So, let's play this game and let's try to stay away from design software. What software productivity tools do you use most often? What are your staple note-taking, to-do and calendar apps? Any others?
I'll start:
Evernote - Project notes, site photographs, and technical information. I keep a notebook full of DOB-related material, and little summaries of everything I do which might be relevant to a future project (sizing plumbing, zoning interpretations, links to manufacturers of particular items, room finish schedules for projects I'll need to refer back to.). The best part is they can be accessed from anywhere.
Toggl - Timing my tasks for billing purposes. Still on the free version, but I've been using it for over a year. It's great.
GitHub - Version control for grasshopper scripts, processing work and the odd C# grasshopper module.
Your turn. What's in your productivity tools arsenal?
curtkram
Sep 20, 15 12:40 pm
how big is your office null?
i was going to say evernote, but you already did
autodesk's sketch program, and probably some sort of remote file access to your server
null pointer
Sep 20, 15 2:54 pm
Running solo with adjunct freelancers here and there as required (I hate surveying as-builts).
ivorykeyboard
Sep 20, 15 10:46 pm
my problem with evernote was the necessity to get the paid app after like 10 mb, which is like 5 dollars monthly.
I've been using Slack in lieu of Microsoft Lync (now rebranded as Microsoft Skype) for communication between team members, as it seems to deal with image sharing and so on in a very tidy fashion.
It never occurred to me to use GitHub to search for grasshopper definitions... I always defaulted to the Grasshopper forums.
Larchinect
Sep 20, 15 10:58 pm
Hardware?
We have two Wacom cintiqs and several tablets for drawing right on the screen--eliminates need for constant printing, scanning and trace paper all over the place.
We use fresh books for clouds accounting invoicing and time keeping.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 21, 15 7:27 am
google sheets. ms excel. outlook.
Everyday Intern
Sep 21, 15 5:39 pm
I'm starting to use Evernote more and more, and get tired of the limited functionality and the 60 MB monthly limit on the free version ... and I'm cheap so I don't want to upgrade.
I'm looking at using Microsoft's OneNote with OneDrive (which gives you 15 GB for free) in lieu of Evernote. Still all free, for all your devices, but offers space for 250 months of free Evernote. Any dedicated OneNote users out there?
null pointer
Sep 21, 15 5:48 pm
Buy the small Evernote Moleskine and get 3 months for free.
I have a stack I got on sale. Makes each month cost like an effective buck and half.
Everyday Intern
Sep 21, 15 7:17 pm
You're on to something there null. It pencils out ... as long as you are already purchasing and using a similar Moleskin notebook.
Buy 4 of the Evernote notebooks to equal 1 free year = $67.80 (8 notebooks)
Price per notebook of the comparable notebook without the Evernote stickers = $4.65
Price for 8 of the similar notebooks without the Evernote stickers = $37.20
$67.80 gets you 1 year of Evernote Premium plus 8 notebooks when purchased as a package (and stickers).
$87.19 gets you 1 year of Evernote Premium plus 8 notebooks when purchased separately (and no stickers, I couldn't find if you can purchase the stickers separately).
Saving $19.39 when purchased together.
However, if you're like me and don't buy Moleskine notebooks ... you're paying $17.81 more than just forking out 50 bucks a year, plus you have 8 notebooks you wouldn't have purchased otherwise. Not to mention, I'm not sure what the functionality is with the notebook and the app. Is it worth $17.81 though?
Everyday Intern
Sep 21, 15 7:30 pm
MS OneDrive storage vs. Evernote Premium storage
OneDrive = Free = gives you 15GB (assumed per month) with 30GB max storage.
The only apps I use consistently for work-related non-email stuff are Genius Scan, UB Reader, and GoToMeeting.
proto
Sep 21, 15 8:55 pm
laser measuring tool + laptop cut down on as-built time
gruen
Sep 21, 15 10:10 pm
proto do you draw as you measure? That would take me forever, so if you have a trick, I want to know it. My field measure workflow is to draw on 1/4" grid paper, use a laser measure for most everything and a tape for a few things that the laser does not work for. I have a few conventions of sketching that make it go a tiny bit faster, but I did spend 7 hours surveying and measuring a medium sized church last week.
