I've tried project management tools but ultimately it was a recipe for disaster for someone like myself. I've put together nicely organized task lists only to drop the whole project because honestly it becomes overwhelming to see a list of everything that needs to be done. Which is really odd because I'm an organized and "live by the list" kind of person. But usually my lists in everyday life tend to be stuff I can get done in a day or two.

However, for a game jam I participated in, instead of writing everything down that needed to be done I just wrote down everything in the chunk of time I was going to do work. This was a longer game jam so I wrote a short daily task list using Windows sticky notes and it did wonders for me.

With that said, does anyone know of any project management tools where you kind of "unlock" tasks as you go? For example, a tree where finishing one node in the tree and it reveals more nodes to do. That way I can abstract out the large picture and focus on what needs to be done now and also save time by not having to come up with a short task list everyday.

Maybe Trello does this already? I haven't gotten the chance to use that one yet.