How Post-Its Make You Productive
We all know what Post-Its are. Those bright-colored sticky notes can be found literally anywhere. But with the official Post-It app, you can even bring these notes onto your iPad.
Over the past week, I’ve been “exploring” the Post-It app. Here’s what I’ve learned from using the app.
The Post-It App
The Post-It app itself is a simple, free app built by 3M. On the App Store, it has a 4.6/5 score, with over 2500 ratings. Using the app is simple, easy, and (mostly) intuitive.
To create a Post-It note, simply tap create on the home screen of the app. This should open up a new note, where you can either add text or handwrite information. In addition to adding information to the note, the app also has a variety of customization options. Users can edit the background color of a note, the aspect ratio of a note, the rotation of a note, the font of a note (if typed), and the text alignment of a note (if typed).
While the Post-It app appears like a simple to-do list or reminders app at first, it has many other features.
Camera
One great feature of the Post-It app is its ability to scan actual sticky notes and upload it to your iPad. And according to the Post-It app’s description in the App Store, it can scan more than 200 Post-It notes at the same time.
While I personally haven’t used the Post-It app for this purpose, I can see some potential use cases. For example, I know some people who take book notes by writing on Post-It notes and sticking them onto pages of their books. The ability to scan these notes could help them store these notes online, which could be helpful in case the book does not belong to them (like a library book).
Handwriting Recognition
Another feature of the Post-It app is handwriting recognition. With handwriting recognition, the Post-It app can show a typed version of a handwritten Post-It note.
While this feature likely doesn’t apply to most people, it does serve a specific group of people (like me). As someone with horrible handwriting, as pointed out by my AP English teacher, some of my Post-It notes may be hard to read. While I don’t have an issue reading my own handwriting, others who read the Post-It note might have some trouble. For people with bad handwriting who will share these Post-It notes, handwriting recognition is a simple but incredible feature.
Sharing
As I mentioned in the previous section, you can share Post-It notes with other people. Users have the ability to share individual Post-It notes as images, groups of Post-It notes, and Post-It boards (basically groups of groups of Post-It notes).
In addition, you can also start a session on the Post-It app. With this feature, you can invite participants to view, edit, and add to a board. This feature could be useful for organizing and collaborating on a project, especially since users can add multiple participants. To add people to your session, you can scan a QR code, send the session ID, or send the session link.
Organization
I briefly covered this in the previous section, but there are 3 levels of organization within the Post-It app. The lowest level is a single Post-It note. The middle level is a group, which can contain more than Post-It note. The highest level is a board. This is a visual view of your groups, and each board has the capacity to contain multiple groups.
Widgets
My personal favorite feature with the Post-It app is the variety of available widgets. There are 5 different widget options for iPadOS and 4 different widget options on iOS.
In my opinion, the ability to create widgets with the Post-It app is the best feature throughout the entire app. In fact, my main use case with the Post-It app involves using the available widgets.
Using The Post-It App
Now that we’ve discussed the Post-It app, let’s talk about how I’ve been using the Post-It app.
While you can use the Post-It app as a great to-do list app, I already have a great app for that purpose: Todoist. Instead, I use the Post-It app for another productivity hack: the Daily Highlight.
I first learned about the Daily Highlight from Ali Abdaal. With the Daily Highlight, you choose one task you want to get done each day. If you complete this task, then you’ve had a productive day.
What I love about the Daily Highlight method is that it removes the over-burdening aspect of excessive to-do lists (anyone who’s used a to-do list app for a while knows what I’m talking about). But with Daily Highlights, you can simplify everything.
And the Post-It app is perfect for Daily Highlights. With a large Post-It widget, you can create a bright, colorful reminder on your home screen of a task you need to do. This means that any time you might be distracted (like going to YouTube on your iPad), you’ll constantly be reminded by a bright sticky note that you have something to do (similar to adding a sticky note to your computer monitor). I’ve found this to be a major productivity feature I love.
What I Don’t Like About The App
While there are some features of the app that I do love, there are two main areas where I wish it could be better.
First, I think that organization could be more intuitive. When I was exploring the Post-It app, I had to spend a decent chunk of time trying to figure out how boards work.
Second, I wish there was an option to add a white pen. Currently, the only color pens available are black, red, green, and blue. This makes handwritten information on dark-color notes hard to read.
Another similar feature would be the ability to add custom colors. Personally, other than white, I don’t really see the point of adding any new color. However, other users may disagree.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Post-It app is a fantastic app. In my opinion, its flagship feature is the large, bright, and colorful widgets. These widgets can be a constant reminder of work you need to do, and I’ve been using these widgets to show my Daily Highlight each day. However, there are a couple improvements I would like to see in the app.
Thanks for reading all the way down to here! — Adi
