I know there are lots of task management applications out there. I bet if you spent a week on each application you’d spend years trying all the options and in that time there would be many extra options that didn’t exist when you started.

I also know that there is no “perfect” task management application for almost anyone. Even if you love OmniFocus or Things or Todoist or NotePlan2, there are things you don’t like about it and simply live with because of the productivity increases the whole system gives you.

Today I’m going to talk about the things I want in a perfect task management application as someone that loves time blocking.

## My Timeblocking Task Manager Wishlist

First, it needs to work with your calendar, because it’s all about blocking out your time properly so you can get lots done. If there isn’t a way to put your tasks on your calendar with approximate times they’ll take to accomplish, then you’re building a wishlist of things you hope to get done with little connection to reality.

Putting your tasks down on a calendar with proper time estimates is the **only** way to connect your work into your real life.

You should also be able to tag a time block with a type of work. Be it `#writing` or `#client` or whatever you want.

This ideal task manager should let you tag projects or tasks just like you’d tag a time block. That way when you’re working through your week planning you can match up blocks with projects that are on your plate. You should be able to drag/drop or associate a project with a time block and that time block would get renamed into your project/task/whatever and give you some visual indication of how much time the stuff you’ve assigned yourself will take up and how much time is left. Eh, probably how much extra time you need but don’t have so cut some stuff.

I’d also like some loose organization into broad categories like `This Week`, `Next Week`, `This Month`, `Next Month`, and then a way to designate tasks into months in the future. Seriously scheduling email time for a random Tuesday 5 months from now is stupid because you have no idea what will be happening then. Schedule it for a month and then when you plan the month you can put it on a day now that you have a better idea of what’s actually going on.

Over then next…who knows…I’m going to look at some task managers and see what’s out there that comes close to this. If you’ve got suggestions, [I’d love to hear about them](https://twitter.com/curtismchale).