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40 Comments

Does anyone actually use productivity software? Which one?

I've looked at a few different productivity tracking software apps but I haven't found one I'm committed to using. Curious if the IH community has one they like and actually use.

Do you use productivity software?
  1. Yes (and I update regularly)
  2. Yes (but rarely update)
  3. No
Vote
  1. 10

    My best productivity "software" is a set of pen & paper.
    Daily prep & reflect.
    Having my 3-5 tasks clear defined is a magic way to get started in the morning and evaluate them in the evening.

    It takes guts to do it this way and stay with the system to honestly reflect on your own work.

    1. 1

      This is my current method too, and works well... But it would be nice to see progress overtime visualized

      1. 1

        What kind of progress do you want visualized? Like number of notes per day? Or something more contextual like accomplishments?

  2. 4

    Notion. I've done a lot of stanning for the software but it's definitely not without its drawbacks.

    In fact, I'm considering setting up an Obsidian account for redundancy. I'll probably do monthly backups of my critical info in Notion and I might even use it regularly for activities that require fast software, like note-taking.

  3. 3

    I use Obsidian as a notes app and knowledge base. Also use it for interstitial journalling (which includes planning/reflecting on my day), but might move that aspect to daydots.

  4. 2

    In my opinion, the tools themselves don't matter too much. It's what you do with these tools.

    I do have a small daily planning and weekly review "productivity system" and I happen to use Notion for it, but it could also be done with any other tool. Including pen and paper.

    I also have a todo list where I write down the things I want to accomplish in a day. I use Things 3 for this, but again, most other todo apps or a small notebook would also work.

  5. 2

    I've been a todo list nut since I was young. I use Todoist now and it works really well for me. If it's something complex, though, I opt for a more robust project management platform. I've used a TON of different project management tools, but my favorite is Monday.com (and there is a free tier).

    If it's helpful, here's a summary of some of the best self-management tools (including a few that were made by fellow indie hackers). Trello and Zoho are also good (cheap) options but the UX isn't quite as good as Monday.

  6. 2

    Yes, notion. It's great for flexibility and teams.

  7. 2

    I use:

    And I am hacking away at a building a chrome extension to make it easy to save/store useful code examples and notes. https://kiktabcode.gumroad.com/l/zvqse

    How I came up with the idea:
    While learning, it can be difficult to find good examples and once you find a gem then it is important to be able to find that useful example again. I built this chrome extension so that you can save/bookmark pages and have all your favourite code in one place.

    Currently you can:

    1. Open a modal which shows just the code on the page so you can easily scan through all code examples in an article.
    2. Save & tag code examples in one place
    3. Each bookmark has a link so you can go back to the original page that the bookmark/saved code was on.

    Hope you enjoy, I am super excited to launch this. I have some big things coming up including a VSCode extension and a way to save notes on videos.

    Message me if you are interested, and want a discount.

  8. 1

    I personally love the Ivy Lee method where at the end of each day, you decide which six tasks you have to accomplish and in order of importance. I call them my super-six and it seriously reduces decision fatigue and provides a starting point as soon as you start work. Removing the common procrastination excuse 'I don't even know where to start'. It really works for me and I find I get loads done early on in the day which makes me feel productive which leads to even more tasks being completed.

  9. 1

    Pen + paper and Trello.

  10. 1

    I'd first define the term itself. It may be too broad to make sense. For example, if I use Gmail or Google docs, can it be considered as a productivity tool? If not, which one would be?

  11. 1

    I use Todoist for task tracking.
    For making/breaking habits, I use Daylio. For everything else I use Trello, Notion or paper index cards.

    https://todoist.com/
    https://daylio.net/

  12. 1

    Notion + pomodoro timer + a few really helpful practices from the book Getting Things Done

  13. 1

    Trello + Calendar + Plain text files with notes + Phone reminders for personal stuff

  14. 1

    Until recently, I was using pen and paper. It worked fantastic, but I always had an itch regarding editing. An erasable notebook (RocketBook) was a help, but the ink dries very slowly and is prone to smudging.

    So, I dived to Zenkit. The free version is compelling and the premium offering opens few power tools.

    The reason I have no problem Zenkit (no affiliation) is that it has 5 different products (Project, Boards/Base, Todo, Chat, Hypernotes) and they are all integrated.

    You can view the same data as project dashboard, current To Do, notes, etc.

    It takes training that extra muscle to keep things in sync. But so far, was worth it.

  15. 1

    freedcamp simple to use yet feature rich

  16. 1

    Previously org mode, but did not need most of the features.

    Now TaskPaper.

  17. 1

    My wife swears by Tick Tick, but I, like many here, tend to use Obsidian as a knowledge base and notes.

    For development though I tend to just create a ToDo.md file and write it out there. That is just to keep it close and simple.

