Exploring New Tools: What Have You Learned and What Do You Recommend?

🙋 Questions
, ,
1

Are you regularly exploring and experimenting with new tools? I’d love to hear about your experiences and the insights you’ve gained. This discussion is all about sharing our journeys in discovering and evaluating new automation tools.

How to contribute

  1. Initial Tool Selection: In your most recent research, what tools caught your interest initially and why?
  2. In-Depth Evaluation: When experimenting, which tools did you decide to explore more thoroughly?
  3. Evaluation Process: How did you go about evaluating these tools? Share any specific methods or exercises you used.
  4. Learnings and Recommendations: What did you learn from this process? Any standout tools or features? Share your recommendations based on your evaluations.

Why contribute

  • Your experiences can provide valuable insights for others who are seeking new tools or approaches to evaluating tools.
  • Sharing your experience helps in honing your ability to document and articulate what you’ve learned.

I look forward to hearing about your newly discovered tools and how you went about evaluating them! :robot:

5 Likes
2

I learn a lot and constantly read books, research papers, blog posts, and documentation at work. So, I always needed a place to store the information. And most of all - a place where I can read and reflect on my notes.

My journey of searching for a note-taking tool:

  1. Notion - the best option with a bunch of functionality, but entirely online, not so good at mobile devices and paid templates
  2. Evernote - not so bad, but too little functions are free
  3. Workflowy - a great tool for making lists and simple presentations. But not for big texts
  4. Google Keep - good for quick notes, but nothing more
  5. xTiles - good, but need time to adapt
  6. Physical notebooks - too much time spent on writing, needed a place to store notebooks :), search for text is a nightmare

Additionally, I am heavily using task management tools, planning meetings with Calendar, etc. Up to some point, I tried MS ToDo, Todoist, and Google Tasks - but I stuck to the TickTick for a few years.

But then I discovered Obsidian. I am using Obsidian now as much as I am using Visual Studio Code (and even more).

Why it works for me?

  • Basic functionality - is free. Sync between multiple devices is paid.
    • I am using Obsidian on desktop (Ubuntu, Windows), Android, IPad. It just works.
    • But sync can be done on your own - using cloud storage or even Git
    • Paid sync offers end-to-end encryption to your notes
  • Great tool for note taking - you can tags, link notes to each other, search for notes easily
  • Note in Markdown format
  • Export notes to PDF
  • Canvas plugin is a good alternative to mind-mapping
  • Excalidraw plugin allows you to create schemes (even by hand - as free painting)
  • Extensible with a lot of community plugins
    • Daily notes for planning and daily reflection. Same for weekly notes.
    • I stopped using TickTick for task management - and I am successfully doing it now in Obsidian.
      • You can see tasks on Calendar, add reminders, create recurring ones

There are also plugins for Pomodoro, word and char count, etc.

The only hard truth about Obsidian is that you need time and effort to learn it and get used to it.
Of course, you can always find alternatives.

P.S. If you want to take notes better, you can explore the PARA method or Zettelcasten. Obsidian is created for Zettelcasten (in a nutshell).

4 Likes