Raise your hand up if you had a productivity phase… It might have been before the schoolyear or before a co-op term or even right now. You download multiple apps and make multiple accounts on websites, using whatever is trending at the moment. Google search ‘productivity tools’ and you’ll see what I’m talking about (or writing about technically).

I was in that phase as well. Nowadays, I just use Apple Notes, Reminders and Windows Notepad. If I were to put a percentage on how much of my productivity tools are dispersed across certain websites and apps.

- 50% apple notes & reminders
- 45% notepad
- 5% else (google docs, notion)

You see, when you start using multiple apps to keep track of your productivity, then it kind of defeats the point. After all, efficiency is an attribute of productivity. It is more so efficient to stick to three or two if not one app over a long period of time. Ever since I started sticking to just these three, things have become more streamlined.

Apple Notes

If you have a spontaneous idea or something to write down, the Notes app will get it done fast. Just open a new note and start writing, you don’t need to title it either. This is helpful for long term memorable stuff and it can function as a daily planner. Simply mark off whatever task you are done for the current day and reset it the next day.

Apple Reminders

No need for a calendar when there is Reminders. I just put the reminder for an event, date and time, and that’s enough. With the calendar, you got to schedule the time block and pick the date. It is also not as cluttered as some calendar UIs I have come across. It would be cool if outlook or gmail can parse an event’s time and date and add it to Reminders.

Windows Notepad

The notepad is simple, clean, and it gets the job done without bolding, italics, strikethroughs. Instead of using Google Docs or MS Word, Notepad is lightweight and one thing that it does better than the former two is that it has tabs that save every time you open it. Therefore, you don’t need to navigate to the home page like Google Docs or MS Word, just switch to the tab. What about accessing notes on different devices? Well, notepad does not do that. This is best for people who study just on one device for most of the time.