Which tools do you use for organizing your work (i.e. Trello, Asana, etc) and why?
It would be interesting to see which tools Indie Hackers are using to organize your own work or teamwork in your startup.
Are you using Trello, Asana or any other tools that have similar functionality? And why are you using this specific tool?
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The short version of my stack:
Notion - documentation
Airtable - database
Zapier - automation
Todoist - to do's & reminders
Gsuite
I do wish Notion & Airtable had a baby :) I love the aesthetic of Notion but the power of Airtable.
Amen!
How do you use Zapier? For which goals?
I used Zapier to automate my curated newsletters. I also use it to collect quantified self data.
But I am on the free version and there is a cap to how many tasks per month you can run.
So I am actually trying out Integromat to see if I can use it as a replacement.
Is this as powerful as Zapier?
Thanks for sharing your toolset.
I have never tried Notion and Airtable, but based on other comments, it seems that a lot of people are using these 2 tools. Need to check it :)
I'm building Yourganize, a personal organizer, for freelancers like me to help manage work/life and improve productivity, based on reading around behaviour/neuroscience. I'd previously tried Airtable but found it overwhelming, and liked Wunderlist but wanted more tools.
I started working on it because I couldn't find something that fit with me - somewhere I could offload my brain and plan what I'm trying to achieve and how to reach it, and help with focussing my time better. It's helping me specifically with habit formation, and I'd like to build it out with more tools so it's hopefully useful for others too!
https://getyourganize.com
Hi Jamie!
Are you building this product alone? How do you acquire traffic to it?
Hey! Yes it’s a solo project.. I usually work with a product designer but wanted to try this one solo (with his advice) for the experience and enjoyment!
I’ve been submitting it to several product or relevant sites and asking for feedback in forums. I need to do more content marketing! And will try some paid ads shortly too.
What tools do you use and is there anything you’re looking for that they don’t give you?
I'm usually using Trello (it's very simple tool, so I like it) and Google docs/sheets. That's all regarding to project management.
And why do you hate slack? What is the drawbacks of it?
Instant, instant, instant. In Slack it's all about instant. You've got a message, please reply back, otherwise you'll have a nagging notification. Yes, you can mute the channel, but then you have people sending you direct messages. With email it's the opposite and Twist is more like email. This is especially helpful when you're in different timezones or simply working remotely.
yeah, man, it's true.
Did you read books my Jason Fried and Basecamp?) They talk a lot about instant messengers and how awful they are :)
Just the "Remote", but not others. I know that they spend more than 90% working in basecamp: standups, regular check ups, communication, wiki, etc, etc. Pretty cool.
In terms of asynchronous communication Twist and Basecamp are pretty similar.
Thanks for your comment!
I also tried to switch to Twist instead of Slack. I liked Twist so much, but my previous customer wanted to return to Slack again :)
Why don't you use Pipedrive instead of Trello to track people for customer interviews?
Btw, how big is your team at Shipit and how many paid customers do you have right now (if it's not secret info, of course)?
I am actually using Trello for tracking customer interviews. Pipedrive is for tracking users' activity. Whenever someone has enabled integration, added an item, or has used the app for 3 days in a row, we move that user to a different pipeline. At the end of the day you have a visibility of how many users are active so that you can send a personal email to them.
The team is 2 full-time developers (myself who does everything in addition to dev work and one frontend dev), and 2 part-time co-founders who help with product and marketing.
And no paying customers at the moment. I've been very close to having 3 but all changed their mind after encountering various issues/bugs on the platform which is why the last month I focused more on stability, tests, more predictable release cycle, and some core functionality. Might still win at least one of them back.
How do you promote your product?
Adwords and YouTube which on a relatively tiny budget brings quite a lot of good traffic. Various online communities like Quora, Reddit, IH. Personal reach to various companies that I interview.
I've been using Trello for a while, I've tired a few different things, Asana, Basecamp etc. But in the end I always seem to come back to Trello along with scheduling in my calendar.
I find it just simple and flexible. I can change it's flow depending on what works for me. I go through different stages of having a lot of columns or just a few. I suppose it might be more helpful to explain how I use it.
My latest version is narrowed to a few columns.
Upcoming - This is just anything that I need to do but don't want to deal with right now.
This week - What ever I plan on getting done this week, I try to use my calendar with this one to try and schedule it at the same time. It helps me being able to visualise when I can get to something.
Current - That days work gets moved here. I also have a paper To do list I fill out with the current column. This is what I'm going to tackle that day. (Usually filled out the night before)
Done / Testing - This is the end column anything here is done and shipped or sent back.
