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My Favourite iPad Productivity Apps

2021-01-24 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:34 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Books and reading) · mode: Review and recommendation

Ali counts down his ten favourite iPad productivity apps of early 2021 (Unread, Instapaper, Drafts, Shortform, Things 3, Notability, Procreate, Day One, Kindle and, at number one, Notion) and shows how each fits his reading, capture, to-dos, notes, drawing and journaling.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro: his top 10 productivity apps for the iPad

00:00:05 — Number 10: Unread, an RSS reader, with Feedly

  • ★★ Ali subscribes to blogs' RSS feeds in Feedly and reads them in Unread on the iPad, or Reader on Mac and iPhone, getting a daily digest of what the blogs he likes publish. — 00:00:25 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Following blogs through RSS in Unread keeps Ali in touch with the blogs he wants to follow without his email inbox being flooded by their newsletters. — 00:00:55

00:01:33 — Number 9: Instapaper, read it later, highlights synced through Readwise to Notion

  • ★★★ Ali saves any article he stumbles across, usually while procrastinating, to Instapaper instead of reading it then; he finds this improves his productivity, and the article waits for when he actually wants to read it. — 00:01:41 · Instapaper
  • ★★ Instapaper syncs automatically with Readwise, which syncs to Notion, so Ali's Instapaper highlights of articles sit in a Notion database. — 00:02:10 · Instapaper, Readwise, Notion

00:02:53 — Number 8: Drafts for quick capture

  • ★★ Ali prefers Drafts to any other note-taking app for its speed and its Apple Watch widget, which lets him dictate a note while driving or walking, for example about an audiobook or a podcast. — 00:03:08 · Drafts, Apple Watch
  • ★★ Ali finds both Notion and Roam Research too slow for quick capture, so everything goes into his Drafts inbox first and later ends up in Notion or Roam, depending on its use. — 00:03:38 · Drafts, Notion, Roam Research
  • ★★ Ali, who discovered Shortform a few weeks earlier, finds its book summaries deeper than Blinkist's, which are usually surface level and take about 20 minutes. — 00:03:38

00:03:57 — Number 7: Shortform book summaries

  • ★ Besides a one-page summary of each book, Shortform has a detailed full summary of every chapter, with exercises the reader can type answers into. — 00:04:46
  • ★★★ Ali says book summaries are no substitute for reading the book, but with too many books to read he reads a summary to decide whether to read the full book, or to recall the highlights of one he has read. — 00:04:46
  • ★★ Many books have one central idea padded out to about 300 pages, Ali says, so a summary gives the idea without reading the whole book. (overstated) — 00:05:25

00:05:53 — Number 6: Things 3 and a paper to-do list

  • ★★ Things 3 is one of Ali's favourite apps on iPad, iPhone and Mac, mostly because it is pretty and nice to use, though it is quite expensive and only on Apple devices. — 00:05:54 · Things 3, iPad Pro
  • ★★★ Ali says you do not need a fancy to-do list manager to use to-do lists well: a lot of the time he now uses a paper to-do list, Ugmonk's Analog. — 00:05:54
  • ★★ Things 3 splits work into areas, projects and tasks; Ali used to organise his to-do list by areas of his life, but now organises it by project in order of priority. — 00:06:23 · Things 3
  • ★★ The book Ali is writing is the top project in his Things 3 list, with tasks to reach out to various people about it. — 00:06:23 · Things 3
  • ★ Ali's Things 3 list holds a project to do 30 days of meditation and areas for each of his team members, to keep track of their work. — 00:06:52 · Things 3

