How I use JIRA as personal task tracking tool

As many other people I was looking for a personal task tracker and went through different software options available on the market as well as paper notebooks. There were quite a lot of them, I considered both paid and free solutions and eventually I ended up using JIRA.?

Why did it work for me?

The idea of using JIRA as a personal task tracking tool might appear as overkill at first sight, but in the end it turned out to be the only solution that perfectly suits my needs and, more importantly, makes me get the work done sustainably at long distances.

After almost? a year of personal task tracking with this powerful service I can highlight several pros that really make the difference in the given context:

• Work in sprints
• Decomposition at multiple levels
• Powerful dashboards
• Immense number of custom fields upon your needs
• Attachments and comments
• JQL and custom filters
• Different projects for different purposes

Not to forget it’s free for personal use or a small group of users.

Advantages in detail

Of course JIRA functionality goes far beyond these features and is designed primarily as an enterprise solution with almost unlimited customisation opportunities, but let me elaborate in more detail what was especially helpful in my case.

Backlog

Backlog is a todo list. It is a heap of tasks that you are likely to be doing in the future. You may want to order it by priority, but you don’t necessarily have to. Unlike many other tools that order items by date created, JIRA allows you to rearrange the list upon your needs.?

Example:?

• Pick up delivery package
• Buy NY gift
• Visit my dentist
• Fix the doorbell

We always have plenty of tasks to do. According to the MoSCoW prioritisation technique they can fall into different categories, but sometimes their number is overwhelming. Creating a simple list could be the first step into ordering the chaos and taking up a structured way of thinking.

Sprints.

The task tracker may work as is, only with the backlog, but I find it hilarious that there is an option to create sprints.

In SCRUM and some other Agile frameworks the concept of sprint as a time-box is one of the core components and is widely used. The point of the sprint is to limit the timeframe and emphasise the portion of work that is supposed to be completed within this time period. The idea is to keep the team focused on this amount of work and not be distracted by the rest of the backlog. JIRA supports the time-boxed sprints and allows the creation of custom time frames. Just like in software development practice, personal tasks can be added to a sprint and this way keeps you focused on what must be completed within the next couple of weeks.

Example:

Within the next two weeks I am signing up on:

• Edit and share photos from vacations
• Renew the membership in the gym
• Revalidate gas metering?equipment
• Go to tailor and fix suit

Not to underweight the procrastination. The simple todo list has a gap: we often feel a relief when we list all the duties and rarely see them again. A bunch of assignments turns into a burden. The point of the sprints is to get them done iteratively, portion by portion.?

Different projects

JIRA can handle a variety of projects at the same time. It also supports different types of projects. For instance, to use sprints you will be required to create a “Software project”. There are also classic task tracking projects which are similar to any other task tracking tool.

Example:

• A project in JIRA is seen as the highest decomposition level. Differentiation of projects might be helpful if you have some particular goal to accomplish and you don’t want to mix it up with your routine duties. A good example can be home renovation, immigration or education.
• Depending on your mood you may want to preserve a separate project to log your spontaneous ideas or thoughts. You won’t necessarily need to do them, but you will keep them recorded in the list as long as you are not ready. Later on these items are either logically cancelled or moved to the main project accordingly and be added to a sprint someday.

Decomposition

As I touched the topic of decomposition, I simply can’t omit the breakdown approach offered in JIRA. Similarly to the work-related use case, we might have some huge assignments to do and these tasks logically consist of subsequent minor steps.?

Example:

• It is time to pass the 360° medical check-up. Obviously, you will have a series of assignments, consultations and pathways.?
• You decided to delve into a new topic and get certified. The preparation steps include the research, book study, webinars, the submission step and the exam.?

Yet another awesome feature helps to keep the todo list organised and structured. Better understanding of your goal increases the likelihood of success. Alternatively, it also highlights the bottleneck and the reason for failure.?

Task and its fields

A task is an entity and it might be populated with different data. Start date, due date, time spent, priority, type, status are obvious. There are however far more of them and they can be flexibly adjusted, enabled or disabled.

Example:

• When planning a trip upload itinerary information, vouchers, bookings, flight tickets to attachments. Write down the list of items in your luggage to carry with you.
• Doing interior design at home save links to furniture, describe your vision and ideas.

A task is a container of all related data. You can add description, attachment, summary, comments all along the way and this data won’t get lost or vanished. Given it is a cloud service, you use and access it as a minimalistic cloud storage.

Labeling

All along with data fields there are also labels. Labels are useful when it comes to categorisation and task segmentation. There are no predefined labels, so you create and put them on the go.

Example:

• Housekeeping
• Health
• Travelling

Identically as with data fields, labels effectively work with filters. By writing JQL queries or using simple sorting, labels will display the selected category of tasks in case you are willing to review it separately.

Dashboards

Another application of labels and filters comes into play with dashboards. Dashboards are highly customisable tools, mainly used for quick visualisation, review or retrospective.

Example:

• A simple filter allows you to have a look back at what you have done at the end of the year. It is motivating to see what epic goals you have accomplished. Sometimes we have challenges lasting for years, what a relief to see them behind!
• A diagram helps to identify your priorities and points out your weaknesses. It may eventually look like your Wheel of Life is not balanced and let’s say your hobby or health category is abandoned while you were focusing on your career.

Needless to say it is important to snapshot your life from time to time and look at where you are and where you want to go. Dashboards enable you to create a quick and informative visualisation of the current progress and give a hint on the next steps.

Different perks and features.

As being said, JIRA offers an impressive variety of features and customisation opportunities. Not everyone needs them, but the proper usage may improve your productivity and daily experience. Here just a few quick examples more:

• Automation scenarios are countless. The tasks that are about to reach their due date can be automatically highlighted or boosted with priority; statuses altered; custom fields populated with data and so on.
• Notifications also can be adjusted upon your needs so you always stay tuned to the sprint ending and priority task report.?
• Workflows optionally may include more than “Todo” > “In Progress” > “Done”
• Custom fields help to track some specific data. Add a numeric “Cost” field so you can see the summary of your expenses and subdivide them by nature and origin.
• A variety of supported integrations. G-suite services, export options, reports and widgets are worth mentioning when it comes to subsequent sharing, cost analysis or archiving purposes.

Drawbacks

For me there are not too many of them. But keeping in mind that it is primarily designed and used for enterprise application, there is a life-work balance concern. In other words, using JIRA for personal needs makes you feel as if you are still at work and this aspect might blur the line a bit. Moreover, as the free plan supports up to 10 users, the involvement of your family members into common usage might look like an appealing idea. However chances that they are reluctant to project manage daily routines this way are high.?

Conclusion

I’ve been using JIRA for almost a year and the described approach worked for me. It helped me to stay focused and reduce procrastination dramatically. Thanks to this simple workflow I finished something that I had been carrying over for months and probably years. In the end it’s worth trying if you are looking for an option to boost your productivity, but remember there is no solution that does the trick for you. It just can be helpful or not in the given circumstances.?