It's been interesting, I don't really get as distracted anymore I do the work on the middle columns. Thinking of adding a "This Sprint" column that would be things I want to get done in a more mid term range.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Trello.
I like these 2 columns: This week and Current.
It seems to be very good approach, need to try it.
Btw, what were the main drawbacks of Asana and Basecamp? And how big is your team?
Team size has varied, some of it is for solo work, some with a small team < 10.
Honestly I liked Asana and Basecamp, I just didn't find the flow as flexible or easy to use as Trello.
The same for me: Trello is so simple, easy to use and flexible.
Basecamp and Asana are too complex
Used to use Trello but now I pretty much do everything in Notion. It's so unbelievably flexible that you can do anything with it. Which sometimes even feels a bit overwhelming, especially in moments when I'm not sure which format would be the best to write something down.
Besides Notion, I started to use Makerlog recently. So Notion basically holds all my larger tasks I have to do and on Makerlog I split them into smaller, actionable todos.
Finally I ALWAYS have a piece of paper next to with some more todos, this is mainly for quick thoughts and larger things I don't want to forget about. Often I write these thoughts down on paper first and eventually enter them into a Notion board.
Hi! Thanks for the comment)
Based on many comments here it looks line Notion is a good alternative (and competitor) for Trello. What are the main advantages of Notion compared with Trello for you?
Are you using it alone or with the team? Do you pay for it?
It allows me to structure all information around a project without necessarily requiring to know how to structure it in advance, if that makes sense. With Notion I can just start with a plain empty page and add more over time. And if it starts to grow wild I can just easily reorganize everything. So it never forces a certain type of list or style on my projects but at the same time provides templates for everything IF I need them. With Trello I always felt a bit forced to make the best of this Kanban style, which wasn't always what I wanted.
I use it alone and still have some free credits, but I would certainly pay for it.
I use Notion for pretty much everything nowadays. It's like Google Docs, but with the ability to embed Trello boards, Airtables, and Asana-esque task lists into any part of any your documents. As a result, I like using it more than any of the smaller tools individually, because: (1) it's a one-stop-shop, and (2) it's great to be able to write paragraphs of context above and below your tasks, boards, and tables.
Hi Courtland. Thanks for sharing your toolset)
The flexibility of Notion is one of the main advantages of this tool, right? Do you pay for it or are you on free plan there?
How do you organize your work there and are you using it alone or with a team of people?
We do complete remote working https://blog.blockonomics.co/running-a-decentralized-nomad-startup-cd580c3b1820 and we use a variety of tools to keep us productive:
Hey) Thanks for sharing your toolset.
How many people are working on Blockonomics?
What is the overall budget for the usage of all these tools per month?
Is MailerLite cheaper than other email providers and was it easy to integrate with the website?
We are six people currently. Overall budget is currently less than 50USD. Most of them very are using in free plan only.
Yes mailerlite is much easier than heavy tools like mailchimp and they also have no restrictions on crypto businesses
Wow, just 50 USD. Nice. So cheap stack.
Why did you chose Asana instead of other similar tools?
I use a series of murder mystery style stickies on the wall to the right of my desk. Tried a bunch of online tools and for some reason stickies are easier to track and hold yourself accountable to (at least in my case)
Hey Shawn) So you are using old approach, but the main thing is that it works for you. That's amazing in our digital world)
But the problem here is that you will not be able to use that for a team of people, if you are working remotely. Right?
I like to mess around with various tools and in the past, I've used both Trello and Asana. Currently, I'm a pretty big fan of Whimsical because of its flexibility.
When all is said and done though, the only system that works for me is putting short-term tasks in a text file on my desktop and doing longer-term planning and analysis in a physical notebook and in conversations with my friends and mastermind partners.
The reason I like a text file for short-term tasks is that it's available offline, opens more or less instantly and has no overhead. The reason I like a physical notebook for longer-term or deeper analysis is that people process information much more deeply when writing with a pen than when typing.
Interesting thoughts about long term goals and writing it with a pen.
Is Whimsical mostly for designers? When I checked their website I felt that...
I have no idea who Whimsical is for, but it seems pretty flexible!
In that case, check out the three studies linked here
For everything that i work on solo i use Trello. Also used it for small teams up to 5ppl.
This is because it is very easy and flexible.
When the team got bigger it was not enough because it lacks customization options (cross board view, aggregated status, custom fields, etc)
This is when we moved to Monday and Jira.
Hi Dan! Thanks for sharing your toolset.
How do you feel if mid companies (let's say 10-100 people) are using Trello for work/team management?
And what do you mean by a cross board view?
Do you pay for Monday and Jira? If so, how much per month?
