7 top personal project management software and how to choose the best one

Many of us use project management software to collaborate with teams, but when it comes to individual usage, we still rely on sticky notes or several disconnected tools like email and spreadsheets. Most of our information, tasks, and to-dos aren’t in the same place, yet we’re still hoping we can stay organized and manage our project successfully. 

We’ll let you in on a little secret — it doesn’t have to be this way! From home improvement projects to freelance assignments, we can also use project management software for individual usage and reach our goals.  

Let’s dive into the benefits, use cases, and specific features to look for in personal project management software. We’ll also introduce the monday.com Work OS and compare it to other leading tools so you can pick the perfect PM software for you.   

What is personal project management software? 

Project management software is made up of all the platforms and tools that help managers and teams plan, coordinate, and complete projects from start to finish. 

Project management software for individuals has the same purpose and many of the same features as platforms built for bigger teams. One key difference is that because these softwares are built for one or two people, it’s a more affordable (or even free!) for those wanting to keep track of their daily activities, responsibilities, deliverables, and, of course, projects.

Some of the features of project management software for individuals include:

• Unlimited boards or spaces to plan and track work
• Customization features that allow you to take notes, keep track of information, upload images, and more
• Ways to organize your boards (whether that’s by including places to attach links, files, text, formulas, dates, and more)

When working with larger teams of three and above, it might be best to choose software that can scale as you grow, includes more automations and integrations, streamlines team management, and offers advanced reporting and analytics. 

So how can you know whether a project management software for individual use is right for you? Let’s take a look at a couple of use cases. 

Use cases for project management software: Personal and professional needs 

There are several ways to use project management software for individuals. We’ll focus on two scenarios where you can get the most out of the technology: personal projects and professional scenarios where you might want a customizable workflow to manage a job. 

We’ll break down both scenarios and how the software can help you stay organized, manage tasks, and track work.

1. Managing personal projects

You can use a personal project management tool for daily to-do lists, planning a budget, creating a diet plan, preparing a family schedule, and any other personal tasks you can think of.

Below are a few key features of personal project management software that could help facilitate a smoother move:

• Multiple view types: Different view types allow you to visualize your tasks and items in whatever way suits your personal needs best. Many top personal project management software offers view types such as Kanban view, Calendar view, or Gantt view. 

• ​​Pre-built templates: Pre-built templates do all of the organizational work for you, you just need to input your information. With templates, you won’t have to create a personal project management layout from scratch. 

• Custom fields: The most robust platforms will let you create checklists, embed your view into the doc, or attach it as a file so your projects are always accessible. This will help you connect and execute ideas and workflows all in one place.

With access to the above features, you can easily complete a personal project of any size on time, on budget, and as smoothly as possible.

2. Managing professional workflows 

You can also use personal project management software to manage your professional workflow. You’ll likely need the above key features, but you may also want a few extras to really maximize productivity and efficiency.

These extras will help you keep collaborators in the loop, calculate your rates, and keep an eye on how much time it takes you to complete a given task. Let’s go over a few of these features that will manage your work.

Collaboration features: If you’re freelancing, it’s important to update your editors on your progress and give them one place to find all of your notes, sources, and assets. It should be easy to give people access to edit, comment on, and track live changes on your workflows.

• Time tracking: This feature is great for when you’re working on multiple projects at once and need to understand how to best delegate your time and resources. With a time tracking feature, you can track time live by pressing a play button to start and end a timer. 

• Formula column: Different projects require different rates. A formula column helps you keep track of complex numbers such as an hourly rate for each project.

Effective project planning isn’t just about advanced features. There are other factors you should consider when working with these platforms.

7 best personal project management tools

Now that we’ve covered some use cases and delved into what to look for in a project management tool, we’ll briefly touch on a few of the brands you may discover during your research.

All of these tools are created to help you manage your tasks and complete projects. Topping off the list is the monday.com Work OS.

1. monday.com

Thousands of users rely on the monday.com Work OS to manage individual projects. With 200+ free templates and an intuitive UX, users can easily input their project information and get started right away. 

With monday.com, you can manage, and optimize workflows using automation, integrations, templates, multiple board views, and much more. A highlight of monday.com is that it offers hybrid project management methodologies and features like Kanban boards and Gantt charts to make sense of your workflows. Try monday.com if you want to manage multiple projects using advanced features and centralize your work by integrating with other tools you use.

2. Smartsheet

Source: Smartsheet

Smartsheet is an online app for managing and tracking collaborative work. Heavily influenced by the structure of spreadsheets, Smartsheet is especially helpful for those who know their way around an Excel sheet. It lets you capture and track your plans with a rich set of workflows and reports.

Charts, cards, and dashboards on Smartsheet have limited customization features.

3. Asana

Source: Asana

Asana is a tool that can be used as a personal task management tool. It is available as both web and mobile applications. Asana helps organize, track, and manage your individual projects. It has a clean interface and you can organize your projects as sections, tasks, and subtasks.

Asana also comes with advanced task-planning features and elements like color coding, tags, and multiple views. It is suitable for both day-to-day task tracking and work projects.

Asana has very few templates to choose from and you’ll have to start from scratch. Getting set up can be overwhelming for beginners.

4. ClickUp