Notion: notes, to-do lists, project management and so much more
I use Notion all the time - it can do all the following:
To-do lists - no need to fiddle around with to-do apps. You can set up an extremely customizable and easy to use to-do list that syncs across all your devices.
Note taking - use Notion to write down ideas or do daily journalling. I write down my ideas on Notion all the time.
Project management - Notion can replace Jira, Asana, Trello and all the other project management apps while also doing much more than a project management tool. This doesn’t just apply to businesses; I use Notion to manage my personal projects such as this blog.
Knowledge base or wiki - for companies, Notion can replace Confluence as a knowledge base. For individuals, you can store notes you might need to look at later.
Content Website - You can publish personal sites such as blogs on Notion - no coding experience or fiddly tool needed!
Cloud syncs across all your devices - Notion has apps for iOS, Mac, Windows and Android. You can also use it on web browsers.
Integrations - it’s very likely your favorite app integrates into Notion, and you can leverage integrations such as Zapier to make some pretty wild creations e.g., send a welcome email every time you type in an email in a Notion database or send a Slack alert when someone updates a project status.
Notion has replaced a lot of apps for me - Google Docs, Trello, and Notes, just to name a few.
I don’t use Google docs anymore to collaborate on documents with other people, I just send them a notion link. Notion’s block-based editing interface is better than Google docs’ traditional interface. The idea is that your page is built with blocks that can be text, code snippets, images, videos, tables, etc. And all of it can be easily moved around. No more moving an image and destroying the whole document!
For all you multi ecosystem users (iOS and Windows users I’m looking at you) - multi device sync makes the note taking experience so much easier.
Personal project management apps are rare; while most project management apps have a free personal tier, I always felt they were too complicated and bloated for small scale personal projects. With Notion, you can make project management as complex or as simple as you need. In this page, I track research ideas for this blog:
Notion’s community is also amazing - there’s creators who teach Notion and there’s a template for everything. The creators take community feedback very seriously as well. I could go on and on about how much I love notion; I love their UX, UI, free student program, and consumer led growth, but I’ll stop here and let you experience it for yourself.
Pricing: Free with limitations, has a paid tier. Completely free for students
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android
Cron: the best calendar app
Cron is a relatively new calendar app with a beautiful, clean UI and the features that matter. You won’t find much different in Cron from Google Calendar, there’s some handy keyboard shortcuts, a Mac like search feature, built-in scheduling (like Calendly) and a multi account feature (which, for some reason, Google Calendar on web still doesn’t have).
I also found Cron has better notifications, with an online meeting link embedded in the notification, and a time-to-meeting indicator (on Mac, not tested on Windows).
You can also one-click add Zoom and Google Meet links to calendar events. It also automatically shows you other people’s schedules (if you’re in the same organization) when trying to add them to a calendar invite. While Google Calendar does offer some of these features with add-ons and a few clicks, I find Cron’s implementation really intuitive.
The mobile app is also smooth like butter. These little things add up and I feel like I can’t go back to Google Calendar anymore. Everything just works and it works really well.
Oh, did I mention Notion bought Cron last year and it now integrates with Notion too?
Pricing: Free
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS
Keeper/Bitwarden: remember all the passwords
Keeper is just one of the many password managers that exist in the world. You’re probably tired of seeing password manager ads on YouTube. Keeper is paid and has a pretty nice UI. It saves passwords automatically as you type them and it’s cross-platform as well. Keeper’s yearly fees are reasonable too.
Why should you choose Keeper over the many, many alternatives like Dashlane, 1Password, LastPass? I honestly have no good argument.
I do have a good argument for Bitwarden - it’s completely free (barring some niche paid features). Bitwarden is open source as well, so everything is transparent. It also does almost everything that the paid alternatives do (sometimes better).
So why pay for Keeper? Well, the UI is better on Keeper if that matters to you.
Pricing: Free trial then paid with discounts for students for Keeper. Free for Bitwarden.
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, iOS, Android for both
Download Keeper here (40% Off)
Mega: cheap cloud storage
The only reason to use Mega over the plethora of alternatives such as Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, iCloud and Dropbox is that Mega offers the most cloud storage in its free tier - a whopping 50GB. The paid tiers are also competitively priced.
Mega’s interface is more security focused than alternatives; everything is encrypted.
Mega has a capable desktop app for automatic syncing and the mobile app can auto sync your photos. There’s a nice version history feature which can store past versions of your files so you can retrieve them if you need to (it costs extra storage).
Pricing: Free with 50GB storage then paid tiers based on storage
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, iOS, Android
Audible: audiobooks!
