My Top 5 Apps of 2014

Its that time of year again – when you look back over the past 12 months and reflect on the time gone by, what you accomplished, what was good and bad. Since I write about productivity and creativity here, its appropriate to round out the year with a list of the top apps that helped me, in some way, to achieve those goals.

1. Evernote – Readers of this blog know about my love affair with Evernote. Its my favourite app, one I use everyday to keep track of important notes, reminders and lists in one place. New ways I started using Evernote this year – reminders (for appointments, renewals or cancellations of services), keeping all the details for each book in one place for marketing campaigns and saving screenshots.

2. Scribd  - I have been using the Scribd app a lot lately – mostly on my iPhone but also my iPad. I received a complimentary subscription as a Scribd author earlier this year, and have over time increasingly found the service very useful. I mean to do a longer post about it – but for now, I love this app because I am able to make really good use of the little bits of time that otherwise get lost. Essentially I read multiple books at a time on this app, and it does a great job of remembering where I stopped (and syncs between devices seamlessly). They have recently added audiobooks to their library as well.

3. NovelRank – this app is mainly for ebook authors selling their books on Amazon. The app helps you track the sales of your books on major Amazon platforms. I use this app at least once a day to monitor my sales – and its quite accurate. I probably don’t need to monitor my sales that regularly – but its a neurosis thing – and it helps to keep me motivated to work harder at promotions or new writing.

4. ATracker – this app made last year’s list – and its still one of my favourites. I use it to track the amount of time I dedicate to various categories of activities, and use it to motivate myself to put in more time on things I tend to neglect, or just to keep tabs on how much I am getting done. I use the pro version, which gives me unlimited tasks, and the ability to personalise my display in terms of colours and icons.

5. Feedly – choosing the 5th app was a bit difficult – but this RSS reader made the list because its also another one I use everyday. They have made it much easier to share articles with friends or on social media, or to save to other apps such as Pocket and Evernote.

Honourable Mention: IFTTT

This app gets an honourable mention, although really it should be somewhere on the list. Its my most useful app because I never use it! – by which I mean it does everything it needs to in the background. IFTTT basically is a great app to automate many tasks that need communicating between apps or devices. I use it to save certain favourite Lifehacker articles, or save my Fitbit data to a spreadsheet. I probably don’t use it as much as I could – and am always on the lookout for great IFTTT recipes. Leave a favourite recipe in the comments and I will be sure to check it. out!

These are my top apps – and many didn’t make the list but are just as useful. What apps did you find most useful in the past year? Leave your replies in the comments below.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing all my readers a very happy holiday season (and for those who celebrate, Merry Christmas!).

Here's wishing you a happy and creative 2015, one where you branch out in new directions, try things you never tried before, and live more fully, experiencing more of what life has to offer.

[Photo: our tree, put up at the very last minute, but still looking quite festive.]

Needing a Tribe

There is a lot of talk on blogs and in books about finding your "tribe" - a group of people with whom you can identify and who form the natural audience for your work. There is a lot of merit to this idea, however, it is usually reiterated in the context of marketing and promoting one's work.

I recently found out that it is equally, maybe even more important to find your tribe in the intermediate stages of the creative process. At an event that I attended recently (the launch of a book in which I have a co-authored chapter), I met an ex-colleague who is now also a full-time writer - of fiction. We hadn't met in a long time, and amidst catching up on life events we discussed some of the vagaries of the writing process, and life being a writer. It was a short dialogue, as the primary purpose of the event was to network, and I had to leave shortly after.

The few minutes casually discussing perspectives with another writer, even though she writes in very different genres, was more validating than I had imagined. I haven't belonged to a writer's group, as I have been officially writing for only a short while, and was afraid to put too many labels on what I was doing, lest I become constrained by those labels. I find it hard enough to write without undue pressure and constant questions regarding the work.

In fact, that was partly what we talked about. My friend, the writer, writes what I would classify as literary fiction, while I write only non-fiction. I always imagined that the approach and the experiences would be different writing such different material - but when I heard her describing her challenges with her current book, I could instantly relate. More so, it validated many of my own concerns.

I am confident that the need for acknowledgement, the need to share daily struggles exists in every creative endeavor. While some are more naturally collaborative mediums, some arts require weeks and months of solitary effort to produce something. Often the end product may be less than what you imagined, or it may not be received as well as you were hoping. At such times, the journey has to be worth it, because for now it may be all you have. It really helps to hear that from someone other than your mom or significant other, which is where the tribe comes in. A timely reassurance, the acknowledgement that someone else is going through the same thing, may keep you going for a little while longer, hopefully long enough to finally create that masterpiece!

Who is in your tribe and when do you reach out to them?