The Gameatory

How I Use Tot to be More Productive

Creighton Broadhurst -

I love notebooks, and I love writing in notebooks. Sometimes, though, carrying a notebook isn’t practical or the idea or note I want to quickly capture is better suited to a digital solution. Enter Tot.

What is Tot?

Tot is a simple app. It lets you collect & edit text on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

For more on Tot, and why I love it, check out this post:

My Tools: Tot
Pocket notebooks are awesome. But sometimes, normally when running, I don’t have a pocket notebook with me. For such moments of Ultimate Horror and Unspeakable disorganisation, I have Tot.
The GameatoryCreighton Broadhurst

How I Use Tot

I have Tot on all my devices (iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Macbook and desktop). It’s so lightweight it launches instantly.

Tot only lets you have seven notes—it forces you to deal with your notes instead of just letting them sink into a morass of digital content.

I use a note for each of my active design projects. At the time of writing, I have a note for:

  • Citadel on the Wilderlands
  • Urban Locale #01: Dockside Tavern
  • Urban Locale #02: Sage’s Study
  • Wilderness Dressing: Isles & Islands

When I get an idea for one of those projects, I jot it down in the relevant note. This way, I can quickly capture idea fragments, table entries, questions and more. For example:

When I work on the relevant project, I open Tot and get cracking.

Once I’ve expanded on an idea fragment or table entry, or I resolved the question, I delete the relevant text. I aim to have an empty note by the time I finish the work session. This (literally) wipes the slate clean ready for new ideas.

You could do much the same thing with virtually any text editor, but Tot makes it quick, easy and simple. I open Tot, swipe to the relevant note and note my idea. I don’t have to open a specific file, plumb the depths of Finder (or whatever) to find the relevant note and so on. Tot reduces the friction and gets out of the way so I can quickly capture the idea. It also makes it supremely easy to find the idea when I’m ready to deal with it.

Why Plain Text?

I make my notes in plain text. Why?

Plain text gets out of the way and lets you focus on the content, not the look of the content. Plain text is supremely portable and easy to insert into any other writing app of choice.

For more on plain text and Markdown, check out this post:

Why Text Files?
I’ve fallen in love with the humble .txt file.
The GameatoryCreighton Broadhurst

I get nothing for recommending Tot to you. There are no affiliate links in this article, and I received no consideration for posting my recommendation. Rather, I use Tot every day, and I think it could find it a jolly useful tool.

Got a Question or Comment?

If you have a question or comment, please leave it below. Alternatively, do you use Tot? What do you think? Let me know!