My OPC: One Person Company Implementation

In short

I run a one person company, so an idea only matters if it gets built and put in front of people to try.

A to-do list never held my ideas. Free Jira does, because it keeps the idea, the reason for it and the next step in one place.

Jira holds the business idea, GitHub issues hold the technical detail, and an AI harness reads both and does the building while I decide.

What I mean by OPC

A One Person Company is a business where one person does the thinking, the deciding and, more and more, the building, with AI agents as the hands. There is nobody to hand an idea to. So the system has to carry it.

A quick word on neurodiversity

Neurodiversity is the idea that people experience and interact with the world in many different ways, that there is no one right way to think, learn and behave, and that differences are not viewed as deficits. The sociologist Judy Singer coined the term in the 1990s (Harvard Health).

People often use neurotypical for a brain that works the way society tends to expect, and neurodivergent for a brain that works differently, for example in autistic people or people with ADHD.

ADHD involves trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors, or being overly active. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood (CDC). Autism is a developmental difference in the brain: autistic people may behave, communicate, interact and learn in ways that differ from most other people (CDC).

AuDHD is an informal word for autism and ADHD together. It is not the name of a diagnosis, but the two do overlap: the CDC lists autism among the most common conditions that occur alongside ADHD (CDC).

A plain note from me: I have not been diagnosed with any of these, and I am not a clinician. This is not medical advice. I recognize some of these patterns in myself, such as great ideas that come and go quickly, and more difficulty with carrying them out than with having them. If any of this sounds familiar, a healthcare provider is the right person to talk to. The CDC notes there is no single test for ADHD.

Why a to-do list never worked for me

My ideas arrive fast and leave just as fast. A to-do list is a list of verbs. It does not remember why I wanted something, what done looks like, or where I stopped.

So I ended up with sticky notes everywhere, and every note was one more thing asking for my focus. The list was good at capturing and bad at helping me do.

The real problem was never capture. It was execution: getting from a half-formed idea to something running that I could put in front of people and learn from.

How I capture an idea in Jira

One idea is one ticket. The title is the idea in a plain sentence. The description has two short lines: why it matters and what done looks like. Then I move on. The status, Open, In Progress or Done, remembers where the idea stands so I do not have to.

Jira holds the business side of the idea: why it is worth building, who it is for, and what I want to learn from the market. The technical detail does not go here.

Where GitHub issues come in

When an idea is worth building, I open one GitHub issue for it. The Jira key goes in the issue title, the Jira link goes in the body, and I link the issue back in Jira. The issue holds the spec, the decisions and the task checklist.

Jira and GitHub are not connected to each other in my setup. I link them by hand, which takes seconds and keeps me in charge of what goes where.

The AI harness is the hand that does the work

A harness is the program around an AI model that lets it read, use tools and make changes. I use tools like Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex or Antigravity as that entry point. It is the integration point: it reads the Jira ticket through a connector, reads and writes the GitHub issue, and edits the work itself.

I stay in the loop. The harness proposes, I approve each step, and I make the decisions.

Spec-driven development, in one paragraph

Before anything is built, the idea becomes a short written spec, then a plan, then small tasks. In between, the AI interviews me about the plan so the gaps show up early, while they are cheap to fix. Every step is small and written down.

Harvard Health's advice for neurodiversity-friendly workplaces includes giving concise written instructions and breaking tasks into small steps. That is close to what this process does for my own work.

A real example: this site's AI glossary

The AI glossary on this site began as one sentence in Jira. The details went into a GitHub issue, I agreed the decisions in a short interview, and an AI harness built the page and opened a pull request. In my case it went from idea to merged in a single day. Your pace will differ.

Why free Jira works even if you are not technical

Jira began as a tool for software teams, but today it is a general way to track work. Atlassian's pricing page lists board, backlog, list, timeline and calendar views, templates, custom fields and customizable workflows on its Free plan, for up to 10 users (see the notes below).

You do not need to be an engineer. A board with three columns and one card per idea is enough. It costs nothing to try, so the risk of starting is small.

Why this suits me, and what I cannot promise

These are my reasons, drawn from sources I trust. They are not guarantees, and they may not match your experience.

Attention and impulses. The CDC describes ADHD as involving trouble with attention and impulse control. Putting every idea in one place straight away means it does not have to compete for my attention, and the next step is written down so I do not hold it in my head.

Small, clear steps. Spec, plan and tasks turn a large idea into pieces I can start. Harvard Health suggests concise written instructions and small steps as a neurodiversity-friendly practice.

Designing around my mind. Harvard Health describes neurodiversity as differences, not deficits. So I built a system around how I work instead of trying to force a standard one onto me.

Where WRITITATION fits

The habit of capturing first, and thinking and deciding with AI rather than being decided by it, comes from my WRITITATION® practice. I teach the full workflow, with templates, to my CSE 642 students, including how it maps onto WRITITATION®.

Try this tonight

1. Create a free Jira site and one project with a simple board: Open, In Progress, Done.

2. Add one ticket. The title is one idea in one plain sentence. Do not organize it yet.

3. Add two short lines to the description: who or what it helps, and how you will know it worked.

4. Open an AI harness you already use and ask it to read the ticket and propose a short plan. You decide what happens next.

5. Write the outcome back in the ticket and move it along the board.

With thanks

Thank you to Joyce Zhao and Joshua for their book, When Brilliance Meets Challenge: A 2E Family's Awakening Journey. I had the privilege of hosting the book signing and panel discussion at the Los Altos Library, and I am grateful to the panel guests, Cindy, Lilian and Qing, for joining the conversation.

Notes

Jira Free details were checked on Atlassian's pricing page on October 28, 2026: up to 10 users on 1 site, 2 GB of file storage, 100 emails per day, 150 automation steps per subscription per month, and community support only. Atlassian says it reserves the right to deactivate Free sites due to inactivity. Plans, limits and policies can change, so check Atlassian's pages before you rely on them. I have not verified every Free-plan detail, so treat Atlassian's pages as the authority.

This essay is one person's experience, not medical advice, and I have not been diagnosed with ADHD or autism. Sources: Harvard Health, What is neurodiversity?; CDC, ADHD in Children; CDC, About Autism Spectrum Disorder; CDC, Other Concerns and Conditions with ADHD.

Product names belong to their owners, and I am not affiliated with them. WRITITATION® is a registered trademark (USPTO Reg. 99316519).