Tim Nahumck

Vibe Coding My Way Out of Markdown Tedium

2026-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Life as a parent gets busy. Your focus shifts, your free time changes, and your priorities are no longer yours to decide. The things you want to do get quickly replaced by all the things you have to do on top of the things you had to do already. It's normal and completely fine. It just means that sometimes you're late to the party on things…

Most that know me understand that I have a watch band ~~problem~~ collection. I have a Markdown-formatted table in Drafts that I use to keep this up-to-date for my site. When I've added a band or five, I have to enter in the information, renumber the entire list, and there's a bunch of friction that takes time to manage it. I'm decently proficient in JavaScript, but not enough to have this automatically handled for me.

Enter Claude.

I've heard the term "vibe coding", and although I hate the term, I get why this is a wonderful thing. What would have taken me hours to do on my own through painstaking learning and research took me about 15 minutes to create using Claude.

I started with a simple prompt to have it write me a JavaScript function to format a Markdown table, renumber the lines, etc. But then I remembered that it can be smarter by telling it that what I really wanted was a Drafts Action script, so that I can just copy and paste it into the step in Drafts, and not have to do any additional work with the variables. I almost exclusively use the Sometype Mono font when using Drafts, so I want it to look visually good in the editor when I see it, as well as be able to use it on my site. I asked to have additional criteria added to make sure it only formatted the Markdown table and nothing else, automatically padded columns correctly, looking at the size of each line to make sure it's the same, and then process the table accordingly.

After a little back and forth to make it perfect, I ended up getting the code to create my Renumber Watch Band Collection action. I know that this is a small thing, but it had been bothering me for months that I had to do this manually. I finally had a half hour to sit with my thoughts and simply tell an assistant "this is what I need from you". I'm a fan of this style of AI that assists me to make my life easier and makes some tasks less tedious.

Perfect Travel Charging

2026-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

I'm always in search of both the best and minimal setups I can get. Camera, computer, EDC, you name it. And that is especially true for when I want to have solid charging when I'm traveling. I've had setups previously that did the trick, but over time my needs have changed. The computing hardware got better, became capable of charging faster, and the technology and features of the devices that charge them get upgraded. GaN made a huge splash a couple of years ago, and has only continued to get better. We have cables capable of high data transfers and high-speed charging. And the wall chargers are getting more sophisticated.

I wasn't originally going to be upgrading my setup, but there were two major events that forced my hand: first, my son needed to upgrade his charging setup, and there was zero chance I was buying him new things; and second, and probably most importantly, there was finally color in the iPhone Pro lineup – Cosmic Orange. When the Ultra was first released, I immediately wanted it for the design and the orange accents/bands. So when I heard that an orange hue might be coming to the Pro, I knew I'd be getting it if that were true. And I couldn't hit buy fast enough. It wasn't long after the announcement that other manufacturers started creating their own Cosmic Orange items to make it all match. The first two companies that I saw to do this were KUXIU and ChubbyCable, which are at the core of my setup. Who knew a color could lead to so much change…

Before I get to the components of the setup, I need to talk about what I charge while I travel so this all makes sense. I'm going to focus on my personal devices and not anything work related, though this charging setup is flexible and robust enough to handle both. For most trips, I take my iPhone 17 Pro, Ultra 3, 11" iPad Pro M4, and AirPods Pro 2. There are other items that I take on a per-trip basis – like a light or gimble – which are all USB-C devices. In fact, I'm completely on USB-C at this point, and I couldn't be happier. At the most, I need 4 USB-C ports to charge devices. I used to have a 5-port charger, but it was too bulky for my bag when I've been trying to use a smaller, more compact 9L sling. When my son needed to charge more things, I looked for a new one. I quickly found the new Anker 160W 3-Port Charger. That's plenty of power for my needs, but only 3 ports.

As it turns out, having 3 ports isn't a limitation after all. Implementing a good 3-in-1 charging stand for travel only takes one port. Enter the KUXIU 3-in-1 Charging Stand: this one is Qi2.2 capable, and best of all, comes in Cosmic Orange, a perfect color match to my iPhone Pro; it's extremely sleek, requires a minimal footprint, and folds up compactly. In the second port, I just use a cable to charge my iPad Pro, and the ChubbyCable 2m USB-C Cable – also in Cosmic Orange – offers the fastest data speed and charging rate, while being aesthetically pleasing. My only complaint with the cable is that the connector ends aren't flat enough for me to use this with the 3-in-1 charging stand, so I have to use a normal USB-C cable for it. And for the last port, by using the ChubbyCable Duo-Flex, I can turn that third port into two giving me four USB-C charging points total.

But what about charging while out and about with no wall outlets? I'll need a battery pack. I already have several, but I could not resist another orange item: the KUXIU Foldable Charging Bank. This is advertised as a 3-in-1 battery bank: a MagSafe charger for the phone, a Watch charger, and a USB-C charge port. The other features like a kick stand and a rated capacity of 10,000mAh – large enough to top off my iPad if needed – make this a solid battery bank for me. Depending on the trip, I might carry an additional battery bank, but this is my new go-to carry. I'm usually only charging one device at a time, but it's nice to know I have options.

When I ordered the Anker charger, one thing I did not really look at was the connected app, which actually provides quite a bit more features than just a standard charger. Anker, like everyone else, is using some AI-magic to adjust the output of ports according to what you're charging. This is generally what I use, but there are few specific times traveling that I want to make sure I'm getting plenty of power to the 3-in-1 charger. Once the app was connected, I.. updated the firmware. But I was then able to create a 'travel' configuration to change the output of the ports: 45W for my iPad, 40W for my 3-in-1, and 75W for the dual cable. If I'm traveling for work, I can also switch it to a fixed distribution to charge my work laptop at the maximum capability using a single port. Most of the time, I do leave it on the AI setting and forget about it, but it's nice to know I have options. Having this charger made me realize: I can get around fewer ports, but I need the power behind them to be great and customizable to fit my needs. That has been the game changer with this entire setup.

I really feel like I now have the perfect travel charging kit, one that fits my needs and my perosnal aesthetics. This has handled all the trips I've taken in the fall and the holidays, even as I experiment with different situations. I don't feel compelled to keep looking at something better, to constantly tweak and chang it. And based on the devices I use, I'm confident that this will not need to change for a long while.

For all the other gear I use, you can check it out here.

FrameShot

2025-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

As the new season of WWDC has closed, the time for sharing the beta screenshots is upon us. And while I love to see framed images, my preferred way of sharing is frameless. And there's no better tool for that than FrameShot for iPhones, developed by my friend Keir.^[1]

I've used a version of the shortcut before, but Keir has taken it upon himself to add not only my favorite frameless but also framed as well, all in 3 different background choices: light, dark, or transparent. You can download the shortcuts from the link above to try them out.

I'm super pleased with these, and I will likely start using the transparent option almost exclusively for beautiful images of my homescreen.^[2]

Keir, chosen one, Keir. Keir, brilliant one, Keir. ↩︎
But maybe when the new releases hit in the fall. I think I'll hold off on the beta. ↩︎

Homemade iPad Pro Magnetic VESA Mount

2024-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

For a while now, I've had my iPad Pro next to a 27 monitor for my home setup. This is on a dual-monitor VESA Mount using a magnetic mount for the iPad Pro. It's been working out very well for a long while, given that I had the M1 12.9" iPad Pro.

So when the new iPad Pros were announced and I knew that I was going back down to the 11-inch size, I figured it might be a while until I had a magnetic mount again. But I remembered that there were multiple people out there that created their own in the past from a folio case and some wood. I know I'm a bit handy/creative, so I thought I could manage this pretty easily.

Preparing the way.

First, I needed to see if there were any magnetic smart folio cases. As was with my previous Pro, I quickly found the ESR iPad Pro Folio: not only is it just like Apple's – except for the new magnetic rails, which I expect them to create at some point – but it's also around a quarter of the price, with the added benefit of a protective magnetic flap for the Pencil. So I ended up ordering 2 of them, using one normally and one for this mount. I also knew that I needed to fasten the VESA mount plate. I added some M4 threaded inserts and socket head cap screws to my order to make sure I had everything on hand for easy assembly.

No room for error here.

