You have three side projects. One is a Shopify store you're building on weekends. One is a newsletter you've been meaning to send for six weeks. One is a mobile app prototype that exists mostly in your head and a sticky note on your monitor. Sound familiar? The problem isn't motivation — it's that every project lives in a different app, tab, notebook, or voice memo, and switching between them costs you ten minutes every single time.
Managing multiple side projects well is less about discipline and more about reducing the cost of context-switching. When picking up a project takes effort, you avoid picking it up. The right system makes returning to any project effortless — you open it, you see exactly where you are, and you get moving. This guide breaks down what that system actually needs to do, and why a visual sticky-note approach handles side-project chaos better than a traditional task manager ever will.
What to Look for in a Side-Project Tracking System
Before recommending any specific tool, it's worth being clear about what a side-project tracker actually needs to do — because most people evaluate the wrong things. A side project is fundamentally different from a day job: the time blocks are irregular, the team is usually one or two people, and the biggest enemy is forgetting where you left off. With that in mind, three criteria actually matter.
1. Low friction to re-enter context. If opening a project means digging through nested folders, scrolling through a long flat task list, or remembering which view you were last in, you'll put it off. The best systems surface everything about a project at a glance — status, next action, recent notes, and any files you need — the moment you open it. Visual boards with sticky-note-style cards tend to win here because spatial memory is real: you remember where things are on a board the same way you remember where things are on a physical desk.
2. Capture speed. Side-project ideas arrive at inconvenient moments — during your commute, in the middle of your day job, at 11pm. A system that requires you to navigate to the right project, create a task, assign it a due date, and choose a category before you can capture a thought will lose ideas constantly. You need to get something out of your head in under five seconds and trust you can organize it later.
3. Just enough structure, no more. A freelancer running three side projects does not need Gantt charts, sprint planning, or 14 custom fields per task. Those features add cognitive overhead without adding value at this scale. The ideal system has enough structure to keep things from becoming a pile of random notes — clear project separation, due dates or reminders, and some way to attach a file or screenshot — but stays out of your way the rest of the time.
Why Sticky Notes Beat Traditional Task Lists for Side Projects
Traditional task managers are optimized for teams running long-horizon projects with clear hierarchies. That's useful if you're a product manager at a company. It's overkill — and actually counterproductive — if you're one person trying to remember that you need to finish writing the FAQ section for your Shopify store before Saturday.
Sticky notes work for side projects for a specific reason: they mirror how your brain actually stores work-in-progress. A sticky note is a snapshot — it holds the thought, the context, and the next action all in one card. On a visual board, you can lay out your three projects side by side and see their current states without clicking into anything. That visual overview is what makes re-entry fast.
The other advantage is that sticky notes scale down gracefully. A to-do list with four items in it looks empty and discouraging. A sticky note with four items on it looks like a focused sprint. Psychologically, that matters. Side projects need momentum more than they need process, and a system that looks manageable keeps you coming back.
What you want is a sticky-note system that adds the one thing physical stickies can't give you: reminders that fire when you need them, files attached right to the note so you're not hunting through Google Drive, and sync so your notes are there whether you're on your laptop or your phone's browser.
How TaskLoco Keeps Multiple Side Projects Separated and Moving
TaskLoco is built around the sticky note as the atomic unit of work. Every note lives on a visual wall — a board you design yourself, organized however your brain works. Running three side projects? Give each one its own section of the wall, or its own wall entirely. The moment you open the app, every project's current state is visible at a spatial glance. You're not hunting. You're not clicking through menus. You're just looking.
The capture experience is built for exactly the kind of moments side-project ideas arrive. Open a note, type the thought, close it. No required fields, no category selection, no date assignment unless you want one. If you're browsing the web and find a reference you want to save for one of your projects, the Chrome extension captures the page in one click and drops it as a note on your board. That's the difference between capturing 90% of your ideas and capturing 40% of them.
When you're ready to actually work, each note in Premium can hold file attachments — mockups, spreadsheets, voice memos, PDFs — up to 10GB of storage included. Your project's context lives inside the note itself, not linked out to three other apps. And when you set a deadline or a follow-up, the reminder fires as a push notification directly to your phone and computer, deep-linking straight back to the note so you land in context, not at a home screen. Optional email and SMS channels are available if you want additional coverage.
The calendar view gives you a timeline across all your projects at once — handy when a newsletter deadline and an app launch are both converging on the same week. And team sharing works exactly like sending an email: share a note with a collaborator and they can clone it and make it their own, with no permissions to configure and no access levels to manage. Every team member needs their own Premium subscription, which keeps the billing simple and individual.
