A personal project management app for one person with too many ideas
Not a team tool with the team removed. A different shape: everything you started on one canvas, honest about which of it is moving, and kind about the rest.
Search for this and you get team tools with a free tier. They work, in the way a lorry works for a trip to the shop. The columns are for hand-offs you do not have, the assignees are all you, and the notifications are for people who are not there. What one person needs is smaller and also harder, because the one person is also the only one who will ever look at it.
The shape of it
Everything in one place. Not one place per thing. The whole point is to see the nine things together, so that the three that are moving stand out from the six that are not. A canvas, not a folder of boards.
One card per thing you started. A card holds what is left to do, the next step, the stage it is at and how long since it moved. Nothing else is required. You can write notes, and the notes are for you.
A clock you cannot fake. This is the part that makes it personal rather than merely small. With no manager looking, the only thing that will keep you honest is a number you cannot nudge. The clock moves when you finish a step, decide the next one, change the stage, or stop on purpose. It does not move when you rename, reorder, drag or add.
Fading, not nagging. A thing that has gone quiet recedes a little on the canvas. It does not go red, it does not count itself in a badge, and it does not email you. You will see it when you look, which is the right amount.
Stopping on purpose. Park a thing and it keeps the date. Drop it and it keeps the reason. Both stay on the board, faded, because a decision you made is worth more than a blank where the thing used to be.
What a week looks like
Monday, open the canvas. The cards that moved last week are sharp; the ones that did not have softened. Pick the one you are going to move, read its next step, and start there. When you finish a step, tick it; when the next one is obvious, write it. Some Friday, look at the faded ones and decide: this one comes back, this one is parked until the autumn, this one I am dropping because the reason is clear now. Write the reason. That is the whole method, and the app is mostly there to make it hard to lie.
On a phone, and with an assistant
On a phone the canvas becomes a deck of the same cards, readable and tickable. If you talk to Claude or ChatGPT, a connector lets it read your board and, if you allow it, tick a step or set the next one for you. Every tool it can call is in the manual, and a token is revoked in one click.
Who should not use it
If the work is one large thing with a team and a deadline, a column board or Linear will serve you better. If most of what you keep is reference rather than work, Notion is the right home for it.
What it costs
Free is 4 cards with 20 steps each, and it stays free. Every new workspace gets two weeks of the paid tier with no card asked for, and when that ends nothing is deleted or locked. See pricing for the rest, or read the manual first; it is public and there is a PDF.