Next, and very delicately with a fresh utility knife blade, I used a ruler to align the cut of the folio case, splitting it in two. ProTip™: if you have a metal ruler, it sticks extremely well to the folio case and doesn't move while cutting. This gives the perfect outline and maximum attachment. I did think about cutting down the folio case back, but ultimately decided it would be more work to do everything cleanly and scrapped that idea.

Then, I found a scrap piece of 1" x 8" pine. You don't have to use pine: you could use plywood or other hardwoods that you might have. I cut it to the length and width of the folio, cutting the width just under the camera opening of the folio case. Once this was cut, I located the VESA mount holes and drilled a pilot hole for the threaded inserts. I sanded the corners and the piece, then routed the back side to give it a more friendly edge, though routing is not a necessity. A quick sanding and black spar paint finished off the wood part of the project.

Leave plenty of dry time for both paint & glue.

With the board painted black, the threaded inserts installed, the back of the folio case super glued, and everything fully dried, all I needed to do was attach the mount plate and put it on the arm. I ended up adding some cable management for the USB-C cable to make it super clean.

I think this is just about the most simplistic build that could be done for this, and what most people would be best served by. I could have done a few things differently to allow for a super-slick hidden cable management system, but in practice it's perfectly fine. I'm sure that there are other material options here instead of using wood based on your own aesthetic - like 3D printing – so use what you think might be best. Fun little project, and it saved me a bunch of time and money waiting on someone to make it for me.

Fool Me Once…

2024-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Back in April 2021, the new M1 iPad Pros were announced. At that time, I wanted the largest screen iPad Pro I could get, so I ended up getting the 12.9" model. There was so discussion surrounding the hardware story: the latest processor – just like the Mac – and a Magic Keyboard to make it just like a laptop. Most of the stories at the time focused on one key thing: the potential.

Depending on who you ask, what you read, what you listen to, you'll hear a bunch of opinions across the spectrum on how that device did: it was a disappointment or it was a phenomenal modular computer and everything in between. Some of the initial thoughts on where this device was going got great updates: proper external monitor support, additional multitasking in Stage Manager, and the start of desktop-class apps. It started to feel like things were improving for the better.

But then it stagnated and felt incomplete.

And here we are again three years later. The iPads Pro with M4 chips are the latest in chipset. We have an all-new Magic Keyboard that gains a function row and some additional premium feel thanks to the aluminum on the inside. We have an amazing screen, now for the first time with OLED and nano texture – like I have on my 11" model that I'm now in love with. With external monitor support, I ended up going back down to the 11" size because it suits my needs best: I can always plug into a larger display if I need it, but most of the time I need the more compact form factor. The Pencil Pro improvements are awesome, and I'm not even a pro-user of the pencil in any sort of capacity. It's a solid upgrade year for sure.

But with all of the improvements it feels like the story is once again incomplete. The hardware of the iPad Pros have been great ever since the introduction of the 2018 iPad Pros. But the software is the part that really needs to coalesce around the idea of what the iPad Pro really wants to be. It's ok if the idea is to be an in-between device between the base iPad and a Mac. It doesn't have to do both. But like most that have used the iPad Pro as their main computer for years, I do want the iPad to do more. There are improvements to the current implementations that can be done. There are new features that should make their way to this platform. But it really is up to Apple on what they want to do.

I didn't buy this new device based on a promise of a new future with it. I bought it to suit my needs. I'm working on not getting my hopes up, and I can't stop thinking that there's still more to this iPad Pro story, but I feel like I did back in 2021 all over again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

Let's wait to finish that and see what's coming next week at WWDC.

Capture on Repeat

2024-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

This morning when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night for whatever stupid reason, I thought about how I've been using some of my shortcuts and trying to figure out how to improve them. As one does at 3:30am. And in my sleepless productivity, I created a couple of simple shortcuts that are going to improve capture for me. Both of these have the same basic blocks, so I'll show them side by side below.

Sometimes I want to enter tasks as part of a brain dump. I'll grab my phone, use my one of my versatile shortcuts – like LockCut or CaptureCut – and enter the single task. But what about multiple tasks? What if I want to continue to add items until I can't anymore?

Clearly the right answer.

The solution is fairly simple: start with the action(s) I want to run, then use a repeat block in conjunction with a yes/no menu to either run the action(s) again or stop the shortcut. I also created one of these for entering grocery items to a specific list, something that I work to manage on a weekly basis for meal planning.

Here's a concept action that you can use to start both of these, or create your very own shortcut to do what you want. There are comments on where to put items as well as what to modify if you need more repeats. These aren't complicated by any means, but I'm really looking forward to the utility they bring to capturing my tasks.

Function by a Thousand 'Cuts

2023-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

I recently shared my home screen setup in the Club MacStories newsletter. As is tradition with me, I changed it about 3 days after publication. And then again. And again. But rather than just mixing it up, I sat down and totally re-thought the functionality of my home screen, from what I'm using to the placement of the icons & widgets. Whereas I started and ended with a single home screen, the functionality I've gained in this new setup is far greater than I had hoped.

The use of shortcuts has greatly improved the use of my phone, simply because I have more at my fingertips. It's even better on any iPhone – and maybe even a future iPad – with the Dynamic Island, simply because it takes no real estate to show it running. It just fades away into the background. This whole idea for me really was borne from my Action Health shortcut I made because the Ultra has the Action Button. This gave way to ActionCut, which has now morphed into something better. These launcher-style shortcuts have been around for a long time, so this isn't a completely unique idea. But with the improvements to the hardware and software, the time to take advantage of this is now.

Where I started vs where I am now.

Let's first talk about the layout: what I had originally submitted to Club MacStories was a layout of a large widget at the top, a small widget at the bottom left, a group of four icons at the bottom right, and 3 apps in the dock – like a gentleman. This gave me a lot of information and usability, but I found myself wanting a bit more. I've had hidden home screens for a while to retain different iterations of widgets and widget stacks, so I turned them all on to take a look at what I had. What I started to realize is that some of the information I was looking for – like weather – really would be better for me in a small widget stack rather than taking the large widget, while others like Reminders still needed to have more usable space while remaining somewhat small.

Now my layout is bifurcated by a medium-size widget stack in the middle with a small widget stack on the left and four icons on the right at either the top and the bottom. I'm right-handed, so having the icons on the right rather than the left makes more sense. Having the more productivity-focused bottom left widget stack puts it in the right place for one-handed use. After all, this is meant to be functional for my daily use.

Let's talk widgets for just a brief moment. Since they've been introduced, stacked widgets are what I have been using. Most of the time, I don't allow for suggestions nor do I set it to auto rotate. I think of stacks as multiple layers: I want that top layer to be what I really want to see all the time, but if I need something more, I'll just move to the next layer to see just a bit more. I always start with what I want to do with the stack, then move to which widgets belong there.

My center medium-size widget stack is Reminders, followed by Calendar, Carrot Weather, and then Lumy. I wanted to have Reminders not take up the entirety of the large widget size, but also have it be readable across. The small widget is just too small for most of the lists. And I even found that with the large widget, you had to tap all the way at the top of the widget to enter into Reminders; I would often tap the middle of the widget instinctively like I had done before widgets became interactive in iOS 17, and would accidentally mark tasks as complete. That's the main purpose of that center widget, but it's nice to flick to my Calendar, the weather, or the golden hour times in Lumy.

My upper small-size widget stack is all Carrot Weather. Why do I have it in 2 places? That has to do with reachability, honestly. First off, the small widget stack auto rotates. So while the default is the current conditions with other information, sometimes it will show me the next several hours during the day; generally at night, it might show me the next few days as it thinks I want to peer into the future. But I also have Carrot Weather in the center stack because I sometimes want to get there quickly and my thumb can easily reach there.

The bottom small-size widget stack is more about my productivity with Drafts and Shortcuts. Any of the actions and shortcuts in these widgets are more about launching to the right spot for me to get things done. Do I need to start something new? I can do that quickly. Do I need to look at my meal plan or grocery list? I can do that too. What about my comprehensive Dashboard note and personal wiki? I can jump into that as well. Access to everything at my fingertips.

Going all the way back to the original ActionCut, I had started this idea that everything was a [name]Cut. It made it easier to compartmentalize things in my brain. When I realize that bringing ActionCut to the iPhone would help me do more, I had it on my home screen while keeping SocialCut in the dock for all of my social apps. But this started to really not make sense once I entered my sleep focus. I wouldn't have access to important things like entering a note or something to my task manager when I needed to do so quickly, so something needed to change. ActionCut needed to move to my dock. So I moved that there first. Then I morphed what was in ActionCut: this no longer had individual actions, but rather launched all of the other 'Cuts that I had made in addition to the quick capture note or reminder actions.

