Last year this time I wrote about changes to the tools and processes I use for personal productivity. This is just a brief update on where things ended up.

Document storage

Switching from Neat to Doxie was a failure, the multi-step scanning process and poor software integration made it a non-starter. I am still stuck with a Neat scanner that works less and less reliably with each Mac OS update, and a software suite that is now officially unsupported and unmaintained. I still have not found a better solution for scanning and keeping track of the small quantity of critical paper documents that I receive.

Note taking

I have abandoned Evernote as bloated and unworkable, as planned, but found Ulysses too be overly focused on writing long-form documents, whereas I need a general note-taking application. I have been using Quiver, a notebook focused on programmers who want to store code snippets, and found it to work reasonably well for all types of notes. I frequently get into trouble due to the lack of a full-featured iOS app.

I have been playing with Bear, a late entrant that is also a plain text/Markdown note taking app, and I’m generally pleased with it. But the import from Evernote is poor, and there are a few important features that are still missing.

Bookmarks and reading

Instapaper is still my favorite app for offline reading. Using Pinboard for shared/social bookmarking, however, was a bust — if the bookmark is not in my browser, I am not going to find it or see it. Instead I have switched to using Chrome on iOS so that my bookmarks and browsing history stay in sync between platforms.

Task management

Abandoning Things for 2Do was an overwhelming success. The features of 2Do work much better for me. But the lack of integration with other tools and/or a cloud component continue to hold it back from true excellence.

For more complex project management I have taken a look at a variety of tools including the venerable Basecamp (too opinionated, too wordy) as well as Asana (poor iOS app) and Flow, but I’ve fallen back to the trusty and flexible Trello.

Conclusion

Well, it’s good to try new things. With the plethora of tools and apps available, there should be something that fits everyone, but I still haven’t found the perfect set of apps for me. In particular, the Neat hardware/software is an (expensive) disaster, and there doesn’t seem to be a better tool for simply scanning, OCRing, and searching receipts and documents. But I will keep looking in 2017!

I have been moving more of my writing to Markdown format, and that makes it much easier to switch between apps. It would be easier still if every app supported the same set of Markdown formatting options.