A poster on the Indiegamer.com forums recommended a piece of software I love, years ago now - TODOList by Abstract Spoon Software. It's a basic piece of .NET software that allows you to make a hierarchical tree list, and most importantly for me, is very customizable.
I have mine set to be quite simple - prioritized entries, with completed entries crossed out AND ghosted. Occasionally I'll even "Archive" the entries, which takes older, completed entries out of the active TODOList. Here's a screenshot:
As you can see, I've got 1560 current tasks - that's tasks that aren't completed. Wow.
But it really helps. When you're a solo dev and have to largely motivate yourself (ie, no coworkers or rabid fanbase screaming for results) - you need to be able to have concrete goals and meet them.
For instance, when I am feeling really, really unmotivated it's quite helpful to pick a small, easily accomplished task on the list. If I've done my job and broken the task up as much as I should have, that's easy. Once that's done, I force myself to do another small, easily finished task. Etc.
Usually it's not that hard to get motivated, for me anyway, but this approach still works very well.
Another helpful thing is at the end of your work day/period/whatever, take 20 minutes or so and break up your tasks, add detailed sub tasks, etc - this will help you when you come back and can't remember where you left off.
Next time: Another great enemy of productivity, taking time off to post to your blog!
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