My favorite apps & tools for notetaking, work & music

Why make this list?

  1. I love lists.
  2. I recently found a baseline for how I use tech and tools in my lifestyle, and I thought it would be worth a share to document my current setup.
  3. Finding the right apps has taken me years to find.

Workflowy - Bullet point mania for Goals and Projects

For brain dumps and expanding ideas. I usually make lists so bullet points and expanding each bullet point within the list makes this software so intuitive and very simple to use.

Google Keep - For ideas on the go

The simplicity in starting a new note within Google Keep makes it so inviting to store ideas here. I have tried to input my quick ideas in other note-taking apps, but the fact that Keep shows you a LOT of the preview of each note makes it a clear winner for me. Also, the cross-platform aspect is great to access your Keep from everywhere.

Readwise - to review highlights from books

I love reading on my kindle and using the kindle app on my devices. And when I heard you can review your highlights in one central app and review them daily with random ones? I signed up. It's been just over a month I'm using Readwise and I love it. Reviewing previous highlights reminds me of the golden nuggets found during my reading. Getting a refresher on those nuggets is great to reinforce my learnings.

Sign up to Readwise here and sync your highlights to get an extra free month.

Physical notebooks - to journal by hand

Nothing beats writing by hand. When writing pen on paper, for some reason, I think of each word slowly and articulate myself somehow so much better than typing onto a screen. Even if i journal via a keyboard, I still have a residual urge to journal by hand. I don't know exactly what it is, but writing by hand is essential for me. Even if I skip a few days of physical journalling, the urge grows exponentially and then i have to sit at a desk and just write for 20-30 minutes to dump out everything thats' been going on. It's therapeutic I guess. And it clarifies a lot of things that are going on in my life. I also do a lot of problem solving this way. I highly recommend it.

My recommended physical notebooks are the thin Hilroy / Staples Exercise books. (these were the ones I've used since high school). From all the notebooks I've purchased and tested over the years, nothing compared to that feeling of writing in these exercise books with a blue ballpoint pen. For me, I've come to accept that this is the place for my mind to roam free and explore ideas.

I hope you find your own favourite setup with your physical journalling. It is a gamechanger and makes the entire experience of writing by hand just so much better.

Agenda - for journalling by date

I've tried to journal with Google Docs, Nimbus, Evernote, Simpenote, Obsidian... but they all lacked that time-based organization I didn't know I was looking for. I wanted to see the journal entries by date. And the way that the Agenda app displays them is pretty solid. This is one of the latest apps that I've used. So it's still early to tell if I will stick by this, but for the time being, it is an excellent way if you wanted to journal daily, and see your entries and sort them by date, and you can just go to a random date on the calendar and see the notes you've made on that specific day. That's a great feature so far.

TickTick - for tracking habits and daily tasks

I used to love using the Loops Habit Tracker on Android when I had my Pixel 2. But as I switched to the iPhone 12 in the last year, I struggled to find an equivalent on iOS. Until I found that I can track habits with TickTick. (It also comes in handy for daily tasks.) You can track a few habits at once on their free plan and I think it's good enough. You don't need to track multiple habits when you start off anyway. (from my experience, doing 3+ more habits at once makes you stick to none of them...) I'm sure there are people who can, but likely rare in my opinion.

Anyway, the habit tracker allows you to track your monthly check-in rate, which days on the calendar that you've ticked off your habit, total check-ins, best streak, current streak... I think its more than enough for what I need it for.

Ex of my tracked habits: Kettlebell practice and meditation sessions.

Brain.FM -- for meditation + focus music

I didn't know this was a thing. But several years ago, I heard about listening to focus music while working to put your mind into a zone of concentration. I wasn't sure if that was a myth or not, but the more I did that, the more I loved doing it. Typically, I listen to instrumental music anyway, so the focus music from Brain.FM was not that big of a change for me. Except that I knew it was generated by AI and included certain frequencies to help my brain somehow. Not sure how the science works on this one, but I do love using brain.fm for meditation and for focus music for work.

Get 1 free month when you join Brain.FM here

Spotify -- for music.

I used to download music and sync them to my iTunes... but not anymore. Having it all on spotify simplifies the process of looking for new music (the discover weekly feature is amazing - I've found several excellent artists through it already.) Also I love having the music in my pocket at all times.

Youtube Premium-- for ad-free music and videos.

I listen to music while i work and love not having to skip ads. I watch more youtube than Netflix or anything else, so I find this invaluable to have.

Kindle Paperwhite - For reading anytime.

The Kindle makes it so easy to read books. I highly recommend getting one. Getting new books is a breeze via Amazon and they are often at good pricing anyway. Saves you trips to the book store and the battery on the Kindle lasts you weeks! One trick I love to do with my kindle is flipping the page horizontally to get a better grip on my Kindle Paperwhite

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More tools to be added to this list in the future.

Over to you:

Which of these have you used before? Are you going to try out some that you haven't? What did you find useful about this post? Anything you'd add or remove?

Please let me know below :)

Leon