It’s hard to find a tool I like working with. Maybe it’s because I spend all day online, or it’s more that I’m a minimalist by nature. Interestingly enough, each of these services tends to specialize in one thing, and they serve that thing to their audience extremely well. Another interesting observation is that I’ve unintentionally compiled a list of one-time-purchase products. I love that. 💚

Nota

I’ve been using Nota for several years and continuously stand by it as my favorite notepad, if not my favorite application. I once migrated a 21-year-old Engineering Wiki from Confluence to SharePoint. Nota was the only middleman that could handle the document formatting. I love the flat-file system design; it works well with security concise documents where storing in a 3rd party cloud might not be permitted.

This app has a beautiful user interface; the creators boast their “obsessive attention to detail,” and I feel they have earned that title. I don’t know why the product is still in beta, but if I had to guess, it would have something to do with the perfectionism of the authors. I recently found it lives within a mono-repo with some other trendy products, so I’m confident this product lives strong.

---

Tim - Time Tracking

I usually use the MacOS Calendar app. I’ve tried some more premium services in the past. Still, it seems like most Calendar-based services are heavily focused on the email and meetings aspect of your day. I like to keep meetings to a minimum and am fine using Slack’s alerts. Actually, I depend on those Slack alerts for meetings.

Clearly, I’m more interested in the time-tracking aspect of my day. Tim- Time Tracking stood out because the MacOS Calendar app has been my go-to for time tracking until now. Tim-Time Tracking feels like a more feature-rich version of the MacOS Calendar app.

---

Xnapper

I assume ‘Xnapper’ is pronounced like ‘Snapper’ — does anyone know? This tool is slick for modifying screenshots, which I find myself doing more often than not with the default MacOS image editing software. Xnapper’s real appeal (to me) is the consistent frame sizes I can produce. This is just my perfectionism speaking, but I enjoy consistency.

I like the UI’s simplicity and the labels’ clarity. If you have a basic understanding of where you’d prefer your files to save, too, it’s easy enough to make the modifications needed. If you don’t care like me, you can leave the default settings and snap away.

---

ScreenMemory

ScreenMemory is a screen capture tool that captures your screen. This tool is one that I checked out and initially didn’t purchase, perhaps instinctively. However, I feel this tool has done an excellent job providing all of the benefits of screen capture; without the invasive parts.

I’m also highly conscious of my digital privacy and like to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of data breaches far beyond my control. ScreenMemory uses my local machine’s storage, and that makes me feel secure in that aspect. (That’s the same reason I prefer Nota for my text editor.) Although local storage comes with the risk of potentially losing your content, I find it worth the peace of mind.

Conclusion

I’d like to see what tools I’ll be using around this same time next year; I’ll set a reminder to do a follow-up article. Until then, what tools are you using? Do you prefer simplicity or functionality? Let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.