A Much Needed Alternative to Manage My Projects: Capacities
Capacities has become my go-to project management app and here's my top reasons to made this change.
It is possible with Capacities — iOS App
Capacities has been around for a couple of years now, and its growth is incredibly inspiring. Kudos to the entire team for their dedication and vision — your hard work truly stands out.
In my previous blog post, I detailed my move to Capacities and today, I want to reaffirm that change while addressing any lingering doubts. As I mentioned earlier, switching to Capacities is a strategic shift, aligned with my long-term goals.
The Tana Dilemma
One of the main issues I faced with using ‘Tana’ as my daily driver and project management app was its reliance on a laptop. It wasn’t a big problem when I was mainly managing projects from a stationary setup. However, my workflow took a significant hit when I had to be on the move for an entire week. Managing daily notes, project updates, key tasks, and follow-ups with the team became challenging without a mobile solution.
Moreover, the introduction of Tana Core — a paid plan at $14 per month, billed annually — added to my apprehension. Shelling out $168 per year for an app that doesn’t offer complete functionality on the go seemed unreasonable.
Why Capacities?
The answer lies in Capacities, as I elaborated in my earlier post; Why I Switched from Tana to Capacities. Upon making the switch, I also had the chance to explore the app in its early stages. The open communication from Team Capacities about their development process greatly influenced my decision.
Here’s a quick look at the iOS app of Capacities:
Having a functional app on the go is invaluable for someone like me. I love exploring apps while traveling, jotting down notes, drafting outlines, and making the most of my spare time during flights (this blog is a classic example)
Comparative Workflow: Capacities and Craft
For my workflow, Capacities handles my work projects seamlessly, while Craft excels as my writing tool. Both apps are optimized for jotting down thoughts on my iPhone. Craft deserves a dedicated blog post to discuss its features as a writing tool.
Capacities and My 9–5 Projects: A Perfect Match
Daily Notes
The ability to take daily notes is crucial for any app I use. While testing Tana and Capacities simultaneously, I had some doubts about adapting to a new app. Capacities not only met but exceeded my expectations. It offers a dedicated space for daily notes, project creation, meeting notes, and even atomic essays from the daily notes area.
One standout feature is the detailed “On this day” view, which shows everything created on a specific day — perfect for quick references.
Projects
Creating objects in Capacities might take a few minutes initially, but I recommend experimenting to see what setup works best for you. My projects have five main properties:
- Date
- Status
- Responsible Engineer
- Industry
- Potential Class
I love connecting my daily notes to specific projects and people. Capacities makes this easy with simple and effective connected notes. The visually appealing graph views provide a clear bird’s-eye view of your projects, enhancing overall visibility.
Meeting Notes
In today’s world, attending and sharing notes during various meetings is essential. Capacities helps manage these notes for my own needs and for managing direct and dotted reporting engineers. Since switching, I’ve been trying to keep meeting notes for every 1:1 discussion, online meeting, or application area visit, connecting them with people, daily notes, and projects. This has significantly streamlined my workflow.
Task Management
For task management, I use a simple ‘to-do’ tag to assign tasks to relevant meeting notes, daily notes, and projects. While Capacities is mainly used for reference purposes, I prefer to keep my actionable tasks in a separate area.
AI Support on the Go
Capacities also offers AI support within its mobile app, allowing you to ask specific prompts and copy them to your daily notes. Although I’m not a heavy user of AI assistance, it’s a handy feature.
Wishlist
While Capacities is already excellent, I would love to see further improvements in its UI and UX. Apps like Craft, Things 3, Superlist, and Amie provide a pleasant user experience, and I believe Capacities has the potential to reach similar heights.
Conclusion
Capacities has added immense value to my project management approach with its simple, intuitive, and user-friendly app. The ability to manage projects directly from my phone is a game-changer. My expectations have been exceeded, thanks to features like daily notes, connected projects, and meeting notes.
The graph view is a feature I’m beginning to appreciate, offering insights that were previously overlooked. The open communication and development transparency from Team Capacities further boost my confidence in this app.
I strongly recommend giving Capacities a try. Experience the difference for yourself!
You can explore and use Capacities for free for a lifetime with a limited feature sets and Capacities Pro is at 9.99 USD & Capacities Believer is at 12.49 USD (In Believer plan; you get access to beta features too)
Thanks for reading.
Keep reading, keep sharing.
Stay Productive.
Astu.
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