Apps & Analogue

​Welcome to another in my Life Hacks series! Sorry it is a bit late, but today I will be talking about the mix I use of both digital apps and pen and paper. I tried to just use the one, just apps, but personally I couldn’t manage it. Instead I mixed a few, which I am going to explain here today. 

Anyone who has read my earlier posts in the Life Hacks series, I am a great lover of my Bullet Journal. Before I found this I used to keep notes on paper all the time, then loose them, or try and upload them online and have no way of easily sorting them. 

I now use my Bullet Journal all of the time, and it seriously helps. But there are still a few things that I find more useful to use on my phone, for example, my phone calendar! 

I am an absolute lover of Google Calendar! I think it is a fantastic product and it works really well for me. I use it a lot for my things I’m doing, including my work schedule. I predominantly have one calendar which I use for everything, and share with both Tyler and any other long term partners (for whom it would be useful to have my diary). This is super helpful, especially since it is always on my person with my phone and accessible from anywhere. 

Another thing I do a lot of is writing blog posts! Who’d have guessed it eh? 

I do like to use a notepad to plan out my posts, along with a checklist of things to write about and to do to promote the articles. However the app I use to actually write my posts is Evernote. I have been an Evernote convert for many years. I did use onenote for a time but it isn’t as easy to use on my phone (as far as I have found so far) or as simple! 

Of course with everything there are pros and cons. I am going to discuss each thing I’ve mentioned here and the ups and downs of each. 

Bullet Journal 

Pros

• Adaptable. You can do what you like with it and style as you like. 
• The type of book you use for it is completely up to you. 
• You can track a lot of things at once. 

Cons

• Bulky at times. 
• Not as portable as a phone – you need a bag to carry it in all of the time, or resign to leaving it at home. 
• Can be time consuming – setting it all up can take a while. 

Google Calendar

Pros

• Portable – can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have Internet connection, and offline if you just look at it on your phone 
• Easily shareable – as I said, I share my main calendar. Plus I can do this with any calendar I set up. This makes it really handy for meetings and the like. 
• Colour coding – I find colours super helpful and I even colour code my Bullet Journal, so the ability to do this on Google Calendar is really useful. 
• Email reminders – I have a daily agenda sent to me at 6am every day, although this isn’t always useful for me, it could be for a lot of people. 

Cons

• You can only do so much – I can’t set it up in other designs as easily as I could on my journal. 
• Sometimes things can get a little confusing – if you have lots of overlapping items it can get confused. I tend to get around this by using Business Calendar as my app I access it through. 

Evernote 

Pros

• So simple – you don’t get confused by a fancy interface. 
• It does everything I need it to – there aren’t any issues with it, simply put it does what I need it to. It has basic formatting too which is all I require for my posting. 
• I can copy and paste including formatting straight into the WordPress app! I don’t think I need any explanation on this, it is just brilliant!

Cons

• It can mess up formatting when copying phases – I haven’t worked out why this is yet but it can be frustrating. 
• The website is a little clunky – I do quite dislike the website version, but I don’t use it often so no worries really. 

Notebook and Pen

Pros 

• Handy – can do what you like in them
• Wide range of options available – big, small, lined, dotted, plain, there are all kinds of notepads around, plus the pens too!
• Basic – no worries about it being overcomplicated, it is as easy or hard as you want it to be! 

Cons

• No sharing capabilities – you can’t share it with people without being next to them or the use of something else (i.e. Cameras and the Internet) 
• Easier to lose notes – if you misplaced it, or took a page out, it can be a lot easier to lose them 

Tell me then, what do you think about the different things I have mentioned? Do you use any of these? Do you have any others you’d recommend for me to try? As always you can leave me a comment or message me through the site or social media. I always reply to everything. 

Join me tomorrow for my review on one of my favourite podcasts that is currently on hiatus, My Dad Wrote A Porno!