus. You can’t add any objects, such as images or PDFs, to a TaskPaper document either. You can drag any file onto a document, which results in a link to that file. But you have to store the file outside of TaskPaper and you get no preview of the file’s contents.

Bottom line: if you’re either fed up with or overwhelmed by your current task management app, TaskPaper is definitely worth a look. It takes managing a to do list back to what it’s all about: actually getting things done.

TaskPaper 2 is shareware and costs $29.95. A free trial version is available for download at Hog Bay Software.

TIP: Watch the screencast on that page to get a coupon code for $5 off.