Product Review: Fruitful Time
Ok, I want to start by saying that my idea of a productivity system is based on two things: a pen and some paper. My only previous experience with productivity software was at my previous job, where I was expected to constantly update my status to the extent that I’m certain it decreased my productivity.
Now that I have got that off my chest, lets move on to Fruitful Time Task Manager. One of the advantages of having a reasonably well known blog is that people contact me with various offers and promotions. The guys behind Fruitful Time emailed me a few months back and asked me if I would like to try it out. Despite my trusty productivity system involving a pen and paper, my curiosity got the better of me and I said “sure”.
The software has only just been released publicly, but I have been playing around with the full version for a few weeks now. In short, it has impressed me. Lets have a look at it a bit closer.
What Is It?
Fruitful Time is a task manager designed to help you organize your life and increase your productivity. Like other productivity systems (eg GTD), Fruitful Time aims to help clear your mind by getting things that need doing out of your head.
The following are just a few of its features:
- Create / edit / delete tasks
- Create subtasks to divide a big task into smaller manageable steps
- Set the priority for each task / subtask
- Configure reminders so that you never forget a task
- Add references to files and internet bookmarks related to a task
- Jot down notes related to a task
Is It Any Good?
Call me shallow, but the first thing that caught my eye was its appearance. Fruitful Time looks great. To see for yourself, click on the link and give the trial version a spin. Otherwise here is a screenshot:
I found the user interface that you can see above intuitive and easy to use. But is it good enough for me to throw away my pen and paper though? Well, yes and no. Personally, I plan to keep using a pen and paper for most of my day to day tasks. Where I can see myself continuing to use Fruitful Time is for my online activities, ie this blog. I have a number of projects on the go at the moment, including a new theme that I am planning to implement, and using Fruitful Time has made these tasks easy to keep track of. So if you spend a lot of time on a computer, whether for work or pleasure, this software could work well for you.
I think the other people who should seriously consider this software are students. The founders of Fruitful Time were previously students, so if you are at school or university be aware that this software has been made with you in mind (and they have even made it a bit cheaper for you by releasing an Academic Version).
Should You Buy It?
So the big question: should you hand over your hard earned cash for Fruitful Time? My answer is that if your goals for 2008 include increasing your productivity and organizing your life you should certainly consider it.
Ultimately, I think the best thing to do is try it for yourself. If you head over to the Fruitful Time site you can download a trial version of the program. This lets you use all features of Fruitful Time Task Manager except that you can only have a maximum of five tasks simultaneously. If you do decide to buy it there are a few different versions to choose from. Two of these are the Personal Edition ($49.99) and the Academic Edition ($39.99). These prices seems quite reasonable to me for a piece of software that has the potential to help clear your mind, especially given how much some people have just spent on NYE to do quite the opposite.
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13 Comments
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
It’s not available for Apple Mac. You might want to point that out in your article.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
i tried out the TaskManager myself. i agree with you 100% - very user friendly and easy to use.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Peter like you I write my to do list on a piece of paper. Telling the truth I never tried out any software like Fruitful Time TaskManager. I have downloaded it and will see whether it applies for me.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 2:33 am
Hey Peter, I like the fact that you’re able to break bigger goals into smaller subtasks in Fruit-time. I’m actually shortlisting a couple of premium goal setting software for a review too. This seems to be a good fit.
Cheers,
Ellesse
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January 3rd, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Thanks for the review Peter, as you know I am always looking for ways to increase my productivity.
I have tried various systems like this…and what I have found is that the most basic tools work FOR ME. A Pen and notepad, a few word documents, and a journal. That is all I need! Its great for KISS:
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
Thanks for the review though!
TG
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January 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I don’t think looking at the program’s appearance is shallow. If you can’t stand your task manager, organizing your daily tasks will only feel like a burden. And if you dread sorting your commitments, then you’ll eventually give up on it and the whole point is lost.
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January 9th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Dear Peter, that’s good to see you’re another person who is interested in using computer power and functionality to manage your work and “To Do” list.
It’s several years that I’m using pen & paper such as you, writing down To Do lists, creating efficient tables for managing my time and schedule, etc. Also it’s about 2 years I am looking for a powerful and easy to use software which can assist me doing that and bring more efficiency to this part of my life (Which you know it affects all other parts too).
Recently, I have downloaded and tested trial versions of almost 10 softwares in this category. After some tests, I’ve found that one of them meets almost all of my needs. That was “EssentialPIM Pro“.
I also downloaded and tested “FruitfulTime” as you wrote. I appreciate it’s programmers and team, because of their low file size and some programming techniques which I saw in the software as I’m a programmer too. But I found “EssentialPIM Pro” more efficient and more functional than that. It has a scheduler and more powerful task and to do management tools. You can see it’s full features list on it’s product page at:
http://www.essentialpim.comBut it’s price is 39.95$ (single user edition) and also it has a simple free version which has more features than other softwares.
I just wanted to share my experience with you. You can download it for free and have your own testing.
Good Luck!
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May 9th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I don’t have any productivity software as such, but one of my favourite things to use is stickies - http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/.
Stickies is freeware, and lets you put post-it notes on your desktop, or attach them to different windows on your computer. I find it immensely useful.
Thanks for the review Peter.
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