The One-Page Coding Compass: A Tiny Daily Plan That Keeps Side Projects Moving Forward

Side projects are where your best ideas live—and where they most often go to die.

You start excited. You spin up a repo, sketch a few screens, push a flurry of commits… and then life happens. Work ramps up. You miss a few evenings. When you finally return, you’ve forgotten what you were doing, what was next, and why any of it mattered.

This is where the one-page coding compass comes in.

Instead of turning your side project into another planning burden, the coding compass gives you a tiny, visual daily plan. It’s small enough to be sustainable, structured enough to keep you moving, and flexible enough to live in Notion, a paper notebook, or whatever tools you already use.

What Is a One-Page Coding Compass?

A one-page coding compass is a single-page view of what you’re doing today on your side project—nothing more, nothing less.

It’s not a roadmap. It’s not a full backlog. It’s a daily working surface with:

• A short list of tasks
• Simple fields (like status and priority)
• A quick way to see what’s unfinished from yesterday
• A tiny loop to reset it every day

Think of it as your second brain for coding: it remembers what you decided, what you finished, and what’s next, so your actual brain can focus on solving problems instead of juggling details.

Why Side Projects Stall (And How a Compass Fixes It)

Most side projects don’t fail because you’re bad at coding. They fail because you’re bad at restarting.

Common problems:

• You forget where you left off.
• You keep re-reading old code to remember context.
• You jump between ideas instead of finishing one.
• Your “planning system” is so heavy it becomes its own project.

The coding compass directly attacks these issues:

1. You always know what to do next. Your next step is written down, not stored in your head.
2. You start with yesterday’s unfinished tasks. That gives you instant momentum and fewer context switches.
3. You work in small, visible chunks. Progress becomes obvious, which is incredibly motivating.
4. You have just enough structure. No sprint boards, no Gantt charts—just a tiny daily list.

Core Principle #1: Yesterday First, Then New Stuff

When you sit down to code, don’t start by asking, “What do I feel like working on today?”

Start by asking: “What did I not finish yesterday?”

This simple rule matters because:

• It prevents context-switching. You resume a familiar task instead of loading a new one into your brain.
• It builds momentum fast. Finishing something early in a session feels good and energizes you.
• It reduces abandoned branches. You’re less likely to leave half-baked features scattered across the codebase.

On your coding compass, give unfinished tasks a clear marker—like Status: In progress or Carryover: Yes. Your first move each day is to attack those.

Only after you’ve handled carryover work do you add or start new tasks.

Core Principle #2: Break Big Features Into Small, Clear Subtasks

“Build authentication system” is not a task. It’s a mini-project.

Your brain sees something that big and immediately starts negotiating: "Do I really have the energy for this tonight?" Usually, the answer is no.

Instead, your coding compass forces you to break features into small, clearly defined subtasks, like:

• Add users table with columns (id, email, password_hash, created_at)
• Implement /signup route and form validation
• Hash password before storing
• Add login form (email + password)
• Add requireAuth middleware for protected routes

Each subtask:

• Feels doable in one sitting (or less).
• Has a clear definition of done.
• Makes progress highly visible. You literally check off steps.

This is how you make a “big scary feature” feel like something you can chip away at 30–60 minutes at a time.

Core Principle #3: Use Your Plan as a Second Brain

Trying to remember everything you’re doing in a project is a terrible use of brainpower.

Your working memory should be spent on:

• Designing clean APIs
• Debugging weird errors
• Reasoning about performance or UX

It should not be spent on:

• “What did I want to test next?”
• “What’s left on this feature?”
• “What did I promise myself I’d do after this?”

Your one-page compass acts as a second brain:

• It holds your intentions, so you don’t have to.
• It reminds you of context after a few days away.
• It makes it easy to restart even when you’re tired.

The less energy you invest in remembering, the more energy you have for coding.

