One of the most powerful productivity habits you can introduce in your routine is planning at the end of the day. And Hightrack makes this process very easy. Planning in advance is not getting things done, but is certainly the first step to have a productive day.

Go to Upcoming

Before focusing on tasks, you need to know how many events you have tomorrow. Since in terms of tasks these are your non-working hours, being aware of them will help you to build a realistic to-do list.

The Hightrack Upcoming’s Timeline is very handy for this. It tells you…

• How many hours are already blocked by events.
• How many tasks are due tomorrow.
• How many of those tasks are important to you.

Right behind the Timeline you have your next day in great detail: all tasks are grouped by project or tag (context), and your events are displayed by calendar or hour. In the case you need to inspect any item, just click on it to reveal a popup-card with all task/events details at a glance.

With all this relevant information you can picture your work load and available hours, so you can make two different choices:

1. Reduce your to-do list, because you have too many tasks and many events.
2. Add more tasks, because you have a pretty clear day.

1. Reduce tasks

You can quickly reschedule tasks without editing them, and right from the Upcoming track. Just drag them from tomorrow’s detail and drop them to any other day in the Timeline. This is fast way to build a more balanced work plan.

2. Add more tasks

Jump to Tasks app and review all your lists finding new tasks to finish tomorrow. To make this operation faster, just click on the task title and select ‘Tomorrow’ in the Quick Actions panel.

Now that more of you are using Hightrack for the everyday, we’re planning to explain how you can use Hightrack on real life. This was just the first post of a big series :-)

Learning

May 3, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

In Hightrack we love keyboard shortcuts. In many cases, working with them instead your mouse is more productive and far convenient. That’s why Hightrack includes a bunch of useful keyboard shortcuts to speed up most common operations, such as add new task or event, or move between main apps.

Some shortcuts will be included in upcoming weeks, but our private beta already has three great shortcuts to make your landing experience even smoother.

Available Shortcuts

• Add Task or Event: just press Enter and start typing. Press Enter again to save it.
• Add several Tasks in a row: press Shift and Enter when saving a task.
• Mark Task as Done: select any task and then press Spacebar.
• Multiple Selection (for tasks, or tags on the Focusbar): press Shift while clicking in your items.

Upcoming Shortcuts

• Move between apps (including three main apps and your own shortcuts): press Alt + 1-9
• Move between sections (on the Focusbar): press Ctrl + 1-5
• And many others to come…

Adding new stuff

We put a lot of care in the most repetitive action: adding new tasks or events. In Hightrack this operation is blazingly fast. It takes literally 5-10 seconds: Enter-> Type the title-> Enter. Done!

And remember, if you want to add several tasks in a row, just press Shift when saving the first one. This will immediately save the current task and clear the window to add a new one. Very handy!

Learning

April 26, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Whether if you already got your invite or you’re still waiting for it, we figured out you would like know that the Hightrack Getting Started Guide is ready to download. It’s a seven pages PDF with basic directions, juicy tips and cool ideas to jumpstart your beta experience.

How to take the first steps, learn handy keyboard shortcuts, how to organize and filter with tags, make the most of the advanced features, discover how Tracks can help you to get more done, and much more.

And if you’re still waiting to your invite, get it as soon as possible so you’ll be more than ready when your it arrives :-)

Download the Guide

Updates

April 23, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Now that more people are testing Hightrack everyday, we thought this would be a good moment to talk about some help resources we’ve included in our app.

From the initial screen, the welcome tour will guide you through the main apps and features of Hightrack: Tasks, Calendar, Tracks, basic operations, keyboard shortcuts… This will give you an overall view of the whole app.

From the same screen, you can also choose to load two sample lists. They are ‘dummy lists’ with basic how-tos, tips and tricks, and step-by-step directions.

But there’s more… Right in our latest release, we introduced another cool resource: on-screen tooltips. They provide contextual information and tips right after performing certain operations, so your learning curve will be even shorter.

We do believe that you just shouldn’t know your apps, but mastering them. That’s why from now on, we will share with you tips and tricks, unveil ‘hidden’ features, and smart uses to make the most of Hightrack.