I use Toggl (free). It's amazing. For time tracking.
Nozbe for to do lists. checklists and basic project management.
That's it other than email and the drawing software. I can't imagine how I'd use evernote, sounds fussy to me.
Carbonite for backup.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 21, 15 10:20 pm
gruen and proto - for whatever reason paper and pencil are still the fastest for me. 7 hours is a very long time, but I'm not sure how you gauge this because I don't know how detail you were surveying.
sometimes I care about all the MEP and sometimes it matters little, but generally between photos and, pencil and paper, 5000 sqft office space can be done in 1-2 hours, single family dwelling 1 hr....but then again the other day I spent 15 minutes surveying 4 door panels....
if laser and laptop are faster would like to know how?
gruen
Sep 22, 15 9:03 am
I'm usually taking 2 hours to do a single family - photo and measure. I budget 3-4 hours total including transportation. If I do a cruddy job sketching then it goes faster :) This is for a home up to approx 2000 sf. If it's a monster I just add on time.
The church had a bunch of additions, full basement, some weird angles. 7 hours included transportation, so probably 6 hours at the church. I did extra work to figure out some exterior details I want to replicate, and had to get on the roof for inspection too. But yeah, that's long for me.
I'd love to measure and draw (CAD? Revit?) at the same time, but I think that would make it even slower.
I do love my bosch laser tape - about $100 at home depot - great tool.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 22, 15 9:32 am
with ya gruen on sloppy. but lately I have others draft it so either i spend a little extra time on my 1/8" ruled pad or re-sketch when in office. one enginwer i occasionaly survey with does it like a logic puzzle,he will tak like 4 key measurementa and then go - figure out the rest from that.....but you can never trust existing structures..........null i use Post-it notes and if i do not rememeber something it must not be important
gruen
Sep 22, 15 9:43 am
Oh - if the home or business owner wants to chat while I'm doing the field work, then it takes FOREVER. I am often telling them up front to leave me alone and let me work. 10 hours once to do a single family home because of the owner following me around the whole time.
proto
Sep 22, 15 3:16 pm
For an existing space, i photograph each wall in each room and then measure each space, locating and sizing all openings. Drawing on the laptop has made that go faster because I don't come back to the office and then draft what I just measured. It probably is longer than by hand for the measure itself, but, overall, I feel like it's a savings since I'm not drafting it twice (by hand & then on cad). I save existing sections/elevations for the office and work off of the photos with some key vertical measurements taken on site. A 2,000sf house plan measure can take 4hrs, but I've got plans ready to use when I get back to the office that are fairly reliable.
proto
Feb 19, 20 12:58 pm
update: just started using an ipad w/ acad + laser...it's a slow learning curve from the fast cad typing I'm used to, but it makes the process more mobile [& cramps the hell out of my pad-holding hand!]...i don't think it was slower by too much & am anticipating getting faster with it
proto
Aug 23, 23 2:32 pm
[Update since this thread bumped up] Ended up bailing on iPad process after a couple attempts...cad app was just too slow (multiple clicks to get to a given command [copy, offset, line, whatever...]). Laptop seemed to just be faster fwiw
gruen
Sep 22, 15 3:45 pm
Proto - very interesting. I'll have to try it on my next small measureup. I'd want to put it into REVIT, not sure how that'd affect my time.
