Organize with github

First of, all happy Remembrance Sunday! These are very ‘lest we forget’ times.

More and more, I’m relying on github’s projects feature to self-organize and get more coding done for personal projects. I use it to plan out a mini-roadmap using the project notes feature as follows:

1. create a project for the next bunch of features. In theory the scope can range from something the size of an epic all the way up to an entire release. I find it useful to aim for ‘epic’ sized scope… and small epics, at that.
2. Within the projects, create notes first to sort out your thoughts and flesh out the ordering of tasks by dragging notes up or down. When more or less satisfied, click the top right-hand side menu of each note to convert it into an issue against the correct repository.
3. Even if working on a project yourself, go though the motions of assigning tickets, working on branches and merging pull requests.

The process has minimal overhead for one person, pairs or small teams. It allows you to focus on one thing at a time. It allows small features to roll off the production line at regular, predictable intervals - and a sense of accomplishment accompanies each completed ticket.

It also allows you to go back in time and see exactly what you worked on and what was delivered, and when.

Give it a shot if you haven’t tried it yet! :)