Ask HN: How do software engineers keep track of their projects/work items?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31718641

by notacat7 • 4 years ago

5 5 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Trying to brainstorm ideas, how people in tech keep track of all of their tasks? What tools are used?

I personally have tried using a ToDo app, notepad, and a physical notepad as well.

tgflynn• 4 years ago

I currently use emacs org mode. Before I just kept TODO lists in plain text files.

brooksdra• 4 years ago

I've been through them all and find that no one solutions is complete. I follow the basic principals of GTD focusing on safe places to collect tasks (inboxes), regular review of all inboxes to organize inputs. Important note: If you can do it in 2 minutes do so. If it has more than one step, spend time writing the all the steps you can think of to get a clear idea of what you need to do.

InBoxes: OneNote for easy input from every tech. Field Notes for hand writing which can't be beat. OneDrive for anything files I need to review. Blank paper at my desk while I work.

Then, for project execution, I follow more of a Cal Newport approach of Time Box Planning and unplugging to perform deep work. Hope this helps.

DantesKite• 4 years ago

I'd be curious what a machine learning to do list would look like; something that can let you categorize tasks based on different categories, like sentimentality, genre, and even patterns it detects from common usage, like the fact that one may spend a long time on a particular subject.

Would be an interesting experiment.

throwaway019254• 4 years ago

Jira, of course. Everybody hates it, but you know, our managers can see nice burn-down charts, and discuss meaningless metrics.

muzani• 4 years ago

The default settings for Jira is really bad. It needs to be customized quite a bit to be decent.

Ask HN: How do software engineers keep track of their projects/work items?

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