Audio content has seen somewhat of a resurgence in the last few years, and it’s expected to take up a larger portion of book revenue in the years to come. It’s all driven by the accessibility of audiobooks compared to physical books.
This is also a recommendation for you to listen to audiobooks. Production quality is much better for audiobooks these days, and narrators are expressive. Most books these days have audiobook versions as well.
I believe audiobooks have helped me read more (or listen more?) as I find it hard to get the time to sit down with a book. During my commute, I always have an audiobook playing; I find it much better than feeling nauseous trying to grapple with a book on a shaky, moving train. It fits into my daily routine seamlessly.
Amazon owned Audible is the behemoth in this space and their affordable monthly subscription gives you a free audiobook from their massive library every month - substantially cheaper than buying audiobooks individually. Audible also integrates well with Kindle, further cementing Amazon’s position in the book market.
The Audible app has a bunch of useful features such as driving mode, the ability to show you an accompanying pdf (for content that can’t be expressed via audio) and a good recommendation system for new books.
Pricing: Paid
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Kindle and some other devices
Readwise: key ideas from books you’ve already read
I don’t think apps such as Blinkist give you the true essence of a book - the journey is just as important as the key ideas1. A good non-fiction book cannot be condensed to a few paragraphs.
Readwise, in that aspect, is better than book summaries because the app is a supplement to a (usually non-fiction) book, not a replacement. You read the book, then Readwise sends you snippets from the book regularly (either your own highlights or popular highlights) to help you remember the contents of the book.
It solves a big problem for me; I read a good non-fiction book and I forget some of the nuances of the ideas mentioned in the book in the next few months. Readwise helps me remember those ideas via spaced repetition.
The app also exports highlights from Kindle. You can also paste highlights from your device clipboard, export from Instapaper or Pocket, or take pictures of your highlights from physical books.
Pricing: Free trial then Paid. Student discounts are available.
Platforms: Web, iOS and Android
Bobby/Billbot: subscription tracker
A no-frills subscription tracker for all these subscriptions you’ll be getting after this article.
Popular subscription services have pre-filled details on Bobby - so you can one-click add them. You can also add custom subscriptions with different frequencies (monthly, annually, etc.) and billing amounts.
The app will also send notifications before subscription payments are due (if you want it to) and calculate monthly spending for you. It also has cloud sync so you can move data from device to device easily.
Billbot is a free alternative without cloud sync and has almost every other feature that Bobby has. Is cloud sync worth paying for? You decide.
Pricing: Free with limitations to Paid for Bobby, Free for Billbot
Platforms: iOS for Bobby, iOS and Android for Billbot
Lifesum: meal tracker
A beautifully designed and efficient meal tracker - the app can suggest meals based on calorie intake and macro (fat, protein and carbs) requirement or assess your current intake. It’s pretty snappy, beautiful to look at, and really intuitive to use.
One of the best features: you can start typing a meal and it’ll pre-fill the calorie and nutrient information. You can also add pictures or scan a barcode to fill in the info.
Lifesum also suggests how much calories you need to be taking for your desired weight and your required macro composition. It has diet plans and recipes as well.
Pricing: Free with limitations to Paid
Platforms: iOS and Android
Cursor: chatGPT for code
This is for developers, but Cursor has been such a revelation for me - it’s an AI pair programmer with lots of useful features.
You can ask it to fix errors in your code, explain the code and generate it as well. It’s basically ChatGPT built right into your code editor.
It’s using GPT 4 along with VSCodium (open-source VS Code) so it’s pretty feature packed. I love not having to look up Stack Overflow for code issues and sometimes not even having to look up documentation. While it has the classic ChatGPT hallucination problems and it’ll suggest incorrect code at times, I think it works very well 90% of the time.
If you already have a GPT-4 or GPT-3.5 OpenAI key, you can use that for Cursor. So, you don’t need to pay for it (outside of API usage). If you use ChatGPT for helping with our code already, it’ll save you time going back and forth between your code editor and ChatGPT.
Github Copilot is the biggest name in this space and since Copilot still doesn’t use GPT 4, I find Cursor to be better in every aspect. Of course, when Copilot X launches, I expect Copilot to take the lead.
Pricing: Free with limitations to Paid
Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux
Canva: graphics design for everyone
Canva has democratized graphics design and now anyone with a laptop can create eye catching designs. It’s so easy to use that designers use it as well.
Gone are the days of someone having to learn Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (and paying an eye watering amount for it) to create simple social media posts.
Canva is just drag and drop graphics design; it has beautiful, intuitive UI and a great library of templates.
Pricing: Free with limitations to Paid
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android