I have to say I’m very into Google Docs at the moment because it is one of the best tools for managing the finer points of any project. When I’m building sites naturally the client will want changes here and there. A  lot of times I might also have an idea about what he said, I may advise him against something and so on. This is very hard to keep track of using emails and very inconvenient creating a document for this and sending it back and forth with edits.

This is why Google Docs (or Adobe Buzzword, or Zoho, or any other such app) is such a great idea. You can share a document and comment away on all the points. There are a few methods you can use to easily keep track of what’s been done, what is in progress and what is still to be done, here’s the method I am just creating myself, maybe you can use some of the tips, and maybe you can help me out how to do this better!

I basically use two methods, color and positioning on the page to manage the tasks. Tasks are in a numbered list throughout the document, I always edit with a nice turqoise color, the other person editing can use a deep red for example, normal task text is black or gray regardless of who created the task. If a task is complete I color it turqoise and move it to the bottom of the document, all done tasks reside here. If all subtasks in a task are complete but I still don’t think all is done I will color all the subtasks, but leave the task itself black.

That’s actually about all there is to it. Using this method you can easily distinguish what needs to be done, you can also see comments right there, and at a glance see the estimated amount of work to be completed. There are various other methods you can use to indicate different things, more colors, bold text. headings and so on. I recommend you keep the document fairly short, or at least very specific to a project, so you can still follow what is happening. You can let done tasks pile up, but if there are too many tasks to complete it might be easier to split them between multiple documents.