  18. 1

    I love trying all sorts of productivity tools but what I always seem to come back to is my iPad and Apple Pencil with the Apple notes app. It's actually replaced pen/paper for me which I didn't think it would do. I do have a bunch of digital notes everywhere though across various apps like Notion or Google Docs. The people I work with also have documents across all spaces and so I actually ended up trying to solve this problem with Prodsee (https://www.prodsee.com). Give it a go and you can even try it together with your team! Productivity and collaboration with other people is a lot of fun and is quite rewarding.

    Re - your comment on creating a dashboard or creating metrics over time I think there are probably some apps that can help you visualise these things but you'd typically need to put in a decent amount of time with the way you input data.

  19. 1

    I Start each day first by doing a morning check-in on the app stoic (https://www.stoicroutine.com/), then I write in my journal and plan for the day. I try to have around four tasks I will focus on. In my journal, I can also reflect if there's something I have on my mind. I also use the daily stoic journal and read one page from the daily stoic.

    Other than my journal I use https://everyday.app for my activities I try to make into habits.

    My journal is not really "software" but since I write it in obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) it has some kind of relation to "software".

    Productivity "software" I use:

  20. 1

    Daily: Todoist, LlamaLife
    Medium-Term: Trello
    Long-Term: Google Sheets

  21. 1

    I use StackEdit, an in-browser Markdown editor.

    It is web-based so it is always up-to-date. Also, I have installed it as an app on my Chromebook, but I never care to update it as long as it works.

    I have used Google Keep, but it stopped working on one of my phones.
    Before that, I used One Note but they changed the layout.

    What I like about the Stackedit is that I can choose my own backend storage. And I like writing Markdown. Notion somehow never hooked me.

    I also have my own spin of Bullet Journal to keep my daily notes on paper.

  22. 1

    Notion for tasks and weekly reflections.

    I've tried many others out there but Notion is the only one that has stuck due to the level of customisation it allows.

  23. 1

    At my day job we use Zenhub which is a Kanban board that uses Github as its backend. I am not in love with it personally, but it's good enough at our scale.

    For personal project I have tried a few things, but I end up regressing to pen and paper. Right now I do designs in a notebook and manage "sprints" via post-it note checklists.

    I want a better way to manage my sprints though. I tried Trello but there are aspects of that are too high friction for me (e.g. lack of easy way to make subtasks). Making my own thing to scratch that itch now (and possibly my day job itch).

  24. 1

    since i have a constant stream of ideas i need to get these out and organized. my productivity tool therefore is journaling and notion.so

  25. 1

    I mostly use a Google Calendar. I do time-blocking and I move events around as things may come up.

    Sometimes I also add tasks in Google's Task app. They get synced with my calendar automatically which is nice.

  26. 1

    I sometimes use Clickup, but keep going back to my notepad (sublime editor). One reason is - clickup slows down my machine (especially alongside my local server for https://recocards.com development).

  27. 1

    I use the calendar (Google Calendar / Fantastical app).

    I schedule what I want to do on the calendar. I do that once or twice a day.

    This way, you don't need to always be thinking about when to do your tasks. It makes things more concrete.

  28. 1

    I couldn't find one that fit my needs so I ended up building my own.

    Most systems that people use to manage information require a good amount of effort and I wanted a tool that let me manage things with low effort.

  29. 1

    Yes, but I try to stay simple.

    My entire system consists of a productivity trio:

    • Agenda using Google Calendar to have an overview of everything planned (work and personal)
    • Task tracking using TickTick to remember and organize punctual tasks. Simple UI and great features
    • Habit tracking using Inertia to keep track of repetitive tasks (habits)

    The habit tracker is not released yet, since I've created it myself but soon I'll start a beta
    And no, it's not another boring habit tracking app

  30. 1

    I just completely migrated from a two-app setup (Notion and Miro) to using Clover. I found it on Product Hunt and it's my new favorite thing. www.cloverapp.com if you want to check it out.

  31. 1

    I use Trello to track all of my development tasks. If you haven't heard of Trello it's basically a todo list on steroids. Your tasks are basically cards with notes on them that you can drag-and-drop to different categories such as "Todo", "Doing", and "Done". You can customize these categories to be whatever you want, such as "Backlog" for the items that you want to work on at a later time. You can archive each of these tasks so you can go back and refer to them later if you absolutely need to - you also have the option to delete the tasks permanently. In addition to descriptions for each tasks you can attach anything you want such as images or PDFs. Furthermore, you are able to add sub tasks to each card as a todo list that you are typically used to. Give Trello a try and let me know what you think!

  32. 1

    I mostly use notion.so to take notes. And for my to-do-list & personal reflection, I use evernote

  33. 1

    I'm using to-do list app from Microsoft.

  34. 1

    Notion -> Just use it:)

  35. 1

    What exactly are you looking to solve?
    You can't and won't commit to anything if it isn't solving a problem for you.

    1. 1

      See my other comment, I use traditional pen and paper but would love to see progress visualized

  36. 1

    currently I'm working to nolly.io

    I document everything in notion, tasks, issues, plans, marketing stuff all in one place

    I tried asana, clickup, trello, but I think you'll be more productive don't have to keep switching between tools ...

  37. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  38. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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