Digital sketch of my son

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Random sketch 2 with sketchbook pro

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Todo, calendar, sketches and notes in 1 app

I've always been struggling with multiple applications to maintain a calendar and todo list. Those that combine these in a single app always come across to me as mentally strenuous with a billion features rather than streamline my thoughts.

Above it all, I've always wanted to sync it with the web so that I'm device independent.

After trying numerous applications, I chanced upon 2do for iPad. It separates the categories which I created with the toodledo web service into multicolored tabs, which i found to be very graphically intuitive.
Secondly, each tab comes with it's own calendar, and tasks without a due date will not be reflected on the calendar.

The deal breaker about this app for me is that it allows you to add jpgs and notes to a task. Now here comes the customisation bit. Other than my individual project categories, I created a 'calendar' category, and how it works is that every appointment will be a task with a due date, so that it gets shown on the calendar. I can then add screencapped maps, sketches and notes from other apps as a call out thumbnail for reference.

Next, I created a 'notes' category, so I can do just like the above, except that I won't have a date attached to it. Random thoughts, song lyrics, interesting websites, doodles, recipes and miscellaneous meeting notes are all added there, like a repository for general notes.

Best of all, these can be synced back through toodledo, and over to my iPhone, or the PC, only glitch is that the pics don't get synced.

Inserting pics into notes

Great for quick layouts and descriptive annotations, I've reviewed this app - noteshelf for taking meeting notes but i also find it useful to email information to people using the built in maps app for screen captures and written texts.

It's also great for discussing presentation board layout and concepts over the lunch table for competitions and project proposals.




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A great substitute to a roll of drawings would be to store hundreds of PDFs to be read with a PDF reader and annotator like Goodreader. Especially for onsite reference, it is important to be able to pull out information on the fly. In the case of a large building, the zooming function preserves the text and line clarity in vector format. Though there is a load time of about 5 seconds, it is indispensable when you have to climb scaffoldings and hop around site materials without having to carry huge scale documentation in hardcopy.

Aside from drawings, I store building codes from the various departments for reference, especially when in doubt or being challenged, which happens ever so often during discrepancies or discussions with other consultants or site contractors.


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Toodledo for the never-ending project tasks

With multiple projects and hundreds of emails a day, I needed a todo list which allows me to track items that are urgent for today's action, as well as place other outstanding items in the queue list.

I use the toodledo service on the web, together with the apps on my iPhone as well as the iPad. There are several apps that allow this, but the toodledo one is the most universal so far. It allows me to drag content from my email, enter things which crop up during discussions at any time and place, be it from the desktop or on the move. The syncing function ensures that all the mediums are updated with each other.

An additional feature that comes in really useful is the notes tab, where I can drag relevant codes or specifications into the sheets so that I can refer to it even when I'm on site.

After it became part of my regular workflow, it's crucial to my being able to focus on each of the accumulated tasks everyday. The satisfaction of seeing the checked completed items does aid in increasing productivity, and lessen the chaos in the mind.



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Random sketch 1 with Sketchbook pro

One of my pastimes is sketching and i did one of a random dude while in the train the other day with sketchbook pro, the most used app on my iPad. It's done using 3 layers with pencil as the base medium and air brush for the shading layers.

I thought to myself before that nothing beats pulling out the old dog eared notebook and scratching some carbon on it's textured pages. Nothing like experiencing tactile feedback and hearing the tip of the pencil on good old paper. With time, I adapted to the sheer convenience of tapping on the 'plus' button and doodling on a new sheet, with a large amount of undos to refresh a new idea again and again. Better still I get the liberty to trash it and start over, so that leaves me no qualms to just let my thoughts flow.



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