awaiting_deletion
Sep 22, 15 6:07 pm
ha gruen,yeah I hate that,i often take the survey measurement twice or 3 times because they do not stop talking......I never let a person fresh out of school survey or freelancer, I don't trust it and all it takes is a few inches to screw the whole thing up and everyone comes down hard on the Architect!.......how hard is it to measure?............one time this realtor, young kid thought he would look good in front of the client and help me take measurements. everytime i got to a door i tried to explain what you measure and he kept getting it wrong, then he would sloppily run the tape at angles and rattle off the wrong dimension, finally he quit helping me and admitted "this architect thing is hard"! .................another story, so at this older ladies house to do an addition, her grandaughter or grandson's 20 something girlfriend was at the pool in a bikini and came to mingle with us (client,GC, and I). clealry proud of herself in the bikini strutted around in front of us as we carried on professionally. later, we go down the hall to discuss door changes and the girl is laying flat on the bed ass up pointed in our direction, GC gave me a holy shit look and the older lady quickly closed the door. later this girl exclaims loud enough for us to hear she will be taking a shower,right before i start surveying. I get to the bathroom door and its slightly open 4" as I hear the shower water. i take two more measurements, find the older lady who had gone off to locate the survey and get the fuck out of there!
Wilma Buttfit
Dec 17, 18 12:28 pm
Wait, Isn't that why you became an architect?
Medusa
Sep 27, 15 10:52 am
Lately, it seems my greatest productivity tool is calling out sick and doing some work at home so that I can actually focus on getting shit done instead of getting sidetracked by phone calls, meetings, stupid questions, and chit chat.
Ian Thompson
Oct 9, 15 4:29 am
Evernote is top of the list for me. Altho they seem to be getting some bad press lately for some reason.
Slack is an absolute must - our email load has just vanished and we've even started letting clients in as guests on certain channels. There's a good article here and here about using Slack for architecture PM.
XERO for invoicing with Stripe to handle payments. Our accountant has access too so keeps an eye on what's happening ;-)
We've started using Trello for PM. It seems easy enough to get to grips with. I'm on a MAC and run Time Track Pro in the background. It records time I spend in apps on my mac. Amazing the stats it comes up with at the end of the day... (Facebook ugh)
We use Skype for long distance - voiptalk for landlines. Our website site is on archiblogs.com and we have a facility there to let clients access drawings that are in turn sitting in a Dropbox folder.
awaiting_deletion
Oct 10, 15 10:41 am
Slack sounds interesting....the one day I was in the field all day, 150 meaningful emails, power on all my devices done by 3pm.....miss the landline and fax machine, ha
Jon Kai
Nov 20, 15 4:10 pm
gruen: if you have a trick, I want to know it.
for in the field, i find my app invaluable to do that, even if you have a laser, use laser to take one measurement, and this does the rest:
an iPhone/iPad app that will basically create an “As-Built” drawing from a photo Automatically. it even puts the dimensions on for you, it estimates the scale of the wall you’ve taken a photo of.. so you have something to work with, then once you correct one of the dimensions, all of them become correct. (then you can add more and move around existing dimensions too) it can even measure areas and perimeters right on that photo.
I'm passionate about improving productivity, my top productivity apps are: Asana, Slack, Keep, PomoDone and DataScope. I explain below how I use each one.
I'm using Keep to write new ideas and remember things, now they added more features to connect with events in calendar and tags to group ideas. For example I'm using tags like #ideas, #software, #work, #personal and more
I'm using slack at work to connect with my team, there I have a place where I can have integrated all the tools I use directly in a chat, Actually I have integrated all the other apps here, that way you don't need to check every service you are using. Could to track errors, events, performance and more.
This mobile solution to replace the use of paper when you need to collect data, is like Google Form but you can use offline in a iOS or Android app. You can connect with Google Spreadsheets, export to Excel, PDF and collect more information as signature, photos, barcodes and more.
Wilma Buttfit
Dec 17, 18 12:10 pm
White board for to-do's, wall calendar for appts, journal for time and task tracking, iPad pro and pencil for taking meeting minutes, Slack for chatting with colleagues, and Gdocs for other notes/docs (like a marketing plan) and spreadsheets.