Learning

April 19, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

We’ve just created a Beta Status page to keep you posted about two important things:

Invites Roll Out Progress

A new status bar with tell you the amount of requests, how many invites we’ve sent so far, and when was the last day we rolled out them.

Beta Release Notes

Since we’re introducing a new release pretty much every week, and they have new features, significant refinements, and bug fixes, we figured out you’d like to be informed about it, so you can take advantage of every single improvement. With every version, we will update our release notes.

Updates

April 16, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Just a quick update on how we’re doing with our beta invites. (Because maybe you’re wondering «where the heck is my invite?»)

As we said when we announced our Private Beta, we wanted to start slow but steady… and so we did. There are many things to keep an eye on: systems, connectivity, backups, application itself… In the last two weeks we sent a fair amount of invites but still a small batch considering the long waiting list (thank you guys!).

But good news: as everything seems to work fine in our side, we’re planning to speed up the release of invites. So don’t despair, because every week we will roll out a significant amount of new invites to test Hightrack. Just remember: everyone will receive an invite in the order that they subscribed.

We do appreciate your interest on trying Hightrack. And we do understand that you want us to hurry, but we want to do this right. Releasing this beta for thousands of people is a big deal for us. We’re getting there…

Updates

April 10, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

After months of hard work, Hightrack first beta development is drawing to an end. That means that the wait is pretty much over for you. First batch of invites will be roll out in a matter of days, and you’ll be able to experience Hightrack for yourself in less than a blink of the eye (well, almost ;-)

At this very moment, there’re a significant group of people already testing Hightrack. These people were hand-picked based on technical or productivity skills, to help us track down major bugs and improve the user experience.

So, after our first alpha, and our internal beta, now it’s time to take another step. A biggie. Because we’re opening our Private Beta sending first invites at the beginning of next week.

How the Private Beta works?

We do want you to try Hightrack as soon as possible, but we want to do it right. There’re tons of things to test in our side: the app itself, servers capacity, connectivity… And we don’t to crash anything :-) That’s why we will be adding people gradually and rolling out the invites in weekly batches.

Everyone who did register will receive an invite in the order that they subscribed, but as the waiting list for our beta is quite long (thank you!), it may take a little bit of time before you get your own invitation.

We’re extremely excited and very thankful for your time and care.

Updates

March 22, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

«Every click counts». You can hear that phrase any given day at Hightrack. Because it does. Among many things, productivity is also efficiency. Being able to speed up the most common operations, gestures and procedures. That’s why we wanted that efficiency right on the very core of our application.

In Tasks, you can edit multiple tasks at once and perform bulk actions. And that means appending tags/contexts, adding due or start dates, or setting an estimated energy/time to complete those tasks. With just two or three quick clicks, you can change 5 or 15 tasks at the same time.

This is super convenient in several common situations. Just two quick examples:

• Processing your Inbox: after working hard all morning, it’s time to go to your Inbox to process your new tasks and assignments. You realize that five of them have many details in common, so you edit all of them in one unique window. You just saved about 10 clicks.
• Change of plans: a customer sets a new due date for one of your projects, so you have to finish four tasks right tomorrow. You select them on the list and using our quick actions popup, you modify them in no time. The whole process takes less than 5 seconds.

Every click counts for you. Because saving clicks is saving energy, focus and precious time to invest in other places. Less time for small things gives you more energy for big things. This is what Hightrack is.

Updates

March 5, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

We’d like to introduce a handy part of Hightrack interface: the Dock. We truly believe that it will soon play a very important role in your daily workflow, because it has productivity on its DNA.

The Dock is always visible and it gives you quick access to most common places you work on. While you can always toggle (show/hide) the Sidebar to gain more workspace (which is cool when working with low resolutions, like a laptop), the Dock is always there to speed up your actions.

On top of Dock you can find the three main apps: Tracks, Tasks and Calendar. But the juicy part is that you can add your own shortcuts right below. Just drag and drop to add any Task List, one particular Calendar or your favorite Track to really make Hightrack how you like it.

This gives you plenty of freedom to organize and build a more productive workspace. By example: you can have 3-4 long term shortcuts, and a couple “disposable shortcuts” just for this week. All of them just one click away. Just one click.