The Simple Fields That Keep You Moving

You don’t need a full project management system. You need a tiny amount of structure that fits on one page.

Here’s a minimal but powerful set of fields:

• Task – What exactly will you do?
• Status – e.g. Not started, In progress, Blocked, Done.
• Priority – e.g. High, Medium, Low.
• Estimate – Tiny time guesses help you size the work (15m, 30m, 1h).
• Next step – The very next action if you pick this task up.

A row on your compass might look like this:

• Task: Add password reset email flow
  Status: Not started
  Priority: High
  Estimate: 45m
  Next step: Sketch API for /password-reset request + token model

That next step field is crucial. It eliminates the “warm-up tax” when you start a session. Instead of asking, “Where was I?” you just do the next step you already wrote down.

The Daily Review Loop: How to Keep the Compass Alive

A planning system only works if it stays alive. Stale docs are as useless as no docs.

Your compass stays alive with a quick daily review loop. It can take 5–10 minutes at the start or end of each coding session:

1. Carry over leftovers

   • Anything not done today gets moved to tomorrow.
   • Update status (In progress, Blocked, etc.).

2. Re-check priorities

   • Is this still the most important thing to work on next?
   • If priorities shifted, reorder or re-label.

3. Rewrite today’s list

   • Don’t let the page become a wall of old noise.
   • Create a fresh daily section or new page, and copy only what still matters.

This rewrite step is what keeps your compass from turning into a junk drawer. You’re constantly curating.

Where to Keep Your One-Page Compass

You don’t need new tools. Use what you already like—as long as it stays small and visible.

Here are two easy setups:

Option 1: Notion (or similar)

Use Notion, Obsidian, or any note app to create a simple table or list:

• One page per day or week.
• Columns for Task, Status, Priority, Estimate, Next Step.
• A “Yesterday’s leftovers” section at the top.

Treat it as a lightweight project manager, not a full system. No complex databases unless you genuinely need them.

Option 2: Paper Planner or Notebook

Paper works surprisingly well:

• Draw a simple table with the five fields.
• Use bullets or checkboxes for tasks.
• At the end of a session, circle or star anything that needs to be carried over.

The physical act of rewriting tasks for the next page naturally forces you to declutter and prioritize.

A Sample Daily Compass Layout

Here’s a plain-text example you could adapt anywhere:

=== Coding Compass – 2025-01-03 ===

Yesterday’s leftovers:
1) [In progress][High][30m]
   Task: Add loading state to search results
   Next step: Show skeleton component instead of empty list

2) [Blocked][Medium][15m]
   Task: Fix failing test on user service
   Next step: Reproduce test failure locally; check mock config

Today’s new tasks:
3) [Not started][High][45m]
   Task: Implement basic password reset request
   Next step: Define /password-reset route + token model

4) [Not started][Low][20m]
   Task: Update README with setup steps
   Next step: List env vars + sample .env

This is enough to:

• Tell you where to start (items 1 and 2).
• Give you ready-to-go work once you build momentum (items 3 and 4).
• Make it obvious what “done for today” looks like.

Putting It All Together

The power of the one-page coding compass comes from its constraints:

• Tiny scope – It only cares about what you can do in the next day or two.
• Clear continuity – Yesterday flows directly into today.
• Visible progress – You literally see tasks move from “not started” to “done.”
• Lightweight tools – Notion, a note app, or even paper is enough.

If your side projects keep stalling, don’t look for a bigger system. Try a smaller one.

Create a single page—digital or paper—and add:

• A section for yesterday’s leftovers
• A short list of today’s tasks
• Fields for status, priority, estimate, next step

Then, every time you sit down to code:

1. Start with unfinished tasks.
2. Break anything big into small subtasks.
3. Write down the very next step before you stop.

You’ll spend less time spinning up, more time actually coding—and your side projects will quietly, steadily move forward.

That’s what a compass is for: not to do the journey for you, but to make sure you don’t lose your way.