The benefits of digitizing your note are enormous, but it is taking a long time to become common practice. It’s not just about storing your files in a safe digital format or on apps; it also improves sharing, cooperation, and inventive ideas.
While post-it notes and an old-fashioned notepad will always have a role in research, it’s past time for researchers to embrace the conveniences that going digital affords.
We’ve gathered a collection of tools/apps to assist you to wean yourself off of the paper.
Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is an excellent way to store and share all of your information for simple access from anywhere. Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and Dropbox are among the top cloud storage choices. Google provides 15 GB of free storage space, while Microsoft provides 5 GB. Both have several monthly pricing levels for anything over this. While the free packages may not provide much space for high-resolution photographs or movies, they do provide enough space for Word documents, spreadsheets, and pdfs.
You can also distribute the files by e-mail or by activating the sharing link and providing the unique URL to anyone who requires access. Some services offer further control by allowing you to specify whether the individuals you’re sharing with can alter the files. Distribute your protocol documentation, data, and photographs to everyone in your lab or just those that require them.
By storing your lab documents in the cloud, you will be able to access them from virtually any device, wherever you go. This means you can rapidly check a document while at a meeting and modify it there and then. Cloud storage can also be used to back up important files on your office hard disk.
Notion
The notion is one of the greatest paperless apps. Their tagline is “Customize Notion to work the way you do”—and it does.
It includes all of the tools you need for taking notes and creating workspaces for different teams, as well as document automation software. It’s also built for collaboration, whether you’re taking notes, assigning tasks, or creating a knowledge base.
The nicest part about Notion is that it is completely free to use.
You can create an endless number of notes, sign in across many devices, and store various documents with Notion. (although free users are capped at a 5MB upload limit). Notes are updated in real-time across all devices, so you won’t miss out on anything.
A huge plus is that every note is flexible, and there are multiple built-in templates to suit your needs.
Notion is currently only available online and does not support offline capabilities.
Evernote
Evernote is undoubtedly the most well-known note-taking program. One of its biggest benefits is that it syncs across all of your devices and browsers. So, if you save a note on your phone and sync your accounts, you’ll be able to see it later on your tablet, laptop, or PC.
You can also organize your notes into different notebooks for different projects and share them directly from the app. You can find notes by category by adding tags to them. Additionally, use the ‘Web Clipper’ browser extension to store webpages as new notes so you can quickly discover them later (across your devices) and look at them when you have more time.
The free subscription allows uploads of up to 60 MB per month but there are also premium and business options that give both more space and better collaboration options.
Slack
Another of our favorites is Slack. (apart from the name…). It’s an excellent app for centralizing all of your team’s communications in one spot. There are channels for everyone to debate specific topics, as well as group messaging and one-to-one messaging for private chats. Internal e-mail communication is no longer required using Slack.
It may also be combined with a variety of other apps, such as Trello, Google Drive, and OneDrive, to help you streamline your workflow. All of the talks and documents you add to Slack are completely indexed and searchable, making it easy to determine what decision was made on a specific subject.
The basic version of Slack is free, user-friendly, and includes a large number of features. The premium version will add unlimited indexing – the free version will only index 10,000 messages – and several other services.
Labguru
When it comes to digitizing your laboratory, Labguru apps is the King of them all. The distinction between this tool and the others above is that it’s design is exclusively for researchers and hence caters to the demands of PIs, post-docs, and students. It includes a plethora of tools to assist you in organizing everything in your lab, from the personnel to the materials. Its sole purpose is to assist you in getting things done and recorded more efficiently, allowing you to “do more science.”
You can also tag entries in various areas of these apps to see all items linked to a specific category. The app does require a monthly subscription.
Academic Hive is at the fore front of easing your academic journey. If you’ve got questions, visit our Consultancy room.
