Todoist or OF3 and Evernote or Notion?

[Gardener]

I use Scrivener for writing books. The MAC version is advanced but the Windows one is really outdated. I don't think that Scrivener has a backend servers to keep things and sync with your PC or phones.

Scrivener can sync through Dropbox--my Scrivener projects are synced to two laptops, two iPads, and a phone.

 

[Hasan Bjaili]

W

Scrivener can sync through Dropbox--my Scrivener projects are synced to two laptops, two iPads, and a phone.

WOW. GR8. Is this in Windows? Is it native?
Aha! Got it. Basically, you are using Dropbox as your folder to save your work and it is automatically sync'd using Dropbox infrastructure. Correct!

 

[tammie1983]

When it comes to note taking, please think deeply. Once you put your notes in an app, it is kinda hard to migrate to another app. Notes are like a rolling snow ball. They get bigger as they roll. In my opinion Evernote is the de facto of note taking. However, I don't like Evernote slow development and upgrades.

As far as GTD app, it is fine to try as many until you find the one that suites you. I use ClickUp. You can try OF3, Things, Nirvana, Todoist, ClickUp, Facilethings, etc.

Yes, I agree, notes are definitely a rolling snowball with me!

I tried Things and Todoist but still ended up going to back to OF3. I'm just losing projects because I'm not seeing them, they're buried project hierarchy. I suppose it would help if I gave due dates like my reoccurring tasks (which I am seeing and doing). I lost projects in Todoist too for the same reason.

I find that I'm annoyed by notetaking apps that accept more than text and tags. It's illogical in most cases, because it's not as if I can't just ignore the features I have no use for, but it annoys me all the same. I very rarely want images or tables or other non-text features--so rarely that I'd rather just store those things elsewhere.

(I say "in most cases" because OneNote, IMO, gives up too much in terms of convenient text handling, in its pursuit of the "page" format.)

So I use Scrivener as a kinda-notetaking app, but there's still some friction there that I can't quite figure out. Part of it is that I can't instantly put something in there--there's no equivalent of "Siri, put lemon juice in the grocery list", no menu item that allows a click-paste-Return. That might be all of it.

I'll put my hand up here and admit, I thought Scrivener was for writing eg books/articles/blogging.

Not awkward at all! I totally understand, I'm not a fan of it's aesthetics either. They are working on some changes, and I just signed up for the beta testing, I can let you know if they improve it with the update if you're interested?

Yes please, I'd too like to know of any improvements. Can you change the cover of the notebooks? That was one major issue for me, they were all plain brown in the research I did, which was just Google search of images and the Evernote site. I like pretty and colourful notebooks.

 

[JenniferOrigami]

Can you change the cover of the notebooks? That was one major issue for me, they were all plain brown in the research I did, which was just Google search of images and the Evernote site. I like pretty and colourful notebooks.

I am using Evernote for Mac and these days they are "notebooks" in theory only, they don't look like little notebooks, it's just a list of long grey or white boxes (white for notebook, grey for stack of notebooks). Unfortunately not editable to my knowledge. Definitely not pretty or colourful, but not offensive either. I'm not sure what they currently look like in the PC version?

 

[tammie1983]

I am using Evernote for Mac and these days they are "notebooks" in theory only, they don't look like little notebooks, it's just a list of long grey or white boxes (white for notebook, grey for stack of notebooks). Unfortunately not editable to my knowledge. Definitely not pretty or colourful, but not offensive either. I'm not sure what they currently look like in the PC version?

View attachment 815

Hmm, well, after checking the Evernote help files, this is what they look like on Windows:



What I had seen previously was a big space with brown notebooks, that each had titles. I guess that was a previous version!

All of the productivity apps have very similar looks with the sidebar and main section.

 

[Gardener]

W

WOW. GR8. Is this in Windows? Is it native?
Aha! Got it. Basically, you are using Dropbox as your folder to save your work and it is automatically sync'd using Dropbox infrastructure. Correct!

