TaskAlot 3.0 - Context

After two trials to adopt Notion, it's time to do it right - With an expert. I call this new setup TaskAlot 3.0 (a more inspiring name might be welcome). This article contains its specifications + context, written in 2022.09.

Direct cause for TaskAlot 3.0

I've been using Notion for half a year now, for business and private project management, only for myself. However, I now need an online project management tool for collaboration with a subcontractor.

The problem: I don't feel that my Notion setup is ready for this, but I also don't want to go back to Trello. I do use Trello for another subcontractor, and it basically does what I want (see elsewhere for details).

Issues with Notion

This is where I got stuck with TaskAlot 2.0:

Contingency problem:, e.g., when closing a project, the associated tasks should also be closed
Collaborate?: How to share certain parts of the setup without using control?
Ready for real world usage? My Notion setup still feels like a toy that will never be ready for actual usage and that mgiht get completely redone at every new development.

See Questions & Issues (Notion) for details.

Goal

A proof-of-concept that Notion could work for me as a Trello replacement with some specific bells & whistles:

Trello-like boards: Have at least two Trello-like boards
Collaborate: Be able to share a board with somebody, where that person can read and edit, but not see the other board, or change any other things
Categories & projects: Associate boards with Categories and Projects
Overviews: Have tasks from these boards combined in different ways in overviews, e.g., all tasks sorted by Category or Kanban state
Contingency: When a project is closed, the associated remaining tasks should also be closed (disappear from relevant overviews)

No data needs to be imported from Trello or TaskAlot 2.0.

What I currently use

An impression of project management tools that I use right now:

PostIt Planning

Next to online project management tools, I use a planning with PostIt papers. I like how visual it as, and how flexible it is in certain ways. Some of the things that it showed me that I care about:

There are six rather static Categories (Revenue, Overhead, BizDev, R&D, Private and Private-x), but you hardly see that back here. Ideally, that would be the color of the large PostIt papers, but that was too complex
The large PostIt papers are Projects. There are about 20 projects at a time. They frequently change names and projects are often merged or split. I also often use something like 'project aliases'. E.g., subcontractor John might be active in various projects, but I prefer to have a 'project alias' called John where this comes together. In Notion, one of my favourite things is that I can associate a task to multiple projects
Directly at the right of the projects, are current tasks or urgent tasks - Simply the tasks that I need to focus on right now
A bit more to the right: Tasks for this week
Even more to the right: Backlog. These tasks are often less well-defined
On the left of the project PostIt papers: Tasks that are done - Not so important
Top-left: A project that has been concluded. I try to keep stuff that is done on the board, to remind myself that there is progress :)
Second image: Other people's tasks, visually separated from my own (the small pink papers on project papers)
Sometimes I also included small papers over the project names to indicate 'recurrent tasks (like weekly calls), but that isn't that important.

PostIt-planning beginning of 2022: Projects & tasks

PostIt-planning: The small pink papers on top of project names, are tasks of subcontractors: I need to track them somehow, but away from my own tasks. I also used these small papers on top of project names, to keep track of recurrent tasks (like weekly calls). I think I don't track those here

Trello

Currently, I only use one Trello board, concerning a project with one subcontractor:

Columns & cards with text in capitals (on the left) contain general (non-task) information. I use capitals for everything that isn't a task. Grote lijnen means Broad lines
Several columns with Backlog tasks (Werkvoorraad). There is actually a card somewhere with my name on it, that says Clean up backlog
Column Actual denotes Current tasks
Several columns that start with OK and a week number: Delivered items
Colors: Green = finished. Purple: To be included in next site update. Orange: Active. Yellow: Waiting for input

The only Trello board that I am still using. I think it's quite organised

TaskAlot 2.0

Just an impression:

Categories

I use 7 Categories: 5 for business, 2 private. This list is rather static

Projects

There are usually about 20 projects at any given time. Projects can be closed, merged, split and (quite often) change name

Example: Project TourDe (1). In this Kanban Light view, some columns are hidden

Example: Project TourDe (2). At the bottom of the screen, I sometimes add some general information - Intuitive place!

