Many of us face problem in organising our schedules and things to do. We use online calendars and offline agendas and notebooks, trying to keep track on all “to-do” lists with tasks and assignments. We also use other types of diaries and notebooks to write down our ideas when they pop up in our minds. When we are actively engaged in a social life and simultaneously our brains work on a PhD thesis, a study, or a research, it sometimes becomes so messy, that we can not even orientate easily on all lists and calendars which we have created. Funny enough, we sometimes have to then recall where exactly we wrote down what we had to do.

Here is my selection of several efficient online tools, helping you to get things done quickly by organising your schedules and things to do. They help you to store all notes, dates, ideas, to-do lists and more in one place, so that you can free your brains for content development, intellectual enhancement, research and professional growth.

30 Boxes: A calendaring tool that has the extra feature of allowing you to track headlines from RSS Web feeds. You can add your calendar to other online platfurms such as Google’s Blogger, your MySpace page, etc.

Assignment Calculator: You can use this tool to see if your assignments are reasonably timed. If you lecture, you can create a handout to show students that they can get the work done and you’ll show them how to do it.

BackPack: This tool helps you to keep your to-do lists, notes, ideas, and calendar online. IT allows you  to make pages with your own lists, notes, files, and images. Backpack also features a calendar and reminders that can be sent via email or to your cell phone at predefined times. It is a month-to-month service so you can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your free access at any time. Use this productivity tool in conjunction with Writeboard, where you can use an online text tool to create and collaborate.

ClockingIT is a multilingual tool, helping to plan your projects, see your schedule, know if you’re slipping behind and why. The Time Tracking and extensive reports help you show your clients exactly what you’ve done and for how long.

HiTask: Dragging and dropping goodness makes this task tracker a fun tool to use to stay on top of things. You can apply colored tags to easily identify and review important items. Meetings or reminders can be set by dragging their instance onto a calendar and into a time based schedule. Members of teams can also be assigned certain tasks by dragging the task onto the person’s name. It does not allow for unlimited information, but there is an option for a $12/year for a premium account.

Meebo: Enables over 100 million users to instantly connect, share, and communicate with all of their friends.  It integrates all social network and communication channels (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, etc.)  into a single, simple-to-use interface, users can easily share content and communicate in real time with the people who matter to them.

Remember the Milk: If you’re a list freak, this tool is right up your alley. You can manage your tasks even when your computer is not connected to the Internet. You no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand: Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience. You can choose to receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! are all supported).

TiddlyWiki: This is a single html file which has all the characteristics of a wiki – including all of the content, the functionality (including editing, saving, tagging and searching) and the style sheet. Because it’s a single file, it’s very portable – you can email it, put it on a web server or share it via a USB stick. TiddyWili is a reusable, nonlinear notebook that you can use to keep track of projects.

Read this blog post also on LabforCulture.