If you’re struggling to remain on prime of your duties or maintain observe of your notes, possibly what you want are some new instruments.

I’m all the time searching for higher methods to remain organized. When I discover a new app that sounds promising, I pit it towards my present instruments in a sport of survival of fittest, leaving solely those that work greatest for me.

These are at present the 5 companies I depend on essentially the most for note-taking, bookmarking, and activity administration. Most provide premium subscriptions, however their free tier maintain up properly for particular person customers. As we head into the brand new yr, maybe they’ll present simply the sort of recent inspiration you’re searching for.

Further studying: 18 work-from-home tech products that will level up your office

Tweek Calendar for each day reflection

Jared Newman / Foundry

Every weekday morning, my desktop pc routinely hundreds Tweek Calendar, a superbly easy app and web site for managing weekly duties. You can add new duties by typing on the clean strains, and you may transfer objects round by dragging and dropping.

A paid subscription provides Google Calendar sync, recurring duties, and subtasks, however I don’t want any of that. For me, Tweek isn’t a heavy-duty activity supervisor or full-blown Google Calendar alternative, however slightly a fast option to mirror on the remaining week. (This story I wrote for Fast Company describes how one can arrange the auto-loading part.)

Notion for deep notes

Jared Newman / Foundry

When I’m prepared to begin a activity in earnest, I’ll create a web page for it in Notion, which helps you to create freeform notes with their very own checklists, subpages, tables, and extra. Notion could be intimidating at first, however in the event you start with simple notes and expand outward, you’ll rapidly see how highly effective it may be.

The hub for all my written work is a web page known as “Jared’s Scratchpad.” From there, I’ve hyperlinks to subpages for my Advisorator and Cord Cutter Weekly newsletters, together with any freelance articles I’m engaged on. Each of these pages might need their very own subpages if additional group is critical. (One instance: When I’m interviewing individuals for a narrative, I’ll create separate pages for each supply, every with their very own transcriptions and highlighted quotes.)

Once I’m completed with a narrative, I file it away to my “Archive” folder, successfully clearing it off my to-do listing. This works higher for me than any devoted activity administration instrument, as a result of there’s no restrict on the sorts of notes I can create.

Google Keep for momentary objects

Jared Newman / Foundry

Notion’s largest weak spot is that it might really feel clunky for easy notes. When I simply must rapidly jot one thing down or dictate it by voice, I exploit Google Keep, whose reverse-chronological format lends itself to transient notes. It’s my go-to app for storing sudden flashes of inspiration, writing down group take-out orders, and avoiding Seinfeldian parking garage mishaps. (Apple Notes may scratch the same itch, however I like that Keep works simply as properly on Android units.)

My spouse and I additionally use Google Keep for our shared grocery listing. With its Google Assistant integration, we will ask any close by Google Home or Nest speaker so as to add an merchandise to the listing, normally proper after realizing we’ve run out of one thing.

Raindrop for bookmarks

Jared Newman / Foundry

For me, bookmarks exist in their very own class of notetaking, deserving of particular remedy. I exploit Raindrop.io to avoid wasting all of the tales I plan to learn and write about in my newsletters, submitting them away with both Raindrop’s browser bookmarklet or the share perform of its cellular apps. This turns into its personal sort of to-do listing, as I regularly delete objects from my story queue as I’m constructing every publication.

Raindrop goes properly past the capabilities of browser-based bookmarking. You can mark every folder with its personal icon, learn articles in a distraction-free view, and share collections with others. But I largely similar to Raindrop for its snug, easy app design and the flexibility to make use of it throughout just about any computing platform.

Google Assistant (or Siri) for time-based reminders

Whenever I must get one thing finished at a selected time, I exploit no matter voice assistant occurs to be readily available. That is perhaps Siri if I’m carrying an iPhone, or Google Assistant if I’m utilizing Android. The level is that I can simply use voice instructions to rapidly give myself a reminder and transfer on, realizing that I’ll get notified on my telephone or good speaker when the time comes.

Sign up for my Advisorator newsletter to get extra tech recommendation like this each week. A model of this column initially appeared within the publication.