{"id":348,"date":"2017-04-14T12:03:29","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T16:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/?p=348"},"modified":"2017-04-14T12:03:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T16:03:29","slug":"how-to-stay-productive-on-personal-projects-an-integrated-strategy-to-avoid-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/how-to-stay-productive-on-personal-projects-an-integrated-strategy-to-avoid-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Stay Productive on Personal Projects: An Integrated Strategy to Avoid Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get wrapped up in a lot of personal projects. Some of them are as small as writing a new post or article (check!) and some are big, long-term software ides. It’s easy to get involved in a project, but it’s challenging to finish<\/em> one. Keeping yourself on track and working steadily doesn’t come naturally to most.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To help myself with that, I’m testing out a new strategy that should make sure my project of choice is always on my mind in the right way and at the right times.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s what I use:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BitBucket<\/strong>, to keep my work versioned controlled. I also take advantage of its issue tracking features, which is important for later.<\/p>\n

Thunderbird<\/strong>, for integrated email and lots of organization and filtering options.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And here’s the process:<\/p>\n

> Create a repository on BitBucket for my project.<\/p>\n

> Add myself to the mailing list for that repo.<\/p>\n

> Turn on issue tracking in repo settings.<\/p>\n

> As work progresses, add issues for things I need to do, new ideas, and problems to take care of.<\/p>\n

> Assign myself to a new issue whenever I create it (this sends an automated email, which I’ll see sitting in my inbox until I take care of it).<\/p>\n

> Add two email filters in Thunderbird:<\/p>\n

>> When automated emails come in (which you can filter with something like “no-reply@bitbucket.org”, etc), tag them as “todo”, which is a pleasing but noticeable shade of blue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Email<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

>> When those emails have been sitting too long, “upgrade” them to “important” or “critical” or whatever you like, this time with an annoying, stressful red color.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Email<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hate seeing bright red in my inbox. It’s stressful. I’ll want to get those red emails, so I’m going to do something about it. The way I should<\/em> get rid of those emails is by resolving the issue and then deleting the email — but I’ll add one more email filter in case I get lazy and try to delete the emails without actually doing what I was supposed to do:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If one of those automated emails hits the trash can, and it’s marked as “critical”, it will move itself back into the inbox. I have to specifically untag it and then delete it<\/em> for it to stay deleted, which discourages me from cheating and encourages getting my tasks done in a timely manner before I hit that point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get wrapped up in a lot of personal projects. Some of them are as small as writing a new post or article (check!) and some are big, long-term software ides. It’s easy to get involved in a project, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[202],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools","tag-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mberlove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}