Coda: The Future of Productivity

I am a high school student with a whole lot of luck. Because my older brother is one of the core designers of Coda, I got early access to it. So among the list of huge companies that got to test out Coda before its release, there was my name, Zoe Olson, seventeen years old.

Some people might see Coda as a replacement for spreadsheets. To me, spreadsheets are a lifeless way to organize lifeless information. A boring and complicated tool for businessmen and businesswomen. Since I never use spreadsheets, I never saw Coda as a replacement for anything. Right from the moment my brother told me about Coda, I saw it as an opportunity to make my dream productivity apps a reality.

So nice to be able to keep track of different types of to-dos on the same page.

The first thing I did when I got early access to Coda was make a list of my school assignments. In a few minutes I conjured an app that kept track of my deadlines, turning the assignment orange when it was getting close to the due date, and red when it was due that day. The same features I could find in an app on the app store, except I didn’t have to learn how to code to make it. The best part is, now that I’ve created the core functionality, I can add any features I want. For example, the next feature I am planning to add will make my life a whole lot easier. I will automate my to-do list by having Coda take information from my schedule to know what to put on that day’s to-do list. This is a feature that I’ve wanted in an app for the longest time, and now I have the ability to make it for myself.

Figuring out my schedule for the rest of the semester by first making a list of my subjects and their goals, then pulling that information into a schedule. I put the estimated time it takes to finish each task, so that at the bottom of the each day’s schedule I see the estimate amount of time that I need for school that day. No coding necessary.

Another app that I’ve wanted for a long time is something to help me plan the novels I write. There are programs for this, but they are either too expensive or they don’t have the features that I want. In the week that I have had Coda, I have already started making my ideal novel writing helper. Right now I have a page that has a card for each of my characters, with all the information for that character that I deem necessary. Completely custom to my taste, I don’t have to think up random facts about my character just to fill the allotted space of a pre-designed program. But if I want to have a slot where I, say, state the character’s preferred salad dressing, it’s as simple as pressing the + button to add a new column.

Complete with pictures that I’ve made of my characters!

In addition to planning my novels, I also want to write them in Coda as well. After all, why not? Its interface is so simple and sophisticated that writing in Coda is even less distracting than writing in a text editor like Microsoft Word or Pages. Besides that, if I write all my documents in Coda, I have the option to turn them into something more. They can easily become as interactive as I want them to be.

I can use the search bar at the top to find key-words, or jump to different chapters.

I don’t need to know how to code to use Coda, and I can get a lot out of Coda without writing a single line of code. But I am a very curious and exploratory person, and I was intrigued by the idea of using ‘formulas’ to get the most out of my Coda experience. I was pleasantly surprised by how simple the concept of formulas was to understand. Rather than typing out pages of code, formulas are just single lines of code that can be placed anywhere in the document by pressing the = key. Coda helps me out by suggesting lines of code, and the names of the parts of the document that I might want to reference in that formula. No memorization of syntax necessary.

Creating things in Coda is so much fun that I’ve been making different apps for my family members too. I made a meal planner for my Mom, and a time tracker for my Dad. They are simple now but full of potential as I get more and more familiar with Coda.

I am so excited to keep on exploring the possibilities that Coda presents. And I am especially excited to see what other people create with it.

Request an invite to see what you can create!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my little experience with Coda. If you did, maybe you’ll also like to hear the story of how the iPad Pro changed my illustrating career. (Tim Cook even responded to that one!)