One of the more difficult parts of all this was having an aesthetic that worked well with the widgets and choosing the right icon for each 'Cut. I've used icons from the echoes icon pack before, but I really appreciate the design of these and feel that I can make them work better than having regular app icons or other icon sets. Some of these have been heavily modified by using Pixelmator to change colors and tweak backgrounds. This adds to the customization for me and makes this even more unique. And I did have unique colors for a bit, but I like the overall feel of the monochromatic theme here. Keeps me focused.

Submenus give me more at my fingertips, but for less-used shortcuts.

Most of my 'Cuts are a launcher of launchers, meaning the actions within are a menu of single-action shortcuts. I do it this way because I find the visual menu aspect of shortcuts to be better for my brain. You could just make a menu with actions inside, and use emoji to differentiate. There's not really a wrong way to do this. One thing to note is that structuring the shortcuts in the manner in which I have does mean you have to order the shortcuts within the Shortcuts app to have them show up in the order you want. There is a workaround for this that I have discovered, however: if you get shortcuts, apply a filter, and save it in the order you want it from top to bottom in a variable, then it will show up exactly how you want it to when presented with a list. As I have developed more of these, I realize having everything in one list was too big in some cases, and I created additional shortcuts like SecondCut, PlayMore, and updates as a submenus to hide some of the less-used 'Cuts. Using the workaround method I just described, I am able to add the main shortcut back into the submenu so that I can jump back and forth if needed.^[1]

Using this method, I can custom sort the order of my menus.

So let's talk about the 'Cuts I have. There are a few of the main shortcuts that have extra bits in them for different functions, so I'll just list out everything below, from top to bottom on my home screen.

HealthCut takes different aspects of my ActionHealth shortcut, namely Start a Workout, Log Weight, Log Caffeine, and Log Water; I added actions for opening the Health app and FoodNoms for food tracking. HomeCut is all about things that happen at the home front: Home, Parcel, Ring, and MyQ (for the garage door) are here along with two scenes for nighttime settings for various switches around the house. ReadCut focuses around anything read or spoken, save podcasts; Mail, Books, Audible, Notes, Reeder, and News are all here. UtilityCut is really about settings, files, and updates for the devices; I can quickly open passwords either in iCloud Passwords or 1Password, open the App Store, open to Updates (OS-level, AppStore, TestFlight), open Files or Shortcuts, or open the Settings or Watch apps.

Lots of 'cuts, lots of options.

PlayCut is all about entertainment: YouTube, Apple TV, Broadcasts, Podcasts, Music, and Sonos are where I do most of my entertainment; I also have a quick action to connect my AirPods Pro to my devices, as that is faster and more reliable than swiping down from control center and tapping through to get them connected. A new addition is the PlayMore shortcut, which is effectively a second menu of choices for less-frequently used entertainment apps. SocialCut just gives me access to the apps that I use to communicate – which is changing as of late because certain aspects of social media are really infuriating and not worth my time or attention. PhotoCut is a mix of camera apps, photo/video editing apps, and some additional photo extensions from shortcuts that I use with frequency. And BabyCut is all about my daughter and tracking things like diaper changes, feedings, and sleep.

My current lock screen along with LockCut.

This brings me back to ActionCut: I've completely changed the original concept of what it was. It's actually the icon that I tap on the most because it's in the right spot for me. And having the ability to put whatever I need to by calling any action or any launcher is hyper convenient for me. It's my iPhone 14 Pro's version of an action button. I've even made one for my lock screen that calls different items I might need from there too. Again, most of these are a launcher of actions. But with the notification running at the top and out of my way, this feels more fluid on the iPhone. I can make my home screen more aesthetically pleasing and functional for my everyday use. If I add an app to my repertoire, I can simply add it to a Shortcut without having to change my home screen. I can have access to a thousand different actions if I want, and have this be the most functional, single home screen for me ever. Time to just enjoy this for a while…

I wanted to say a special thanks to Keir for his support in creating the Frameless Screenshot actions, especially for the iPad Pros. He does great work. You can find him over on Threads @keir, Mastodon.Design/@keir, or his website. Thanks again Keir!!!

This is not unlike a personal wiki in many apps, like Drafts for example. ↩︎

Travel Charging Setup

2023-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

I'm always in search of the best possible charging solution for all my travel needs. I have some very simple requirements: it needs to be minimal and be capable of charging all my devices while on the go. It's evolved over time, and with some improvements to AirPods and MagSafe accessories, I've finally landed on what I think is the best possible solution for me. I say for me because your needs might be slightly different, but this is what works for me.

Let's start with what devices I have so we can talk about how I charge them. For my personal devices, I'm still rocking the iPhone 14 Pro, the Apple Watch Ultra, the non-USB-C 2nd Gen AirPods Pro with MagSafe Case (this is important for later), and the M1 iPad Pro 12.9".

With those devices in mind, I've settled on a scalable solution for how I work. At the center of this setup is the Anker Prime 67W charger. This has 2 USB-C ports and one USB-A. It has more than enough power to fast charge everything I have. To provide the most flexibility, I have two of these multi-end cables that are USB-A/USB-C on one end, and USB-C/Lightning on the other. Each are 6' long so that they can reach most anywhere I am in relation to a power outlet, and I still have the ability to charge via Lightning for any of those devices that are still around.

Now I could just stop there, and plug each device into a cable. But sometimes when I travel, I don't have power available and I need an external battery to charge my devices. This is where an external battery pack is a great accessory to carry. For a while, I had a separate 10k mAh battery pack, but then I looked into the OtterBox 2-in-1 Power Bank with MagSafe – and it's a game changer for me. This device is not only a battery pack, but can act as a travel MagSafe charging stand for my phone, watch, and AirPods Pro; it even does pass-through charging, so I can leave it plugged in overnight and still use StandBy like I do at home. And like I mentioned before, the AirPods Pro with MagSafe charging case makes this setup even better: I can use either magnetic charging targets on the Power Bank, or even use my second cable with Lightning to charge. I think that's a big advantage with the AirPods Pro that most people miss: the versatility of charging options.^[1]

There are some other bits that I might charge from time to time, like my Apurture light or my tactical flashlight, but everything in my charging setup can be used to charge those also. If I'm on a trip where I'm carrying a lot of peripherals or I need to bring my work laptop, I might bring bring an additional charger and USB-C cable for the added power, a black braided USB-C to Lightning cable (that came with the Magic Trackpad), and an Anker MagSafe Battery. It just depends on the bag/carry I'm using at the time.

This entire solution – starting with the charging brick, cables, and batteries – is a very scalable travel MagSafe solution for me. It's extremely versatile for my devices, especially given that the AirPods Pro are able to charge via a MagSafe, Watch, or Lightning/USB-C (depending on which case you might have). I've finally arrived at my ideal travel charging solution, and really couldn't be happier.

It's also changed my home setup, but I'll save that for another time. ↩︎

App Defaults 2023

2023-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Inspired by the collection of posts gathered by Robb Knight, here are my app defaults for 2023. I'll keep this as an additional page) that I keep updated should things change.

📨 Mail Client:
- Mail.app
📮 Mail Server:
- Hover
- Gmail
📝 Notes:
- Drafts for everything
- Notes.app - for items which need attachments or sharing
✅ Task Management:
- Reminders.app
- Drafts for personal wiki
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting:
- Camera.app
- Halide
- Pro Camera by Moment
🌅 Photo Editing / Management:
- Photos.app
- Photomator
- Darkroom
🌤️ Weather: Carrot Weather
📆 Calendar
- Calendar.app
📁 Cloud File Storage
- iCloud
📖 RSS
- Reeder
🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts:
- Contacts.app
🌐 Browser:
- Safari
💬 Chat:
- Messages
- Signal
- Whatsapp
🔖 Bookmarks
- Safari
📑 Read It Later:
- Safari Reading List
📜 Word Processing:
- Drafts for personal
- Word for work
📈 Spreadsheets:
- Numbers for personal
- Excel for work
📊 Presentations:
- Keynote for personal
- PowerPoint for work
🛒 Shopping Lists:
- Reminders.app
🍴 Meal Planning:
- Notes.app
📰 News:
- Apple News
- Google News (in Safari)
🎵 Music:
- Apple Music
🎙️ Podcasts:
- Apple Podcasts
🔐 Password Management:
- 1Password
- iCloud Passwords
📦 Package tracking:
- Parcel
💁🏻‍♂️ Social:
- Threads
- Instagram
- Slack
- Discord

ActionCut

2023-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

A short while ago, I created a new shortcut called Action Health to use with the Action Button on the Apple Watch Ultra. I submitted it to MacStories as part of Automation April, purely to share what had been created and hoped that others might find it useful. To my surprise, I won the Best Health Shortcut this year, something I didn't expect at all.

