Today I want to talk about project planning and when it can occur. Typically, you want to do all your project planning that you can at the start of a project. Some things will always come up, but its best to always have as much planned as possible. For example, if you get sixty percent of the work identified and planned before staring a project, the remaining forty percent doesn’t just disappear.

At work we use Jira heavily, and while it’s a very powerful project management tool, some days it can feel like it’s too restrictive. For my side projects, I keep using GitHub Projects and the difference is staggering between the two softwares. I find that I keep going back to GitHub Projects when I get frustrated with Jira. I find myself going to set up a new project to test views, statuses, and other properties when I find I can’t do what I want in Jira.

Over the past two years or so, I’ve been working on a new way of measuring work. This has evolved from a simple task list of things I need to get done for the sprint and other tasks, like reminding myself to ask someone a question or put in for time off. This concept has evolved into a daily note that houses three main areas to put tasks: Goals, Meetings, and Bonus Items.