So recently I got a brand new 5th gen ipad air for work and personal productivity purposes. I’ve always been eyeing an ipad to supercharge my both my academic studies, as well as a hub for my project ideas. A couple of weeks ago I took part in a tech hackathon that saw me using a friend’s ipad for sketching, designing, and ideating our hackathon solution, and that’s where I feel in love with the productivity workflow process.
Ideating is hard. It is even harder without the right tools and equipment. Drawing mockups, brainstorming ideas, erasing, cancelling, writing, erasing again, oops where did that sheet of paper go? What was meant to be a efficient and productive session unfolds into a chaos of clutter and mess. Not to mention that everything is hardcopy, sharing and collaboration work becomes exponentially harder.
In my mind (and limited tablet experience), the ipad is a perfect tool that addresses most of the mentioned problems. This will not only make the design process more efficient and streamlined, but also allow me to express my ideas consistently in a high-quality manner. This is essential as an aspiring entrepreneur, to ideate quickly and validate with those around me.
Now that I’ve set up a basic version of my device, the next step is configuring the ideal productivity workspace. Youtube is a good source of inspiration, with creators such as Ali Abdaal and his unique workflow.
As an artistically inclined individual, I am looking for a note-taking app that supports a versatile canvas with a range of pen options for me to sketch out my ideas, an environment where I can easily move things around as you would on a graphic design platform, a functional text editor, and supports easy import and export of media files. Currently, Good Notes, Notability, and One Note are battling it out in the boxing ring. Once I read more reviews and test each one separately, the champ will be the tool that best fits my productivity workflow.
Once that’s done, its time to start hacking.