2021 resolution? Improve your note-taking skills 🐦


And hit the gym, of course.	View in browser

Instagram

Twitter

Archive

Do you prefer visual planning or making lists?

I ask because I've always been a man of lists. I can not operate if I don't go by a list (I would even forget to write tech-letters if I wasn't reminded by my apps).

That being said, there's only so much you can express when using lists. There's a note-taking method known as "zettelkasten" which is highly talked about, but this year has been way too complicated to now dive into a totally different way to... take notes. Hard pass.

We don't have to use lists for everything. When we think, we don't imagine lists. We think ideas, graphs, we connect two dots; so it only makes sense if we do that digitally too.

P.S. Happy Holidays! Like you've heard 300 times already from everyone you know, this year has been different and quite challenging. So good on you for sticking through (and staying productive with all these tech-tools!!!). 2021 will definitely be your year.

Kinopio 🐦

Don't worry about trying to read that image. I'll do my best to give you the highlights.

Kinopio is a visual thinking tool, but you must have figured that out by now. The best part, right off the bat, is that you don't need to sign up (or pay) to use it; and you can work alone or collaborate with others. P.S. have you noticed how most tools have increasingly been collaboration-friendly? I wonder if COVID-19 had anything to do with it.

The idea is to create cards ("individual thoughts/ideas"). You can then connect these cards (thoughts) to each other, which is what we do in our head (pretty much).

You create cards by clicking... anywhere on the screen. If there's space, you can create a card. There's several things you can do to cards itself. You can add images (which also works on mobile, btw), paste an image URL, and more. Important to note that on the free version of Kinopio, images can not exceed 5MB. If it does, feel free to refer to my favourite image optimiser.

These "connections" that I mentioned earlier, can hold different meanings. You can set colours for the different connection, each meaning something else. So in the GIF above, say I categorised that purple connection line as "music", so everywhere I see a purple line on my board, I'll know it's referring to music. But you can create a different board altogether for different categories-- the world (or Internet) is your oyster. And yes, a card can have multiple connections.

Other features include adding filters, making each card have a checkbox so you can treat it as an item on a to-do list, use templates, and so on.

So, what can you do with Kinopio? Whatever you'd like.

You can start from scratch or use pre-made templates. The image above uses the "Class Notes" template (you can figure out what that means). Other templates include to-do lists, mental health, brainstorming, product roadmaps, weekly planners, and more. For reference, here is a Kinopio board that someone created to give away plants in Brooklyn. They added songs, images, a different background, to do lists, and more. Here's a more technical one-- a guitar setup.

As far as privacy goes, if you don't sign up, only you can see the board you work on. If you sign up, you get to choose if you want to make your space private or public.

Using Kinopio is free, but you have a 100 card limit (if you reach that limit, you can always delete old cards). If you enjoy this and want more, you can always spend $4/month for unlimited cards. There's an FAQ page if you have more questions, too.