131–140 of 481 posts
Picking a tool to solve a problem is the opposite approach to how you solve the problem. You instead need to define the problem and then find the tool which is the best fit. If you're frustrated with the tool, then you might need to put more thought into the problem.
Personally I find Apple Notes the most convenient for quick jotting down of ideas etc. It’s not the most advanced in terms of features but it loads instantly, is quick to use and is available on all of my devices. Have tried numerous alternatives but they’ve never stuck e.g. they’re slow to start up or are fussy to use or don’t work well on one platform. For deeper sketching out of ideas, diagrams etc I really like C…
How do you backup Apple Notes? The PDF export loses fidelity. I really like AN for the integrated camera, esp the document scanner. Is there another application that allows for writing as well as annotating media, video, photos and sound?
I don't use the document scanner tho :(
In fact original EverNote implementation (EverNote 2.0) used physical notebook metaphor. Notes appeared as an "endless tape": https://www.phonearena.com/news/Two-thirds-of-app-users-in-U... I think we (initial EverNote dev team [1]) were first who came up with reasonable virtual list implementation for notes. The metaphor of notes tape (a.k.a. "writing notes down") was quite natural for most of people, that's why Eve…
My theory about handwritten note-taking is that the bandwidth difference between thinking (fast) and writing (slow) is somehow extremely beneficial to the process of generating creative and evocative output. There have been so many journaling sessions which I started with the absolute conviction that I had nothing new to say, and after 4 pages of extremely creative and detailed ideas, surprising even to me , I had no…
My best software designs happen when I'm taking notes on paper, and I think it's largely what you say - I can't write as fast as I can think, which more or less forces me to think more carefully.
The founder of You Need a Budget makes a similar argument about budgeting and not spending on credit - the financial limits encourage you to manage your entire lifestyle more creatively.
It's often observed that small, scrappy, hungry companies tend to come up with more creative solutions than large, well-capitalized corporations, and even observed that formerly small and creative startups seem to lose that spark as the money rolls in.
There's that section in The Odyssey with the island of the lotus-eaters.
Speaking of poetry, I suspect that many poets would say that their creativity is enhanced by working within the limits imposed by a poetic form.
I've tried many different systems, and the one I settled on is a single simple doc. It's the only method I've used for over a year. You can do google doc or office doc, but the key for me was having one doc that I just keep prepending to. Each day i'll add the date yyyy-mm-dd (dow) in bold and then list my work for the day... I use hyperlinks to dedicated docs or online guides for more involved projects (quick ctrl-k…
I do need a better way to view and report my data though, so what I've done is write a read-only reporting GUI that can parse my text file, give me daily/weekly/per-task/per-client reporting on my time tracking, per-day views of any journal entries, and a TODO list. It can even export the current week's entries in a format that pastes into my invoice spreadsheet template.
This is all managed in a per-year text file, 2020.txt, that's easy to back up and could be version controlled if I needed to do that.
For had written notes, sketches, Daily journal & learning (graph paper with straight lines and snapping) - Write by Stylus Labs, works on iPad, Android, Window, etc. Files in svg/svgz. App opens nearly instant.
Joplin for Tasks, Notes, recipes, web clippings. Markdown with proprietary indexed folders, but easy import/export. Local storage on my phone, so instant access to my information with search.
QOwnnotes for long form, journal, blog entries. Markdown in regular file structure. For iPad I use Writemator.
Nebo has great handwriting/math/schematic recognition and I can export as recognized text to Evernote. That way both the original handwriting and the text are stored in two different places.