Notion and obsidian for note taking and management
Both are free and amazing
Miles Jaffe
Oct 31, 21 6:27 pm
Moleskine & Lamy CP1 fountain pen.
atelier nobody
Oct 31, 21 11:40 pm
I have actually found the cheapo Art Alternatives journals from Michael's to be my preferred "moleskin-style" notebooks. I also prefer fountain pens that take "standard European" cartridges, because I'm too lazy to fill from a bottle or keep multiple proprietary cartridges on hand (I do own 1 Schaeffer, it's my only proprietary cartridge pen). Also, I have found the Graf von Faber-Castell Carbon Black to be the best, blackest, non-fading black ink.
nabrU
Aug 23, 23 6:23 pm
Lamy pens are shit IMO, I like mass produced decent ones like uniballs, they are clear and precise.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 23, 23 6:44 pm
{Gaak}
nabrU
Aug 23, 23 7:27 pm
Lamy are whack boog pens, the only time I had a Lamy pen I signed a contract for a shit job with no support at Zaha Hadid. Pilots or Uniballs are much better IMO.
So, let's play this game and let's try to stay away from design software. What software productivity tools do you use most often? What are your staple note-taking, to-do and calendar apps? Any others?
I'll start:
Evernote - Project notes, site photographs, and technical information. I keep a notebook full of DOB-related material, and little summaries of everything I do which might be relevant to a future project (sizing plumbing, zoning interpretations, links to manufacturers of particular items, room finish schedules for projects I'll need to refer back to.). The best part is they can be accessed from anywhere.
Toggl - Timing my tasks for billing purposes. Still on the free version, but I've been using it for over a year. It's great.
WaveApps - All firm financials and invoicing.
Sunrise Calendar - I hate the stock calendar on my iPhone. I use this and sync it with my Google Calendar.
GoogleApps - All of our office email, calendars and even our server. Everything is sync'd to a GoogleDrive.
CrashPlan - Redundant back-up strategy.
GitHub - Version control for grasshopper scripts, processing work and the odd C# grasshopper module.
Your turn. What's in your productivity tools arsenal?
how big is your office null?
i was going to say evernote, but you already did
autodesk's sketch program, and probably some sort of remote file access to your server
Running solo with adjunct freelancers here and there as required (I hate surveying as-builts).
my problem with evernote was the necessity to get the paid app after like 10 mb, which is like 5 dollars monthly.
I've been using Slack in lieu of Microsoft Lync (now rebranded as Microsoft Skype) for communication between team members, as it seems to deal with image sharing and so on in a very tidy fashion.
It never occurred to me to use GitHub to search for grasshopper definitions... I always defaulted to the Grasshopper forums.
Hardware?
We have two Wacom cintiqs and several tablets for drawing right on the screen--eliminates need for constant printing, scanning and trace paper all over the place.
We use fresh books for clouds accounting invoicing and time keeping.
google sheets. ms excel. outlook.
I'm starting to use Evernote more and more, and get tired of the limited functionality and the 60 MB monthly limit on the free version ... and I'm cheap so I don't want to upgrade.
I'm looking at using Microsoft's OneNote with OneDrive (which gives you 15 GB for free) in lieu of Evernote. Still all free, for all your devices, but offers space for 250 months of free Evernote. Any dedicated OneNote users out there?
Buy the small Evernote Moleskine and get 3 months for free.
I have a stack I got on sale. Makes each month cost like an effective buck and half.
You're on to something there null. It pencils out ... as long as you are already purchasing and using a similar Moleskin notebook.
MS OneDrive storage vs. Evernote Premium storage
I didn't find that I used Evernote very much.
The only apps I use consistently for work-related non-email stuff are Genius Scan, UB Reader, and GoToMeeting.
laser measuring tool + laptop cut down on as-built time
proto do you draw as you measure? That would take me forever, so if you have a trick, I want to know it. My field measure workflow is to draw on 1/4" grid paper, use a laser measure for most everything and a tape for a few things that the laser does not work for. I have a few conventions of sketching that make it go a tiny bit faster, but I did spend 7 hours surveying and measuring a medium sized church last week.
I use Toggl (free). It's amazing. For time tracking.
Nozbe for to do lists. checklists and basic project management.
