Customer story

Personal planning, task and long-term life goals visualization

Location: Russia

Favorite features in GanttPRO: Personal calendar, Export to PDF, Dependencies between tasks, Auto scheduling, My tasks, Time log, Templates

Artem Solovyev

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Artem Solovyev is a Senior Frontend Developer at Luxoft. He uses GanttPRO to create plans of personal tasks and visualize life goals.

With GanttPRO, I finally managed to plan my time for programming training: I saw where I had been spending time irrationally, and where I could significantly save it.

Getting started with GanttPRO

How did you decide on GanttPRO? How long have you been using the tool?

I have been using GanttPRO for 4 years already. In 2015, I was one of its first users and it was just the perfect time for me to start using it. I needed to plan further steps in my life: military service, studies, pastime, the switch to another career path (from an economist to a developer), and job search.

Before that, I made notes wherever I just could, mostly, on different pieces of paper scattered over different places. Also, I used different tools that didn’t work together. It was really inconvenient as dependencies were difficult to manage.

In GanttPRO, I managed to unite all my plans and see them as a roadmap on the Gantt chart. with tasks and goals. By the way, recently, I discovered the “My tasks” menu. Thanks to it, I can be iteratively moving towards my goals.

I have a tradition: before the New Year, I sum up the results. Then, I make a new plan for 5-10 upcoming years. And only GanttPRO lets me do it.

What do you do in your professional life?

I am a senior frontend developer at Luxsoft, a software development company.

When I started using GanttPRO, I had already graduated from university. I worked as an economist but I was not satisfied with the possibilities my profession offered me. I realized that I needed to change something.

I tried to manage plans in other tools. But honestly, it was a waste of time. And I found GanttPRO. I was finally able to plan my time for programming training: I saw where I had been spending time irrationally, and where I could significantly save it. Thus, I realized that this tool would make the difference for me.

Before that, I lived in England, played music, and performed.

When I came back, I had a dilemma. I was not sure about what to do next. I didn’t have enough money. And I decided that I needed to change the situation as soon as possible.

I visualized all my plans in GanttPRO: studies, work, music. I planned there all the major steps in my life.

Without GanttPRO, I couldn’t estimate the exact dates and duration. I always thought that I could do more.

Actually, GanttPRO removed all the waste from my plans and was some kind of risk manager. For me, GanttPRO is more than just a tool.

Sometimes, I came back to GanttPRO when I had difficulties in my life to plan further actions. It really helped me to find the right way out as in other tools and on paper, it was very difficult to work on tasks when their dates changed. Thanks to the Auto scheduling function, GanttPRO easily allows me to work on dependent tasks and groups of tasks.

Do you use GanttPRO for work?

Over a long period, I had been using it for personal plans.

But just before the New Year, I got a promotion and the scope of my task got bigger. I examined GanttPRO once again and made sure that it was a robust tool that allowed working on a wide range of tasks.

By the way, the ready-made templates significantly save time on task outlining and prioritization.

Also, I help my friends plan their projects. I make plans in GanttPRO and send them links to print schedules - this feature is just great.

Favorite features

What GanttPRO features do you value most?

Personal calendar
I like to work with a personal calendar as it allows me to add days-off, working and non-working hours.
Export to PDF
Often, I printed my plan and hung it on the wall. This visualized picture remained in my memory, it was much easier for me to keep the information in mind and effectively manage time.
Flexible dependencies between tasks
This feature is one of the most important for me. In GanttPRO, it is really easy to work with dependencies thanks to drag & drop.
Auto scheduling
It is very convenient to work with time frames. I can definitely say that GanttPRO is the most flexible tool I’ve seen. And I did look for them. Some of them offered weak features, some were too complicated.

With its level of complexity for an ordinary user, GanttPRO is a real catch. You just log in and start working immediately.
My tasks
I just recently discovered this menu. It looks like I will completely switch from Trello to GanttPRO.
Time log
From time to time, I use time tracking to analyze and optimize the time spent on tasks. I see that this is another well-designed feature.
Templates
Predefined GanttPRO templates help save lots of time and achieve quality results.