For side projects I don't bother with tickets, but keep a plain markdown journal with todo lists. Every project directory (that contains the git repo) will also have a "meta" subdirectory that contains journal/logs/notes, and that folder name is prefixed with `_` so it's at the top.

Writing a project journal might seem onerous to some people, but if you get into a habit of writing, it gets easier. Eventually the cognitive load becomes trivial. And it's so valuable when you're returning to a project that you dropped for a year.

I started a daily journal writing habit a long time ago (~15 yrs), and it has evolved a lot since then. Specifically, now I write a work journal for every dayjob, and an individual one for each side project. My system has gotten more complex over time, so there are other notes files, but basically you just have to get into the habit and evolve your own system that makes sense to you as you go.

I probably shouldn't even mention this because it sounds crazy, but another thing that really helps me is that I arrange my source code based on each major feature, with scripts that can assemble/build/test the app at that stage. For example, it's nice to be able to get a version of the app that has no user accounts, and another version with account authentication. Yes, you could rely on `git checkout <hash>` to go back to an earlier stage of development in the code base, but that doesn't include subsequent iterations+refactoring that you might have done for that feature. Well, I'm not recommending that you do this, so I'm not going to say any more.

I just keep a kanban board in Trello with lanes for:

Backlog, TODO, In Progress, In Review, Done

Good for keeping notes on issues, attaching files, etc

Test automation.

You can have an idea of your actual progress by the quantity and diversity of tests in your test list. This is how I used to do it.

simple todo list

completed, in progress, planned, under review.

then a separate table for high level coverage checklist.

What sorts of projects OP? Can you give details?

I tend to write scripts for things that through off my flow state in the past -- generating a secure passphrase, changing my MAC address, running a series of perfectly legal nmap scans, spitting out the list of wordpress usernames on a blog of dubious origins, quickly decoding simple ciphers like ROT13 (or rot... whatever) and a few others I won't list out in public.

The "project" is never the code, in an app sense, but more... speeding up OSINT, for lack of a better phrasing. Getting things to a point where if they haven't patched, it's more of a moral decision: do I want to go into your computer?

Do I want to everything but cross that line?

And if so, how do I walk right up to it as quickly as possible without getting... throttled.

So for me, it's about what I want to know, and what the barriers other than the law are to getting it.

Your methods may vary. (No pun intended.)

So uh... IMHO, keep a dot ODS spreadsheet or text document, with a strong password or passphrase, and journal / data keep in there.

Libreoffice uses strong encryption, so on computers like MacOS it's easier to install and use than Veracrypt, which needs FUSE. You can do fun hacks like make the password a hash of a few words or a serial number, designed to be forgotten if lost or ununused. Fail safe, fail stupid is my motton :-)