That's it other than email and the drawing software. I can't imagine how I'd use evernote, sounds fussy to me.
Carbonite for backup.
gruen and proto - for whatever reason paper and pencil are still the fastest for me. 7 hours is a very long time, but I'm not sure how you gauge this because I don't know how detail you were surveying.
sometimes I care about all the MEP and sometimes it matters little, but generally between photos and, pencil and paper, 5000 sqft office space can be done in 1-2 hours, single family dwelling 1 hr....but then again the other day I spent 15 minutes surveying 4 door panels....
if laser and laptop are faster would like to know how?
I'm usually taking 2 hours to do a single family - photo and measure. I budget 3-4 hours total including transportation. If I do a cruddy job sketching then it goes faster :) This is for a home up to approx 2000 sf. If it's a monster I just add on time.
The church had a bunch of additions, full basement, some weird angles. 7 hours included transportation, so probably 6 hours at the church. I did extra work to figure out some exterior details I want to replicate, and had to get on the roof for inspection too. But yeah, that's long for me.
I'd love to measure and draw (CAD? Revit?) at the same time, but I think that would make it even slower.
I do love my bosch laser tape - about $100 at home depot - great tool.
with ya gruen on sloppy. but lately I have others draft it so either i spend a little extra time on my 1/8" ruled pad or re-sketch when in office. one enginwer i occasionaly survey with does it like a logic puzzle,he will tak like 4 key measurementa and then go - figure out the rest from that.....but you can never trust existing structures..........null i use Post-it notes and if i do not rememeber something it must not be important
Oh - if the home or business owner wants to chat while I'm doing the field work, then it takes FOREVER. I am often telling them up front to leave me alone and let me work. 10 hours once to do a single family home because of the owner following me around the whole time.
For an existing space, i photograph each wall in each room and then measure each space, locating and sizing all openings. Drawing on the laptop has made that go faster because I don't come back to the office and then draft what I just measured. It probably is longer than by hand for the measure itself, but, overall, I feel like it's a savings since I'm not drafting it twice (by hand & then on cad). I save existing sections/elevations for the office and work off of the photos with some key vertical measurements taken on site. A 2,000sf house plan measure can take 4hrs, but I've got plans ready to use when I get back to the office that are fairly reliable.
update: just started using an ipad w/ acad + laser...it's a slow learning curve from the fast cad typing I'm used to, but it makes the process more mobile [& cramps the hell out of my pad-holding hand!]...i don't think it was slower by too much & am anticipating getting faster with it
[Update since this thread bumped up] Ended up bailing on iPad process after a couple attempts...cad app was just too slow (multiple clicks to get to a given command [copy, offset, line, whatever...]). Laptop seemed to just be faster fwiw
Proto - very interesting. I'll have to try it on my next small measureup. I'd want to put it into REVIT, not sure how that'd affect my time.
ha gruen,yeah I hate that,i often take the survey measurement twice or 3 times because they do not stop talking......I never let a person fresh out of school survey or freelancer, I don't trust it and all it takes is a few inches to screw the whole thing up and everyone comes down hard on the Architect!.......how hard is it to measure?............one time this realtor, young kid thought he would look good in front of the client and help me take measurements. everytime i got to a door i tried to explain what you measure and he kept getting it wrong, then he would sloppily run the tape at angles and rattle off the wrong dimension, finally he quit helping me and admitted "this architect thing is hard"! .................another story, so at this older ladies house to do an addition, her grandaughter or grandson's 20 something girlfriend was at the pool in a bikini and came to mingle with us (client,GC, and I). clealry proud of herself in the bikini strutted around in front of us as we carried on professionally. later, we go down the hall to discuss door changes and the girl is laying flat on the bed ass up pointed in our direction, GC gave me a holy shit look and the older lady quickly closed the door. later this girl exclaims loud enough for us to hear she will be taking a shower,right before i start surveying. I get to the bathroom door and its slightly open 4" as I hear the shower water. i take two more measurements, find the older lady who had gone off to locate the survey and get the fuck out of there!