Truth be told: I actually had forgotten that I had entered it into the contest, as I've been using a different shortcut after putting Action Health into practice. I was finding that I wanted to have access not only to start a workout or log something, but I also several other task-oriented and messaging options at my fingertips. So it made sense to fork the shortcut from the original.

Ultimately, I created ActionCut. This takes all the good from Action Health and adds the additional features that I find myself wanting to do quickly from my wrist: create a task in Reminders, create a note in Drafts, send a quick message to my wife, or add something to our grocery list. The idea here was that it needed to be a simple tap of the button and fast entry so that I can capture quickly and move on. I also took the logging actions from Action Health and moved it into a single menu item; I don't do these as often, so tucking them into a submenu was better. For the task and note entry, I made this shortcut to use the apps I prefer: Drafts and Reminders. But you could also modify this to include other task management and note taking apps too as long as it has Shortcuts support. For each added component, I've made it so that you have to enter text via the keyboard, but you can also then quickly tap the microphone to start dictation. You could modify this to be dictation only, but there are times where doing so is inconvenient.

Now, I know what you're thinking: why not just use complications for this? And the answer here is simple: I might not always have a complication available. Just like the iPhone dock or home screen, real estate on the Watch is a premium. Sometimes I need a travel watch face with other complications, or I need a fancy watch face for a special event. And the Action Button provides me with – much like the back tap on the iPhone – a way to quickly access these little programs to do more with my watch. And as I think of more options, I can add them to ActionCut going forward, so it's very expandable. I have found that by implementing ActionCut, I'm trying new watch faces just like I tried out new home screens on the iPhone when widgets came and I removed Drafts from my dock, all thanks to this shortcut freeing up space and being tied to a button. The addition of widgets was a huge foundational shift for me on the iPhone, and I'm starting to feel that with the Action Button on my Ultra when using ActionCut.

Action Health – A Shortcut for the Ultra

2023-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

When the Apple Watch Ultra was released, I knew I wanted it. Bigger watch face, insane battery life, the titanium finish, and the Action Button. And it really delivered on three of those things. But the biggest disappointment was the robustness of the Action Button, specifically for me surrounding the single action capability.

The Action Button can do a few things, but only one at a time: start a workout, start a stopwatch, set a waypoint, set a backtrack marker, start a dive, turn on the flashlight, run a shortcut, or do nothing. Rather than have the Action Button be a single function, I wanted it to do multiple things for me.

Shortcuts to the rescue.

I've been tracking – maybe not always successfully – a few different things with shortcuts: my weight, water intake, and caffeine intake. But I also didn't want to lose the ability to quickly start a workout. With a simple shortcut, I can do all these things. It's a simple menu action, with sub-actions inside. Think of it as a menu choice of mini shortcuts. First, you can start a workout form a list of items: upon install, you will be prompted to remove the workouts you don't want to include. It's a tedious process, but you only have to do it once. I also didn't include every workout there, but rather included around 50 of them. The full list is in a comment, so you can quickly add one that is missing. You also can move the items around in the list to have your more frequent workouts near the top of the list.

Weight is an easy one to enter. You're simply prompted for your weight, and then it gets entered – just make sure you set the right units. Logging water and caffeine were influenced based on the existing shortcuts from the gallery. Simple entry based on common units for both ounces of water and milligrams of caffeine. Nothing too complicated, but something I can quickly run from just my watch.

I know it all seems simple. But it's a little improvement to be able to have more control at my wrist. I don't have to reach for my phone for this, which feels a bit more natural to me. I'm finding that with this simple change, I'm using it more. I'm trying to be better on my health journey, and this is one simple step to making it that much better.

The Action Health is available here, and has been submitted as part of Automation April over at MacStories. If you have an idea for a shortcut – no matter how trivial – it's always good to get in on the fun.

Backs Away Slowly

2022-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

I'm not always sure where my thought process starts with certain feelings I have. And generally speaking, I make my peace with that. This can be for many things: home, work, hobbies, etc. Things ruminate for a while, sometimes they go somewhere and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they completely consume me.

It's that last point that really has been on my mind lately: consumption. For better or worse, my consumption level has been indicative of my current mental state: the more stressed/depressed I've been, the more I consume.^[1] But in the past six months or so, I've been finding myself consuming the wrong type of content. I've been too focused on certain things, and ultimately have come to the conclusion that many often do – this isn't healthy.

Again, not sure where it started, but all of these thoughts came to a head when I had to write recently. Really, that's the words I felt at the time: "I have to do this". I felt that I owed someone somewhere what I had to say. But due to over consumption of other things, I was completely zapped creatively. It felt laborious. It felt like a chore. It felt like a job and no longer a hobby.

Since that time, I've been doing some other things in life that I've done in the past, but are things for which I have a renewed focus – woodworking, photography, and music. As my wife set off for a weekend of fun with her gal pals, I set off for a weekend of fun here at home. I found myself lost in creativity with the projects I was undertaking, though they were quite small. I combined the woodworking and photography by framing some shots of what I was doing and having a little fun. I realized that I could catalog my life a little more by only taking a few moments to set up a shot.

And that's really when it hit me: I've spent far too long consuming and not enough creating. The endless checking and scrolling has finally caught up with me, and like anything else that is done too much, it no longer makes me feel good. I feel better for the times I'm doing something meaningful rather than being online. So I'm going to fill my life with more of the things that excite me and fill my cup up rather than view things that bring me down or make me feel longing for something I don't or can't have.

I'm not leaving the internet. I'm not shutting anything down or stepping away for a bit only to come back. I'm just backing away slowly and letting my creativity point me in the direction that feels right to me. This whole new approach feels healthier and has reframed how I'm viewing my life in general. I've picked my head up from looking down, and I'm starting to notice a lot more of the things around me. For the last few years, life has been moving pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Yeah, this includes food too. Not proud of it, but it's common and normal, and if you're reading this, you should know that as well. ↩︎

A Decade of Drafts

2022-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

I was a late iPhone adopter. I held on tight to my BlackBerry for way too long. It wasn't until the iPhone 4S that I made my way over to the iPhone. And then a new opportunity really opened up for me – the App Store. There was a lot more development happening on iOS than any other platform, and there were new possibilities for me to explore. Of all the apps the App Store had to offer, one of the most transformative apps for me at the time was, you guessed it… Twitter.

Why Twitter? I suddenly had new acquaintances, and a different world opened up for me. I didn't just find some new social network, I found a new community of people. Around this time I started following more people in the Apple community – Merlin Mann, Rene Ritchie, Seth Clifford and others of the Apple space. I started learning more about personal productivity and apps to help me make my life better. And that's when I got introduced to the single app that has been the most impactful in my life: Drafts.

I bought Drafts in October of 2014. If memory serves, I was introduced to it via Merlin Mann on Back to Work.^[1] The concept was simple: Drafts is where your text starts. Capture everything, put it there, then figure out where it goes later. I spent a lot of time texting back and forth with Seth about how versatile the app could be. It was so simple: anything you are going to write down, it goes into Drafts. Have an email you want to write? Start it in Drafts. You have some random thoughts you need to get down? It goes in Drafts. Have a few tasks you need to get done? Yup, it goes there too. Over a short period of time, it started to be more central in my life, and made its way into the dock.

With updates, I started to stretch the capability with URL schemes and JavaScript. At the time, MacStories really started showing off the power that came with Drafts, even though it was still in its infancy in regards to automation. But to my recollection, it was really the first automation anything that I can remember actively wanting to use in my daily life. I wanted to find more uses for it. I started using it for all sorts of things: note taking, list making, task/event capture. It quickly became the central point in my digital life.

