Project Tracker (renaming later)
why Project Tracker?
there existing solutions out there like - asana, trello, JIRA, also open source alternatives like superProductivity app
My Pain points - EFFECTIVE TIME TRACKING
while these platforms are perfectly capable of tracking industry level projects, i find these platforms too bloated and slow to work with.
i need something fast, reliable, able to do absolute basic stuff that i need, but in very fast manner.
some key features i find missing on these platforms:
- effective time tracking (for tasks | projects | etc.)
- resource management (content | links | documentation | tutorial | extra info)
- some form of automation
- task assignment
- better UI to get better overview of the project that is being planned
- JIRA kanban is the worst i have seen, can’t track subtasks properly.
i would like to integrate either a CLI with this tool OR integrate keyboard shortcuts to perform tasks faster and fluidly.
who is this project for? the actual audience
not for larger teams , that’s for sure.
may be a team of max 5 persons, but my focus is for indie devs like me.
especially freelancers.
freelancers like me who love organization and time tracking.
to be honest, TIME TRACKING is the MAIN goal of this project.
this platform would be most effective for developers, especially if integrated as a CLI .
Defining POC (proof of concept)
main set of features
- define new project (title, desc, aim / goal to accomplish)
- define a (mind) map for all tasks / projects related.
- that can be achieved with active backlog and task linking
- ex. integrating payment gateway -> first reading docs -> understand and build wrapper api -> build webhook -> understand and create webhooks
- the flow is not synchronous to the actual app development (payment integration), there are additional steps involved. We should be able to track those too.
- divide project into tasks and into subtasks
- tasks tree would be divided into main and secondary tasks.
- user stories and engineer stories
- ability to group tasks
- group tasks that are related (part of same project, or subtasks)
- time tracking
- setup time blocks (ex. time block of 1.5 hrs with 5min break in between)
- setup your total working hours for day. (ex. total 6 hrs of work everyday )
- track each activity. As time would still be tracked anyways (sockets), assign the time spent to certain task or day-to-day activity (lunch/exercise/ groceries)
- achieve specific set of time intervals and blocks. (ex. 3 hrs of work , then 15min break, then grind 3hrs more)
- standard sprint times (5 day week, work in weeks).
- produce analytics
- time taken , time spent on each task/project.
- project/task created on / started on .
- this would work better by looking up task status.
As a indie developer OR Freelancer , sprints don’t make any sense.
In a JIRA sprint, you have to first define your backlogs, the put task one by one in todo, and finally make some progress.
I have to make the most of my time, however possible. It may be variable, but i try to be working for at-least 6hrs everyday.
how about this, it is more about effective planning than it is about effective time tracking .
effective planning would define a clear path as to what steps need to be taken in order to complete the task/project.