I need another app. Something simpler, something that I can access anywhere. Something to manage my to-do’s. Also need to get my notes sorted, lists etc etc. So I started looking. Maybe Wunderlist, maybe a return to Remember the Milk but nothing seemed to stick. I then read that Apple were doing a promotion on productivity app’s. Maybe I should try Things now that they’ve got cloud syncing sorted?
Bollocks. Total and utter bollocks.
Instead of, you know, actually doing stuff with the app’s I’ve got I’m pissing around procrastinating. It’s a trap I’ve fell into before and it’s easily done. Mess around looking for a better tool rather than using what I’ve got. Or stopping to use duplicate app’s and settling down on a few core tools.
So Omnifocus will be used for to-do management. It’s iPad app is far better than the Mac client but version 2 is coming soon (and if you are interested in giving it a try there’s a temporary licence available from Omni while waiting for version 2). As for read it later services, Pocket is now my only app. More versatile than Instapaper and available everywhere. Pinboard has become my link saver of choice. Clean and fast and again there are clients on all platforms plus the web. Finally Evernote is for everything else. PDF’s, manuals, guide’s, recipes, audio notes, web pages, scans…the list is endless and I’m making full use of my premium account.
While I’ll still take a passing interest in similar tools I’ll spend more time being productive rather than shifting from app to app. As a certain Raven Storm used to say, focus…or was it concentrate!
Evernote – check.
Pinboard – check.
I’ve gone for Any.Do for To Do lists, I like simple things (and the app/UI is sooo pretty!), the GMail integration, and Chrome extension are excellent, so much so that I don’t actually miss a web interface (usually one of my must haves for when I want to do some heavy task management). It still doesn’t have repeating tasks but that is on the list..
Can I ask about Pocket? I’m still on Instapaper as I mostly use it for ‘long reads’, and the app is more than sufficient for that. Can other reasons you’ve moved to Pocket?
I was using Instapaper for long reads and it is great, but I was also dumping video and audio to it. It had become my catchup tool and it wasn’t great with either of the two formats. Pocket was much better at handling video and with it being an app everywhere it made more sense to switch. There’s not much between them to be honest and if Pocket hadn’t gone free then I’d never have tried it and stuck with Instapaper.
I did try Any.Do but it just didn’t click.