Gmail + Labels
Keep my inbox ZERO, and label the email threads which I have to re-check later with any of 3 labels: TODO, Follow-up, Notes
Every time I decided to do a task, I will send an email to myself and label it as “TODO”
Google Spreadsheets
Create a table as todo list, and share to teammates
The table includes the following columns:
Task
People in Charge
Expected complete date
Actual start date
Actual complete date
Memo
Trello
Usually 1 card represents 1 task.
Create 6 labels to show the task status/progress: Working, Pending, Cancelled, Important, Follow-up, Done
Keep several lists:
For This Week: the tasks the team will try to finish in current week
Done in This Week: the tasks finished recently
Queue: the tasks may be done in future
Follow-Up: I won’t do anything for these tasks for now, but maybe I need do something in future
Archives: the tasks we have confirmed that was done (review is done)
All lists and cards are organised into one board.
For complicated tasks, we will create a Google Spreadsheet to manage subtasks and others (e.x, checklist and resource list). We always attach the spreadsheet into the Trello card.
JIRA
We used to creating a JIRA issue for important system changes to record as many points/footprints as we can. This might be helpful once we would like to review the task again in future (e.x: something goes wrong due to the change).
A JIRA issue might include the following sections
Target: what is the purpose for a change
Background: brief the background knowledges (why to do the change), if necessary
Affected Servers: which servers might be changed or affected by the change, including server hostname, IP address and service tag. This may help us to track the hardware changes
Tasks: what we have done and what we are planning to do for this change. Also will show the status/progress for each task
Assignee: who are taking charge the change/tasks
Estimated Time of Execution: estimated and actual time period
Asana
Just touched this tool these days, no much to share currently.