The 6 best task management software for your team in 2023

As you’re trying to grow your small business, it’s important to take notice of which tools you need to help it thrive. One of the priorities should be finding the best task management software. This means, of course, finding the software that solves your problems without a steep learning curve or going off budget.

With smaller departments and bigger challenges, your task manager needs to be a software that not only makes your job easier, but also doesn’t add unnecessary maintenance work to your routine making you feel even more busy.

Some apps and programs on the market are designed to help the small business owner have better control of the schedules, operations, deals and budgets and even teams, making all decisions easily informed by relevant data.

To help you find the ideal feature for your company, we summarized a few key points to look for and analyze before signing up.

The most important task manager app features

Given the amount of developers and software available on the market, you might come across many different sets of tools designed to help the average business owner, no matter the industry they’re in.

Money management apps, team management communication devices, different email add-ons and others might be used to help the owner or the manager stay on track and find all the relevant information in one place

 Of course, this is dependent on which industry the company operates in. With an e-commerce company, you should be on top of stocks, suppliers, which orders have been sent and fulfilled, the client follow up, and so on. It is a different set of tools than someone who does not sell a product, but rather a service, such as independent contractors.

There are many different features  these apps have in common, such as: easily visualizing data, file sharing and task boards designed to make everything work better and cut down your time, making the whole process streamlined and much easier to follow up with.

• Save your time

In most cases, business owners spend too much time dealing with bureaucratic stuff. So having your files, your data and your day-to-day tasks within reach is a much more important feature than most people realize. Having them around means you don’t have to spend too much time looking for them or searching through emails, USB drives and so on.

 If you don’t waste so much time doing small business tasks, you have much more time to use towards growing your business, educating yourself, giving your staff feedback, follow-up on clients and other activities that are not only much more fun and rewarding, but also bring more value to your business.

To make sure these apps work in your favor and help you avoid tab switching, there are a few features to look out for:

• Kanban boards

 In an office space you might find boards with important reminders and contact info. A  digital version of that, which is especially useful for remote teams, is the Kanban board, those boards where you put your notes and memos. 

For example, say you need to let everyone in your department know that you have found the problem with an order you sent to the client, and everyone needs to be on board to make sure they alert the supplier and have better checking routines next time. Instead of emailing everyone, if you put on a board everyone can see it and have the tool automatically notify relevant parties, making it easily available to troubleshoot the day-to-day issues.

 The digital board can also be complemented by tools such as labels, tagging your teammates and so on, making the task much easier and more transparent within a team avoiding double work or letting some problem fall through cracks.

• Collaboration features

When you start a new project, having collaborative features is essential. If everyone is able to visualize relevant data and be notified of changes going forward, there’s less communication noise, making it possible for teams to move faster.

Another relevant point to evaluate is if the tool has built in communication features. Chats, forums and direct messaging, both on a group and one-to-one level, are key to keeping a healthy workspace conversation.

Not to mention, if you and your employees don’t have to switch tabs and find emails or chats on other platforms, there’s a smaller chance of miscommunication and less time in between platforms.

• Integration with email

Switching between platforms is a headache for most people in office jobs, especially when you work between different teams or have direct contact to clients and suppliers. People have a focus shift and take much longer to finish easy tasks if they have to jump through multiple hoops just to find what they need.

Say you need to email all your colleagues to check the corporate calendar to set up a meeting on a video chat, where people need to go through files on their Google Drive to show others. Feels like a much more complicated process, right?

A great task manager software is one that makes use of different communication possibilities (audio, chats, video, etc) all on it’s own, so you don’t have to switch tabs. One way to do this is by integrating the workspace right into your email inbox. That way, you can manage your tasks or talk to coworkers without leaving the inbox.

• Integration with calendar

The calendar works the same way: if you can have a task manager software with a calendar feature, one that everyone on the team can see and submit to, in a second you can see which tasks you have, with whom, due when.

Not only does that make the team more productive but it makes the whole company process more transparent and more materialized.

The need for a task management tool

With different forms of work and recent changes favoring remote and hybrid teams, a great task manager software and a product management tool are even more essential than it has been before.

Of course, each company has its different challenges and some of them are related to technology. For instance, since all parts of the workspace are now moving to the digital sphere, you need to update your task management as well. So a good software is the key to a better workspace.

The digital growth accelerates communication needs and it’s hard for managers to be on top of all tasks, especially remote teams, when they don’t have access and updates on each one. 

But keeping tabs takes a lot of email forwarding and cc’ing, that is, unless you find a task management software that has a built in communication system and integrates well with tools you already use.

Then, you get everyone on the same page, each step of a task delegated and all due dates determined. That helps build a better company-wide system.

Remote work and team building

Another new trend within the workforce is having teams spread across the globe. That is a huge game changer for most companies, because they can have different cultures and experiences and more diverse teams can see an issue from different viewpoints and find many possible solutions .

However, with diversity new issues arise, for example teams across different timezones. In these cases Having a clear task list that’s aligned with everyone’s shifts or work management is crucial. This will help people understand what has and hasn’t been done before they start working.

Organization and troubleshooting

Now that you have your team aware of the tasks and your software working to make sure everything is easily visualized, you also need to understand how to better organize your system.

Which tasks need to be done first, which ones can be left for another day, who is responsible for what. This, of course, is not an answer set in stone, but it needs to be decided based on relevant data, not random guesses.

So your best task software will also help with that. It will offer important scheduling tools, to organize work, but also gather data about the team to help find who is most suitable for what. 

Finding what needs to be changed

Besides finding the relevant deadlines and sorting between urgent and not urgent tasks, you also can use your task manager tools to help you find out which person has been facing difficulties. This will help avoid getting one person overworked as the tasks will be better distributed.

If you find out that a specific client takes a lot of time and effort for their primary team, you might need to bill them for extra hours or review the contract. On the flip side, if you find out your team is quick on action for a determined client, you can better use their capabilities by giving them more rewarding activities.

What are the 6 best task management software list apps? 

Google task manager

The Google native task manager app is a very customizable feature on the workspace. You can add your daily activities and your occasional meetings to it, sync it to your calendar and link it to your Google Drive.

However, it’s limited to single accounts, which means you can’t share tasks with colleagues.

DragApp

DragApp is an email extension available for your Google Account. It brings features such as boards, scheduling, team chats and shared email inboxes for both local and global teams. 

It’s useful for small and medium business owners because of it’s easy user experience, which downsizes the amount of apps you need for your daily business.

You can also automate the repetitive part of your workload with Drag. Get your incoming email sorted into boards and assigned to teammates so you can focus on what really matters.

Monday.com

This is a tool designed to create and optimize workflows. With a lot of features, such as client pipelines, documents and campaign managers, it’s tailored  for bigger companies and marketing staff.

Clickup

With this app, you can both find your workflows and your teammates in the same place. Chats, campaigns, short and long term goals, all easily accessible. The tools are better used by bigger teams who deal with clients and seasonal sales.

Trello

Trello is a board-based organization system. You can customize the columns by categories and add memo cards with due dates, tags, checklists and descriptions.

You can add team members to your shared boards, but several common features are only available using paid addons.

Notion

This is a personal organization software designed to help professionals schedule their time between projects. With added tools such as calendars, memos, reminders and note taking. 

Since it’s pretty flexible, it can be used by different industries and both small and bigger companies.

Are you looking for a way to make your company task list easier and better? Try DragApp and bring your workspace to your inbox!