I use two things for personal tasks:
- A paper list where I jot down tasks throughout the day as a way to plan out what to do in a day and add things that I need to remember to finish. Love it because by writing things down I'm more likely to remember them, and plus it's nice to have a non-digital part of a tech workflow. Problem is being paper, if you don't take it with you you don't have your tasks, something I sometimes solve by snapping photos of paper notes.
- Then, I use Things to keep track of all my personal tasks, especially stuff I need reminded about like bills and paperwork deadlines. Team tasks we track in Notion but then I schedule them in Things too for reminders. It costs $9.99 on iPhone, $49.99 on Mac, but is a one-time purchase which is nice. I love its design and that it just makes it quick and easy to track tasks. Wish it had a full API to integrate better, but you can do quite a lot with its "email tasks to Things" tool.
I just recently got an iPad with a Pencil and yes ... starting to use it especially to brainstorm ideas, take notes in meetings, and so on. It's way improved over older iPads that weren't designed for stylii; I'd had an older iPad and the FiftyThree Pencil which felt more like a too-soft marker, and that never really worked for handwriting.
Was going to ask what writing app you like but hey ... might as well push that into a new thread :D
New thread's a good idea but I've just been toying with Notability and it seems solid. Also a mention for Liquidtext as a great PDF markup and research tool. Great implementation and unique in many ways. iPad only though.
I tried bunch of them, but almost all of those are either too complicated in general or too limited in free tier. So, might just build one. :P
Avocation is very pretty. Loop is a decent one.
I quite like Habitify. Does the job nicely without overdoing it and has a Mac app.
I use a mix of iPhone notes, Trello, and Evernote. I have notes spread out everywhere lol
What is the tool name
Notion - https://www.notion.so/
What do you like about it?
It's incredibly flexible. I mainly use it for taking notes and writing documentation, but it can do everything you need. Check out https://www.notion.so/personal
What do you hate about it?
It's built on Electron, so it can be a bit sluggish at times and it also doesn't have great offline support.
How much do you pay every month for the tool?
$4/mo USD
Notion is actually amazing. I use it for bookmarking links mainly.
It might be great for productivity, but it doesn't tell me anything about progress, streaks. Can't set reminders.
Notion does have reminders, though they're a bit hidden. Here's how to get reminded about Notion notes, from a little tutorial I'd written up a while back.
That's nice. Notion is crazy powerful. It will be fun to see the evolution of Notion and Roam. I think this free personal pro by Notion is done as a moat against Roam.
Anything that is actionable and only affects me is going into Things. If there’s detailed info related to a project or task I add it as links, e.g. to Notion, Bear or Loom.
I’m experimenting with the following areas in things to structure projects.
I’m employed and amidst switching jobs, and I run a freelance business on the side, that’s why the two employer stacks as well as my own client projects.
I try to stick to the areas (first level). Projects inside areas (second level) can change be both temporary or ongoing.
- Home & Family
- Kids
- Flat
- Car
- Play
- Learn
- Loose Threads
- Work
- Old employer
- New Employer
- Paperwork
- Clients
- Client 1
- Client 2
Tasks I need to share with my wife are handled in Todoist due to Things not being capable of that. Can’t say like it a lot, but it works.
how come you created this branch like structure to organize yourself?
Honestly I like to keep it simple and just use a tracker in excel. I keep adding to the list and just mark things off as they're getting completed and mark different colors for urgent vs medium term. Have separate tracker for long-term projects.
Notepad is nice, but it doesn't tell me anything about progress, streaks. Doesn't send me reminders etc.
What is the tool name?
Basecamp 3
What do you like about it?
Gives me a unified place to manage clients, side projects, and my own "HQ" check-ins. I also like email forwarding. It gives me a secondary mechanism to remind myself of important things.
What do you hate about it?
This is nitpicky, but I find the fact that I have to download PDFs to preview anything past the first page a little inconvenient.
How much do you pay every month for the tool?
$99/month
Wow. $99 is pretty steep. Still, basecamp is amazing. Huge respect for the company, culture and Jason.
RT sits on the back your desktop and track your work/life balance in a daily/weekly/monthly(/yearly!) report. Same if you want to track your mobile behavior with RT app, here.
It's such a game changer, as it's "fit bit" my digital life, and I have full control tuning it (best UI ever). I love the actionable insights I get from RT and also to learn how much productive I am today, last week, or a month before.
And If you go "RT premium", you can add your mobile apps data (Calendar, Slack, and Hundreds More!) and set goals and even "block sites to be more focused". Yup, they are THAT good!
How much do you pay every month for the tool? FREE. RT Premium is $9/mon or $72 if you pay for all year subscription. Highly recommend this. Also a good lesson in Dash-boarding. They have the best UX Design I saw in SaaS dash-boarding. Might worth you to have a look inside (and test it out for a better healthier work/life balance).
Basecamp-3 and Asana for task/project management, along with outlook calendar.
for personal notes.. i like google tasks
9 times out of 10 I'm using Bear or TextEdit on my desktop, but I've started checking out Sunsama after seeing a tweet from @merci.
It's still evolving, but it does feel nice to have a rolling board where I can move tasks around and keep my lists without it feeling like I'm inside someone else's kanban board. And because it's organized by day, I never feel like my organization system is at risk of falling apart.
I use monday.com as my personal productivity tool; it works across multiple platforms, is scalable from personal use to large teams, and has an intuitive and attractive interface. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but a lack of dark mode support for mobile devices is a problem.
The tool was free when I was using it for personal use, but now costs £104(~$127)/mo/seat as I’m using it for work too.
Is that price per person, or for the whole team?
Clear on iphone for most notes initially. I find that to be the easiest way to get them down. Later on I will move them to Trello, Twitter Drafts, or Jira depending on their context. I also add notes via apple watch while running and listening to podcasts and audio books.
I use Quantime! (www.quantime.ai) - it tracks your daliy tasks, completion rate, speed, and organizes your days for you in the most efficient, productive way!
How well does its automated scheduling work? Do you have to guestimate how long each task will take for it to plan stuff for you?
Seems like that could be hugely valuable if done well!
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Nice approach 👍🏼 I find writing anything with pen and paper to be somewhat therapeutic and fun. It's just impractical in the digital age when you want to search for things.
Have you tried using the ipad with apple pencil? I just got them and optimistic that somehow someday it will replicate the pen/paper feel.