Project Management and Task Management Features

Not everything You Do is a Project or Task

Task Maintenance

Not everything you do can be broken down into 'Projects' and 'Tasks'. This is why Work Time Studio doesn't restrict you to these two WorkItem types like most other project management software does. Worktime Studio allows you to create your own WorkItem types. We provide you with three basic WorkItem types, Group, Project, and Task, and you're encouraged to add additional types unique to your work environment. You can select from hundreds of supplied icons for your own Worktime types. You can also create hierarchical rules that specify which WorkItem types may be children of other WorkItem types.

Set Your Own Default WorkItem Properties

WorkItem Defaults

If you find yourself setting one or more properties of WorkItems just after you have created them, let Work Time Studio take care of that for you. Just specify the default values of the specific WorkItem properties you wish to have set when you create a new WorkItem. All newly created WorkItems will then have those values in the properties that you specified. This greatly speeds up the process of creating new WorkItems.

What's the Status?

Status Maintenance

In Work Time Studio, the status of a WorkItem can be whatever you want, literally. This is because you can create your own status types! We don't limit you to specific status types we think that you'll need. We know that every work environment is different, which is why we let you make those important decisions yourself. Of course, if you're happy with the status types that we provide, you don't need to create your own if you don't want to.

Remove the Clutter

Hidden Status Types

So you have a lot of WorkItems which have already been completed, and they're causing a lot of clutter since they're mixed in with the WorkItems which haven't been completed yet. Well, remove the clutter! Work Time Studio allows you to hide WorkItems with a specific status, such as 'Completed'. What's more, you can control this behavior in individual parent WorkItems if you'd like.

So Much to Do, So Little Time

Project Management Activity Tree

Does this sound like the typical situation you find yourself in? With Work Time Studio's Prioritizer, you can determine the best task to work on no matter what your time restrictions are. The Prioritizer allows you to prioritize your WorkItems by using a combination of their properties, including priority, estimated time, difficulty level, and due date, allowing you to find the perfect WorkItem to tackle at any given time. No matter how overwhelmed you are with multiple projects and tasks to accomplish, the prioritizer will allow you to get a handle on your time and tasks and become much more productive.

One For All, All For One

We all have recurring tasks and activities we need to perform in any kind of work. Work Time Studio makes it easy to handle these recurring activites. Rather than create a new WorkItem every time you perform the task, just create a single WorkItem for the task, and use the one WorkItem to track the time on that task. But, you also want to know how much time your spending on that task during certain periods of time? No problem, Work Time Studio's reporting features are flexible enough to give you any of the information you need on recurring tasks. So, if you have a recurring task such as 'email correspondence', you can determine the time you spent on that task during a specific time period.

Principal of Task Management: Divide and Conquer

Project Management Hierarchy

Work Time Studio works on the principal of Divide and Conquer, which states that work should be broken down into smaller and smaller manageable 'chunks', which can then be tackled individually. In Work Time Studio, we call these chunks WorkItems. This principal is used to enter and organize WorkItems int a hierarchical arrangement which we call your WorkItem hierarchy, starting with very general WorkItems, and breaking them into and adding smaller child and descendant WorkItems.

Break Down Your Projects and Tasks into manageable parts

In Work Time Studio, you break down your projects, tasks using WorkItems. A WorkItem is basically something that needs to get done. WorkItems can be a very specific task, such as 'Change color of download button', or they can be very general, such as ' 3rd Quarter Project'. WorkItems which are more general are usually used as projects or containers for other WorkItems. WorkItems which are used as containers for other WorkItems are known as branch WorkItems. Work Time Studio's Activity Tree provides the interface where you can enter, edit, maintain, and organize your WorkItems.

Get Organized!

Organize Projects and Tasks

In Work Time Studio, you can use Drag and Drop, as well as Cut, Copy, and Paste operations to help you organize your WorkItems quickly and easily in the Activity Tree, where WorkItems form a tree like hierarchy of your projects and tasks. It takes only a matter of seconds to arrange your projects and tasks into a well organized and categorized WorkItem hierarchy.

Color Your WorkItems

WorkItem Colors

Add some color to your work. Work Time Studio allows you to specify the color of your WorkItems in various ways. First, you can assign specific colors to WorkItem types , status types, priority levels, and difficulty levels. Then, you can specify that each WorkItem will be the color of its current value for any of these different properties, to make it easy to distinguish WorkItems in a way that works best for you.

