All I need is one productiveness app that may deal with every part

I’m an organized individual. I’ve to be. Writing is a deadline-oriented job, and I’ve the working reminiscence of an aged goldfish. Gone are the times after I may retailer a whole week’s value of occasions, deadlines, and schedules in my head. Now, all of that stuff must reside someplace tangible.

The issue is, there isn’t a single app that may deal with the vast majority of my wants. By my depend, there are a minimum of 10 productiveness apps I exploit every day to operate — and so they all suck.

There’s Airtable for work tasks so my editors can see what I’m engaged on — simply one of many challenge administration apps I’ve utilized in my profession. There’s additionally been Basecamp, Asana, Trello, and in a single occasion, a rickety Excel sheet maintained by sweat and tears. All of them do the identical factor — present a big-picture view of a staff’s tasks, completion standing, and deadlines. And but none have ever been sufficient to be the only real technique of sustaining an editorial calendar at any of the publications I’ve ever labored at. There are all the time supplementary Google Docs, spreadsheets, and Slack channels. I find yourself spending a superb hour daily replicating the identical workflows and data in several codecs.

Most challenge administration software program additionally doesn’t embody a sublime built-in every day to-do checklist. That is bananas. No challenge is ever accomplished in a single step. If I’m writing a narrative, there’s testing and analysis, then there’s pictures and artwork, then there’s the precise writing, adopted by a multistep enhancing and publishing course of. Airtable, Asana, Trello — they’re alright for displaying everybody my progress, however this isn’t every part I’m liable for. There are dozens of subtasks, emails, and calendar occasions that Airtable doesn’t deal with. That’s not gonna work for my goldfish mind. So I find yourself needing a to-do app.

That’s led me down a rabbit gap of making an attempt a number of of the 1000’s of to-do apps on the market. However regardless of which of them I’ve tried, they’ve, at most, 75 p.c of the options I want or need — which is how I ended up with not one, not two, not three, however 4 to-do apps.

There’s Focus To-Do for work and private errands. It’s a mashup of a Pomodoro timer and a to-do checklist — which has been important in helping me shake off my pandemic-induced brain fog. Then there’s Todoist. Whereas I like Focus To-Do, the one factor it doesn’t do is let me create lists that aren’t time-based or combine with my e mail app. Therefore, why I nonetheless use Todoist to cowl Focus To-Do and Airtable’s gaps.

And neither of those apps is nice at serving to me hold a housecleaning schedule, nor are they useful for retaining my crops alive. Therefore why I additionally use Tody and Planta.

You realize what’s worse? None of those apps are useful for stock administration — each by way of managing my overview items and my pantry. They’re additionally ineffective at sustaining databases. That’s why I additionally use Notion, an app I’ve an intense love-hate relationship with. Whereas Notion is extremely customizable and comes with a ton of premade templates, it’s obtained a big studying curve. I spent 4 hours constructing a number of databases simply to maintain monitor of my bylines, sources, product stock, working logs, take a look at logs, and meal planning. It really works fairly properly, nevertheless it’s additionally a complete time suck to take care of as a result of lord is aware of I don’t have the willpower to determine find out how to automate this factor.

Just a few months in the past, I obtained so fed up with every part, I ended up shopping for an old-school planner. In contrast to utilizing myriad apps, I may hold all of this info in a single referenceable pocket book. However the issue with analog notebooks is that the data in them isn’t simply shareable with individuals or collaborators. So as soon as once more, I ended up including one more productiveness device to my arsenal.

That is simply the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even gotten into calendar apps, note-taking apps, video conferencing apps, transcription apps, or communication apps like Slack. (By the way in which, any time somebody creates a brand new Slack or Discord channel, part of my soul dies.) However the story is similar. I find yourself making an attempt a bunch of various apps searching for the One That Can Do It All, solely to accept the one I hate least that does 75–85 p.c of what I want.

I do know there isn’t any good resolution. A singular productiveness device that works for everybody is a unicorn — stunning, good, and fully fictional. Nonetheless, there must be some kind of center floor between an unachievable fantasy and the present panorama. I’d fortunately accept two, possibly three apps. Actually, lower than 10 is all I’m asking for.

Till then, my cellphone and laptop computer will probably be a cluttered mess of productiveness apps that solely do half their jobs.