People never do "nothing", you know. They just do the wrong things (some more often than others). This can be true whether we're talking about personal stuff (watching the game instead of building that home business) or employment issues (employees going to hotchix.com instead of confronting all that backlogged filing).
Let's face it, there's a lot going on in life and it's pretty darn easy to get distracted in this age o' information. So any tool that helps us focus is worth it's weight in gold, I figure.
Basecamp is such a project management tool.
The folks at 37 Signals who "thunk" it up did a great job. They figured we don't need a lot of the stuff that's in programs like Microsoft's Project with it's 7,243 x 10 (to the 15th power) features; but, they reasoned, there are certain very vital features without which any project would fail. And so their web-based software does not distract from the tasks at hand in any way. It almost makes you concentrate on what you must do to win the day with whatever you're working on.
They have preserved this simplicity with Google-like perseverance.
Their software, because it so simple, can be used to manage anything from rudimentary home projects to complex software development. I'm using it right now to manage 13 separate programs in my work and personal life.
Because it's web-based, I don't have to worry about backing it up (they do that for me and thank goodness because my PC recently crashed irrevocably) and I can get to it from anywhere with a 'net connection.
Also, I can give others with whom I am collaborating (whether it's my wife or someone at work or even at another company) secure access to only the projects we are working on together. Brilliant!
Combine all that with it's inherent simplicity and you get a service that does what it is supposed to: keep us on task.
You can manage one project at a time for free. Beyond that it's a nominal charge. But I'm willing to bet that you'd make that money back by seeing that your or the people who you work with are doing more of "right" things much more often.
Link: Project collaboration, management, and task software: Basecamp.
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