Keep track of tasks has always been something of a pain for me. It’s not always that I don’t know what needs done, but getting that information out of my head and into a format that someone else can understand can be difficult. I’ve recently been attempting to find a solution for CubeCreate and have come to a few conclusions.
Nothing will be perfect. So don’t even try. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t strive for quality, but don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Managing the list should not take long. This is very simple, but also very important. Don’t spend too much time updating your list. It should be easy and quick to update to both encourage you to use it and let you get back to the work that needs done as quickly as possible.
Why is a task list important? Because otherwise people don’t know what you’re doing and what needs done. Every project, even single-developer projects need a task list, if for no other reason then to prevent feature creep. If you were to stop working, or go on vacation, who would takeover? If you’re the only one who knows what needs done, it’ll take days for another developer to figure out what you were trying to do.
I’ve kept this list as short as possible, and only touched on the highlights to keep from boring people. For CubeCreate, we’re currently using a wiki page as our project-wide task list. It works well enough, and while I think a more polished solution would be better, it’s not worth the energy it would take to develop one.
Hopefully this has helped. What task management system would you recommend? Leave me a comment and let me know.
