In order to optimise my workflow, I took it upon myself to find a handful of apps, websites and software to include and utilise. For purposes of being gradual, I found using a handful of really powerful and useful apps works a lot better than a number of decent ones for sake of convenience and meaningful efficiency.
Time and task management - Atlassian Apps
Atlassian is a project collaboration software company that specialises in creating software used for team projects and task managements. I knew from the beginning that in order to organise my time in conjunction with my job and commission work, time managing and organising my ideas and tasks was important. I came across software created by Atlassian such as Jira and Trello. Jira especially I have found to be a big help not just for my university work, but for my life beyond coursework. I find it helpful to just get my tasks or 'issues' onto a timeline and better structure my work.
Idea generation - Figma and Notion
Figma and notion are apps I think I would be interested in implementing in the future. I am more familiar with Figma, however Notion has shown me a new perspective on taking notes in seminars and lectures. Before I used to simply jot down notes in my notebook, however now I can add notes as well as add research and plan my projects.
Research - Zotero
So many times I have found a piece of research and simply saved it as a link or search a lot to find relevant citations to a given project. What ends up happening is I have a bunch of poorly organised licks, quotes and citations which ends up meaning my projects are not properly backed up. In fact in a separate module where research and creating a list of citations was key, I felt I didn't do enough and my result I felt was inadequate. Zotero is an open source research management tool meant to collect, organise and create bibliographies. This is what I need to properly inform my work for projects, as well as generally build up a library of information I can use whenever.
Conclusion
These are powerful apps and software that I feel can elevate my work to another level. Using my strategy structure in Part 1 + these handful of really useful software, I have already begun to see an improvement in my work and with perseverance, my workflow will become more efficient, informative and abundant.