Wait, Isn't that why you became an architect?
Lately, it seems my greatest productivity tool is calling out sick and doing some work at home so that I can actually focus on getting shit done instead of getting sidetracked by phone calls, meetings, stupid questions, and chit chat.
Evernote is top of the list for me. Altho they seem to be getting some bad press lately for some reason.
Slack is an absolute must - our email load has just vanished and we've even started letting clients in as guests on certain channels. There's a good article here and here about using Slack for architecture PM.
XERO for invoicing with Stripe to handle payments. Our accountant has access too so keeps an eye on what's happening ;-)
We've started using Trello for PM. It seems easy enough to get to grips with. I'm on a MAC and run Time Track Pro in the background. It records time I spend in apps on my mac. Amazing the stats it comes up with at the end of the day... (Facebook ugh)
We use Skype for long distance - voiptalk for landlines. Our website site is on archiblogs.com and we have a facility there to let clients access drawings that are in turn sitting in a Dropbox folder.
Slack sounds interesting....the one day I was in the field all day, 150 meaningful emails, power on all my devices done by 3pm.....miss the landline and fax machine, ha
gruen: if you have a trick, I want to know it.
for in the field, i find my app invaluable to do that, even if you have a laser, use laser to take one measurement, and this does the rest:
an iPhone/iPad app that will basically create an “As-Built” drawing from a photo Automatically. it even puts the dimensions on for you, it estimates the scale of the wall you’ve taken a photo of.. so you have something to work with, then once you correct one of the dimensions, all of them become correct. (then you can add more and move around existing dimensions too) it can even measure areas and perimeters right on that photo.
http://www.pictureenginecompany.com/MeasureEngine/MeasureEngine.html
Hello,
I'm passionate about improving productivity, my top productivity apps are: Asana, Slack, Keep, PomoDone and DataScope. I explain below how I use each one.
Asana
https://asana.com
I'm using Asana to manage personal and work projects and their tasks and progress.
Google Keep and Calendar
https://keep.google.com/
I'm using Keep to write new ideas and remember things, now they added more features to connect with events in calendar and tags to group ideas. For example I'm using tags like #ideas, #software, #work, #personal and more
Slack
https://slack.com/
I'm using slack at work to connect with my team, there I have a place where I can have integrated all the tools I use directly in a chat, Actually I have integrated all the other apps here, that way you don't need to check every service you are using. Could to track errors, events, performance and more.
PomoDone
https://my.pomodoneapp.com/
This is to apply Pomodoro Technique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) inside Asana, this way you can focus more in a specific task and have more control of your time.
DataScope
https://www.mydatascope.com/
This mobile solution to replace the use of paper when you need to collect data, is like Google Form but you can use offline in a iOS or Android app. You can connect with Google Spreadsheets, export to Excel, PDF and collect more information as signature, photos, barcodes and more.
White board for to-do's, wall calendar for appts, journal for time and task tracking, iPad pro and pencil for taking meeting minutes, Slack for chatting with colleagues, and Gdocs for other notes/docs (like a marketing plan) and spreadsheets.
These are my favorites.
find some good tools for me here, thank you
Notion and obsidian for note taking and management
Both are free and amazing
Moleskine & Lamy CP1 fountain pen.
I have actually found the cheapo Art Alternatives journals from Michael's to be my preferred "moleskin-style" notebooks. I also prefer fountain pens that take "standard European" cartridges, because I'm too lazy to fill from a bottle or keep multiple proprietary cartridges on hand (I do own 1 Schaeffer, it's my only proprietary cartridge pen). Also, I have found the Graf von Faber-Castell Carbon Black to be the best, blackest, non-fading black ink.
Lamy pens are shit IMO, I like mass produced decent ones like uniballs, they are clear and precise.
{Gaak}
Lamy are whack boog pens, the only time I had a Lamy pen I signed a contract for a shit job with no support at Zaha Hadid. Pilots or Uniballs are much better IMO.