As apps like Launch Center Pro, Launcher, and Workflow – now Shortcuts – made their way onto the scene, I found more ways to integrate Drafts into my life. There were communities through Twitter, App.net, and even Reddit. All of the excitement drove me more into what I could do and how I could improve life not only for me but for others as well. Drafts was the reason I started writing, something I didn't know I wanted to do at the time. But it was the first thing that made me want to expand my creative interests. I finally hit my stride with all of it.

That's when I started imagining what Drafts could become. I wanted it to break free, to be more extensible and customizable, to have the next evolution and start of a brand new chapter in its history. And that's when Drafts 5 came to fruition. It gave me the opportunity to reach out to Federico Viticci on MacStories to write a major post on the site.^[2] I was incredibly proud of that piece, and it's something I look back on fondly. I wrote more posts as new versions were released with new features I felt might help others, then a few more posts on MacStories for some of the major updates. Even though I wrote for me, it didn't hurt that I gained visibility for my work based on what I had created and shared. I've shared countless workflows, how modular the app is, and even how to customize it using themes and syntaxes.

When I look back on my time learning Drafts, using it daily, and evangelizing it as much as I can, I've been so thankful for what it's done for me. It's forged new connections with people across the country, and I have some meaningful, deep friendships as a result. It's allowed me to create, produce, and be more effective than I ever thought possible. Every day, I feel like I’m making tiny improvements. It's as if I was sculpting something from a block of clay or stone, and shave off a little more each day. It starts to come into focus over time.

At 10 years in, it's an incredibly astonishing feat: still retaining the core of the app – capturing text – and building powerful features surrounding it. Even this far on, I'm still enamored with where Drafts started, how far it's come, and I'm even more excited for its future. Drafts is the single most important app in my life. There's no workflow I have that does not touch Drafts in some way, shape, or form on a daily basis. It's provided more opportunities than I ever thought possible and is the central hub for how I manage my life. As the app has evolved, I'm improving my workflows by adding new or improved functionality over time. As it continues to change over the next 10 years, it's going to be great to see what gets created.

I could find a replacement for many apps I use, but there's no replacement out there for me with the way I use Drafts. This is the only app I could not live without. Greg Pierce has created something truly incredible, and he should be very proud of what he's accomplished. Cheers to 10 years, Greg!

Thanks, Merlin. ↩︎
It even got a mention on Connected #189: Nah, Hummus!, which was quite enjoyable. ↩︎

Simple Reminders Improvements Which Should Be in iOS/iPadOS 16

2022-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

Ever since Reminders got the redesign in iOS 13, I've been back to using it for my personal tasks between the app and the other Reminders clients out there. With the new features added in iOS 14, I've been using the Reminders app exclusively. With the state of the API – something that I hope Apple fixes, and soon – most of what I do for my personal life needs to run through the Reminders to work.

But Reminders could be so much better. I'm hoping that there are improvements coming to Reminders in iOS 16 that make the app more usable and better for everyday users. There are some bigger things that I'll explain in a few moments, but there are some small improvements which could make today's app better. For example, take the medium and large widgets. These widgets have enough width that you could give users the option to show the due time off to the right within the widget settings. Additionally, overdue tasks should show up as red in the widget view. In the Today view, tasks with subtasks should have the ability to expand the list to show them, just like they do in a regular list; having to jump into the list or the information of the reminder is more cumbersome than it needs to be.1st

The current widget could be so much better, even if it isn't interactive.

For the big changes, let's start with smart lists. Smart lists need to be, well, a whole lot smarter on iOS/iPadOS. I can create these very easily within GoodTasks, and it's baffling why some of the smart list options aren't also available in Reminders. A great example of this is having a Tomorrow widget: the only option I have right now is to create a relative date for a smart list, showing me all the tasks due within the next day. This doesn't show me what I want. Of course, I could use the Scheduled list, but that's not what a tomorrow list should be. There also should be more customizations to combine the search features of the smart lists. Not only should you be allowed to search better by dates, but also combine them by lists or tags or locations as well. It's a small-enough change in user interaction that would pay large dividends in user benefit.

One of the biggest features I want to see overall for iOS/iPadOS 16 on the home screen is interactive widgets. Reminders had this in the Today view, and it's functionality that should be there for any todo app that implements it. I don't want to have to go into the app just to check something off the list when I could just do this from the widget itself. I'd also like a larger XL widget in iPadOS 16, but I want it to be something more than just a single list. My vision for an XL widget would be to allow the selection of up to 3 different lists at any given time. This would be a perfect way to show a Today, Tomorrow, and Next 3 Days smart list setup. It provides a better look at my week for the real estate it takes up. I think Reminders would do well to steal inspiration here from other apps like GoodTasks and Things for how those apps have implemented the XL widget size.

Reminders could offer a lot more with an XL-sized widget.

Since Apple creates both the Reminders and Calendar apps, there could be an additional XL widget option which shows both Reminders and Calendar events in one single XL widget. Other apps like GoodTask and Fantastical show both reminders and events, but I think Apple could do a unique take on this: keep them separated and distinguished somehow in the XL widget, with Reminders on one side and Calendar on the other. If they would add both the three-list and list/calendar XL widgets, I'd have them stacked on my homescreen.

A combination Reminders and Calendar widget could have multiple options.

And if Apple really doesn't want to devote much time into making a more customizable app, then they absolutely should open up the API. Let third party apps create and access subtasks, create smart lists with parameters, add tags, urls, etc. It would even improve their own apps like Shortcuts. Open up the ecosystem to more possibilities, better interactions, and more useful tools.

All of this certainly seems possible to add when Apple announces the tent pole features of iOS/iPadOS 16. I know it's early to have some of these desires, but if nothing gets posted before WWDC, it might never happen. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what's in store this summer.

Close Your Rings Differently

2022-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Listening to Upgrade recently, I was reminded about a feature that I really want to see incorporated into the Apple Watch fitness tracking: rest days. I'm not a fitness expert by an means, and I have a long journey ahead of me to start living a healthier lifestyle in 2022. But I've done a lot of training in the past, and I can adamantly say that rest days are vital whether you're starting a new routine, are years-deep into one, or even if you're a pro-level athlete. There are many situations where resting for a day is actually more beneficial than continuing to push through an injury or illness. And Apple would do well to make a feature available to users to implement days of rest. I think there are a couple of different ways to handle this: one is a simple change that could be done now, the other would take a bit more to implement but I think would ultimately be the better of the two solutions.

At the time of me writing this, I'm on an over 1,700-day move and stand streak with zero intention of stopping; I don't close my exercise ring every day, however. On the surface, the current strategy is fine: I am up and moving, but it doesn't mean that I have to work hard to close my rings. But for others, this method penalizes them if they have a routine with rest days in between. I'd personally be very pissed if I lost my move streak because I had a pulled muscle. The only possible way to allow for a rest, sick, or injury day right now is to lower your move goal for that day, however, you do have to remember to go in and manually modify your goal then remember to increase it the next day. Of course, neither option I'm suggesting addresses the sick and injury days that might occur as well. I'd love to see an option to add these; again, these don't count towards the daily or weekly goals, but they also don't count against you.

The easiest way to handle all of this is to allow a single day of rest in between two completed days to keep a streak going. If you miss a day, it just doesn't count. But it does mean that you have to work that much harder to make sure you close your rings the next day. This is just a change in the logic they use for calculating streaks, and would be fairly simple to implement. For someone who is starting on their fitness journey, that means they could generate a streak as they build their endurance and confidence; rest days would not count toward the overall streak of days, but would not restart the streak from zero.

The better way to handle this would be to create a new type of streak for weekly goals and provide associated badges which are separate from the daily goals. This preserves everything from users who are currently happy with how everything is implemented, while creating a new paradigm for those who aren't as emphatic about fitness but want to remain healthy. For example, I could see where a user might set weekly goals – say 10,000 kCals active calories burned, 180 exercise minutes, and 45 standing hours – which sets up their week with more flexibility to adjust their routines based on how they are feeling. If you have a solid 2-hour workout one day and two 30-min workouts later in the week, you still are accomplishing your goal of being active. But you could do that 2-hour workout on Monday and finish up the week with the 30-min workouts on Thursday and Saturday. Doing it this way would be beneficial for those that are maybe new to their fitness journey to still hit a goal while not having to do something every day to achieve it. It eases you into everything while still reaching for a goal.