The Capture Habit: Saving Ideas Before They Disappear
The most expensive side-project mistake isn't bad execution — it's lost ideas. The insight you had in the shower, the competitive research you bookmarked at lunch, the UI tweak you thought of while waiting for coffee. If your capture system has any friction at all, those ideas evaporate. And ideas are the raw material of every side project.
TaskLoco has two free entry points designed for fast capture. TaskLoco Lite is the native iPhone and Android app — completely anonymous, no sign-in, no account required. It stores up to 20 notes locally on your device in a JSON file. It never syncs and doesn't require internet. It's ideal as a pure capture device — jot the idea, come back to it later. Because there's no login step, it opens faster than any app that requires authentication.
Once you're ready to organize and act on what you've captured, TaskLoco Lite Plus+ adds Google sign-in, sync across all your devices, up to 30 notes, and the Chrome extension for one-click webpage capture — all free. Lite Plus+ runs as a web app, accessible from any browser including your phone's.
When your side projects grow past 30 notes — and they will — TaskLoco Premium removes the cap entirely. Unlimited notes means you can capture everything without managing a quota. Your capture habit doesn't have to change; the ceiling just disappears.
The Chrome extension deserves special mention for researchers and builders. Every time you find a competitor's landing page, a design reference, a library you want to try, or an article to read later, one click saves it as a note with the URL, the page title, and any text you've highlighted. It's the kind of frictionless capture that keeps a project's research base actually growing instead of dying in a forgotten bookmarks folder.
TaskLoco Premium is regularly $9.99/month per person. Right now, charter members can lock in 50% off the regular price — forever. That means $4.99/month per person today. And if our price ever goes up, you still pay half. Always.
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- Web app + Chrome extension
- Sign in with Google
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Frequently Asked Questions
What's the best way to organize multiple side projects in one app?
Keep each side project spatially separate — either different sections of a visual board or separate boards entirely. The goal is that opening the app and seeing your project's current state takes zero navigation. Sticky-note boards work better than flat task lists here because you can see multiple projects at a glance and your spatial memory helps you find things faster. TaskLoco's wall view lets you lay out your projects side by side and reorganize them freely as priorities shift.
How do I stop losing side-project ideas throughout the day?
Reduce capture friction to zero. The best capture system is the one you'll actually use in the moment the idea arrives — which means no login, no required fields, no multi-step process. TaskLoco Lite on iPhone and Android opens without any sign-in and lets you drop a note in seconds. The Chrome extension captures any webpage in one click for ideas that come while you're browsing. Both are free. The habit is: capture now, organize later.
Is TaskLoco free to use?
Yes — TaskLoco has two free tiers. TaskLoco Lite is the native iPhone and Android app: completely anonymous, no sign-in, stores up to 20 notes on your device. TaskLoco Lite Plus+ is the web app and Chrome extension: free with Google sign-in, up to 30 notes, synced across all your devices. When your projects grow past 30 notes or you need reminders, file attachments, calendar view, or team sharing, that's when TaskLoco Premium comes in. $9.99/month per person (currently $4.99/month per person for first 500 charter members with code CHARTER50)
Can I share a side project with a collaborator or contractor in TaskLoco?
Yes. TaskLoco Premium's team sharing works like sending an email — share a note and the recipient can clone it and make it their own. There are no permissions to configure, no access levels to manage, no admin overhead. It's designed to be as simple as possible so you're not spending time on collaboration setup when you should be building. Each collaborator needs their own Premium subscription.
How do reminders work in TaskLoco for side projects?
TaskLoco Premium reminders fire as push notifications to your phone and computer. The notification deep-links directly back to the original note, so you land in context — not at a home screen or a notification center with no idea what you were supposed to do. Optional email notifications and SMS add-ons are also available if you want additional channels. Reminders are a Premium feature and are not available on Lite or Lite Plus+.
What happens when I have more than 30 notes across my side projects?
TaskLoco Lite Plus+ caps at 30 notes. When you hit that ceiling — which happens quickly once you're actively capturing ideas, research, tasks, and files across multiple projects — TaskLoco Premium removes the limit entirely. Unlimited notes, unlimited tasks, unlimited calendar events, plus 10GB of file storage, reminders, and team sharing. $9.99/month per person (currently $4.99/month per person for first 500 charter members with code CHARTER50)
Does TaskLoco have a Chrome extension for capturing research?
Yes. The TaskLoco Chrome extension is free and available with Lite Plus+ and Premium. One click captures any webpage — including the URL, the page title, and any text you've selected — and saves it as a note on your board. For side projects where research is ongoing (competitors, design references, libraries, articles), this is the difference between a research base that actually grows and a bookmarks folder you never open again.
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TaskLoco is available on iPhone, Android, Chrome, and every web browser.