This is what a feature means to us: not pretty, but convenient and productive. And this is how we’re building every single piece of Hightrack. Stay tuned, our public beta is closer everyday :-)

Updates

February 20, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Tracks is the third and final app in Hightrack. Tracks are like ‘playlists’ for working. Smart workspaces where tasks and events meet in an uncluttered place created to give you a clear vision of all your activity.

In your TV, you switch channels depending on the moment of the day, available time or when you need to see something specific. Tracks work pretty much the same: you select one when you want to overview your activity, start doing things, or check what you completed.

Built-in Tracks

Hightrack includes four tracks (worksets) to cover most situations when organizing and doing, not matter if you’re at work, studying or at home. We truly believe that these tracks are going to change the way you do your things:

• Today: a superclean space that shows all stuff that you should do in the next hours: tasks due today and events scheduled for this day. This track is for doing and it’s perfect to start the day with.
• Upcoming: a handy timeline that shows the upcoming activity for next days, for both tasks and events. This track is for overviewing and it’s perfect for the end of the day, or sunday evening. (You can see how it looks in the upper screenshot.)
• Focus on: it helps you to aim your attention to get things done based on lists, contexts, your current energy level or your available time. This track is for doing and it’s perfect when you need to focus on 1-2 special projects, or choose tasks when you feel tired.
• Last Week: an explanatory timeline that shows what you did in the last days. This track is for reviewing and it’s perfect for evaluating your workweek on friday afternoon.

Why Tracks?

We’ve been working with endless and cluttered lists for too many years, and it’s time for a real change. With so much activity, projects and events, knowing what’s going on, getting a clear vision of what should I do next, or finding the focus to get things done, it’s harder everyday. Because we’re humans, not machines.

Being productive and getting results is not just about adding or managing lists, is about making smart choices based on clear information. We created Tracks to give you the tools to choose, focus and accomplish in a smart way.

How our three apps work in Hightrack? While Tasks is the place for adding and organizing your lists and tasks, and Calendar is where you manage your schedule, Tracks is your command center where the smart work happens: a place to know, a place to choose, a place to do.

Updates

February 6, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Productivity is the very soul of Hightrack. It’s the main reason to build this project, the foundation of the app, the inspiration behind every pixel, the purpose of every feature, and the motivation to excel ourselves to do something unforgettable.

We are not a software company that at some point decided to make a “task manager”, because everyone else does it. We are a productivity company that believes that you can regain control and get results with software and habits, with habits and software.

For that reason, we also want to share with you all the ideas, techniques and habits that helped us to be more productive and efficient. To organize with less hassle, to have a clearer vision of what has to be done, to make smarter choices, to kill the noise and achieve more focus, to start doing and accomplishing.

Hightrack claim is Choose. Focus. Accomplish. It is not just a catchy phrase we made up. It is our very DNA. These three words help us to work and live better. Because after years of struggling with bad habits and dozens of applications of all kind, we learnt that is not about trying hard, but doing right. And we call it Raw Productivity.

About Us

February 1, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

Why most productivity apps don’t have a calendar? They primarily focus on Tasks, and that’s obvious. But they miss a so important part of your life, that you end up having your organization in two different places. At any moment, you have to jump to another application/web just to check your upcoming events, or when you want to (quickly) add a new one. This makes your workflow slow and clumsy. It’s not productive.

Events and tasks are definitely different. But both of them are the core of your activity. How are you going to build a work plan for tomorrow if you don’t know how many hours you really have? You can’t decide what to do next without your schedule. You can’t choose your first task without knowing how busy is the kickoff of your day.

When we started designing Hightrack, we knew it should include a calendar from day one. Because events are meant to be next to your tasks. Not mixed, that’s for sure, but together.

Hightrack sports a full featured calendar including multiple calendars, different views (day, week, month), repeating options… and all the tools you may need to manage your schedule.

Calendar also includes a super handy view called “Agenda”. Agenda shows your daily schedule in a visual and intuitive way. With one quick view you can see all your detailed events from different calendars in a clean and distraction-free canvas.

«Ummm… that’s great, but I already have my own calendar and I like it» No problem! Hightrack syncs with Google Calendar and we will keep adding other popular services as our little application grows up.

