I have a folder of half-built side projects. Most of them died the same way: a new idea showed up, it felt more exciting than the one I was building, and I switched.

So I made a Notion template that gets in the way of that habit. It's called the Side Project Tracker.

How it works

The idea is simple. New ideas go in a list and wait there. One project gets built. When it's ready, it gets a proper launch, and you can see what it earned.

Everything lives on one Home page: what you're shipping, this week's tasks, open launch items, your idea inbox, revenue, and recent check-ins.

What's in it

  • Ideas: a place to park an idea instead of starting it. Each one gets a problem, who it's for, an excitement score (1 to 5), an effort size (S/M/L) and a 5-point validation check.
  • Projects: pitch, status, next action, target ship date, stack, repo and live links. Open tasks, launch progress, days left and revenue to date are calculated for you.
  • Tasks: a plain build board. Backlog, This week, Doing, Done.
  • Launch checklist: 28 launch steps split into pre-launch, launch day and post-launch, covering things like Show HN, Reddit, X/Bluesky, dev.to, newsletters and Product Hunt. You copy it onto a project when it's ready to go out.
  • Revenue log: payouts, sales and sponsorships per project.
  • Weekly check-ins, plus a Start here guide.

It comes with two made-up example projects so it isn't empty the first time you open it. Start here shows how to clear them out in about two minutes.

The weekly habit

The part that actually helps is a 10-minute check-in once a week:

  1. Write what shipped, what's blocked, and what's next.
  2. Move finished tasks to Done and pick 3 to 5 tasks for this week.
  3. Update the project's next action and target ship date.
  4. Put any new idea in Ideas. Don't start it.

That last step is the whole point for me.

Good to know

It works on Notion's free plan, on web, desktop and mobile (setup is easier on a computer). There's no method to learn and nothing to connect. Amounts are in US dollars, and you can change the currency in a couple of clicks.

Get it

It's $17 on Gumroad: Side Project Tracker for Developers

License: personal use, including your own commercial projects. Please don't resell or share the template itself. Notion is a product of Notion Labs, Inc., which isn't affiliated with this template.

It's one of the templates I make at ProductivityForge, part of Engel AI Labs.