So a while back I came up with my ideal way to keep track of progress and next steps for my personal projects, and this seems like a good place to get feedback on it.
I often neglect to work on them at the end of the day, because I forget I'm working on so many and what I need to do in them, so I need a reminder of various things I've come up with, which ones I'm actively working on, which ones are on the backburner, which ones are essentially abandoned, etc.
Additionally, my motivation for my personal projects ebb and flow over time, and I might have something on the backburner for a good six months and then suddenly something pops into my head about it and I'm raring to go and my motivation skyrockets again and it's back to the top of my list.
Third, I don't know when I'm going to be satisfied with it, and I really don't want to put a deadline on something that's supposed to be an enjoyable pastime. But at the same time I want to see progress. So I would like to track when I put units of work into the project, without having to have created a specific task to put up against it.
Finally, deadlines should not be required, nor should the sorting mechanism be by deadlines of the tasks. I've tried things like Asana and the like, and I keep just pushing back deadlines because I lost excitement for that project and I'm working on something else for awhile.
So basically here's what I need from my todo for my personal projects: A list of projects so I never forget them, preferably with an image to catch my eye (I work on games a lot, so they're very visual, so something like box art would be nice), a way to add a bunch of next steps in the system but only show me a couple at a time (because reminding me of all my projects is more important than telling me everything I need to be doing for one particular project), and a way to record that I made progress without placing it against a specific task (I was thinking maybe have different color cubes, the colors representing different things, and I could reward myself a work cube just for sitting down and spending at least 5 minutes on the project, since the hardest thing to do is to sit down and get started).
Also a status for the project would be nice. Like if it's writing it could be '1st draft, 2nd draft', if it's a game then 'Prototype, Alpha, Beta, Gold, Released'
I was thinking this could be visually demonstrated with a card like system (kind of like baseball cards), with the project image on the left half of the card and the 'stats' on the right side of the card, and then you can click + drag the entire project card around so you can rearrange the projects to show what you are most currently motivated in.
I would also like to include past released projects so I can see those accumulate over time and remind myself what I've already accomplished, also in a similar visual style. And sometimes there's more I'd like to do after the project is released, or think of something more to do later.
I was considering making something like this myself but I have so many projects and not enough time so the chances of me working on it are low, so if this excites anyone, please run with it and keep me in the loop. I have some other ideas on it and how it would look if anyone's interested.