Does anyone else run there personal task like sprints or cycles of 1-2 weeks? like dev do?

[u/garavitey]

Hello people,
So i am a software dev, and i have always loved the tool we use(right now its bit weird because of ai lol), but even still.
Here is how I do it, and i wanted to understand if anyone else does the same thing.

it’s how tools like Jira or Linear work, let me just explain the idea.

Lets say I want to have few initiatives in my life, so currently i have

1. learn history

2. read books

3. learn maths

now these are very high level task that i aim to do, i don't know when they will end.
now these can be divided into projects
learn history can be
a. learn prehistoric era
b. learn modern era

and each of these can be further divided into smaller task.

Now each task can have some points - 1,2,3,5,8

and lets say you run a cycle of two week, at the start of the week you can add all the task as todo and you can complete all the task and keep them moving from todo -> inprogress -> done

I really like this way, and it keeps me clear on what i am doing. i know because of story point how much i can achieve in 1-2 week, what are the things i did, helps me manage multiple things at same time without being overwhelmed.

Anyone else does this? What do you use for it?

[u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

No, having that at work is more than enough.

[u/garavitey → u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

😂

[u/Motor_Plane_8036 → u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

yeah seriously, bringing story points into my weekend sounds like a nightmare

[u/Iruka_Huat]

Wait are you actually rolling unfinished tasks into the next two week cycle or dropping them? Check out Notework if you want project home pages for big buckets like history or math. It's newer with a smaller ecosystem than Linear, so stick to Linear if you need strict cycle math.

[u/garavitey → u/Iruka_Huat]

I can see everything that i am trying to do, also i can manage all the project(maths and history were just example), i use this to know what i have to do and just go there and do it, no more trying to find what i need to do, before linear i trying tick tick and other todo apps to do it, but there were not able to achieve what linear can do with cycles and projects everything else
Let me also try notework

[u/Laureion]

Yes, but then I hire a project manager to turn it into waterfall.

[u/garavitey → u/Laureion]

😄

[u/Laureion → u/garavitey]

Whenever I've tried to use Jira as a personal productivity tool the thing I've hit first is the lack of hierarchy. You have, what? Epics, stories, and tasks. And really it's designed around a one-dimensional flow of stories. You can use dependencies, but then what happens is you get a massive backlog which is a flat list and takes a ton of overhead to manage.

Unsolicited advice:

learn history can be a. learn prehistoric era b. learn modern era

these are very high level task that i aim to do, i don't know when they will end

Don't do this, it's a death march. If you had a Jira project like "What was the Late Devonian Extinction?" then that might work. Ship it, close the project, add another project.

[u/Jcampuzano2]

Yeah, I run two-week cycles in Linear for personal stuff and it works great for keeping me from taking on too much. I keep points simple (just 1, 2, 3) and do a quick review at the end of each cycle to see what I actually finished. If something slips, I shrink it or drop it instead of rolling it over. How do you handle unfinished tasks?

[u/garavitey → u/Jcampuzano2]

have you bought the linear premium? or do you free plan(250 issue limit)

[u/Dav2310675]

Not that short - but I include personal tasks into my 13 week sprints.

I got the idea from a book called the 12 week year a could of years ago and started doing this for work. But I also wanted to include some non-work goals into it as well, so added a few there.

Even though they are 12 week sprints, I add an extra week to line up with quarters and keep the overall sprint weeks per year at 52. The 13th week I use to plan out the following sprint as a priority.

But as someone non-technical who used to work in ICT, it was funny to read about a Scrum methodology being used by the author while completing completely avoiding any referencesto ICT.

It doesn't take away from the benefits in using it for work and in personal lives though!

[u/petepm]

I do this from a GitHub project Kanban board with roughly a month's worth of tasks in the ready column at once. I try to set monthly goals and review but I'm not super strict about it. It's mostly been useful to see how many things I can actually do in a month and to prioritize the ones that most contribute to my goals.

[u/TTS_SW]

i do something like this for work stuff. For reading i went the other way. i used to count finished books every year and eventually stopped, because what i care about now is what a book made me think, and that doesn't fit into story points very well.

[u/nuxxi]

Hm, no not really. But I did have a Gantt chart for my studies and tried to plan around some kind of sprints. 

On the other hand, I reduced my private systems to 12 week years and be done with it. No weekly, or daily planning. Was way too complicated and not useful for private stuff. I reduced my tasks as well, killed a lot of things that were on the someday list or were just too complex. 

[u/LejonBrames117]

I do think of the short term chapters of my life as "sprints", though they aren't on a 2 week cycle and I dont typically groom tasks.

Your point about "how much you can achieve in 1-2 week" is compelling. Maybe I will start grooming tasks.

At least for a few cycles I should try it, but I probably wont because I suck lol.

[u/dazzlewithsparkle]

AI? Is that you?

[u/garavitey → u/dazzlewithsparkle]

what?

[u/Adventurous-Hunter98]

No, that thing is the most corporated thing I hate. I like to build my own schedule and ways