Over the last few years there have been a lot of different online tools released that enable you to manage your workload and collaborate in real-time with your team. The ability to do that has become more important than ever with much of the world working from home while we battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
With services such as Trello and Monday.com aggressively pushing to acquire new customers and become the go-to for organisations, it can be difficult to find the right tool for you. One tool that weāve come across recently is Milanote, an easy-to-use tool that helps you to organise your ideas and projects into visual boards.
I was given complimentary access to Milanote to take a look around and create a feature, and I have to say Iām impressed. Collecting everything into one place, Milanote allows you to write notes and to-do lists, upload files and images, save text, images and links from the web and add notes and photos straight from your phone. You can use the tool on a desktop and on your smart phone, making it easily accessible wherever you are.
Logging into Milanote for the first time, youāre faced with a blank board. On the left-hand side there are a series of options so you can get started quickly. You can click and hold on any of the elements and drag them onto your board to begin with your project or you can set up a series of boards if you have several projects on the go. The interface is very fluid and you can drag elements around to re-arrange them as you wish.
Milanote is ideal for small teams working on creative projects. The interface is designed to create mood boards and group together ideas so a team can collaborate. I can see it would be very useful for a design and branding agency to brainstorm and agree a strategic direction. You can upload images and then use comments or notes to share your thoughts. If you choose to share your board with the rest of your team, they can add their comments and notes on too, transforming your board into a working collaborative environment.
You could also use it if youāre a graphic designer and you need to story board an idea, or if youāre a writer and you want to flesh out your plot and characters. Milanote is surprisingly versatile and its clean look is definitely a big advantage. To be honest, if youāre doing anything visual youāll be able to find a way to use Milanote and it will be key to helping you share and cultivate your ideas into a reality.
One of the down sides is that there doesnāt seem to be any possibility to integrate any other apps into Milanote. It would be nice to be able to integrate standard tools like MailChimp or Outlook so you can sync important information. Those things are more of a nice-to-have and maybe theyāll be added on in the future.
The phone app is very simple to use and definitely handy for throwing down ideas on the go. Personally though, I preferred the desktop app as itās able to take advantage of the larger real estate and present your boards in a much more eye-catching and pleasing way.
So what does Milanote cost? Thereās a free plan that allows you to have up to 100 notes, images and links, and 10 uploads. If that doesnāt suit you, thereās a āPay per personā plan which gives you unlimited notes, images and links and file uploads for just $9.99 per month. The third and final plan is $49 a month, āUpgrade Your Teamā, for a team of up to 10 or you can pay $99 per month for a team of up to 50. If you need more than that, you can contact the Milanote sales team to discuss your requirements.
Milanote is a real find. Itās much more visually pleasing than many of its competitors and itās incredibly easy to use. If you work in the creative industries, Iād recommend you sign-up to Milanote and try it for free. Once you start using it to manage projects, Iād be very surprised if you went back to whatever you were using before.
For more information about Milanote and to sign-up for a free account, head over to https://www.milanote.com/templates/project-plans.