Set Your Priorities

Work Time Studio allows you to set the priority of each individual WorkItem. Of course, you have control of the default priority for new WorkItems. Setting a priority for your WorkItems allows you to later determine which of your WorkItems need attention most. You can use the Prioritizer to help you determine which WorkItem to tackle next, based on the WorkItem's priority and other properties. Using the prioritizer is one of the ways Work Time Studio helps you to increase your productivity.

Where Does the Time Go?

If and when you delete a completed WorkItem, where does the time go that was recorded for that WorkItem and any of its descendants? We call this recorded time the interval history, and you have full control of what happens to the interval history of a WorkItem (and its descendants) when it is deleted. You can elect to have the interval history deleted when the workItem is deleted, or you can have the interval history moved and assigned to the parent WorkItem. You can even elect to have the software ask you at the time you delete a WorkItem.

Keep Your Ducks In a Row

What happens if you move a WorkItem with many descendants to another parent? Don't worry, Work Time Studio keeps track of all the relationships between your WorkItems. Move WorkItems around all you want. The descendants of a WorkItem will be moved right along with the moved WorkItem. Worktime Studio will even handle the details of the interval history of the moved WorkItem and its descendants.

Keep Your Notes Where They Belong

Project Management Notes

When using Work Time Studio, there's no reason to keep any notes on your work anywhere else. You can add notes to any individual WorkItem, using the full featured RTF editor in the WorkItem Notes Pane. You can even drag and drop text and URLs into your WorkItem notes. Another handy feature of the WorkItem Notes Pane is the ability to create checked lists.

Once a Type, Always a Type?

Project and Task Management Hierarchy

No way! If you create a WorkItem of a particular type, you may want to change that WorkItem's type later. No problem! No WorkItem is destined to live it's life being of the same time. Task WorkItems may grow up to be Project WorkItems, or Project WorkItems which have little to do, may be demoted to Task WorkItems. And remember, the software gives you the ability to create your own WorkItem types. We just used the types task and project here as an example.

Never Mistake Activity For Progress - Author Unknown

Work Time Studio understands this difference quite well, and uses a unique and accurate methodology to track your progress on every level of your WorkItem hierarchy. You can view a progress bar for each WorkItem, at any level in the hierarchy. And in Work Time Studio, parent WorkItems keep very good track of the activities of their children and decendants, and reflect that in thier own progress status. What's more, you can see how much time you have remaining on a branch WorkItem based on the estimated vs actual time of the branches descendants. This allows you to to quickly see your progress for an individual task as well as the project as a whole.

Take the Shortcut

Shortcut Assignments

Are you a keyboard type of person, who likes to keep your hands away from the mouse? You're in luck. Almost every operation in Work Time Studio can be customized with shortcut key assignments. We supply many common shortcut key assignments, but you're free to change these and add your own to those operations which are unassigned. You can even create multiple WorkItems at different levels in your WorkItem hierarchy quickly without using your mouse. Creating and using shortcuts can increase your efficiency and productivity as you will perform these operation much faster.

Don't Distract Me!

We know you need to be able to concentrate on your work, and remain productive without distractions. This is why we created the Studio Bar interface for Work Time Studio. The Studio Bar will allow you to concentrate on your work and not be distracted by Work Time Studio. With Work Time Studio in Studio Bar Mode, you won't even realize it's there, until you need it. And when you do, you don't even have to take Worktime Studio back out of Studio Bar Mode, because all of the software's features are available to you right from the Studio Bar! As a matter of fact, we encourage you to leave Work Time Studio in Studio Bar Mode at all times. There's really no need for Work Time Studio to leave this mode, allowing you to keep your productivity level high with fewer distractions.

Clone Whole WorkItem Branches

You've created the perfect 'template' WorkItem branch you wish to use for new projects, jobs, time periods, or for many other purposes. Just copy this branch, and paste it in another location, and viola, you have a copy of the original WorkItem branch, or 'subtree'. You can easily do the same with a working branch, since Worktime Studio doesn't copy and interval history when pasting from a copied branch. You're newly created branch will be a replicate of the original branch, without the interval history, ready to start on a 'clean slate'.