Ask HN: How do you manage your personal projects?

I put most of the things in my homepage with a tree of check-boxes (tasks) divided in 3 sections:

- To-plan : idea dumping, less than 5 words or just an URL for example

- To-do : tasks to do

- Urgent : tasks with a close deadline, should contain not many tasks, or be empty if possible.

When I start a project (moving a task from "to plan" to "to do"), I add a page with multiple mostly static info on it, like a small summary, final goals, commands I need to be up as fast as I can, important URLs.

When I add tasks to a project, I try to make them as small as possible (maximum a few hours for a task), most of the tasks are broken into multiple sub-tasks, that sometimes lead to a new project. Like with git, commits (tasks) should be atomic and when done it must still compiles (no "work in progress" state when I'm done with a task). It's also easy then to find common sub-tasks or sub-projects.

The first tasks on a project are almost always research, compare the solutions to pick the best, prepare and document the working environment, and are often longer than the rest.

New tasks/projects go on top on my tree, so when I have to pick one, I read my list from bottom to up. I sometimes rearrange sub-trees to prioritize them.

When I want to do things, I pick tasks I will work on with these criteria :

- What I'm motivated to do right now (most important actually)

- How useful it will be (for other projects, to ease my life, ...)

- How fast it will be, regarding the free time I might have in the near future.

That way, my (too many) projects all go forward at the same time, I optimize the time I spend on them (with "how to get up to work" instructions), and I always have something to do that I like. Some of my projects get done from time to time. But most do not and it's OK, because I always come up with new ideas so there is always things to add, and the project is never really over.

I don't personally need it, but one way to be stimulated with this flow is to keep your done tasks checked, in an archive page to not pollute your main page for example, and with dates if you are organized, so you can look back at what you achieved from time to time.

PS: I think it's close to GTD, but I didn't take time to read about it to be sure.

- Braindump: New ideas go here as I think of them.

- Graveyard: Archive of bad ideas.

- Research: Potentially good ideas that need fleshing out.

- Ready: Ideas where I've thought through and documented market fit, timeline, tech stack, marketing, or whatever the project needs. And crucially: first thing to do when I start the project, which makes it easier to get going.

When I have free time I look down my Ready list and pick something interesting, and I've done the prep already to get stuck in straight away.

# Initial thought

Date:

Location:

Inspiration:

Solution:

Why is it worth the effort?

Why is it not worth the effort?

What already exists?

Difficulty:

# Log

17-05-15:

- ?

17-06-30:

- ?