I know of a company with 40+ people that use Trello, and it still works for them. On the other hand they came for advise on this matter because there are some shortcomings. I also saw a few other companies that moved from Trello when they grew, and this was my personal experience with 2 startups that I worked for right from the beginning.
When I say cross-board I mean that if you have a few boards (can be by project or by team or by department, etc), it is hard to have an overall view of where the entire company stands in terms of status (e.g. plan vs. actual).
Or if you have a project that crosses some of these boards, you will likely have to create a new board for this project then people may have to follow few boards in order to know what to do next.
My day job in the past 2.5 years is at a big company (3K employees) so I have no Idea how much they pay for the licenses. But I'm sure they are :)
Thanks for the explanation.
It's very interesting.
As for "cross-board" - which project management tools are good for that?
Jira is very customizeable and allows any kind of view on the data.
But if no one in the team has ever used it I wouldn't recommend because it requires a lot of presetup.
This is a very crowded area so I don't know which tool is right for your team.
I suggest that you pick a couple that seem to be useable out of the box and just try them.
Notion
Why Notion over many other alternative tools?
Honestly, Apple Notes. It’s easy to use, easy to access using Spotlight (Command-Space bar), easy to search... it’s got everything I’d ever need. I usually start the day by looking at a previous list of todo items. I’ll then start on one or reprioritize the list if I need to.
I also use Jira for some of my client work which is great for teams. I can reference other issues within my own issue which is nice when calling out blockers.
Are you using Apple Notes only for yourself or for teamwork too?
Apple notes is just for my personal todo list. Wouldn’t work for teams. In which case I’d recommend Jira.
Jira even for small teams? It seems to be too complex for small / mid companies. What do you think?
We use Trello and also use our own tool (AirSend).
Trello - it gives a good feeling when you move the task from to-do to done :). nice visual feeling.
AirSend - Team Chat and the list of tasks in the same space. The team will never miss it.
Thanks for sharing your toolset.
How big is your team?
9
How long are you already developing it?
Do you already have paid customers?
5-6 months. Yes. We do. We are slowly ramping up based on users feedback.
I personally use Asana although for our business we use Trello. I've used Monday as well and really liked it but couldn't justify the price of the software given the size of our team/tasks.
Hi Ayush! Thanks for the comment
Why do you use different tools for personal and business management?)
How much did you pay for Monday per month and how big was your team at that period? What were the main advantages of Monday compared with Trello and Asana?
Honestly, we have team members in 5 countries now and use the tools to have everyone on the same foot. But I'd like to also say that our Asana is for more business things, we use git for code/bug-related problems.
I also don't remember the Monday quote but I remember it being too much for the value they were really adding.
I have tried to optimize my workflow for the longest time. I started out just using Notes on my phone to try and make lists and help me stay on track. Then I switched to a paper journal. That didn’t work out so I tried the Reminders app. Didn’t like it at all. Recently I have found the best combination to be Trello with Google Calendar. Trello to make to-do lists and keep track of your tasks and Google Calendar to plan and schedule said tasks. By the way, this isn’t much of an app but I recently read an article and tried out a Brain Dump Journal For Thoughts. It is a very helpful method to keep your head clear of fog.
What I look for in a task organizing tools:
• Clean interface: I prefer things to look clean and have clear navigations.
• Easy collaboration: A simple link that you can share with others.
• Kanban board
• Task Reminders
• Webpage+mobile app quick sync
• Free
I use Quire for both work and my daily tasks. Been working from home recently due to the pandemic, and my team uses this to collaborate on projects. Quire also integrates with Slack so it makes communicating with coworkers so much easier.
We used to use Trello, but it's quite expensive.
I use:
ToDoist - great for tasks
Jira - nothing beats it (especially the newest SaaS version)
Microsoft Teams - atm no better solution for integrated coop working (I never thought I love a MS product... but even though they cam late to the party, they did lots of things right!)
Ulysses & iAWriter - for getting text together quickly and focused
Gumroad - for ecommerce
IndieHackers - for my products
carrd.co - for setting up landing pages without hassle :-)
I use Typity
Based on the images on their website, it looks like another Trello. Not?)
Trello and Github issues to keep track of medium and long term tasks.
For short term tasks (e.g. "today's TODO"), A4 paper sheets, pen, pencils. Always at fingertips, does not take up screen real estate, no load times, works offline, and that rewarding feeling when you strike over a completed item.
Last year I use reversed todo list technique. The main idea is to write the task AFTER you have completed it.
So you focus on tasks you have already done rather than that you haven't done. The more you do, the more motivation you get for not giving up.
Yesterday I released my app on this technique called oDoT: https://apple.co/32QYpCL
Have never heard about this technique before. Is this more effective for you?)
Yes, it is. Two advantages:
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