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Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

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Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#91

Post by im_dario »

Todoist. I organize my projects in separate projects or sections in projects, depending if they have big or smaller scope.

I also import my Github repo's PRs, so I can plan everything in a single place.

Every week I plan the next one and I review my planned day while I commute.

I split tasks in several subtasks and I keep track of my progress looking at how short is the subtasks list per each task.

I also usually take few minutes a day to refine tasks to see if I missed some subtask or I can improve the description.

My workflow is heavily inspired in Agile/Kanban. My progress is measured overall with Todoist Karma.

This could work for more devs, as you can share and assign tasks.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#92

Post by closed »

Many comments are focusing on kanban procedures, but the most important parts of solo development for me are social milestones. For example...

* Who will I show X feature to?

* When will I show it to them?

* Can I show them a draft?

To me, the biggest risk of solo development is not how I manage a todo list, but that I'll build the wrong thing, because I waited to get feedback.

Some things that have helped me a lot...

* set up a time to show someone your progress on feature X before you feel totally ready to.

* ask someone to try and pick up and tweak some layer of your code (or pair with them)

* if you are developing a library--record hour long screencasts where you use it in a realistic way. Prioritize issues where you say, "oh, I should fix that...". Repeat but with another person driving.

I use github projects and a calendar (the calendar appointments feel more important!)

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#93

Post by stazz1 »

franciscop wrote: post #32

A major problem I've seen with Engineers following a TODO-like tasks is that you get lost in the small things and lose focus of the bigger picture. While they are useful, I also try not to forget things that are vastly outside of the list like regular user testing, talking about it with other fellow engineers (dev testing?), try to make a workable MVP and sell it early, etc.

Need an overarching vision. Absolutement. That's why I like to simply keep track of what I am doing or want to do in a calendar-like way. I never delete things from my logue of completed tasks, I just keep adding new dates and new ideas/finished tasks/want-to-dos at the top. It works well when you have an overarching goal.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#95

Post by nyxxie »

Github issues and milestones for me.

Generally I put all features, ideas, bugs, etc into small granular issues that I can ideally complete in a day or two. I’ll group them into milestones representing high level goals (“implement video editor”, “v1.1 release”, etc) and then prioritize issues accordingly into a kanban dashboard.

I find that this method takes little extra time and lets me separate my development brain from my project management brain. I can come up with high level design and compose goals, then start hacking away later in tiny sprints without needing to think too much about how things fit together. Issue comments are also great places to record ideas when you’re e.g. at a bar with friends and have a sudden breakthrough that you want to jot down.

Most importantly though it helps with motivation, since it’s usually much easier to pick up my laptop knowing I’ll be able to achieve something that day rather than making incremental progress towards a larger goal.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#96

Post by knrz »

dpcan wrote: post #55

I 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.

I’ve been using Notion to integrate the kanban board, free form notes & references, client proposal documents, etc. all into one place.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#98

Post by mfranzs »

I organize todos in the note-taking tool I'm building, http://remnote.io/.

I have a main "unsorted todos" inbox that I can quickly add to from anywhere (I just hit CTRL + ALT + E). I then go through this list and organize it by moving the ideas to specific features that I'm building / designing. My high-level areas of focus are already set up, so this organization process is pretty fast.

I like keeping my todo list with the rest of my notes, because I can write long brainstorming docs paired with my todos. Additionally, I can make linked references to the todos from elsewhere in my notes.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#99

Post by vhiremath4 »

The most important tools I've found is simply setting milestones and deadlines. The software almost never mattered - the mentality of setting myself accountable to deadlines was so much more important. When fleshing out smaller tasks for milestones, I've used Evernote, Clear, Notion, Trello, Google Docs, etc. All of those are great, but I never really cared about the % progress - only that I was going to hit the deadline and working as hard as possible to reach it. The tools end up being a way for me to not forget little things I decide to shaft in order to reach a ship date.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#100

Post by mike1o1 »

I've been a fan of regular github issues and milestones and labels.

I'll typically have milestones for the next 2 or 3 releases, and then use labels for tracking bugs, features and future items and nice-to-haves. I like this because it makes it easy to keep the code linked to issues the way I'm used to with my day job.

The nice thing is it lets me wear two separate hats. Some days I don't have the mental bandwidth to code, or I'm feeling extra creative when it comes to coming up with roadmap ideas, so I'll go into the issues and just write. On other days, I just open the issues, filter by bugs or features and grab an item and get to work.

I've tried Trello and Basecamp, but having that separate from the code just made too much overhead to keep track of. Having everything under one roof makes it so I actually end up adhering to the list of tasks.

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