Choose Trello for card-level checklists, GitHub Projects when the work is already connected to issues and pull requests, or Notion when research and tasks belong in flexible pages. The best planning tool is the one that helps you finish a specific first version.
This focused shortlist uses official documentation. It does not claim vendor testing, measured productivity gains or a universal ranking.
Trello’s checklist documentation describes organizing checklist items inside cards. Consider it when a card can represent one small deliverable and its checklist can explain the work remaining.
Check: which assignment and due-date features your actual account supports. Keep a card’s finished state specific instead of leaving it as an endless list of ideas.
Official checklist guideGitHub documents Projects as an adaptable collection of items with table, board and roadmap views connected to issues and pull requests. Consider it when development work already lives in GitHub.
Check: access for collaborators and how you will represent non-code tasks. A code-centric workflow may add friction when the project is mainly research, writing or events.
Official Projects overviewNotion databases organize pages in a shared structure. Each item remains a page, so task information can stay close to notes, decisions and reference material.
Check: permissions, export requirements and how much structure you want to maintain. Start with a simple task record rather than designing an elaborate workspace before doing the work.
Official database overviewRecommendations are editorial judgments about workflow fit. Prices and subscription entitlements are not quoted. Try one representative deliverable in the workflow before moving all your notes.
Enter a weekly time budget and estimated work for each deliverable. Toggle optional scope and see the capacity difference immediately. Decimal.js calculates effort precisely; Luxon calculates week-boundary dates. Estimates and demo figures are user assumptions, not measured productivity.
The date calculation uses whole planning weeks beginning on your chosen date. It is a capacity estimate, not a daily schedule. The model assumes all weekly hours are available for this project and does not add hidden contingency, context-switching or holiday adjustments. Add those hours as explicit deliverables or reduce weekly capacity. Optional saving stays in this browser until deleted; no scope upload occurs.
A side project competes with the rest of your life. Make that constraint visible.
Write what someone can use after the first version: a working feature, a resource, a prototype or an event. A feature list is not a finished state. Keep the outcome specific enough to evaluate with someone other than yourself.
Break the work into things you can describe and inspect. Include research, testing, feedback and delivery, not just making. If an estimate is uncertain, record what you need to learn before relying on it.
Optional means the first version can still deliver its promised outcome without that item. If you exclude an essential deliverable, the planner calls it out so you can reconsider the outcome or its definition. It does not make the decision for you.
Window capacity = weekly hours × planning weeks. Selected effort is the sum of included deliverable estimates. Capacity remaining = capacity − selected effort. Estimated planning weeks = selected effort ÷ weekly hours, rounded up to a whole week for the boundary date. A negative remainder indicates an estimate that exceeds this window; it is not a prediction of failure.
No. It uses your estimates and repeating weekly capacity. It does not account for dependencies, variable availability or interruptions. Update the estimates from actual work and use a daily calendar for real commitments.
Yes. Save locally or export JSON. A reload starts the demo until you explicitly load the saved scope. Delete saved data when using a shared browser.
Choose the smallest included deliverable that tests a meaningful assumption. Move it into your selected planning tool and define what makes it complete. Avoid expanding the plan before learning from the first result.
Export the brief, share it with a collaborator and revise the scope when your available time changes.
Review your scope budget