I keep 2 plain text files: 1. backlog.txt - a list of all potential ideas and tasks 2. changelog.txt - a list of iterations/versions/milestones Whenever I ha

I keep 2 plain text files: 1. backlog.txt - a list of all potential ideas and tasks 2. changelog.txt - a list of iterations/versions/milestones Whenever I have an idea or bug, I add it as a line in backlog.txt When I want to actually work on code, I pick 3-4 tasks that I want to complete and move them to changelog.txt. The number of tasks depends on how much I can do in one or two sittings. backlog.txt is in a format like this: * Fix IE9 compatibility * Refactor CSS * ... etc changelog.txt looks like this: 1.1.0 - next release -------------------- * Fixed IE8 thingy * SSL encryption enabled 1.0.9 - March 10, 2012 -------------------- * Fixed null-pointer crash * Catch exception in sendmail.java * Enabled websockets transport Keeping everything in plain text helps me from fiddling around too much with the tool, which I am very prone to do. (Meta-bonus, my product is a text editor so I can organize my product with itself.)