My Top MacOS & iOS Productivity Apps — Part 1

1. Notion

I’ve been a notion user for quite a while. I use notions primarily as learning notes. For example, when attending lectures/seminars/workshops, I use notions to take notes. Also, to manage the project, I usually use notions. I write down every step, command, and link associated with my project in notion. Not infrequently, notion I make a mini-wiki for my project. It makes me really like using notions is the page-in-page feature that allows creating a separate page by keeping it linked on the start page.

One example, how do I use a notion

2. Google Drive (Backup and Sync & Google File Stream)

Who doesn’t know google drive, online storage owned by google? I use google drive from the institution where I work that offers unlimited storage, so I’m not worried about capacity. The storage I use on google drive is much larger than the hold I have on the MacBook that I use every day. I currently use about 332 Gigabytes of storage on my google drive. I regularly archive some completed projects, including a completed lecture folder in a semester (and also disable syncing with my MacBook)

332Gigabyte ???

How I sync my documents

While Google File Stream, in my opinion, is an apps version of google drive that lets me see the whole file I have in the cloud. (Remember, I don’t sync all my files in google drive, but when I need to see files in the cloud, I don’t have to open google drive through a browser, but just use google file stream). Best of all, google stream integrates with the finder on your mac. Beneficial as hell, isn’t it.

The Filestream

3. Alfred

Alfred’s workflow made my life easier. Alfred is a replacement for the much more innovative MacOs. For example, I use Alfred for many things to open journal articles that are not open access. I integrate Alfred with sci-hub (forgive me, but knowledge shouldn’t be limited by anything). By typing a specific keyword, I can open access to the article by pasting the DOI link of the article

Alfred Automation for Scihub

Besides, there are many other uses of Alfred that I set. For example, to search for a specific keyword on my agency’s website. Everything can be managed in the Alfred workflow and saves time. Alfred became a search-bar for everything, even only opening videos on YouTube.

One of the other things I like best is integrating Alfred with Numi. I really need Numi when calculating and converting simple accounting calculations in different currencies.

It’s amazing, add up two different currencies with just a simple shortcut

4. Tick-tick

I use ticks as daily reminders. Tick-tick is my reminder assistant that organizes my schedule from morning to night, from work to personal matters. Tick-tick also features the pomodoro timer (an effective work / study technique by setting study times and short breaks).One thing that I love about ticks is the auto parsing feature which allows the ticks to recognize the deadline for the reminder simply by parsing the text.

This is how I add a reminder

I also configured the ticks to be able to set the priority and urgency of the things I need to do with the Eisenhover Matrix method, which is to divide the urgency of work based on four quadrants.

And those are some of the apps that I can’t live without. Maybe some of what I write can inspire you. Thank you.