When it's just me, I use Remember The Milk.
Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
51–60 of 190 posts
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#52I keep a TODO list in Google Keep, and I am forever shuffling entries around as priorities change.
For some projects, the issues on github also suffice to keep track of things to do.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#53I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.
I'm old school, so I just constantly email myself replies to my past email with a reply to a past email with a past email with a todo list that I freshly created after finally crossing off the old ones.
It helps me sleep to add stuff to my todo list so I can offload anxiety about remembering said thing. It's great, I stole it a bit from a Buddhist meditation practice, but found I didn't trust promises I made to myself that if something is important I'll remember it later. Too much important stuff is planning and I don't like needing to burden others with reminding me to do things.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#54You can use email as a TODO stack. You take the top item of your inbox and react to it. You react by replying to it, archiving it, or by doing the task(s) described in it. To add a new item simply email it to yourself. Archived items are done. Inbox is the list of items you working trough. Send items is the things you are waiting for.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#55I use Trello, then it gets messy, switch to Keep to start over, that gets confusing or messy, I have a txt file with my todos, that gets messy, I try a project management tool like Basecamp, doesn't do the trick, start over fresh on Trello, that gets messy.... I think you see where I'm going with this.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#56I use the principles outlined in Shape Up (https://basecamp.com/shapeup) and organize my project in Minimal (https://minimal.app).
The key is combining simplicity and focus.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#57I'm insane, so I just create a parent task in taskwarrior: "build real estate app for client x"
Then anything that falls directly under that is a blocking task:
- "build backend to serve api"
- "build frontend" (this might be blocked by the one above, or not, depending on what it really does) - repeat ad naueseum until those big tasks are broken down enough for me to visualize
Using a project might be nice to get a progress bar, but sometimes something I need to do doesn't fall exactly under this project, or might affect existing projects:
- increase block storage for shared server
So I just use a single, parent task, and have child tasks that block it. That way I always know what to do next, and I keep going until it's all done.
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#58I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.
I use a todo.diff - so the text editor color codes my lines started with `+` and `-`
Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?
#59I use Gitlab issue boards (they’re much like the github kanban boards, but for gitlab users) to track minor tech features (on a commit level) for each of my project that can be measured with code.
For everything else (like planning db models, endpoints, roadmaps, etc) I use Notion (switched from evernote) and I love it. The templates really help.