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Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

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What tools do you use to self-manage your projects?

I really like Jira but also dislike it sometimes. Simplicity of tools like Trello, Asana, and Pivotal seem to make Jira a burden to use. The thing is Jira is better suit for big projects(many people, long term), IMO.

Trello is the main tool I use for my personal and freelance projects but I'm working on this new project that has to many details and Trello is almost falling short to me. I could setup two or three boards but that would complicate my life even more.

So, to the point of the title. Is there any other tool you have/would used/suggest to manage a soon-to-be midsize project or project with many details?

If you allow me, this tool should:

  • have a free tier(this is the only project giving me issues right now, so)
  • allow me to have separated sections like in Jira you have backlog separated from sprint and releases, kind of the idea

Finally, I've used Asana but didn't really understand it well, I'm open to give it a second try if you can point me to a good guide on how to use it.

Thanks :)

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Oldest comments (37)

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

I've used Asana for work and it worked nicely for collaboration, but for personal projects I find that Github Issues/Projects/Wiki is more than enough for my needs.

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

Using Bitbucket but I'm going to see what it has to offer.

Thanks for posting!

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theoutlander profile image
Nick Karnik

I would highly recommend sticking to GitHub Issues if you can. You can use Zenhub as a nice chrome extension to see kanban style boards, projects, etc. It gives you extra features all for free.

Jira is absolute junk! Do not use it.

Asana is great if you can spend the time. It's very generic and perfect for many projects.

Finally, if you have too many tools, you can also use Unito to synchronize work items across teams.

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

Nick, thank you for posting.

Well, the project is using Bitbucket(the only thing I like about it is its free tier for private proojects) and I don't like very much the options it provides, but it just a matter of taste.

Gonna check out Zenhub and Unito!

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Juan F Gonzalez

I mainly do all my stuff in Trello and integrate that sometimes with Github. So far haven't needed anything else, but if you are using a lot of tools to manage everything, you can use Zapier automation to make everything run smoothly.

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

I also use Trello for almost everything but this project is getting a lot of tasks and subtasks from subtasks, so listing them all in a single list or splitting them in lists will bloat the board (in will drive me crazy :D)

Second one to mention Github, as I'm using Bitbucket, gonna check out their issue tracker and see what value I can get.

Thanks for posting!

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nickgurney profile image
Nick Gurney

I'd highly recommend checking out Notion.so. It has all the same functionality as Trello, but can connect boards better and has much better note/documentation abilities.

It may seem tricky to figure out at first, but once I nailed my workflow I couldn't be happier. It has a free tier, but their paid version is well worth it.

Feel free to PM me if you want to bounce ideas off me for your workflow, I'd be happy to share mine πŸ˜ƒ

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

Cool. I checked it out a few weeks ago but felt it does too much. Gonna check it again as this service has popped twice in the comments.

Thanks for posting!

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nickgurney profile image
Nick Gurney

Sure thing! If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out.

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gilmoregrills profile image
Robin Yonge

I feel like it does a lot, but makes it super easy to ignore the features you dont want/work it to your needs, I love it :P

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Stephen Chiang

I just found notion.so and at first it was a little intimidating with so many features. But after playing around with the templates and trying to re-create some of my more complex notes I keep on Boostnote, I have to say that I'm a believer now. Notion has just replaced around 4 or more different apps for me.

Thanks for mentioning it!

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cescquintero profile image
Francisco Quintero πŸ‡¨πŸ‡΄

Definitively, gonna give it a try.

Thanks for leaving your comment!

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Over the years I've used Pivotal, Trello and JIRA and this is exactly the order from my favorite to my least favorite :D

Notion.so seems to be interesting in case you want to converge all your services into one

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gabek profile image
Gabe Kangas

Github issues & projects. Though I wish a non-organization could organize issues from multiple repos into a single project.

I've also recently moved away from Evernote to Keep It (reinventedsoftware.com/keepit/) for note taking and syncing between devices. In most cases, just a list of todos and bullet points is enough for my individual projects if nobody else is following along.

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Jason R Tibbetts

I also am quite content with GitHub issues & projects. Could they be easier to use? Sure. But are they unobtrusive and integrated with software I'm already using on a daily basis? They sure are.

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Thomas Leon Highbaugh

As someone has said, notion.so. I use it for a lot more than project self management and it has everything I spent years looking for in notebook apps.

I have one notebook where I keep jobs and projects, under each I can have issue tracking, to-do lists, language cheat sheets if needed, the source code for pasting in and out of ides, etc THEN copy that whole bundle and not have to set it up 400483912 times.

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qzsg profile image
Adrian

ZenHub has been pretty impressive so far for me

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Casey Brooks

I really like using Github Issues, combined with their Project Boards. I get the ease of just dumping stuff into the issues backlog, but the nice simple organization of kanban boards like trello. Plus its got automation, where commit messages can automatically reference and close issues.

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