With some small changes, Apple could empower more people to close their rings. It encourages better behaviors without penalizing for a day off when rest is needed, or an injury or illness sidelines you for a little while. As I'm on my own health journey, I've found that positive reinforcement has been key to my success. It's time that Apple start doing the same for everyone.

Flexible Packing List in Drafts

2021-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

Recently, I created a shortcut for the Club MacStories Discord as part of the Automation Academy. If you're not a member, I highly recommend doing so. This shortcut was in response to the latest lesson, all about Reminders. I've been meaning to create this for a while, and it seemed like a good idea to apply this lesson in practice.

From the Discord:

I've been using packing lists in Drafts for a long time. Once it is created in Drafts, I send a single task over to Reminders with a link back to the packing list. This has worked well for years, but when I read the piece by Federico, I thought that maybe it'd be a good idea to make a customizable, variable shortcut for a packing list in Reminders instead.

I do appreciate this shortcut, as it creates reminders with subtasks in a packing list. Unfortunately, there are three things I do not like about it after using it for a short while: first, I cannot create a new list for each trip I without manual interaction; second, it clutters up my system with a lot of new tasks; third, it takes longer than I'd like to run. Now, that last point is a complete nitpick, but the first is critically important. There has been more than one occasion where I have needed to pack for work trip and then a subsequent personal trip. Having two lists to separate them is more ideal for me.

I started thinking about how I could better use Drafts to manage all of this. I have had a single packing list action for a long time. My biggest complaint about using this method is that it wasn't variable for the type of trip I was taking. I'd run the action to create the same list over and over, then have to remove items that weren't applicable to that particular trip. That kind of solution works, but is far less elegant. Having just gone through the shortcut activity, I couldn't help but think that there was a better solution for me: cleaner appearance in Reminders and faster automation with Drafts.

Managing a workspace is easier for me than a complex dictionary with arrays and items.

With this in mind, I created a new tag packing. This tag is only used by my newly created Packing workspace. None of my other workspaces contain this tag, and this workspace contains only this tag. I've also archived these particular drafts to keep them out of any other workspace inbox in the future, so it's very filtered for what I need. Next, I take each category from my shortcut and make its own draft. Within each draft, the title line is formatted ### Category and I have checkboxes for each item underneath. I can modify each draft as I need, or I can add completely new categories with items to pack.

Using a query on the drafts with the specific tag, I created a checklist prompt: it presents the same information as what was in Shortcuts and functions in much the same way. I even briefly thought about making an HTML prompt for this, but thought that this was easier and fits a user's preferred theme better; this is about quick interaction after all, right?. The way this is constructed grabs all of the draft titles and presents them as items; as the categories grow, so does the list.

Setting up individual trips is better this way.

The next script then pulls in the selected draft content, and compiles it into a single list. There's an optional forth step, which creates a new task in Reminders with the URL to the newly created draft. I personally don't like the way this is rendered as just the URL. I actually use Siri to do this, usually when on my iPad by pressing Globe + S and typing to Siri "remind me of this". This shows the Drafts icon to the right of the task and the URL; I will delete the URL part, which still keeps a link via the icon on the right, for cleanliness.

I prefer using Siri to "remind me of this", and edit the task in Reminders manually to make it cleaner.

This might seem a bit more complex than editing a single shortcut, but there are a few reasons why I prefer this method. First, It runs really quickly: sure, I might only be saving a few seconds, but it makes me feel better. Next, I think that the manipulation of text within a draft, combined with the power of arrange mode in Drafts, is better. I can also duplicate categories – like with my backpack and travel sling – to make a different version with or without camera gear far easier than creating another array in Shortcuts. Finally, it keeps me in Drafts. I'm not saying that Shortcuts isn't the right tool for most here, but I know that Drafts is a better tool for me. I trust the system I've developed over years, and it doesn't let me down. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Shortcuts: even in the setup of the packing checklist shortcut, there were bugs that prevented me from completing it fully. With the groundwork done in Drafts, this is fully extensible and will adapt to new situations or changes in my gear.

Now that I'm going to travel slightly more than I have in the past, having this type of flexible packing list will keep me better prepared for travel. As I continue to venture out into The World, A.C., ^[1] I'll have the confidence and assurance that I have packed everything I need for any type of trip that might come my way.

After COVID. ↩︎

Drafts 29: Autocomplete

2021-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

With Techtober coming to an end, all of the major OS releases from Apple are finally out there, however buggy they may be. And of course, Drafts 29 has been released to accommodate the features in them. But some of the new features aren't even dependent on the latest OS releases, and add new levels of functionality to an amazingly capable app. Not only does the Mac have full Shortcuts support with the release of macOS Monterey – which as an iOS/iPadOS user I won't be writing about here – but Drafts also added new autocomplete options to its feature set. This post will go over what they are, what they do, and how I have incorporated them in my daily practice.

The first of the autocomplete features is fairly simple: creating a link to a specific draft. Creating a link starts by typing [[ and then a menu pops up with your most recent drafts. Selecting a draft completes the [[wiki-style]] link for the draft for quick reference. You can also use the arrow and enter keys to select the item you want, so your hands don't have to leave the keyboard. This has been great for my work and personal wikis that I have been creating and is a feature that has improved my workflows considerably over the past year.

Sometimes you want to take it a step further than a link and include the content of the draft inside another draft, which is where the second feature comes in. Starting with <<, you can now select from the same recent drafts list and then upon selection, the entire content of that draft is inserted into the current draft. This is great for those that use templates from existing drafts for various purposes like taskpaper lists, emails, and more.^[1] I'll use this option far less frequently, but I'm thankful that the option is there. If you dare to use a custom syntax, you can even customize this autocomplete option to use the [[body]] template tag instead of [[draft]]. I'd only recommend changing this if you know what you're doing: I haven't changed this myself, as it's pretty easy to delete the line through an action or by using the arrange mode.

The last autocomplete feature is all about text. By default, the trigger is !!, but you can customize this in the app to be something else if you prefer. When you type this, you'll bring up a list of items to select, and upon doing so, it will insert that text into your draft. You can customize all of this within the app, in the editor Aa menu. But the fascinating thing here is that you can use this for standard text snippets or utilize the templates feature of drafts to go further.

There are a few simple examples of using templates in this way. Dates and times are a perfect example of this. The standard [[date]] template will insert the date in the YYYY-MM-DD format, but using strftime format string methods, you can customize both dates and times to be in a specific format: using [[date|%A, %B %d, %Y]] will insert text like "Monday, October 25, 2021" and using [[time|%l:%M %p]] will insert the time formatted in an AM/PM format. Another great example is some of the draft information, like [[uuid]] or the url of a draft using [[draft_open_url]]. I've even created a location text autocomplete, that inserts Location: [[latitude]], [[longitude]] for the current location of the device.

Where things start to get interesting is when you start combining a bit more of the complex template examples. Drafts also uses encoding and HTML templating which extends what you can do with the text. Using these options in conjunction with the [[clipboard]] tag, you can create functions to insert copied text when the {{[[clipboard]]}} has been encoded or insert the HTML for the %%[[clipboard]]%% by applying the correct characters. I use this often for HTML. In the future, I'd really like to see some new template features added specifically for this purpose to add title case, hyphenation, encoding/decoding text, and more. This could even be done using the same syntax as the date and time examples, where the options are provided after a pipe like[[clipboard|hyphenate]]. If you're in to using [[template|path]] files in action steps, you can now use those to directly insert the text into a draft.^[2] Combining the power of templates into text insertion has been a game changer for me, and I can't wait to see this expanded further.

You can also use autocomplete to insert blocks of custom text that have multiple return lines, giving more power to text replacements than the standard implementation of iOS. For example, I use my signature often in emails but I prefer to send them as HTML. If I start this in Drafts, my standard signatures with returns does not work. So in addition to all of my information – which includes my name, phone, Twitter handle, and email – it also includes line break HTML <br> after each line, saving me time when writing emails in Drafts. For work, I use a custom header which inserts two wiki-style links for my Work Tasks and Work Wiki files for quick navigation.

Make custom blocks of text using autocomplete.

