Ask HN: How do you plan and track your tasks?

[aljgz]

TLDR: I use Todoist, Clockify, Gitlab issues, Google Calendar to plan and track my work, but also have to use notion and slack in relation to tasks. I also used Trello extensively in the past.

My problem is that none of the tools I use covers all variants of things I need.

1-Clockify is good to track where my time goes (and is used by my employer to roughly track how much resource is used per project and kind of activity. It has no planning ability. So I should plan somewhere else and then use Clockify to track the time. 2-We use Gitlab issues for tasks that relate to product features, bugs, ..., but it's not usable for meetings and such activities. 3-Todoist is a good personal Todo list. It's good for things that either should be done on a specific time, or should be done in priority. Not good for things that should be done periodically, especially if you have many of those. 4-For meetings, using a common calendar is a must. To be able to find free time, etc. 5-Trello is great for a simple Kanban experience and for its core features, but for things like time tracking it rapidly becomes difficult to use.

So I end up having to check Todoist, Calendar, Gitlab issues regularly to decide what to do next. I also need to use Clockify to track the time of the task I chose from those products. If something from Todoist escalates to become a team task that should not go into Gitlab, I have to delegate it, and keep the task open in Todoist to remember the follow-up.

I think that experience is not optimal: I like to have one tool (that ideally integrates well with Calendar, Clockify, etc), but check one single place to decide what to do next, and track my time from there, and if I delegate, it should go in a separate list, and ideally I should get an even better experience if some of my team also use the same product.

I'm even ready to start a project if none exists, but I hope I can find something, as I know it would be a non-trivial effort.

1-How do you plan your team's tasks and your work related tasks ans personal tasks? 2-Are you aware of such an all-in-one product? 3-If not, do you think there is a reasonable demand for such a service?

[jrib]

Plaintext works best for me.

One place is important like you said. But I've found it is helpful to have a distinction between high-level plan, like a feature roadmap for a product, and a focused plan for specific tasks you are working on NOW.

For personal projects, I have a TODO section in the README that looks something like this:

  [ ] Add support for...
  [ ] Do this next thing...

This tracks high-level tasks.

When I pick something to work on, it gets its own list:

  [ ] Figure out X API
  [ ] Add error handling
  [ ] etc.

In a team context, I've always used JIRA for the high-level tasks and when I start on a high-level task I break that down for myself into a plaintext list like above. I start my morning by revising that "focused" list.

[quietthrow → jrib]

How does plain text remind you when you need to do something in the future or at a certain point.

[jrib → quietthrow]

For items that must happen specific dates, it doesn't. I admit that. That's the role of a calendar with notifications.

But as far as doing things in the future but not at a specific time, reading the plaintext every morning for the focused tasks, or every week for the high-level roadmap, works for that.

[devonnull]

I do it in two simple plain text files, which I have open in two tabs in a text editor. I also have a third tab open with my weekly agenda.

I try not to rely on reminders, instead making a habit of checking my lists 3-4 times each day.

It's a simple solution that works for me. It might not work for anyone else, but that's how things go isn't it?

[quietthrow]

Similar boat. No one tool does a great job. The only thing that come close is eMacs org mode. However dosnt integrate with google calendar or other modern tools or do well on mobile. curious to see what others use or how they have adapted org mode in daily life using todays tools like smartphone and cloud based “available everywhere”

[jackfruit2]

I actually use JIRA with a Kanban board for my side project. Its working really well for my side project, integrating with bitbucket. I've done over 400 tickets so far.

[u2077]

Funny you ask, I just started building my own solution after getting sick of using 3 different apps that only have 80% of what I wanted.

[aljgz → u2077]

Have you made it available for others to use?

[u2077 → aljgz]

Not yet, I’ve literally just started building it 2 days ago and it’s just a database at this point with no ui or api.