Hightrack was born with one big goal: help you to be more productive. This requires to get serious about productivity and giving you useful tools for the everyday to organize, choose, focus and accomplish.

Just stay tuned… because there’s more to come. And the third app of Hightrack is the real jewel of the crown.

Updates

January 25, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

In Hightrack we have a golden word that is the foundation of our whole project: Focus. That’s why from the very first day we wanted to include it as big feature in our application. Because without Focus, you only have a bunch of things piled together asking for your attention. And we came up with the ‘Focusbar’.

The Focusbar is fixed bar on top of the screen that helps you to change sections, apply filters, browse your tags and even switch the view/layout of your task lists.

Sections

The first thing you notice on the Focusbar is a slider to quickly move between the different sections of Tasks: (1) Active Tasks (2) Tasks with Due Date (3) Starred Tasks (4) Programmed Tasks and (5) Completed Tasks. All these sections apply on every list: default lists (‘Inbox’ and ‘All Tasks’) and your own lists.

Tags

Next to the sections slider you can find all your Tags (or Contexts, because they work the same). Tags are aligned on the very top to quickly find-and-click what and when you need it. With just one click you can easily group your tasks on the fly to view, decide, organize or rearrange with no hassle.

Imagine that one of your lists has almost 100 tasks. With 4-5 different tags you can easily create subgroups of tasks and jump from one to another in no time. There’s no bells and whistles here, this feature is a must when you’re dealing with tons of tasks. And we know that you have to.

But it gets even better. Because the Focusbar allows you to do multiple selection on your tags, so you can combine subgroups of tasks just clicking in two or three tags at the same time. Quick, clean and super handy for the everyday.

Hightrack will bring you lists, subtasks and tags to manage all your activity. The Focusbar will help you to easily move, group and filter your tasks and actions. Just imagine the possibilities…

Updates

January 17, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

When we started designing Tasks for Hightrack, we immediately knew that we should include one decisive feature: nested tasks, a.k.a. subtasks. And we knew it because they play a major role in your daily organization, since many tasks require other actions that should be completed before the big one. We call that a ‘task family’.

Without subtasks in your application, you wind up having too many side projects or small lists, or trying to find odd ways to name your tasks. The consequence in both cases is a cluttered and sluggish organization.

In Hightrack we’ve designed subtasks the way we all want them: every nested task is like any other task, so you can add and edit it separately. In addition, they’re shown differently on your lists, so you can promptly spot the main task with the subtasks right behind it. The way you create subtasks is also very handy: just drag any task and drop it over the main one, and it will instantly become a subtask. And if you drag away that task from the mother task, it will be out of the family.

Recurring tasks

Setting a recurrence for any task is another biggie in terms of features. Like subtasks, repeating tasks are key for your organization needs. Because we all have things in our personal and professional life that we have to repeat daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly. And they are tasks, not events. That’s why Hightrack includes this feature for your tasks.

The way we’ve designed recurring tasks is very straightforward: when adding or editing any task, you have access to a quick popup with all the recurrence options you may need. In addition, all recurring tasks are grouped in a single view in your lists, so you can quickly know what tasks are programmed and what of recurrence they have.

We put a lot of effort and care designing Tasks. But as you probably know, Hightrack has two more applications. In the upcoming days we will be unveiling more details about these other powerful companions.

Updates

January 7, 2013, posted by Berto Pena

«What do we expect in a modern task manager?» This was one of the first questions we put on the table when we started designing Hightrack. Then we found ourselves throwing tons of features on the initial interface. We went back to square one to ask the right question: «Seriously, what our productivity really need?». Pretty much immediately, we realized how we wanted to build Tasks.

We wanted an open and flexible list structure, enough to fit any need or methodology, such as the popular GTD®. We also wanted key features nowadays, like Due Dates and Recurring Tasks. In addition, we wanted very handy features (but usually forgotten) like Tags-Contexts. We also wanted extra speed and smooth operations when adding, moving, rearranging, editing… And because we have the same organization challenges like you, we also wanted Nested Tasks (Subtasks).