Kind of, except it's not just Scrivener blindly using Dropbox as a folder. Scrivener is specifically syncing and dealing with issues like conflicting changes to files, and it's aware of Dropbox--I just opened Scrivener and got a "Syncing with Dropbox" window for a moment. When Scrivener suspects that Dropbox hasn't been fully updated from some other source it will warn me and advise me not to sync. Things like that.

 

[Gardener]

I'll put my hand up here and admit, I thought Scrivener was for writing eg books/articles/blogging.

It totally is. But as part of that function, it lets you have dozens or hundreds or possibly thousands of individual files, all neatly organized in a list or in folders, and it supports titles for those files, and tags. Suitable for writing a novel, but also for keeping notes.

(Actually, it will also let you paste in pictures, as I recall. I just don't do that.)

 

[Oogiem]

So I use Scrivener as a kinda-notetaking app, but there's still some friction there that I can't quite figure out. Part of it is that I can't instantly put something in there--there's no equivalent of "Siri, put lemon juice in the grocery list", no menu item that allows a click-paste-Return. That might be all of it.

I'm exploring using shortcuts to creat such a thing, Not very far along, it's on a near term someday/maybe list as I too like scrivener and DEVONthink as note taking apps. Another app I am LOVING is Goodnotes on my iPad with a pencil. All the benefits of taking handwritten notes with text recognition even of my terrible handwriting and a digital copy I can save. I don't like the iCloud sync so I don't use it but other parts of the app are great.

 

[Oogiem]

I'll put my hand up here and admit, I thought Scrivener was for writing eg books/articles/blogging.

I'm using Scrivener in the corkboard view as a kanban like system for tracking my current LambTracker development. I can use the title and the small amount on the index card as the task/bug and can put code snippets, references, links to videos & even complete module code in the body of each document.

It took a while for me to get my older post-it note system entered into Scrivener but in the process I found many duplicated items. I had no way to organize or link them except by moving the post-its around and the sticky was gone from many of them. I had to either add scotch tape or rewrite them on new notes. I decided that since I really needed my whiteboards (I have a 5 of them) to put up the schedule and drawings that I had to find someplace else to put all my bugs and other notes about LambTracker. I thought about using DEVONThink, on the surface it seemed a more natural choice. Wide selection of types of notes, easy shortcuts and hot key additions. But where it falls down for me in this context is the visual view of everything. In DT I only get a representation of the item as text and the title even in the icon and cover views. In Scrivener I can see and read the gist of the issue and can drag and move them around easily.

My handwritten notes that all used to be on paper are now rapidly migrating to GoodNotes instead. I got a new iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and after testing both Notability and Goodnotes I settled on Goodnotes as my handwritten note taking app. It too is working very well. Most amazing is Goodnotes' ability to transcribe even my really terrible scribbles into typewritten text if I need to. Notability also has OCR but is much worse at my handwriting than Goodnotes is.

 

[tammie1983]

It totally is. But as part of that function, it lets you have dozens or hundreds or possibly thousands of individual files, all neatly organized in a list or in folders, and it supports titles for those files, and tags. Suitable for writing a novel, but also for keeping notes.

(Actually, it will also let you paste in pictures, as I recall. I just don't do that.)

Hmm, I'll have to add that one to the research list. I'd already got the site down in my bookmarks anyway because I someday/maybe want to have a better "space" to write blog posts, which I'm still very new at. And, maybe, just maybe, try my hand at actually writing in general, maybe even a story someday.

 

[tammie1983]

I'm using Scrivener in the corkboard view as a kanban like system for tracking my current LambTracker development. I can use the title and the small amount on the index card as the task/bug and can put code snippets, references, links to videos & even complete module code in the body of each document.

It took a while for me to get my older post-it note system entered into Scrivener but in the process I found many duplicated items. I had no way to organize or link them except by moving the post-its around and the sticky was gone from many of them. I had to either add scotch tape or rewrite them on new notes. I decided that since I really needed my whiteboards (I have a 5 of them) to put up the schedule and drawings that I had to find someplace else to put all my bugs and other notes about LambTracker. I thought about using DEVONThink, on the surface it seemed a more natural choice. Wide selection of types of notes, easy shortcuts and hot key additions. But where it falls down for me in this context is the visual view of everything. In DT I only get a representation of the item as text and the title even in the icon and cover views. In Scrivener I can see and read the gist of the issue and can drag and move them around easily.

