Ask HN: Whats the best way to keep track of your "to-do's" w/ your co-founder?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2970146

by KleinmanB • 15 years ago

11 8 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What kind of tracker do you want? You could start a Redmine/Bugzilla server, or you could write one-word "to-do's" on a whiteboard. There's a lot of work to be done, and one mechanism will not solve all your needs.

For something in the middle, I've found that a shared Google spreadsheet with status, priority, due date, title, and description columns gets the job done with near-zero overhead. Too much effort is wasted on learning/paying for/managing more complex todo lists.

A simple spreadsheet can also be useful to individuals. On that note, do either or both of you have a tool you like for individual use?

levicampbell• 15 years ago

keep a tiddlywiki in a shared dropbox folder.

andreyvit• 15 years ago

Since I'm obsessed with tools, I've tried all of these: Basecamp TODOs, Google Spreadsheet, Lighthouse, Trac, Pivotal Tracker, GitHub Issues. I find Pivotal Tracker and Lighthouse to work best.

Basecamp TODOs quickly pile up and become unmanageable as ideas keep pouring in.

I hate Trac just because of its design and less-than-perfect attention to detail.

Spreadsheet is very limited when it comes to commenting, and does not allow to view tasks using different groupings/filters without interfering with others.

Lighthouse just feels better than GitHub Issues as a traditional bug tracker. I'd say it is the best place to store the 1000s of ideas you will have.

Pivotal Tracker is probably best if you're working stably, nearly full-time. I haven't been fortunate enough to work on my own projects full time so far, and the planning thing really breaks down when week-to-week progress is overly unpredictable.

Personally, I'd recommend to stick with Lighthouse.

clyfe• 15 years ago

try https://workflowy.com/

jotango• 15 years ago

http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist/ and 1-X shared lists.

glimcat• 15 years ago

I like this, but it's sometimes victim to Google's capricious Market compatibility algorithm.

Also, try an in-house wiki. It lacks window dressing, but it's a pretty solid tool for collaboration.

fezzl• 15 years ago

Maybe I'm old-school, but Notepad + Dropbox works fine.

theitgirl• 15 years ago

Currently, Google Spreadsheet and Lazy Meter are working best for me.

I use Google Spreadsheets to share "to do's" with my co-founder. We have a column for priorities and my co founder set it up such that items are colored coded according to priority level.

And I recently started using lazy meter for my day to day to do list. I try to put down at least 5 to do's at the start of the day and try to get though them. This has been working well for me.

Ask HN: Whats the best way to keep track of your "to-do's" w/ your co-founder?

Related Stories