Perhaps you feel you don’t have enough time to create your own games…  Or you would like to have some more ?

Try Z Planner, my free time and project management program !

How it works :

Z Planner has two time management features that work together independently.  A project management feature and a basic reminders feature.

Z Planner project management.

The Project management feature is where all the fun and real value is.

You start by creating a new user.  There may only be a need for one, but you can have a user for each person that uses any given computer.

Then create your first project in the User Home screen.  Put in the name, start date and end date and it’s created.

Select it and click on SET COLOR.  Pick one and that will be the color assigned to that project in the schedule, both in day and week format.

Then click on FRAMES.  That part is about setting time frames during which you plan to work on your project.  You can pick frames that will repeat each week until the end of your project (you set that when you created it), or single frames that appear only once.

Once that’s done, Z Planner calculates the number of hours you have available for that project.

Now you can click on TASK, which is where you’ll break your project down into a chronological list of tasks from beginning to end.

Select the parent task on OUTLINE, and create a subtask in the top right panel.

Before clicking OK you have to decide if it is going to be a final task, or if you are going to be breaking it down into simpler subtasks.  If it is a final task, check final task and duration fields will appear.  Enter the number of hours and minutes you wish to dedicate to that final task and click OK.

All subtasks appear in the Subtask list at the bottom right for the selected parent task.

Only final tasks appear in the schedule.  They will do so according to the order in which they appear in the OUTLINE.

The schedule.

The week format only shows time frames by color.  Double click anywhere in a given day column and the day schedule appears.

Let’s say your project has four final tasks (it can have many more but this is just for illustration).

1. Final task 1 :  duration = 30 minutes.
2. Final task 2 :  duration = 1 hour.
3. Final task 3 :  duration = 45 minutes.
4. Final task 4 :  duration = 30 minutes.

You have set two time frames for your project.

1. 2 hours on Tuesday from 2PM to 4PM.
2. 1 hour on Friday from 1PM to 2PM.

You have 3 hours available for a 2h45min project, so you’re just fine.  Otherwise you get a prompt asking you to add time frames, or set back your end date (this only works if you have weekly time frames that will re-appear automatically, thus adding new hours to your project).

• Your first final task appears on Tuesday at the beginning of your first time frame :  2PM. 
• The second one appears 30 minutes later, just when the first one ends. 
• The third one appears at 3 :30PM, after the first two.
  • Since it is 45 minutes long, it also appears on Friday at 1PM, when you theoretically will need to work on it another 15 minutes to get it finished.
• Final task four therefore appears on Friday, at 1 :15PM, when the previous final task is supposed to be finished.

This system is great to keep track of how far behind, or ahead of schedule you fall.  I recommend giving yourself plenty of time to get a final task done.  You’ll find that using this system, even if you give yourself time, you will be much more productive each day, and each week, simply because it sets a timeline.

The REMINDER feature.

This one is pretty self explanatory.  Enter a reminder, a few notes like telephone numbers, addresses, or anything that applies, select whether you want it to appear once (SINGLE), or DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, or ANNUAL (birthdays or anniversaries J).

Set up the dates and times as needed and click OK.

Select it and click DELETE if it’s not needed anymore.

Download.

Remember, it’s 100% freeware!  (and adware / junk free of course)  Enjoy!

Don’t forget to join the newsletter so you don’t forget about all the things you can check out here!  Not to mention what will be added soon! J