These two applications finally corrected my creative workflow

For years, the concept is my choice to organize everything, from invoices to the film surveillance lists. Its flexibility as a database is unequaled, but with regard to creative work flows such as the appointment of spontaneous ideas, the thread of thoughts and the collection of visual inspiration, this is where the notion begins to feel a little rigid. I needed something that did not ask me to lay down every fleeting idea in a system when he presented himself. It is simply not as well as a creative flow works. At least not for me.

I know, I know. Obsidian is the usual answer here with its endless personalization and the famous view of graphics. But I wanted something first in a cloud. So I started looking for a tool that could complement, if not replace, which the idea already does so well. This is how I found myself bouncing between the concept and Capacities For a better part of the year. Like most people who try to organize their digital life, I started with one, flirted with the other, then I went and came until I realize something simple: these two tools are not in competition. They complement each other. This is why the construction of a system that uses both applications works so well for me.

The trick, as always, was not to choose a side at the start. It was a question of knowing what each tool is really good – then staying away. This achievement has changed the way I approached the two tools. For example, I stopped using the concept as a space for unstructured notes. Not because it can’t do that, but because it never seemed natural. You can create endless pages and sub-pages, of course. You can integrate whatever you want. But this hierarchy of several pages quickly becomes uncontrollable. I used the concept to catalog the interesting places in the cities I want to visit, and over time, this structure has become a labyrinth – several deep layers, difficult to navigate and more difficult to maintain.

The concept prosperous in the event of a structure and a goal. This is where I build boundary systems in automatic function. The capacities work better when there is none. This is where I think. As I stopped trying to force an application to do everything, things clicked and I could move between them without friction, allowing each tool to manage what it is built instead of folding it in something it is not.

This is not just a user interface problem. It is a problem of mind. Concept forces you establish tables, databases and more when you decide to enter certain data. It gives me the impression that each idea needs a house before it even exists. This pressure to organize too early kills my creative flow and inhibits the quantity of concept. I could have the ideas, but the environment does not seem well. You wouldn’t want to work in Google Sheets to capture ideas. The rigidity of the concept has the same effect.

The capacities return this dynamic. You do not start with a table or a model – you start with an object. Notes, images, bookmarks and files are all organized loose by type and sewn with backlinks. It is closer to the functioning of the obsidian and looks more like a living network than a rigid notebook. This change changes everything. I do not worry to know where a thought belongs. I capture it, I drop a few tags and move on to something else. I’m going to clean it later. Or not.

When I am in creative mode by doing anything about writing to describe something vague, my essential application is capacities. If I collect screenshots, reference visuals, the creation of notes to be made or the compilation of quotes on several articles, everything happens, easily transmitted by capacities. I can write half a thought, let it for a week and come back to find it already connected to three other ideas that I forgot that I had. It’s not just a good design. It’s momentum. And it is essential to allow me to return to work and be in a creative space almost immediately.

At the risk of seemingly likely, the capacities offer an environment that invites exploration. This includes the way in which capacities deal with images that can be online, complete or linked to objects allowing you to transform it effectively into a gallery, not just a document. It may seem a small thing, but when you spend hours drawing contours or assembling visual references, it adds up. You don’t only write. You effectively build a network of interconnected ideas – something with which I had trouble with the concept. The very different Free Freeform tool from Apple offers the nearest experience, but not quite the same. On the other hand, the concept does not work like that. It is structured. Accurate. Sometimes a little too precise. But that’s exactly why it works so well for everything else.

The capacities can be better for reflection, but the concept still works on a daily basis. This is where I follow the invoices, updates my reading list, monitors independent projects and I check the recurring tasks. When I know what I follow – things like customer deliverables, brand campaigns, editorial calendars – the concept is unbeatable. I can create databases with views and filters, connect them to automation and configure reminders that really help. It is specially designed for this kind of work.

Unlike capacity, the concept offers a kind of security to know that everything has a place. If I record something today, I will know exactly where to find it three weeks later. It also makes it incredibly easy to add data on the go. When I want to add something quickly like, let’s say, a new restaurant that I spotted on Instagram, I use a concept form that I configured to save the key details directly in my food database. Name, location, kitchen, labels, and that’s it. The form is saved as a bookmark on the home page of my phone and allows me to complete the task in a few seconds. This is the kind of notion of useless usefulness excels.

I tried to do this inside the capacities, and although there is a table view, it always looks like a reflection afterwards. It is not really built for entering structured data, and it is not very good to give meaning to large volumes of data.

The biggest error is to think that these two tools solve the same problem. This is not the case. They both let you write, collect, integrate and organize. But what they do with these abilities is completely different. Capacities is designed for creativity and exploration of knowledge. Similar to the obsidian, everything in its interface pushes you to connect ideas via backlinks, nested objects, views of graphics. It is less a productivity tool and more than one creative studio. When I don’t really know what I am working on, but I know I want to hunt an idea, the capacities give me the room to do it.

The concept, however, is more like a traditional working tool. He does not ask you to explore. He asks you to decide, define and commit. And this counts because what we feel when using these tools often dictates if we use them. Although it is certainly possible to use one of these tools exclusively, the structured approach to the concept of data types gives the impression of being a chore. In fact, I tried to get involved several times, but each time, I thought I was undermining it because my notes were messy or incomplete. But it was not a notion problem. It was a gap. Once I have given this role to the capacities, the notion has stopped feeling like a burden and starting to be useful again.

The point to take away

There is no right winning here. The capacities helped me make myself at ease with a disorderly workflow. It made me the ability to think in fragments and collect ideas without getting involved. It is a tool for planning and for users who always get used to the idea of ​​knowledge management. In fact, I would say it is the perfect PKM tool for the first user.

On the other hand, the concept helps me to go from the order of chaos. This is the tool in which I trust to maintain the parts together once I know what they are. Whether it is large high databases, invoices, things to do, restaurants to check, the concept is ideal for this type of workflow. That said, at the end of the day, the two tools taught me to stop looking for the perfect application and starting to build a better workflow instead. For me, it was a combination of capacities and concept.