But above everything, we wanted to build a super clean working environment. A crisp, uncluttered and distraction-free canvas where anyone can work comfy and efficiently. Super simple to use but with enough horsepower to satisfy your productivity needs.

We believe you’re going to love Hightrack Tasks as much as we do. Because we’re like you: simple guys with tons of things to organize both personally and professionally. And for us Hightrack is working amazingly well so far!

But remember, Tasks are just the beginning. Hightrack is much more :-)

Updates

December 27, 2012, posted by Berto Pena

Two days after the Hightrack announcement we only have one thing to say: Thank You! At this point we’ve got tons of requests to get an invitation for our upcoming beta. Your welcome couldn’t be more warmer, and we are both extremely grateful and excited.

That’s why at this point we want to double our effort and commitment with you and with the product we’re building.

Our project, our app, it’s not just about designing something fancy or throwing code in a box. More than ever, we want to focus on every pixel, every feature, every word of the app, and make sure it is there for a good reason: help you to organize your life and accomplish your goals.

About Us

December 13, 2012, posted by Quique Gonzalo

How, when and why a group of people decide to create a productivity startup? One word: passion. We love the feeling of doing and accomplishing but being well organized, choosing right, and focusing on completion is harder every day. That’s why we decided to create something really simple, really useful, and really productive.

«Another productivity app? Come on, the are zillions out there!» That’s right, but to be honest, we never got the real productivity experience with any of them. They do many things fine but forget the important stuff. For starters, they focused only in software, when personal habits are critical when talking about time management, efficiency and results.

On the software side, many offer the eye candy factor but they lack of productivity essence. Others are super powerful with geeky features but too complex for most people like us. We do respect them. But we need something else.

And that’s why we decided to create our own application.

From the very beginning we wanted to build something for humans, for us, with the real productivity deep inside the DNA, to help you in many real situations at work and at home, and 100% focused on doing and accomplishing. This is our spirit and vision: Choose. Focus. Accomplish.

Hightrack is a Personal Productivity platform with three connected applications within. All together to help you to discover and enjoy the smart work in an elegant, uncluttered and ‘do-this-now’ oriented environment.

In Hightrack you will find a task application with all the basic & advanced features you may expect in any modern task manager. In addition, it sports two more applications that we don’t want to unveil… yet. But make no mistake, Hightrack is much more. It goes far beyond a simple task manager since the real productivity, your goals and your daily needs demand more than managing ‘plain lists’.

In the upcoming weeks, in this very blog, we will tell you lots of things about our project. Here you have some initial answers to get and idea of what Hightrack is…

Who we are?

We are a small company based in Madrid, Spain. We’re a five people team with different backgrounds and skills, both in technical and productivity (I’m a professional productivity trainer myself). For most of us this is not our first startup, and prior to Hightrack all members have been working in all type of companies with international experience. And we all are die-hard productivity fans.

App versions

Windows? Mac? Web? In a nutshell: it doesn’t matter your computer or mobile device operating system, you will be able to fully experience Hightrack :-)

From day one, we didn’t want to create a productivity application just for a group of users. Therefore we’re focusing on bringing Hightrack as much people as we can.

App languages

The application will be available both in english and spanish.

Free or Premium?

Ah, the one million dollar question! We want to build a strong and profitable business, so from day one we decided that Hightrack would include a premium version. Nonetheless, because we do want you to love Hightrack as much as we do, we want you to use the application as much as possible. And hence it will have a free version as well.

Launch date

Hightrack will be available in the first quarter of 2013. We cannot be more excited to launch the app, and like you, we love to try new things as soon as possible. But we don’t want to rush. Designing and building this sort of application requires time and lots of work.

Beta availability

No beta is available at this moment but you definitely will be able to try it soon. Head to our homepage and sign up to be notified when our first beta is ready to try.

Come with us

We love to share, that’s why from now on we’ll keep you updated with news and updates, development notes, application sneak peeks, and productivity insights. Follow us in Twitter and Facebook, and don’t forget to subscribe to our feed.

Hightrack is an amazing journey and we want you to be with us all along. We truly believe that Hightrack will change the way you do and accomplish… because it brings the real productivity spirit to your daily life. You’re invited to join us.

About Us

December 11, 2012, posted by Berto Pena