But where I've personally appreciated text autocomplete the most is where I have been able to take single or multiple menu actions and completely replace them. I used to have keyboard shortcuts to insert the date and/or time, but now I can do both with the text autocomplete trigger. I've taken my "Insert Text Element" action and completely replaced it with autocomplete. I'm sure I'll find some more as I go through a cleanup of my entire Drafts setup, but having some extra keyboard shortcuts will come in handy down the road.

All of the autocomplete features work in the editor window itself, though I'd love to see an option to have it for the script editor to insert blocks of code that I often use. With the additional option to add multiple custom text autocompletes in custom syntaxes, I could even add this for when I start a new script in draft form, rather than in the editor. I haven't done any customizations beyond what I've shown here, but I'm sure that given some time I'll start exploring a bit more and come up with some interesting use cases that I'll be sure to share. For now, at least, I've updated my Draftsdown syntax to support the standard autocomplete features discussed here.

The new autocomplete feature for text has replaces several actions for me.

Like other new features introduced into Drafts, the new autocomplete features will be a huge productivity boost to some, and open new opportunities to others. The feature will get even more feedback, and perhaps some new enhancements in the future. We'll see some power users use custom syntaxes pushing this even further, something that I personally can't wait to see. This is yet just another rung on the feature ladder of Drafts. The view from the top is great.

There's also another option for this that I'll explain in a bit. ↩︎
This works best when the file is in a .txt format. ↩︎

Cycle Through Workspaces

2021-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

Not long ago, my buddy Seth walked me through a bit of his Drafts setup. He's been creating a lot more workspaces as of late, but didn't think the workspace switching actions I had created before were enough, and he wanted a better way to cycle through them.

My coding skills aren't that great, and quite frankly, are rusty as hell because I haven't really done a lot of it due to other commitments. At the time, I was preparing for some big reviews at work, so I didn't even have time to look into it. Seth then reached out to the Drafts Community. It did take long before Jacob (jsamlarose) answered the call and created the action Seth requested. (Great work, Jacob!)

After discussing this over the phone with Seth, he was elated at his new method of switching. But he also wanted to cycle this in reverse as well. A quick search later, I found the .reverse() javascript function, and simply added the line under the first line of the script. This reverses the array created in the line above, and then the rest of the script works in the same way. I ended up renaming the actions to Cycle Workspace FWD and Cycle Workspace REV and changing the icons used, along with changing the keyboard actions to ⌘→ and ⌘← respectively.

This is just something simple that's really great and really effective. I think too often we can complicated the automation of different things and set our sights on creating complex actions (or shortcuts) to make our lives better. I'm finding that more and more, the simplest actions tend to be the right ones.

Drafts 28

2021-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

In the past few years, after a summer of running and testing beta software, I often find it difficult to sit down and think about what is new. Don't get me wrong: it's not because there isn't anything, but rather that it's become second nature to the way I'm working with my systems. This is probably why I don't do massive reviews of iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, or macOS every year: having to keep all this straight in my brain – given everything else I have going on in my life – just isn't going to happen. But every fall, I do enjoy writing about the latest version of Drafts and how it's improving my daily life.

You're going to notice something here: this isn't going to be a big, extensive review: there's no actions, no crazy automations. This isn't for a lack of updates, but it's rather a reflection of where my life is at the moment. I actually think that if I'm going to continue to share content – especially with Drafts, Shortcuts, productivity, journaling, etc. – I need to approach everything I do from this point on from a smaller perspective, rather than an all-encompassing viewpoint. I think that many of you would appreciate shorter, easier-to-digest posts that can give targeted use cases/actions/automations going forward. This is the way.

Drafts, of course, provides the compatibility you've come to expect with the new iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS updates that occur every fall. This year is no different, but one important thing is that some of what Drafts now provides is further extension of already existing functionality. Some of the new features have existed on one part of the platform and not the other due to OS limitations, but now they are synchronized in iOS/iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey. It brings a sense of cohesiveness across your devices that previously wasn't there, and I think will open the doors to a lot more possibilities for both iOS/iPadOS and macOS users alike.

For example, one of the biggest parts of this year's fall update is the all-new watchOS app, completely rewritten in Swift. This isn't a small undertaking, but it takes the already fantastic watch app and adds additional functionality. It retains everything that it had before, but adds the ability for multiple compilation types. If you really want, you can now have an all-Drafts watch face. Another nice feature, and one I've wanted for a while, is the inbox count reflecting the default workspace options; this means I no longer need to see 60+ drafts in my inbox, but rather only a handful that I want to keep in an inbox.

Ok, an all-Drafts watch face might be a bit too much, even for me, but it's possible.

Another huge update is the incorporation of Shortcuts for the Mac. As I don't use a Mac, I'm not the expert here, but you can use a lot with it. All of the same features you've come to love on iOS are available – even if Shortcuts is buggy – and the Mac adds a few specific items like AppleScript and shell scripts. Hopefully someone out there writes this up nicely: should they do, I will link it here.

While I do use the watch and not the Mac, those aren't the big things for me this year, despite the massive efforts of the AgileTortoise himself to bring both of them forward. He's not only been working hard on those, but many others across the other parts of the ecosystem. One of the big features in iOS/iPadOS is the implementation of Live Text. This feature is great, as you can select text from images and scanned documents. Drafts takes advantage of this feature in iOS by providing a menu option to scan a document directly and import the text right on the iPhone. This, like dictation before it, has been a game changer for me when I've needed it for work, personal, or legal things over the course of the beta. The fact that I don't have to manually transfer something into Drafts is huge: from a small bit of text I want to use later to a large document, I can tap (from the widget!) and import the text right into my text editor of choice.

In iPadOS, the support for the latest implementation of the keyboard shortcut menu overlay is there, which mirrors the awesome Global keyboard shortcuts introduced this year. You already had something similar in previous releases when you pressed the command ⌘ key, but it was a jumbled mess of what the keyboard shortcuts where. Now, you get a tabulated overlay in easy-to-locate divisions. Given that I have a ton of actions and tried to set up the best keyboard combinations that I could, this is very helpful for me since I might forget them if they are infrequently used. There are 4 categories that are default – file, edit, editor, and view: the remaining sections are all of the actions which have your keyboard shortcuts assigned. Once you invoke the menu, you can either enter the keyboard combination or, my personal favorite, tap the keyboard shortcut in the menu overlay to run it. Saves me some clicks, and I love it. There's also a search feature where you can search the menu overlay, which is nice for someone like me who has a lot of actions to search.

As you can see, I have a lot of keyboard shortcuts.

The share extension has been updated to include the recently used drafts for easy selection and re-use. While this isn't the Quick Note feature we'd all love,^[1] it is going to be helpful for when I'm writing/researching a topic I want to investigate and/or write about. Another fantastic usability improvement is the new tag selection interface, which lets you select from your current tags as you type so you don't duplicate them in weird ways (think: post, posts). In the last few years, I've actually pared down my usage of tags because I didn't want them to proliferate too much; now that this feature is there, I might tag my drafts with more than a singular tag. I like this interface so much that I'm hoping Drafts adds this same functionality for creating [[wiki-style]] links, as it's something I'm using a lot more for my own personal uses. I know that this would be a massive undertaking like folding headers would be, but I can't help but want both in the future.

Speaking of wiki-style linking, there are a few new ways to interact with them. You can now right-click/long tap on them to give a quick look of the text as well and commands for wiki links: open the draft in the current or new window, preview in a new window, or a series of copy commands for the content, title, link, or UUID. I really like the new expandable/collapsible menus in iOS/iPadOS 15, which Drafts takes advantage of here; it's a great way for Drafts and other apps to add a lot of functionality at your fingertips.

Folder bookmarks are a feature that have been included in apps like Scriptable for a long time. But they are now included in the File action and File Manager scripting. This will allow those that like to write in other apps – say Obsidian or iA Writer – to save to a specific location outside of the Drafts sandbox. You can also use the scripting to read as well as write to a location, making it possible to use Drafts with apps like Working Copy on iOS/iPadOS or Taskpaper on the Mac.^[2] I think this will open a door to those that love using Drafts on iOS/iPadOS and then might want other tools on the Mac. It's not using the file manager to store the files, but it does give the option to use it through actions. I can see where someone might use this to run a single action on files with a specific tag, and have them saved to a specific location in Files; they might also run another action to import those files back into Drafts. It's not something built in and requires manual syncing but it's very possible to create now. I hope to see it taken that last step further to open up Drafts to more people who are searching for their ideal solution.

