When running your business as an entrepreneur, are you one of those business owners who has 10-15 yellow notepads laying around that you have to constantly reference and keep track of on a daily basis?
With all of these notepads you manage, do you find that you have multiple notes about different things on different pads, and it is hard to keep everything straight and organized to reference in the future?
Well you are not alone.
Keeping track of information that is written down is a skill that is challenging for most business owners to manage.
But there is a solution for that, and it is called the Penultimate app for the iPad!
This iPad app has saved me so much time and headache when running my business, and has helped me be 99% paperless in the process.
Here are some reasons why the app is something you should seriously consider downloading.
1) Multiple Notebooks
One of the best things about the Penultimate app is the ability to create an infinite amount of notebooks. What makes this a valuable feature is that depending on how you organize and keep track of information, will depend on how many notebooks you will need to create.
As an entrepreneur you may have a notebook for ideas you want to implement in the future, layouts for websites or landing pages, random notes that you want to research further…so on and so forth.
2) Evernote / Dropbox / Email Integration
Another amazing feature of the Penultimate app is the ability to create a page within a notebook, and then having the freedom to send that page to Evernote, Dropbox or an e-mail address of your choice.
This feature comes in handy because it allows you to throw your ideas and thoughts down onto something without losing it, and then sending it to the appropriate storage mechanism of your choice. You can also use this feature to quickly explain something and then send it off to a team members in an instant.
What is even better is…
You can also send entire notebooks of written content to other team members which makes this such a valuable feature.
3) Inserting New Pages Within Notebooks and Between Pages
Another feature that really allows your creativity and brainstorming skills to flourish is the apps ability to add and insert new pages anywhere in a notebook.
For example, say you finish a brainstorm on the 3rd page of a notebook titled “Brainstorms”, and then starting on the 4th page you begin another brainstorm that is not related to what you finished on the 3rd page.
As you begin to flush out your thought on the 4th page you realize you wanted to add to what you put on the 3rd page.
Has this happened to you when using a yellow pad?
Well…
The best part about this app is that you can easily insert a page between the 3rd and 4th page, and continue expanding upon the ideas you wrote down on page number three without a hitch.
By inserting the page in this fashion, your 3rd page stays the 3rd page, and the 4th page becomes the 5th page because the new page you added takes the 4th page place.
With this feature added to an already amazing app, it gives you the freedom as an entrepreneur to flush out your ideas without having to worry about if you are going to take up a page that you won’t be able to back to so that you can add more ideas too.
4) Moving Pages To New Locations Within Notebooks
Another great feature that I absolutely love is the apps ability to allow you to reorder pages within a notebook. This is something you can never do with a yellow pad, unless you removed all the pages from a yellow pad and stapled them together in the order that you want.
What is great about this feature is that as you are in the thick of writing down ideas, plans or a list, you will never have to worry again about the order of the content on the pages, because you will be able to move them to the appropriate place in the future within the notebook.
5) Moving The Location of Text on A Page + Adding Pictures To A Page
Another great little feature within the app that totally adds a lot of value to entrepreneurs who like to brainstorm by moving things around on a page, is the apps ability to change the location of text on a page.
At the bottom of every page there is a “scissors” icon that allows you to draw a circle around text, and move it anywhere on the page you are working on.
This feature is helpful because as you create lists of things to do, it allows you to easily erase text on each page, but also have the ability to reorder the specific things on the page if you need to!
Another great feature that adds even more value to the app is your ability to add pictures you have taken onto a page to help you create pages that look exactly the way you want them to.
6) Moving Pages Between Multiple Notebooks
One of the final features that adds “cherry on top” for the app, is the ability to send any page within any notebook to an entirely new notebook.
For example, let’s say you have two notebooks.
One of them is titled “Random Thoughts”, and another one is titled “Braindumps.” Lets then assume you opened up your “Random Thoughts” notebook and began jotting down things that started to come to mind, and in the thick of this activity you realized that what you were creating and flushing out was starting to turn into a “Braindump-like brainstorm.”
As you become present to this fact, what is so amazing about this app is its ability to be able to take all of the pages for this little “Braindump-like brainstorm” in the “Random Thoughts Notebook” and have them be sent into the “Braindumps Notebook.”
Try doing that with a yellow pad without removing and re-stapling pages!
Summary
If you aren’t using the Penultimate app available on iPad, you are seriously missing a fantastic opportunity to ease your brainstorming troubles with normal yellow pads laying around your office. With the apps ability to give you ultimate flexibility to get your ideas down on paper, and be able to mold and work with them in a way that serves you, you will run your business with a greater peace of mind, and know that everything has a place to be written down, organized and accessed in the future.
Out of all the apps I use every day on my iPad, this is by far the one that is used the most.
Also, if you are going to seriously use this app in your business, I recommend that you get a stylus to use because it will allow you to write more efficiently in the app.
Author: Scott Bradley is an entrepreneur who is passionate about helping business owners create and implement effective marketing plans, strategies and tactics. He also writes for Brilliant Business Advice, and spends most of his time creating products and services that directly serve the small business community.