My handwritten notes that all used to be on paper are now rapidly migrating to GoodNotes instead. I got a new iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and after testing both Notability and Goodnotes I settled on Goodnotes as my handwritten note taking app. It too is working very well. Most amazing is Goodnotes' ability to transcribe even my really terrible scribbles into typewritten text if I need to. Notability also has OCR but is much worse at my handwriting than Goodnotes is.

Would you mind posting a screenshot of something you have in Scrivener with a note that has a picture? I'd like to see how it looks. I take a lot of screenshots on my iPad; articles in online magazines, page out of an ebook with a highlighted passage/sentence, social media profiles I want to check out, that sort of things.

I'm glad you mentioned DT, so any note you have in there doesn't appear as is, ie a screenshot of a magazine article wouldn't appear as such in icon or cover view? That's what I need. I can add pictures into OF3 but the note itself appears as text, I need the visual.

I don't have an Apple Pencil but hear good things about it, is one end a normal stylus and the other the "pencil" part? I tend to go through stylus's very, very quickly, the rubber ends fall off lol.

 

[tammie1983]

Well, now that I've discovered GoodNotes I've also come across Zoho Notebook. I honestly can't see a difference between these two other than Zoho Notebook is completely free and has a Windows app.

For now, DT is off my list, after looking at it further online, everything is viewed by list like OF3/Todist etc whereas GoodNotes/Zoho Notebook hasve actual notebooks (with customisable covers!).

 

[Hasan Bjaili]

Kind of, except it's not just Scrivener blindly using Dropbox as a folder. Scrivener is specifically syncing and dealing with issues like conflicting changes to files, and it's aware of Dropbox--I just opened Scrivener and got a "Syncing with Dropbox" window for a moment. When Scrivener suspects that Dropbox hasn't been fully updated from some other source it will warn me and advise me not to sync. Things like that.

Then you must be using MAC. Scrivener for MAC is version 3 and for Windows is 1.9x. The windows version lacks lots of the the MAC one.

 

[Gardener]

Then you must be using MAC. Scrivener for MAC is version 3 and for Windows is 1.9x. The windows version lacks lots of the the MAC one.

Hmm. On the Mac, I'm using version 2.8.1. (One of my devices isn't ready for 3.) The documentation for syncing to iOS does refer to syncing with Windows as well as Mac, though.

 

[Oogiem]

Would you mind posting a screenshot of something you have in Scrivener with a note that has a picture? I'

They do not show up in the kanban like view though. Only in the actual documents.

I'm glad you mentioned DT, so any note you have in there doesn't appear as is, ie a screenshot of a magazine article wouldn't appear as such in icon or cover view?

Yes that's exactly how DT works, see this screenshot of a DT view in icon format that shows the screenshots as icons.

For now, DT is off my list, after looking at it further online, everything is viewed by list like OF3/Todist etc

Not correct at all, I have mine et up to lists, I read text better but you can set up as icons, see above.

 

[tammie1983]

They do not show up in the kanban like view though. Only in the actual documents.

View attachment 821


Yes that's exactly how DT works, see this screenshot of a DT view in icon format that shows the screenshots as icons. View attachment 822


Not correct at all, I have mine et up to lists, I read text better but you can set up as icons, see above. View attachment 821View attachment 822

Thank you so much for the screenshots! Because I'm new to all this, is "Kanban" view the icon/picture view?

So when you initially start DT you have the list down the left of all your projects and then icon/picture view in the main pane as the screenshots?

I went back to Todoist for my projects and reminders, so far it's working really well. It took me far less time to set up Todoist than it did OF3, and Todoist covers iOS and Windows all for the one licence, unlike OF3 where I'd need to buy another licence for Windows access.

DT would be for things I need to scan in. I've just completed a filing cabinet purge and now have a file of documents I can easily shred once they're scanned and put into a system. I'd also use DT for downloaded documents such as statements and the emails I'm currently printing because they're waiting on something.

