Research projects fail quietly when milestones live only in someone’s head. This free tracker gives one project a simple Kanban board, to do, doing, and done, saved privately in your browser so progress is visible every time you open the page.
What the tool does
The tracker holds a list of milestones or tasks for a single project, each in one of three stages: to do, doing, or done. A count at the top shows how many items sit in each stage, so a stalled project is obvious: many items in doing and few moving to done usually means too much started at once. Everything is stored in your browser’s local storage, with no account and no data sent anywhere, which makes it suitable for quick personal tracking without involving your institution’s systems.
How to use it
Add milestones, not micro-tasks: submit ethics application is a milestone, while email the ethics officer is a step inside it. Choose the stage when you add the item, and move items forward as work progresses rather than in a weekly batch, so the board reflects reality. Review the board once a week, move anything stuck in doing for more than two weeks either forward or back to to do, and celebrate items reaching done, since visible progress keeps long projects alive.
Worked example
A small project starts with five milestones: ethics application, participant recruitment, data collection, analysis, and manuscript draft. Ethics moves to done, recruitment sits in doing, and the rest wait in to do, giving counts of three to do, one doing, and one done. Two months later the counts read zero to do, one doing, and four done, and the single doing item, manuscript draft, is clearly the remaining work. That one-line summary is worth more than a long status report.
Reading the results honestly
A board with everything in doing is a warning, not a badge of busyness. Limit yourself to two or three items in doing at once, and be honest when an item has stalled: moving it back to to do is progress, because it frees attention for work that can actually move. Also watch the done column for items marked done too early, such as a draft that has not been read by co-authors; done should mean finished to the project’s standard, not merely started.
Honest limits
This tool tracks one project on one device. It does not assign tasks to people, set deadlines, send reminders, or sync with collaborators, because it has no server or accounts. Clearing browser data erases the board, so keep a backup note of critical milestones elsewhere. If your project needs shared tracking across a team, use a shared tool; this one is for personal clarity.
Practical tips
Pair the board with a weekly review on the same day, and write the week’s single most important milestone on paper as well. Digital boards are easy to ignore; a paper note on a desk is not. Archive finished projects by copying the done list into your project records before clearing the board, so the history of what was achieved is not lost.
When a project stalls
Every long project stalls at least once, and the board usually shows why before you feel it: the doing column fills up, nothing reaches done, and new items keep arriving in to do. When that happens, stop adding work and hold a short review with yourself or your team. Ask three questions: which item, if finished this week, would unblock the most other work; which items can be dropped or postponed without harming the goal; and what help or decision is missing. Answering those three questions honestly, then acting on the answers, restarts more projects than any new tool or method ever will.
Related tools
Spanish version: Rastreador de Hitos de Proyectos de Investigación Gratis y Online · All free online tools.
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