Moving from a condo in the city to a single family in the burbs with a one year old during the pandemic has been both overwhelming and humbling. For the last 2.5 years while failing to optimize time and money across different projects, I have missed a system that has the following features:
- Task based workflow
- Calendar/Reminder
- Contact management
- price/quote management
- Expense tracking
- notes/wiki for howto, planning, research
- Document management<p>I think having offline and remote/mobile access is invaluable as you are rarely in front of a terminal while taking care of such projects. Self-hosted would be ideal, primarily because of sensitive information, but also because I’m not sure how the needs evolve over period of time - for example, sometimes you have high setup cost (complexity/cost) but then with the systems in place, the effort needed reduces considerably.<p>So far, I have been doing it with notion, but the drawbacks are obvious. I was thinking of looking into open source erp systems, but felt like I am chasing tool vs having a disciplined approach - so wanted to see what(spreadsheet, markdown on git, notion etc.) are you using to track and ship long/short term projects at home?
Go low tech.<p>In my experience, there are very few places where a paper & pencil or pen solution fails. It is definitely more involved, but there is something encouraging about it, visually present. This is not the case with an app; it takes multiple steps to consciously dig the projects to the surface.<p>I have a to-do list on paper in my office and in my kitchen. It is a roll of paper, that I keep pulling down, and rip off items that I completed.<p>In the office it is in a Steno pad, while in the kitchen in a "wall mount note roll" (search for it for visual).<p>The wall mount note roll works for the whole crew in the house. Everyone knows what needs to be done. It is satisfying to tear down a part when completed.<p>I like Steno pads because they are not too big to travel with, and when walking around I can shove it in the small of my back. Anything smaller and my giant hands cannot write into it, anything bigger and it becomes cumbersome. Also, I know shorthand which freaks out most younger execs when I take notes.<p>I hate it, but it just works. I hate it because it is in my face, it reminds me every time I walk by that the gutters need cleaning, or that report needs submitted. No way of not "opening the UI".
I use Obsidian for general knowledge tracking, google sheets for financial calculations, gcal as calendar and Microsoft ToDo for task tracking.<p>More important than the tools are the habits around, though. Once a year I define OKRs for my life, then have quarterly plans and weekly reviews to fill my Todo list, reflect on the progress and adjust plans. This takes no more than 15-30mins a week and could be done with pen and paper if you wanted.