My Everyday Apps
I’m an author but I do a lot of work on other types of projects as well such as book marketing and informal teaching (mostly on my Youtube channel). As a consequence, I use a lot of apps and I constantly check out new ones to see if they can improve my work processes. So this article replaces any of my previous articles on the same topic. Like this one.
My newest apps:
Walling is my new productivity app. I like the simplicity of it and the ease of using it.
Breveto is another new app and I use it to write articles. I wrote this article using that app. This app is sort of undergoing a trial, but I like it.
Freeform: this is Apple’s new whiteboard app and I absolutely love it. I use it on my iPad with the pencil to explore possibilities for new ideas and projects. I rarely use (or open) the app on my laptop.
My old standbys:
Scrivener: What can I say? I’ve used this apps for years and I still use it for large writing projects. I also use it as a container for published articles. I paste a copy of the article into a Scrivener file dedicated to that purpose. I also add the publication history to the file. I use another dedicated Scrivener for short stories.
Keynote: This presentation app is a good solid app that keeps adding features and is interchangeable with Powerpoint.
Simplemind: Is an old mind-mapping program that I’ve started reusing. I like a lot of the features that it has and I use it frequently to expand on my Freeform scribblings.
Gemsnotes: my go-to app for collecting notes.
Websites:
Canva: The graphics program is great (IMHO). I use it quite a lot to make banners (such as the one for this article)
Padlet: This site is one that allows a user to stretch his creative juices to the maximum.
Medium: A standby site for publishing articles.
Substack: I use this site to publish my newsletter.
A work flow that I use a lot goes like this.
1) I get a new idea
2) Open a new Freeform page on my iPad
3) Scribble, scribble, scribble
4) Expand and organize my scribblings with Simplemind.
5)Transfer mind-map notes into a new Padlet.
As an example of this workflow, here is a screenshot of my scribblings from a recent project called authorship.
This link will take you to the ultimate result of this process.
What’s next?
How long will this list remain current? Who knows? By mid-summer, there could be substantial changes to the list. If so, I’ll write a new article.