OS X + Journler = Noteably Wonderful
So you’re running OS X and keeping track of your schedule. If you’re anything like myself this means at some points you have Stickies open, maybe a couple looming unsaved instances of “Textedit” or possibly even a word file, some even resort to spreadsheets. Maybe you’re a note fanatic however and seek more organization so you’ve started using “Mail” app to keep track of idea’s and notes or gone to a new extreme and setup some filters and labels so you can email yourself ideas as reminders.
All of these methods work, success greatly varies depending on your work and thought style however. With this in mind I will say that Journler isn’t going to be for everyone… or maybe it is!
Price:
journler right from the get go won me over with it’s price … FREE! (as in beer. for now). This is a “feature” pretty much non-existent in this software market with some apps/suites costing up to $130! Now you probably noticed I said “(for now)” above, this is because the developers are moving the application over to a shareware model… everyone’s gotta make ends meet.
Features:
The feature set is what sold me (as it should be when using an App.) it can be as cut dry and simple or as needlessly complex as you desire. This is something we don’t usually see. From most of the “personal productivity” software I’ve used you’re given a series of tools and a set idea as to how they are going to be used. Not the case with journler.
Notes:
Keep your thoughts stored just how you had them. Attach files, record your own video or audio clip. Insert HTML elements … make a todo list with HTML checkboxes. Toss pre-fixes on list items or high light a line out of a copy and pasted paragraph. I would go so far as to say that the interface for composing and organizing your ideas inside your notes rivals Word or Open Office.
Organization:
Labels, Tags, and Folders on my! Corny I know, but seriously you’ve the ability to organize your notes any given way… even multiple ways! Using Labels and Folders would be enough to keep a veteran personal productivity app user happy. When you consider Tagging and Smart Folders along with this the way you organize your ideas almost becomes blaring obvious.
Smart Folders: (my favorite feature)
It’s like real time message filtering for your notes. You’ll create a Smart Folder that doesn’t actually contain anything, nor will it ever per-say. Smart Folders are more like a logic location, any give item can span multiple Smart Folders based on that items characteristics. I’ll give you a simple example.
I’m a web developer by choice and trade, I love it. With that said at any given time I’m usually juggling work, freelance, and my own projects simultaneously. This means I have serious collisions of time and ideas. I might have 50 separate tasks from 3 different projects 13 of which are Urgent. Now rather than look over notes from a 3 projects and find the ones I’ve labeled as “Urgent” I could simply create a smart folder. Using the stupid simple interface I could add a “requirement” or “exclusion” for items that should appear in this folder. In my example I’ll say I want “all” notes with a “label” or Urgent. The smart folder would instantly populate with my 13 labeled notes for all projects/categories/etc.
Great!… now lets say an entire project is placed on developmental hold, these tasks are no longer urgent because of the dev freeze but once that project begins development I’ll need them to remain urgent. I could now edit my Smart Folder and depending on your organizational preference exclude that project from showing up in said filter. If using folders you could tell the smart folder to “exclude” notes from folder “project foobar”… or if using tagging (my preference) “exclude” notes tagged “foobar”.
Application Integration:
Talk about stream line! Journler hooks into some of OS X’s most popular Apps. While composing a note attach a file (also note the files are reference pointers, so if you update that file… it’s updated in the note) using finder… or view an attached file in Finder. However you can also attach a contact from your Address book, or email a file/note from Mail. Attached an XLS file… have Office installed, it already knows and shows the Office Excel Icon as the viewing option. Listen to an MP3 file you’ve attached or watch a vid right inside the app using native Quicktime support. Hook dates into iCal and link them to existing iCal entries. It even hooks into Spotlight, just type in the title of the note you want to view and Spotlight tracks it down, hit enter and it opens right up in Journler. All of this is done so smoothly you’ll start to wonder why other applications don’t do it the same way. As if that wasn’t enough Apple Script integration allows you to write your own functionality!
Summary:
I consider journler although one of my newer Apps easily one of my MVP apps. As I get more used to it and discover new ways to use and implement it the more I fall in love with it’s simplicity and functionality. I’d suggest everyone give it a week worth of trial and see if you don’t agree. It’s so open anyone could find a way to utilize it…. and I mean anyone… Soccer Mom’s to NASA engineers.
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