00:07:27 — Number 5: Notability and the Paperlike screen protector

  • ★★ These days Ali takes few handwritten notes on the iPad; for handwritten notes he uses an actual pen and pad or his Analog to-do list. — 00:07:34 · Notability, iPad, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali prefers Notability to GoodNotes: GoodNotes smooths out Apple Pencil strokes so it feels like writing on a screen, while Notability genuinely feels like writing on paper. — 00:07:57 · Notability, GoodNotes, Apple Pencil
  • ★★ Ali has used the Paperlike matte screen protector on his iPad Pro since 2018 and says it has never let him down: writing on it feels like paper rather than a shiny surface. — 00:08:25 · Paperlike, iPad Pro
  • ★ Notability holds Ali's medical notes, including obstetrics and gynaecology, and material for SixMed, his YouTube channel, books and the Part-Time YouTuber Academy. — 00:08:54 · Notability, 6med, Part-Time YouTuber Academy

  • ★★★ Ali defines productivity as making progress towards the goals he finds meaningful, efficiently, while having fun along the way; this is why the drawing app Procreate is on his list. — 00:08:54 · feel-good productivity (concept)

    “I define productivity as making progress towards the goals that I find meaningful in an efficient way”

00:09:09 — Number 4: Procreate for learning concept art

  • ★★ Working towards his 2021 goal of becoming a concept artist, Ali uses Procreate with his art teacher Alessandro, sharing his iPad screen on Zoom calls; lately they work on human anatomy and proportions. — 00:09:23 · Zoom, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali is also doing an online course on gesture drawing by Proko. (hedged) — 00:09:23
  • ★★ Ali says he is going to interview Proko, whose gesture-drawing course he is taking, on his channel at some point. — 00:09:23
  • ★★ Ali's dream for his concept art is to illustrate a scene from Mistborn, such as Kelsier riding the winds, or from The Stormlight Archive, such as Kaladin holding his spear, which needs skill at drawing people. — 00:09:52 · Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive
  • ★★ Ali has used Day One as his journaling app of choice since about 2014; he likes its design and its sync across his Mac, iPhone and iPad. (hedged) — 00:10:15 · Day One, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali does not use Day One as often as he should and is on and off with journaling, but he finds it really nice to look back at his journal from three or four years ago. — 00:10:15 · Day One

00:10:18 — Number 3: Day One and the nice comments journal

  • ★★ Ali keeps a nice comments journal in Day One: kind comments forwarded to the journal's private email address are added automatically, and reading them on a bad day gives him a lift. — 00:11:18 · Day One

00:11:42 — Number 2: the Kindle app for book notes

  • ★★ Ali usually reads and highlights books on his physical Kindle in bed, but uses the Kindle app on the iPad when he wants to take notes on them properly. — 00:11:53 · Kindle, iPad Pro
  • ★★ The Kindle app works nicely in iPad split screen: Ali flicks through a book on one side while writing notes or a book review for his website and newsletter. — 00:11:53 · Kindle, iPad, aliabdaal.com, iPad Pro
  • ★★ The Kindle app's notebook shows all his highlights of a book, such as The Making of a Manager, and Ali builds his own book notes in Notion around them. — 00:12:23 · Kindle, Notion

00:12:39 — Number 1: Notion

  • ★★★ Ali calls Notion, his number one iPad productivity app, the ultimate app for everything: he uses it for almost everything in his life, especially creation, his website, YouTube content, ideas, courses and his team's work. — 00:12:52 · Notion, iPad Pro

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Day One · Drafts · Instapaper · Kindle · Notability · Notion · Procreate · Shortform · Things 3 · Unread

Also: People: Alessandro · Cal Newport · Jonathan Haidt · Ryan Holiday · Tim Ferriss

Projects: Not Overthinking · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: Mistborn · The Making of a Manager · The Righteous Mind · The Stormlight Archive

Organizations: 6med · Proko · Ugmonk

Concepts: feel-good productivity (concept) · quick capture

Characters: Kaladin · Kelsier

Products: Apple Pencil · Apple Watch · Audible · Blinkist · Feedly · GoodNotes · iPad Pro · Paperlike · Reader · Readwise · Roam Research · Ugmonk Analog · Zoom

Also centred on Shortform: How to ‘Read’ 1000 Books a Year

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