What tools do you use for tracking side projects/ideas?

I use Real Time Board. It's flexible, fast and I like using sticky notes. I can drop in screenshots and links and do easy mind mapping / affinity diagrams for brainstorming. Free for a couple of boards https://realtimeboard.com

https://notion.so

I use a notebook and Trello.

First, in the middle of the night, supermarket cue, flight etc. - I get an idea and briefly describe it in the notebook that I bring everywhere with myself.

Then, when I get internet, coffee and a bit of time, I put it as a task on my "startup ideas" Trello board, that contains 5 lists:

1. Ideas
2. Promissing
3. Building
4. Ongoing
5. Fail

In each task/idea, I add other valuable links, descriptions, visuals, etc.

Workflowy!

asana. Trello is ok but hard to manage a lot. I just left my startup (still operating but after pivot I didn't enjoy the work as much). Keeping list of ideas and notes in asana. After 2 months I've got 15 or so but none I am super interested in yet

I keep it pretty lightweight and just use Trello to track my ideas. I try to give each idea an "interest level" I have and use that to prioritize which ones I start working on. Which usually means which ones I start to validate.

Evernote

Hmm, let's try with this:

Productivity: Infinity (https://startinfinity.com)

Networking: LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com)

Outsource: Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/)

Communication: Slack (https://slack.com/)

Website builder: UCraft (https://www.ucraft.com/)

SEO: Ahrefs (https://ahrefs.com/)

I've been using workflowy for years. I find it super low friction and my brain just likes the way the bullet points toggle and zoom.

That said the lack of images and attachment is driving me to leave.

I found dynalist which will definitely replace my workflowy usage.. But before I jump to that ship I'm trialling notion.so. it has toggle lists which are similar (though not as low friction) as workflowy. But it also has so much more than I want to experiment with such as relational tables, embeddable pages, etc.

Literally in the midst of trialling at moment

Thanks for all the suggestions...really helpful.

I've working through each of them, but so far my favourite has been notion.so (perfect for my needs).

Here is my first board for product mgt/dev as an example:

https://www.notion.so/bdbcd9082c484c17958b6f70c60ce524?v=86ffe14c37da42ffa21b9d83880bcd3a

I use Notion for my journaling and try to write 3 side project/startup ideas a day. I go through them at the end of the month and pull the ones I still like into another page and flesh them out more. Then I go through whenever I’m looking for a project to start and pull the idea I pick into a new page and flesh out an implementation plan.

NB - shameless plug ahead...

For me, adding an idea in Trello also adds a psychological weight - creating a card means that I have to manage it! Trello can be great for tracking tasks, but a lot of my ideas are freeform, iterative and can be fleeting. I assume in the case of sharing ideas it would be more appropriate, because with more than one person you have to present things so you can come to a consensus.

Since I started working on SqrNut, I tend to use it to track my ideas. What I'll do is create a log entry and mark it with a 💡 emoji and tag it (e.g. #SqrNut). If it's a super great idea, I'll add a ⭐️ too. When I want to review my ideas, I'll just search for "#SqrNut 💡" or "#SqrNut 💡 ⭐️" (and if I'm looking for something further back in the past, I'll add some keywords too). In this way, my ideas become a stream of data. There's not really anything to manage, it's just a record of what I was thinking at the time.

Now that I think about it, you could probably do the same thing in Twitter - except Twitter is public.

If I want to flesh out an idea in more detail, I'll do that in Dropbox Paper - where I can create a document with all the bells and whistles. I'll then link back to that from my log entry

For tracking my work (post idea), I'll use the issue tracker and/or project board in GitHub or GitLab (depending on where the project lives). The features in GitHub/GitLab are another reason why I don't go back to Trello. I'll either formalise requirements inside the issue and/or I'll link to the Dropbox Paper document (if it exists)

A combination of:

• Notepad++ (Windows)
• Notes (iOS)
• Google Sheets

Used to use Evernote, but I found their UX changes a turn off.
OneNote is good as well. But I prefer the low-fidelity of Notes on iOS, and you can still organize via labels.

I've tried a lot of different apps, but I always end up back at the same place: simple text files.

I downloaded iAWriter for my phone and use it to keep track of my todos, thoughts, and ideas.

It's just versatile enough to do what it needs, and nothing more.

Google sheets = mass list.
Google sheets = start into details.
Pen+Paper (a nice grid notebook) = brainstorm + design-related work.
Gitlab/Github (projects/milestones/issues) = tech work.

For random ideas/problems I see, I just stick them in a notes file.

As far as tracking projects, I have a blog post I'm keeping up to date which commits me to projects I'm working on, projects I'm not working on, and ideas I'd like to work on but don't have time to...

I used to use notebooks, voice memos, iOS notes, google docs, and Trello

Now my main tool is Clubhouse (A more measurable Trello), which has a site and an app. Now I use iOS notes only for Speech to Text if I’m driving or have a loose thought. Otherwise it takes just a second long to fire up the Clubhouse app and add a user story.
In my downtime at night I go through my notes and make new User Stories out of them. I still keep a Google Doc or two per project to keep marketing pitches and such sometimes, but less and less. No more notebooks unless I need to be non-digital for awhile. I do UI mockups in Adobe XR now

I send an email to myself with the subject line prefixed with "idea: "