You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

The Web-Based Scheduling Tool That's One Step Ahead of You TheDeadline takes digital task management to the next level by helping you keep track of not only what you need to do, but also when.

By Jonathan Blum

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

So you know you need to get with the digital task-management future, but you just can't stomach the leap to tools like Basecamp, LiquidPlanner or Microsoft Project? Try taking a gander at TheDeadline, the trendy new Web-based task management tool, built on the emerging Google App Engine, that -- get ready for this -- attempts to guess which tasks you want to be working on and when.

That is, it tries to be like a real assistant, but without the paid vacations.

Intrigued -- and who wouldn't be? -- I installed the new tool in my six-person digital content company. Sure enough, TheDeadline, the Web 2.0 creation of Stefan Richter and Claudia Dietz of German-based Freiheit.com Technologies, really does turn out to be one crafty little task management tool.

Things to Love
Super-easy set-up: TheDeadline is worth a test drive for ease of use alone. Everything runs from a clean, blog-like layout that prompts users to create ToDos that can be linked to due dates, members of your team, Web content, and tags, similar to, say, Twitter.

If you spend 10 minutes signing up and creating a basic set of ToDos and tasks, that's a lot.

Big-league Web task-management with minor-league stress: TheDeadline is built around some serious rules-based math that bakes those tasks, tags, dates and contacts and into a self-optimizing list that guesses what ToDos you should be looking at first. This ordered list not only tells you what to do, it brings into sharp focus all the important knacks businesses need to master in order to task-manage in the digital age: How to share a web-based work space. How not to run your shop just from your e-mail in-box. How to get a feel for who on your team is where and doing what at a given time.

It's all pretty subtle, and TheDeadline looks almost too simple, but what it shows you is not.

Things To Hate
It's still a whole world of hurt to deploy: For all its cool factor, TheDeadline is still cloud-based software, and migrating to it takes real effort. Your team must remember to log into the TheDeadline site and not wait for an e-mail to remind them what needs to be done. (I know, that's asking for it.) Mobile deployment is as of now limited, so you need a Web-connected PC to really use it. And your team will need to define its tags, the common conventions for how to update ToDos and otherwise decide on how to communicate. Which all takes serious time. And serious effort.

Google Apps integration is minimal: Integration with the rest of Google Apps is limited as of now. Yes, it knows my Google log-in, but not my contacts, my calendar or my documents. These features are sure to come. But for now, this software is all about making simple, smart task lists, and really nothing else.

The Smart Bet
By all means, give TheDeadline a spin. Find a low-risk internal, non-client project -- maybe updating your website or cleaning up old inventory -- and use TheDeadline with your team try to get that job done. That will get your feet wet with the software and see if the code can play a larger role in your shop.

Just keep in mind, this tool is no all-in-one productivity powerhouse. Rather, it's a simple, smart list that gets your team in touch with powerful Web-based tasking concepts easily and cheaply.

TheDeadline gets you moving up in the Web cloud, but without all the attendant organizational thunder and lightning.

Jonathan Blum is a freelance writer and the principal of Blumsday LLC, a Web-based content company specializing in technology news.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud

Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the loss amount to the victims of Bankman-Fried's crimes surpassed $550 million.

Side Hustle

This Mom Started a Side Hustle After a 'Shocking' Realization in the Toy Aisle. Her Product Was in Macy's Within the Year — Seeing Nearly $350,000 in Sales.

Elenor Mak, now founder of Jilly Bing, didn't plan to start a business — but the search for a doll that looked like her daughter inspired her to do just that.

Growing a Business

To Achieve Sustainable Success, You Need to Stop Focusing on Disruption. Here's Why — and What You Must Focus on Instead.

Instead of zeroing in solely on disruptive innovation, embrace a pragmatic approach to innovation, recognizing and leveraging the potential within ongoing industry shifts.

Marketing

5 Ways to Get on the Media's Good Side (and Stay There)

When you're trying to make a name and a mark for yourself and your business, it's really important to get on the media's good side — and stay there.

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Told Meta Engineers to 'Figure Out' Snapchat's Privacy Protections: 'We Have No Analytics on Them'

Recently unsealed court documents detail "Project Ghostbusters," Meta's project to work around Snapchat's end-to-end encryption to intercept data.