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What tools are you using for project management?

What have you used in the past and what do you think it's more appropriate for very early stages bootstrapped startups like the ones from indie hackers?

I am using sometimes https://clickup.com as it is pretty simple and straight forward.

Once per week, on monday, I do some "promises"/targets for the week in a google spreadsheet, and update the previous week one with succeeded/failed. Just started doing this for 2-3 weeks, but I founds it's much clearer to set a small target for the week and focus on that, rather than doing more granular tasks, at least at this stage.

What's your take on this? What tools are you using to get clarity and a clear direction of what you need to do?

  1. 2

    I've been using Trello for all of my various projects for the past year or so. Finally found a workflow in the last few months that has a good balance of keeping me focused while not spending excess time organizing and managing tasks.

    My Boards:

    • Personal: Anything that falls outside the scope of a specific project. Wiring blog posts for my personal blog, posting Dribbbles, Accounting, etc..
    • T2Themes: Any tasks related this this project
    • DesignerUp: Any tasks related this this project
      and more project-specific boards...
    • Next Up: Tasks that I'm currently working on
    • Done: All completed/archived items

    Workflow:

    • I work on 2 week sprints, so every two weeks I input tasks into their respective projects for that sprint
    • I group larger tasks by their category such as a "Blog Posts" tasks, then put a checklist in that task with a list of posts I need to write. I convert a specific post to a card and move it into Next Up when I'm ready to start writing that post.
    • Each morning I also cherry-pick the tasks from the various projects I need to work on for that day and move it into the "Next Up" board

    I also use labels for status on tasks that have decencies or that may take several days to complete.

  2. 2

    Single founder here, I use a trello board (some sort of Kanban board). Been doing so for the past 2 years.

    My boards:

    • To Do: things that I want to do in the future
    • This week: Things prioritised to be processed during this week. Reviewed every week
    • Today: Things which I engage myself to complete today. Reviewed every day
    • Done: Completed stuff, I archive them every couple of days.
    • Remember: Summary of my goals, and habits I want to create.

    I don't want more lists because then it doesn't fit into the screen anymore. I also keep the number of cards limited, so that it always stay within the size of the screen. Basically I need to be able to see everything without scrolling.

    My labels:

    • Learning: When I think there is something I can learn from the task
    • Sales: When the objective is about selling
    • Product: When the objective is about improving my product
    • Marketing/Branding: as it says
    • Strategy: When the outcome aligns with my long-term strategy, but I can't classify
    • Personal: Things that I generally forget for myself, and end-up procrastinating on (like getting refunds from ryanair flights)

    I try to keep a good balance of my labels. If the current need is around "Sales", but all the colours say "Marketing/Branding" for instance, then there is a problem. Also, I try to be as pro-active as possible, and I finish the "Today" column before looking at anything else.

  3. 1

    I'm a Restyaboard ( https://restya.com/board ) user and it is the best opensource tool for Project and Task Management. It’s a productivity and management tool specifically built around a Kanban-style workflow. Great for personal use (FREE) and scales easily to business and team use. A feature-rich platform that allows managers or business owners to create projects, assign roles and tasks, and more.

  4. 1

    I loooove Notion.so for managing my work (and my life, frankly)
    It's super flexible - the first project management tool that has "stuck" for me, and I've tried a bunch of them.

    My team and I use Clubhouse.io for managing development tasks and timelines. Very happy with that, too.

  5. 1

    This is a great question. Honestly I haven't found yet the perfect tool for Project Management.

    I've tried but failed:

    • Trello: Just didn't work out for me and it's hard to maintain the flow with multiple teammates.

    I'm currently using:

    • Kanbanflow: Still not sure about it. It's much simpler than Trello and it's been working fine. I'll need to recheck again if I stay with it or not.
  6. 1

    If you want full blown PM software for free get https://taiga.io/
    It can be selfhosted.

    I basically use flat .txt files and Joplin

  7. 1

    Surprised no one's mentioned Clubhouse yet:

    https://clubhouse.io

    It's lightweight, very fast, and intuitive. It's kind of like Jira but without all the nasty parts.

  8. 1

    I am currently using Trello boards for managing tasks each week. CLickup does look interesting though so I might check it out soon!

  9. 1

    I use notion for everything taking notes, planing our content, marketing idea, and engineering tasks I just love for personal use and in business, I used to use OneNote for my personal note-taking although it's much better at note-taking! the versatility of notion and having one place for everything was enough to make me migrate

  10. 1

    Actually, Github and Gitlab.

  11. 1

    For the last couple of years, I‘ve been using pretty actively. It plays a huge central role at swenden and my personal projects.

    What I really appreciate is that everything is collected in one central tool. The feature for inviting external users and selecting what they can see is great for clients' work.

    In the last months I‘m using Bacecamps Shape Up methodology more and more actively. Which is of course a perfect match.

  12. 1

    I should have posted Anyone using Trello and looking for something different in this group instead of Product Development.

    For developing and planning Portabella I use Portabella. I love Trello/Asana/Jira and all the others out there, have been using them at work for years... I'm just not happy that they can see my data.

  13. 1

    I use a combination of Todoist, Notion, and Typora.

    • Todoist is for short term tasks
    • Notion is for long term tasks / my roadmap
    • Typora is for notes that I want to store
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