I'm feeling overwhelmed because I don't know whether to use Zoho Notebook (free, pretty notebook covers, iOS, Windows), Evernote (monthly, but no pretty covers, iOS, Windows), Goodnotes (one-time fee, pretty notebook covers, iOS, no Windows) or DT (one-time fee, no pretty covers, no Windows access).

Zoho Notebook has smart cards for storing things, so although I love the covers, I'm not happy with the visuals and use.

I don't have a Mac, I want one and am saving up but it may take quite a few months maybe over a year. I use Windows 10 and iOS on my iPhone/iPad.

 

[Oogiem]

So when you initially start DT you have the list down the left of all your projects and then icon/picture view in the main pane as the screenshots?

I don't but you can do that. I use all lists. I just changed my view so you can see that in DT you can have pictures show up. I don't like that. I am not visual that way at all. I am a reader, long, dense, text lists are comforting to me. I like to read them and I can interact with them. I can't handle audio or pictorial inputs well at all.

The beauty is that the tools can adapt to you.

The "Kanban" is in Scrivener, here is a picture of how it looks but you can't see pictures in it only text. For me it's perfect but it sounds like it won't work for you. You can embed pictures into the actual Scrivener documents but not on the notecard view. For me this works because I can see a bunch of things at once, can re-arrange them easily and figure out how they relate and go together. Here is a sample "kanban" in Scrivener

I don't have a Mac, I

DEVONThnk is Mac and iOS only so it won't work for you. Scrivener is cross platform but the Mac version has many more features compared to the Windows version.

Zoho Notebook (free, pretty notebook covers, iOS, Windows), Evernote (monthly, but no pretty covers, iOS, Windows), Goodnotes (one-time fee, pretty notebook covers, iOS, no Windows) or DT (one-time fee, no pretty covers, no Windows access).

Zoho, Evernote and Goodnotes also all work on Macintosh systems not just on iOS. DT works on iOS and Mac. Also, I know that Goodnotes, Scrivener, and DT also work on iPadOS which is now different from iOS.

 

[tammie1983]

I don't but you can do that. I use all lists. I just changed my view so you can see that in DT you can have pictures show up. I don't like that. I am not visual that way at all. I am a reader, long, dense, text lists are comforting to me. I like to read them and I can interact with them. I can't handle audio or pictorial inputs well at all.

The beauty is that the tools can adapt to you.

The "Kanban" is in Scrivener, here is a picture of how it looks but you can't see pictures in it only text. For me it's perfect but it sounds like it won't work for you. You can embed pictures into the actual Scrivener documents but not on the notecard view. For me this works because I can see a bunch of things at once, can re-arrange them easily and figure out how they relate and go together. Here is a sample "kanban" in Scrivener

View attachment 828



DEVONThnk is Mac and iOS only so it won't work for you. Scrivener is cross platform but the Mac version has many more features compared to the Windows version.


Zoho, Evernote and Goodnotes also all work on Macintosh systems not just on iOS. DT works on iOS and Mac. Also, I know that Goodnotes, Scrivener, and DT also work on iPadOS which is now different from iOS.

Until I get a Mac, I may have to try Goodnotes but it's a waste of money if I don't like it because it's a one-time fee. From the research I've done it's heavily based on inputting your own text with an Apple Pencil (which I don't have), I didn't see any info about just uploading your own documents, that's why I'm hesitant to use it. All the screenshots I saw were of handwritten notes, nothing uploaded.

Scrivener will be good for writing/blogging!

 

[Oogiem]

From the research I've done it's heavily based on inputting your own text with an Apple Pencil (which I don't have), I didn't see any info about just uploading your own documents, that's why I'm hesitant to use it. All the screenshots I saw were of handwritten notes, nothing uploaded.

Yes, without an iPad with an Apple Pencil GoodNotes is probably impossible to use. You can upload your own templates documents but it's not a storage system it's a generating system. I separate the 2 in my mind and in how I use them.

 

[SheriGoddart75]

I've been using Notion for half a year now. I am completely satisfied with this service. I used to have a lot of third-party programs, one doing one thing another doing another thing. And now it all fits into Notion. I'm totally for Notion