You can make the most of your day by using a to-do list. You can take your to-do list even further by adopting a task management solution that’s full of categories, tags, and relationships which help keep tabs on everything. After all, task management is not just for getting things done—it’s a way to organize your life all in one place. True productivity comes from knowing what to do, and having a task manager is the first step to that. This Personal Task Manager template helps you stay motivated and conserve your energy by keeping you from having to think about things that you have to do. Here are a few template features and highlights, by table:

Tasks

What’s a task management solution without tasks? This table is at the epicenter of the template, where you can track all tasks, along with their priority, due date, category, and more.

Fields

• Task Name. A best practice is to keep the task name descriptive, but also concise so you can know what the task is with just a few words.
• Priority. Some tasks are more important than others, and that’s the nature of task management. Use this field to designate a low, medium, or high priority.
• Importance. Like priority, some tasks may or may not be important. Use this field to designate the importance of each task. If used conjunction with priority, you can create an Eisenhower matrix to easily identify which
• Due By. The date that the task should be completed by.
• Done. This is a simple checkbox to toggle when the task has been completed.
• Notes. Given the task itself should be concise, this Notes field serves to capture extra bits of information about the task.
• Category. A task may be personal, work-related, or something else. Customize this field to your necessities.
• Shopping List. This is a linked field to the Shopping table. This linked field displays the required items related to the task (when/if applicable).
• People. This is a linked field to the Contacts table. This linked field displays the people related to the task (when/if applicable).

Views

• All Tasks. Displays all tasks. Tasks are sorted by Due Date, from the earliest to the latest date.
• Incomplete. Displays all tasks that have not been completed yet, so you know which ones are outstanding and need to focus on completing.
• Complete. Displays all completed tasks, so you can bask in your success as you bear witness to the progress you’ve made crossing off your to-dos!
• By priority. Displays all tasks grouped together by their priority level.

Forms

• New task. Displays a form to enter a new task.

Categories

A personal task management solution doesn’t necessarily pertain only to personal items—in fact, it can become even more powerful when you begin to track tasks beyond your personal life, into work, special events, finance, and other categories. This table allows you to do just that and begin linking everything in order to have a birds-eye view of your tasks.

Fields

• Name. The name of the category.
• Tasks. This is a linked field to the Tasks table. This field displays all the tasks within each specific category.
• Contacts. This is a linked field to the Contacts table. This field displays the contacts related to each specific category.
• Notes. This field can be used to describe the category’s purpose, or jot down any other important pieces of information about the category.

Views

• All Categories. Displays all categories, sorted in alphabetical order from A to Z.

Shopping

Tasks may or may not require some sort of shopping trip somewhere. If they do, you’re set up and ready to roll with this Shopping table, which contains individual items that pertain to tasks.

Fields

• Item. The item that you need to shop for!
• Shop. The place or location where you’ll be buying the item from.
• Notes. A place to jot down notes about each particular item, if necessary.
• Tasks. This is a linked field to the Tasks table, which displays which task each shopping item pertains to.

Views

• All Items. Displays all shopping list items, sorted by the Shop field to make it easier to shop. With items grouped by the place of purchase, you can make sure you’ve got everything when visiting each location.

Contacts

Thought task management is generally personal, this doesn’t mean that tasks don’t or can’t involve other entities. Whether it’s a person or a company, tasks can and often do relate to other entities, each with their own properties.

Fields

• Name. The name of the entity, be it a person or company.
• Tasks. This is a linked field to the Tasks table, which provides a quick look at which tasks each contact pertains to. One contact may be involved in one or many tasks.
• Notes. A general purpose notes field to capture any important information about the contact.

Views

• All Contacts. Displays all contacts, sorted in alphabetical order from A to Z.
• Add a Contact. This is a form view. It allows you to enter/collect a new contact’s information in a more intuitive, user-friendly way. It can be used internally, or make the form public to let those you share the link with add contacts to your own Personal Task Manager.