Ulysses is always the first app I recommend to people who need to write a lot because if you’re going to write a lot, you need to enjoy it. And Ulysses makes that much easier.

Sure, it costs roughly $3 or $5 per month, depending on whether you opt for a monthly or annual subscription, but it’s worthwhile for a pristine writing experience.

I’d even go so far as to say that if you can’t write with Ulysses, the problem is you, not the app.

Recommended: Agenda

I first heard of Agenda when I was watching the 2018 Apple Design Awards. I thought to myself, “A note taking app won a design award? Must be pretty special.”

But if I’m not mistaken, Agenda isn’t especially popular, anymore. Plus, it’s a little different from conventional note-taking apps, so most people don’t get it. And to be honest, neither do I. According to Agenda’s creators, everyone they’ve talked to about the app uses it a little differently.

In Agenda, you’ve got Categories, Projects, and Notes. Notes are presumably single ideas with a title and some content. Each note belongs to a Project, and several Projects can be in a Category.

The Agenda side bar.

Sounds like a regular notes app so far, but the magic of Agenda is in the Notes. For instance, Notes can:

be marked as “On the Agenda”, which brings them to a dedicated view in the “On the Agenda” tab.

be marked as “Done” like a task

contain reminders

contain images, sketches, to-do lists, linked Notes, and more

I find it especially fascinating that you can add all sorts of attachments and labels to Notes. They could practically be entire documents complete with headers, images, links, checklists, tags, and more.

The tidy yet bountiful attachments and formatting options in Agenda.

The best part about Agenda is that it does what I ask it to and nothing more. Case in point: About 75% of the features I just mentioned were unknown to me before I started digging around the app to write this article. Agenda is capable, but it stays out of the way until you need it.

The second best part is that it’s free, at least the way I use it. To me, the main draw of its one-time-purchase premium version is the calendar scheduling feature. But since I can’t try it out first to see exactly how it works, I’m reluctant to part with my cash.

Besides, even the free version of Agenda leaves nothing to be desired in the notes department, especially when paired with the next app…

Recommended: Notability

Ah, Notability. The old horse in the race that still kicks some serious ass.

This functions as a heavy-duty note-taker. You’ve got Subjects which contain notes, and Dividers which contain Subjects. Again, the magic is in the notes themselves, with the star attraction being Notability’s handwriting support.

Believe me when I say you’d be hard pressed to find a better note-taking setup than an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Notability.

You can add text, images, and audio recordings to notes, but I usually hand write mine so I’ll mainly discuss that.

This might be a dated observation, but I feel that handwriting with the Apple Pencil 2 in Notability is the only time I’ve ever noticed digital writing working flawlessly. And I mean flawlessly. But maybe other apps have caught up — I’ve heard many good things about Goodnotes 5, for instance.

Editing controls in Notability.

The palm rejection in Notability is as close to real-life as it gets, at least with the Pencil. I mean, there’s virtually no lag, and pressure sensitivity is ultra realistic. What more could you want?

If you’re working on more complex ideas, you can also add images and text boxes all over the page, scribbling in between it all like a madman.

I absolutely depend on this app for brainstorming. There’s something about the open canvas and superb handwriting support that I truly enjoy. My business and content ideas sometimes enter Agenda first, then migrate into Notability where I can flesh them out.

But most of the time, I start in Notability with a question, then answer it with some brainstorming.

And you can do just as I do for the modest price of $10.

Wait, what?! That’s sort of expensive for a note-taker. But at least it’s not a subscription.

Recommended: RememBear

I know, I know, RememBear is a password manager. This has nothing to do with creative work.

But the way I see it, you can’t mess up some of the boring things if you want to do the fun things. And passwords are one of those boring things.

Because listen, it’s 2020. You don’t want to be memorizing all your passwords. In fact, you shouldn’t be memorizing all your passwords. A password manager saves you the hassle: All you have to do is remember one password which unlocks all your other passwords, and in some cases you don’t even need to thanks to FaceID or TouchID.

But why RememBear among all the other password managers out there? To be honest, the UI design has smitten me from the beginning.