Tasks

Example of a task. I never used the field Date added. I would appreciate a field Week added

Overviews

Probably my favourite aspect of Notion: I could easily create Overviews where info from various boards (all boards in this case) come together and are filtered in a certain way. I also have e.g., overviews where data from all tasks from a certain Category comes together

Access to completed items

What is a practical way to get access to tasks that are completed? In large projects, this would become a very large list, and I usually hide this column.

After giving it some thoughts, I realise this is hardly a problem:

To start with: I only rarely need access to tasks that are done
Hiding the column Completed actually works really well: When you hoover over it, the corresponding content appears. That's quite useful
When the list Completed on a board gets too large, it may be a sign that the board isn't about a project anymore, but appearantly just some operational work. Otherwise, maybe split it into projects? Like ServerMaintenance21 and ServerMaintenance22?
Maybe extend the Kanban State field to incorporate fields like Completed20 and Completed21? → Probably not a good idea, for it wouldn't be universal anymore (because it wouldn't be relevant for e.g., projects started in 2022) and it couldn't be used in conjunction with the usual column Completed
Use Local state for this. Just as specified in this document: This provides excellent overview on project boards, but not so in overviews - See next items
Overviews are maybe just not the right place to dig into finished items, because it will usually get really big over time.

Functional specification

This have been moved to TaskAlot 3.0 - Functional specification.

Post-proof-of-concept specifications

Stuff that isn't part of the proof-of-concept, but that I do like to include one day

Checklists

Just simple lists, from server maintenance to getting up in the morning. They don't seem to be connected to other entities.

Checklist as part of the PostIt planning

Brain repository?

I currently use a WhatsApp-group-with-only-myself as brain repository or brain dump
Sometimes I feel like quickly adding something to Notion without having to properly classify it at that moment
The reason for using Notion for this, rather than the WhatsApp group: In the end, it should live in Notion, so this is closer by already. On the other hand: It might be confusing to have loose notes at different systems, and I quite like the WhatsApp-group-with-only-myself.

Private projects

Eventually, I would like to include boards for private projects, like Gardening and Renovation.

Future functionalities?

Some vague ideas about how Notion could help me with other things:

Agenda - Maybe

I'm using Google Calendar, which I manually update. It uses the same categories as TaskAlot (up to the same colors) and I find it a bit stupid that I do things double.
On the other hand: In Notion I mostly manage deliverables and not effort, while in a calendar I usually write down efforts, and not deliverables
Occasionally, I use GTimeReport when planning my weeks, to make sure I plan enough hours per category.

Example of my Google Calendar. It's actually not very well updated, otherwise it would be full. Not because I have so many important things to do, but simply to know what I am supposed to do at any moment

Time tracking

I use an LibreOffice spreadsheet for tracking my time (mostly for business, but sometimes also private, when I am occasionally wondering where my life is going). That basically goes ok
However, it feels a bit redundant to do that here, especially if occasionally, I would like to compaire it with my planning in Google Calendar: My actual hours are never as planned. It would be nice if I could see the difference. By using two Google Calendars? That doesn't sound like a good idea
It's also too much work to consolidate figures once in a while. Like when I want to know how many hours I made for customer X or project Y over the last year.

Example of my Google Calendar. It's actually not very well updated, otherwise it would be full. Not because I have so many important things to do, but simply to know what I am supposed to do at any moment

Invoicing?

For some customers, I work partially on a provision basis. That means that I have to gather a bunch of data every month,:

Revenue figures from 30+ websites
Revenue figures from 10 Amazon sites and Bol.com (a Dutch market place)
Invoices from subcontractors
Invoices from a hosting provider.

Subsequently, I enter this data manually in a spreadsheet and compile the monthly invoice.

I would be happy to outsource or automate this.

Gant charts - Probably not

I actually rarely have deadlines. I'm also quite bad at them. Notion can do Gant charts. Relevant or not for me? Probably not.