There are two. No, I’m not greedy and I can’t choose just one: they both work in harmony to improve my everyday life.
And to shock you even more, I pay for both of these apps. Not just to make sure I get all the features in both apps, but because these apps are so valuable to me that I want to do everything I can to make sure each app “stays alive” (i.e. stays in development).
Technically, these apps perform two functions. Because if you just did the things you remembered to do, or the things you always did, I’m sure some things will go wrong on any given day.
Drafts (iPhone only) is where my writing starts, with swiss army knife functionality to do things with your text once it’s written. For example, I took notes on Ms. of Marvel’s final scene and explanation of its post-credits and then sent them to my work computer via the ‘send email’ feature.
But I’m barely scratching the surface of why I love these apps, so let’s dive deeper.
Of course:
Project management is a very dry phrase, but it’s one you should look into if you find your plans blowing up in your face. Especially when you realize that you could have done something better in your design.
I’m not going all “Atomic Habits (opens in new tab)” on you, but when I realize I want to do something, I like to break the project down into smaller steps. Take my next vacation for example. I have a Todoist vacation template that starts with “check if there’s a certain outfit I want for this trip” and ends with “download a plane ticket to my iPhone’s Wallet app.” In the middle of all this mess, I have a “find and clean the toilets of the 3-1-1 rule” and a list of trip-specific restaurants and landmarks I want to check out.
Yes, I am a master of micromanagement. But Todoist makes it all very easy because you can tag, duplicate and schedule as you like. I also have custom filters so I can easily see all my tasks due today, tasks that are outside of today’s schedule, and so on.
Todoist is free to download, but paying $4-$5 per month (depending on monthly or annual billing) removes restrictions on active projects, collaborators, filters, and activity history. It also adds themes and reminders.
drafts:
However, I didn’t love Todoist until I realized how well it can work with one of my other favorite iPhone apps: Drafts. A stand-alone application by developer Agile Tortoinen (which may be a single operation by Greg Pierse), Sketches is where all my text begins.
Because? When you open Drafts, you immediately get a new clean text file. All its menus are hidden at that moment because you are here to type something now. To save a concept, text or whatever you write. Capturing ideas is a concept I fell in love with in part thanks to the work of podcaster Merlin Mann (he had the Inbox Zero idea that many have tainted).
However, writing is only half the fun of sketching. Tap the button in the upper right corner and you will get a menu with many functions for manipulating the text. You can send an email (or post to Trello, which I use at work) when I see something Tom’s Guide should cover. You can tweet your text.
Drafts is free to download, but Drafts Pro ($1.99 per month or $19.99 per year) lets you sync your app to iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, create and edit actions, and add features.
