Time Is on Your Side...With the Right Organizer

At what point in human history did people begin to need help staying organized and on task? Sure, calendars have existed since antiquity, and people have been keeping diaries for as long or longer. But when did they start writing down things like, "Tuesday the 2nd, 10 a.m., blood-letting"? I could probably find the answer in a book, such as James Gleick's Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. But I don't have time to read it.

You don't need to be in a job where you bill by the quarter-hour to appreciate the organizational tools we've collected here. For this review, we stuck to three distinct yet complementary types: general-purpose calendars, with limited or no task-management features; more-robust task managers or schedulers, with reminders and alerts; and tools for managing multiple types of information, from contacts lists to a mini-database of personal property to research for your magnum opus. If you're the sort of person who owns or has considered buying a file cabinet just to store personal data, this last category will be of particular interest to you.

Day-In, Day-Out Calendars

Free, Web-based calendars such as Google Calendar, AirSet, and 30 Boxes have set the bar high. It's difficult for a download to compete with the good looks and flexible features of these services--particularly the option to share a calendar and its events with family members, friends, coworkers, or the public at large.

However, Rainlendar Pro, a small but feature-rich and visually dynamic $20 desktop calendar, will import calendars from online services such as those mentioned. For example, I imported my daughter's dance-class schedule from my private Google Calendar. If you're an Outlook user, you can view Outlook events in Rainlendar Pro (though you can't write to Outlook through it). If you don't care to share, the free version of Rainlendar has everything you'll find in Rainlendar Pro except the support for Outlook and shared calendars. Internet devotees have created hundreds of gorgeous skins for Rainlendar, too, so you can infuse it with your own sense of style.

When a Calendar Isn't Enough

A calendar is a great tool, but sometimes you may need a little more help getting things done. Task managers usually include a calendar, but they earn their place on your desktop by offering ways to track tasks and events, and--even more important--by providing reminders and alerts about impending schedule items.

Developers have devised various methods to grab a user's attention, including pop-up alerts and sounds. One program we looked at, the $20 Remind-Me, gives you the option of recording your own audio e-mail reminders. Just think: With this feature, you can berate yourself before you forget something.

Information on Demand

It's hard to have interests in life without finding yourself elbow-deep in factoids before long. (At least I haven't figured out how to avoid this consequence.) Corporations use big database applications to manage their information, but even if you're building a monster data set to organize materials your favorite subject, you'll probably find that a small, fast information manager is much easier to work with than a big, ponderous software suite.

Most PIMs employ some kind of metaphor to help you get organized. The $19 AZZ Cardfile, for example, has been around forever in shareware years; it stays strong by helping people imagine that all their data is stored on little paper cards. Other programs, including freebie TreePad Lite and $19 InfoStore, liken the way they store information to a tree of knowledge. The one that resonates with me, though, is another free download, InfoMagic, where the working metaphor is a junk drawer--but a junk drawer with a search engine. Vroom vroom!