I'm firmly in with the Unix design philosophy, which states that apps should do only one or two things, and do them well... which is one of the reasons I'm not too keen on 'jack of all trades' apps like Notion. I have Obsidian as one of my 3 core apps, for my permanent notes and the drafting stages of my long-form writing. The other two are Logseq, for my fleeting notes and outlining, and Todoist. Also... first! 😆
It's taken a couple years, and many failed experiments along the way, but I've finally come to appreciate your approach to using single purpose apps in your workflow. I purged my Todoist of everything I had collected that wasn't really a task and offloaded them into other services. I didn't realize how much less stress I would have when my todo list was no longer a constant reminder that "I need to clean up this mess". Seeing each app as a part in a much larger machine has indeed made it more enjoyable to work with each tool. I also see the benefit of flexibility with this approach. When a new app comes on market or my current one loses support, it'll be much easier to swap out the individual part then it will be to learn how to apply my workflow to a new multipurpose service. Thanks for your content. I appreciate you Carl.
Hi Carl, I see your new book is developing. I hope you include how you write and monitor your goals, and how you link them to projects (Evernote) and tasks (Todoist). Thank you!
@@Carl_Pullein Thank you, actually I am also interested in the strategy and philosophy. I do not find it easy to write a goal, link tasks in order to achieve it and measure the results consistently over time. It would be interesting if you can provide an example of such a system in your book.
@@ecar20100 Goals are a part of it. Everything needs to come from Areas of focus and goals are a way to inject some energy into getting an area of focus in balance.
Hi Carl! I have been implementing many of your workflow ideas and now strongly considering Ulysses. You mentioned using word as well for support when writing.I know from all your videos that you are in the Apple ecosystem. I’m wondering if you have chosen Word over Pages for a reason. I am struggling with my choices of writing tools. I spent hours exploring and setting up workflows. I have looped around to Todoist just because your workflow with Todoist is simple, clean and appreciate all your explanations🙏🏻
Hi Danielle, I don't use Word, although I do use Apple's Pages for writing my client feedback. I have a template for these and it needs to look professional.
@@Carl_Pullein Thanks to Ron B for this question - I was going to ask a similar one. But now in a slightly different way. I’m trying to cut down on the number of apps I use to streamline my workflow. You seem to work with Drafts, Evernote and also Apple Notes. And while I think I’m about to answer my own question - how do you differentiate the PURPOSE of these three (or more apps).
@@skellyrocker Drafts is just a collection tool. I don't store notes in there. It's the fastest way to collect something (a task or idea) and distribute it to the right place. Apple Notes is a "toy" for me. I'm curious about what Apple is doing with it. Evernote is my go-to notes app. It's the workhorse behind almost everything I do.
Sadly, it's been twenty years since I used a Windows machine and I've never used an Android device. I'm not familiar with what is available in those worlds.
Depends on what your needs are. The Microsoft and Google ecosystems are pretty good overall, though Google needs supplementing on the notetaking front and a separate task manager. The mail, calendar and cloud storage are good. Mostly, it'd be a good idea to start with a basic ecosystem and a simple workflow, see what works, and where the pain points are. I'm mostly in the Microsoft ecosystem (but use fancier notetaking apps for convenience - OneNote would absolutely suffice for my needs) and have done really complex organizational schemes for my notes and tasks in OneNote, various other notetaking apps I've tried, and in Todoist and in Microsoft To Do. Turns out organization has costs, and adding extra layers of folders etc. to organize things makes stuff clunkier to operate. I've pared down task management a LOT to where my personal task management is a few lists and flagging emails, some teams use a team-specific Planner board, and I've done one workflow in Notion - even that doesn't really need to be there. Notes I'm still sorting out wrt stuff like capturing articles for reference and keeping a daily log of what needs to be done.
Bit waffly Carl. You hardly show the Ulysses screen or how you actually organised things within it. The part of Ulysses I am finding annoying is not being able to rename the drafts. More show, less tell might have been more useful.
