I'm a fan of whiteboarding. I have a bunch of headings for projects I'm working on, and under each of them I have a list of small tasks. Every time I sit down to work on a project, I pick one and a task and go at it.
Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
21–30 of 62 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#22The best thing I ever do is shutdown tweetdeck, my e-mail client and any browser tabs to social networks / HNs / reddit. Productivity shoots up the roof.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#23The main thing is to not fall into the "productivity porn" trap of trying to find the best tool instead of actually getting stuff done - when something simple is more than enough. Keep a simple list of things to do as a backlog and maybe another list of "would like"s. I personally use SimpleNote and Notational Velocity for both.
I'm the same way. I use a txt file that I keep on my desktop. It does the job.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#24I'm quite a fan of Asana. It's free and a very simple task management system. If you ever bring another person on board it's easy to reassign tasks.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#25I mostly use hosted issue trackers (both GitHub's and Bitbucket's are fine), e.g. https://github.com/mvasilkov/game-off-2012/issues
Tracking progress helps motivation.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#26Like others have already noted don't put too much thought into how to organize things. Keep it as simple as possible. This way you'll spent most of your time doing fun stuff (at least for me that would be writing code).
I'll host all my side projects on github. To keep track of bugs and new features I use github's issue tracker. Besides that I carry around a programmer's journal (some small paper notebook) where I write down new ideas, code snippets or concepts.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#27Evernote is almost certainly the right choice for organizing your thoughts. Other options are too heavyweight or inflexible. Just create a notebook with a few notes and write down everything.
Personally, I find TDD is a helpful design aid for tricky bits of code. I don't bother when it's trivial, but when creating major systems or components, it helps to focus my design and enforce encapsulation.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#28I tried Basecamp and some iOS todo list tools, but in the end, I have one Google Doc with lists of tasks. I should dump Google for Evernote (better mobile support and less connection issues) but I once had a sync issue on Evernote and lost some text, so I don't trust it. I might go with just a text file in Dropbox or use Gina's http://todotxt.com/
I keep shuffling how I organize tasks. There's by-project, where I list all the things that need to be done to complete something. But I also have to keep some context lists like "next time I'm working on the website" or "next time I feel like doing a bunch of Photoshop work" for those tasks that keep getting put off.
I also keep a wall calendar (just a big sheet of white paper) with post-its for each deliverable. They keep slipping, but at least I can see how many weeks are left until external events.
When things get really unproductive, I walk away from the computer and sit down with a notebook or stack of index cards/post-its and dump everything that needs to be done. For tasks that are stuck, I try to apply Merlin's idea of visualizing what it will feel like to have it done: http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/16/43f-podcast-the-to-have-...
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#29pen + paper
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your one-man project?
#30Plain text. In my case Emacs org-mode.
When you don't have to share it with anyone, keeping a todo list in plain text really reduces the mental load of switching between your code and the list. It's easy to modify, make it look however you want. +1