Tools for Project Management – Your 2014 List

It’s July and your to-do lists are growing faster and faster. Besides new projects piling up daily, you may still have unfinished businesses from last half of the year. They usually range from personal family or house plans to professional goals of expanding sales, reaching new audiences, or revamping online marketing strategy.

To succeed, you need to plan and execute all tasks in a timely, efficient and tactical manner. So, now is a great time to revisit your project management skills and tools and make some changes.

Luckily, the number of project management tools is abundant. Some of them are more multi-use, while others target specific tasks or areas. But, many tools can be utilized for individual and business purposes. Here are 10 examples:

1. Trello is a free tool for collaboration and project management. It’s a fast and easy way of organizing ideas and tasks with cards. You can simply move the cards around, add a variety of attachments and information to them, and organize them into columns or lists. This system allows you to create project-themed boards, assign tasks to certain team members, and monitor your overall progress.
2. Clarizen is an online task management tool. It offers efficient modules necessary for scheduling, budgeting, reporting, gantt charting, bug and time monitoring, and more. Thanks to this easy-to-use software, you can manage your resources, customize reports, and collaborate with your teams and clients. It costs about $25 a month and is compatible with various products.
3. Basecamp is a project management and collaboration platform, with monthly plans starting at $20. It features to-do lists, discussions, milestones, file sharing, and time tracking - to name a few. The tool lets you monitor various tasks from one place, giving you the power to see people’s schedules and regulate their access to assignments.
4. Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite. It includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and it also offers storage space on Drive. With this online strategy tool, you can schedule tasks, attach files, collaborate, and conduct video conferences – among other actions. It costs $5 per user per month.
5. Asana is a free task and collaboration management tool. It lets you add and manage multiple projects from a left sidebar. You can create simple checklists, set up the order and timeframe of task completion, and modify or add comments, attachments and tags. This product offers keyboard shortcuts for assignment efficiency.
6. Evernote is a powerful channel for taking notes. It lets you jot down information, create notebooks for multiple tasks, and search for specific information within your project database. The tool also allows you to digitize your notes, documents and files and organize your ideas, contacts and expenses. Its basic plan is free.
7. BinFire is an application for project management and collaboration, priced at $9.95 a month. It features a calendar, interactive whiteboard, task management, project dashboard, and more. With this tool, you can get notifications in real time, manage people’s tasks and access levels, chat with your team, and document your processes.

1. AtTask is a cloud-based management tool. It allows you to collaborate with people, track issues and costs as well as manage projects, portfolios, and budget. This software offers many templates for projects and has editing, one-click, and drag-and-drop features. It starts at $30 a month and is compatible with many common business solutions and platforms.
2. CreativePro Office is a free office management app. It includes tabs for team members, clients, finances, time sheets, and projects. Its dashboard lets you see your tasks, invoices and events. Thanks to the tool’s integrated features, you can create and customize in-depth projects, track multiple clients, and also prepare invoices, reports and costs.
3. Google Alerts is a free ORM tool. It tracks your search terms in blogs, news, and anywhere else on the Internet, and it sends updates with all of the mentions right to your inbox. You can use this service for reputation management tasks and to monitor all content related to your brand, company, and competition – to name a few.

The above examples will surely simplify the processes of managing your projects and monitoring your online marketing strategy, thus strengthening your organization and enhancing your services. So, without further ado, try putting these tools to work and decide which ones fit your needs and your organization best.