Digital Tools I use, May 2022

This is not the first time I write about this topic. Not much has changed but the reason why I wanted to write again about this is to process what tools I use and if there were something I could improve in how I use them.

I divided all the tools into 4 categories:

1. Record — A big reason why I want to record as much of my life as possible is that I believe it to work as a time machine giving me a chance to go back to moments in my life. Also maybe one day someone will study my notes the same way people study Edison’s or Leonardo Da Vinci’s notes.
2. Create — Tools I use to create things.
3. Consume — Tools I use to consume information or entertainment.
4. Other — Tools that didn’t fit any of the above categories but are still useful.

Photo by Behnam Norouzi on Unsplash

Record

Notion

Right now the biggest uses for my Notion are books, notes, and Sunday Essays. I also have a private Notion. There I have a page for every project I have seriously done. I have a good habit of adding links and thoughts to the project pages even if I’m not actively working on them. I also use it for other things like I write for myself in the future.

Improve: -

Google Calendar

I track everything I do with 15 min accuracy. I have done this since 2019 or 2020. Sometimes I have weeks (especially when on holiday and not doing anything productive) when I don’t remember to do it as often. I don’t try to be detailed but just use some broader categories like “read articles” or “lunch”.

I don’t remember many occasions looking back at my events. A few times it has been useful to be available to look when I did something (like moved to a new address). Mostly this habit is a great way to record what I do each day but it also encourages me to spend time on the right things.

Improve: I want to create for myself a better app to add events because I’m sometimes discouraged to add an event on my phone when it takes too many taps. I also want a place where I can see better visualization of how I spent my time. I’m planning to do this visualization for my website Lankine.xyz 3.0.

Journal + Photos

Two other tools I can use with GCalendar to construct what I did each day are basic notepad and Photos app on iPhone.

I used to write daily journals since 2020 but at some point, I realized that it didn’t make sense to force myself to write something when I didn’t have anything so now I try to write if I haven’t written for a long time or if something interesting happened in my life. I like the process of writing because it feels like talking to myself and helps me to process successes, failures, or fears.

I often take quick pictures not trying to make things look unrealistically good but to document. I might capture a picture of some random street on a normal day when I go to pick up food from McDonald’s because then later I can look at it and remember how I always walked the same street when I went there. It’s also great that iPhone shows location pictures were taken so I can later see where I was each day in case it’s not coming through from journals or calendars.

Improve: Take more pictures. Make an app or get some device I could use to track my GPS location to better see where I am each day.

Apple Watch

The main purpose why I bought Apple Watch was to see and reply to notifications. Later, I realized how useful tool it is for many other things (highly recommend for everyone). I use Apple Watch to track my sleep, health, and exercises.

Sometimes a phone is too heavy to take for a run so I’m glad that I can use this to track my runs (Nike Running app) and even pay for lunch after it.

Improve: -

Create

Medium & Substack

I have a Medium account. I don’t really use it but sometimes I remember to re-post better and complete writings from Notion to there. I’m not really looking to get more followers or readers but have a way to find my better writings.

Improve: I should improve posting more complete notes on Medium. I also want to create a habit of writing newsletters about things I am thinking about each week. I’m inspired by Ali Abdaal’s newsletter where he shares something he learned or thought about and they are really interesting and useful to me. I want to do it partly because it encourages me to write, think, and observe more but also because I want to create a personal brand. I started a newsletter on Substack and this will be the first email I send.

Apple Notes

Apple Notes is great because it opens and works quickly (unlike Notion) on iPhone. It’s fine how notes are organized in it. I don’t even try to create folders but I just put everything to the same level. Right now I don’t have that many notes and I haven’t needed to find anything but it might take some time at some point to find something specific.

I like taking local backups of everything I have even if it’s supposed to be safe on their servers. I haven’t at least figured out an easy way to export notes from Apple Notes so I try to not keep there anything super important just in case I lose my account or something happens to them.

Improve: I started using this only recently because of the backup issue. I have noticed this being a useful app to take quick notes and I should keep using it that way and otherwise write everything else to Notion.

Reminders (Apple’s app)

I have all kinds of reminder lists. maybe half are recurring reminders of some habits I have or try to take. Other half are one-time reminders.

It’s really cool to say to Siri on my Apple watch things like “Remind me at 6 pm to leave to a grocery store”. If it’s a reminder I can’t miss, I use an alarm because sometimes I have too many reminders and I miss some.

Improve: I have some recurring reminders right now that I don’t care. I should remove them because they teach me to ignore reminders which is a bad habit.

Consume

Twitter

The best source of news for me. It’s a subjective observation but I don’t like my feed as much as I used to like it. Maybe I follow the wrong people or react to the wrong type of tweets. I’m not even sure why it’s worse but I just don’t feel like I get as much out of it as I use to do.

Improve: I could reduce the number of people I follow and try to read it faster. It takes maybe 5 minutes for me to read my feed every morning so it’s not a huge problem.

YouTube

Yt is most of the time net harmful for me. I sometimes get stuck watching some pointless videos for too long and because I have deleted most social media apps like Instagram, it’s the app I often go to when I have a short moment to do something.

I just can’t get rid of it completely because it’s at the same time so useful. I have learned so much from there and sometimes it motivates me to work.

Improve: I try to replace the habit of opening YouTube with a habit of writing these. Often when I wake up and lay in bed before I get up, I spend time watching YouTube but now I’m writing this. Then I can keep YouTube for occasions when I benefit from it.

Podcasts

I use Apple Podcast but recently I tried using Castro. I haven’t noticed big differences in them. I haven’t found any great app. I wish they had a feed of podcasts from the people I subscribe to so I could more easily find what I’m looking for instead of needing to search people one by one to see who recently had good guests and topics.

I try to listen to podcasts as often as possible. It’s a great way to get some value out of needing to do errands. On the other hand, I like sometimes just thinking and if I have a podcast, I feel bad for not listening so then I don’t get time to think about stuff.

Improve: I want to start listening to more podcasts but still have moments to think about things.

Kindle

I like reading physical books but I actually like even more reading on Kindle. It’s just lighter and more convenient. The disadvantage is that it’s harder to skim.

Improve: For some time, I have read less because I feel too tired to read when I end my workday at 12 am. I want to get back to the habit of reading for an hour every day. I changed my current book from Console Wars to Make time and notice that now it’s easier because I didn’t enjoy Console Wars that much. I should allow myself to stop reading boring books to not procrastinate reading completely.

I’m looking to find a better device than Kindle to read books. It’s great but it’s hard to write longer notes. And it would be nice if I could use the device to replace my physical notepad. I thought about ReMarkable for some time but I have heard bad feedback about it and I don’t like the subscription model.

Other

Grocery (app)

This is an app I use to track what I need to buy from a grocery store the next time I’m there. It’s basically just a shortcut and an interface for a Reminder list. The reason I use this is that it’s fast to open on Apple Watch unlike finding a specific Reminder list.

Improve: I need to make a habit of looking at this at stores. I don’t always remember to do it and it makes using it worthless.

Communication

I use Telegram, iMessage, Whatsapp, Slack, Discord, and email (and probably forgot a few).

I think mostly they do the same but it depends on the other person what I use to communicate with them. Maybe there are some format preferences too because I would feel weird using Discord with some people. In the end, I don’t see it as a problem that I have multiple apps.

Improve: -

Original: https://www.notion.so/lankinen/Digital-Tools-I-use-May-2022-8d4c08f84d65478a937c3eeb8835cba2