Working With Projects

2012-06-15

The work I do is highly project-based, and I need to account for my time based on what project I am undertaking. Thinking of things in terms of projects also helps me stay focused and get more things accomplished. Naturally the software needed to support projects.

After a while, it was not enough to have projects, so I introduced buckets. Buckets are simply a way of grouping projects.

Each bucket actually has two parts: current projects, and old projects.

Project

Several projects have been configured

A project is simply a name for a series of tasks you will do. Each project gets an ID, and a title.

The ID is a short series of characters that hints at the project name. It needs to be 7 characters or less so it fits in the text tables and other places. A good ID is typically two to four characters.

Example ID: KSPL

The project name is a title, not too long, that identifies the project. It should be one to four words that encapsulate the project.

Example project title: kasploosh.com

Bucket

Different buckets for different types of projects

Each project must be in a bucket, and a bucket lets you have separate out your projects by theme. I may have projects that I do for myself, projects on my own house, projects for client 1, and projects for client 2.

Buckets have a number of benefits over keeping all projects in one lump:

• You can find a project faster by first finding the bucket, then the project.
• When you run text reports, you can limit the report to a certain bucket, or omit a certain bucket.
• When creating an invoice you can report on only the tasks in that client’s bucket.

Current And Old Projects

Move completed projects into the old version of the same bucket

Each bucket has a section for current projects, and a section for old projects. You want old projects to be weeded out from the current projects, so when adding time you have a clear view of just the current projects.

At the same time, we want to keep the old projects around, rather than simply deleting them. That’s because we have tools to report on the whole history of time, and those reports need to know about the old projects as well.