There's a new "What's New" screen where you can find all of the high-level features as well as a link to the full change log to see the small improvements to things like interface updates, automations, bug fixes, share extensions, and more. You can find this in the Settings (gear) menu in the bottom right of the screen, just under where you can manage your subscription.^[3] You can interact with this new what's new screen and even jump to the Drafts website to check out specific features or the full change log. And I almost forgot the best part of this update by far: the two new icon choices. I really adore the color palette of both of them and think they are fantastic additions.

The biggest thing that strikes me with this release is the continued customization and usability enhancements update after update with Drafts. Going all the way back to the initial Drafts 5 launch, the customization was further refined from Drafts 4; workspaces created a customizable, modular interface to make that app yours. In Drafts 15, contextual menus and updated icons further extended the customization to pick just the right look for workspaces and actions; Multiwindow support brought more power to the user by navigating back and forth through their drafts. Drafts 22 brought us widgets to customize our home screens and quickly jump into the app or use an action directly. In Drafts 26, the ability to completely customize the interface and create your own syntaxes was introduced, spawning completely unique apps from user to user. And now with Drafts 28, we get more integrations in actions to make Drafts yours and be more extensible. This is yet another solid release in a long string of updates since April 2018. I'm looking forward to what's coming next.

Yes, I'd like the option to use Drafts instead of notes, but I don't think that will ever happen. ↩︎
Looking at you, Merlin. ↩︎
Which I highly recommend you pick up. ↩︎

On This Date

2021-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Even though Seth and I no longer have a podcast, we still talk nearly daily about a lot of things. One of them is Drafts, and how we are using it for small life improvements here and there. Journaling is one of them, and it has become a part of standard practice for me. I don't always have to put something in that's poignant, but I do document quite a bit from time to time. I'm not perfect at it, but I try to do the best that I can. After all, it's for me – so if I don't do well at it, I'm only disappointing myself…

I journal using Drafts because I trust the system. Using Shortcuts, I run an automation in the morning to create the entry at 4:00am so I never miss a day; this entry is created in a specific format with the journal tag, date heading in yyyy-mm-dd format, and some weather and date information. I have another automation that runs just before midnight to save it as a nice-looking PDF at night and archive the draft. I still keep all the journal entries in Drafts: they live in my Journal workspace in the archive folder at the top of the drafts list. I keep them just in case I need to search for something later, even though I hardly do it. But there are times where I might want to go back and review them just to see what happened in the past. One of Seth's problems was that he wanted a way to review things that happened on that day throughout the life of his digital journal. We used to use Shortcuts to do this, but that's cumbersome at best. Why use another app when Drafts is perfectly suited for this? Seth ended up finding this forum tip on creating temporary workspaces, which admittedly was from a while ago (November 2018). Even though a lot of you think I'm an expert, there's quite a bit of this stuff that I don't know or use.

Using this example, I was able to create an action to show what happened On This Date. In simple terms, it searches for all drafts tagged journal, then searches for a string of the current date in mm-dd format; the action then has some code to let you filter the look of it, then load the workspace. I added a few things because I want to keep my Journal themes applied when creating this temporary workspace.

Let's walk through the code a bit. First, you'll find some configurable variables for your searching. This sets the name of the temporary workspace, the tags you want to include (or omit using !tag), and some strings to search.

//BEGIN config variables
//setup tags or searches you wish to load...
let name = "On This Date";
let tagFilter = "journal"
const now = new Date()
const date = now.toString("MM-dd")
let queryString = date;
let group = ActionGroup.find("Journal");
app.loadActionGroup(group);
let lTheme = Theme.find("custom", "Journal Light");
let dTheme = Theme.find("custom", "Journal Dark");
//END config variables

I also added the action groups I use for journaling as well as my journaling themes as variables, since I want to make sure I use them later in the action. Now that all that is configured, we can set up the workspace:

//create workspace
//for other options, see:
//https://reference.getdrafts.com/objects/Workspace.html
let ws = Workspace.create();
ws.name = name;
ws.tagFilter = tagFilter;
ws.queryString = queryString;
ws.setInboxSort("created", true);
ws.loadFolder = "all";
ws.showPreview = false;
ws.showTags = false;
ws.showLastAction = false;
ws.showDate = false;
ws.loadActionBarGroup = group;
ws.loadActionListGroup = group;
//ws.lightTheme = lTheme;
//ws.darkTheme = dTheme;

There's a surprising amount of customization. I did find out that there was an undocumented .showDate customization that I could take advantage of. The only thing I would like to see added here is .lightTheme and .darkTheme so that I can set the themes directly with the temporary workspace which would eliminate the need for me to call them using the other methods; maybe those will get added in the future. The last part applies the workspace, shows the draft list, and applies my themes. I appreciated the callout in the original action, so I kept it in there: the workspace is temporary unless you use the .update() function, very much akin to a temporary draft to store information.

//unless you call `ws.update()`, this ws is temporary
//load this workspace, and display draft list
app.applyWorkspace(ws);
app.showDraftList();

//set the Journal themes
app.lightTheme = lTheme;
app.darkTheme = dTheme;

Actions like this can seem like a lot at first, but they are fairly simple enough to manage. This action can bring a lot of awareness and possibly even some joy to your day, looking back on the things you've done in the past. I've also included this in my widgets: I've found that I use it more often this way, and it's a great use of a widget action for Drafts.

I have to admit, this is the first time in a while that I've done something like this to change some of my workflows. Not because I don't adore Drafts, but because of how life has been going for me (all good things, thankfully). But it makes me wonder: what else am I missing? Seems like a great time to go exploring…

An Apt Analogy

2021-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

With WWDC this past week, I've spent some time sitting – stewing, somewhat – about the iPadOS 15 announcements and the subsequent sessions that have highlighted everything coming in the fall. As I watched the Keynote, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed in what we didn't get.^[1] At the time of writing this, and for at least until the public betas, I don't have anything installed. I'll let everyone else fall on that sword. But I'm still monitoring and saving bits of information that I see which are relevant to me, noting the things that will change for me once I get it loaded on my devices, and what it possibly means for the future of this device.

For a long time, I had the 11" iPad Pro in a Smart Keyboard Folio (when it wasn't paired with my monitor, external keyboard, and the Magic Trackpad). I wanted to move up in size, but I had been burned by not upgrading at the right time before all the way back to the 10.5" iPad Pro and was determined not to make that same mistake again. But I'm sitting here on the other side of WWDC wondering if buying the 12.9" M1 iPad Pro with 1TB of storage and the Magic Keyboard was the right decision: Apple gave us nothing with iPadOS 15 which requires it and there is no differentiation (yet) to warrant that much power. It's a device that is so capable from a hardware standpoint yet is missing so much in the software. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have thoughts of what the hell Apple is thinking with the iPad and how it's not going the way many of us want. Ultimately, I do believe it was the right decision based on how long I keep my devices, and I'll do my best not to complain further.

When people start to complain about computing devices, they often turn to their favorite car analogy. But most of them get the wrong vehicle type when it comes to the iPad Pro. It's not a V8 sports car. It's not a motorcycle. It's not a bike. It's a modular computer which can do a lot of things well, makes trade-offs in certain areas to maintain flexibility and portability anywhere you want to go. So if you are going to target the iPad in this way, use an apt vehicle analogy:

The iPad is a Wrangler.

It does a lot of things well. It has different configurations to give you different experiences. It's not the smoothest on-road vehicle, but it's unmatched in the places you can take it anywhere in the world. The iPad Pro is not a powerful laptop, but it's a powerful, capable modular computer. It can be more than a laptop, but there are also trade-offs that Apple is currently making to keep it modular. A great example on a Wrangler is that they don't have power seats. There's an assessment of trade-offs as to why this isn't done, but I'm sure it's something assessed for future incorporation. It's not as easy as people would think: the Wrangler has other requirements to keep, and every change made requires an assessment of what it takes to implement the change. The engineers are forced to think differently when approaching these problems.

You can buy a ton of accessories for the Wrangler to change what you want it to do: you can lift it, put different tires on it, get really wild and put a tent on it, and more. And just like the Wrangler, you can buy different keyboards, input, and output devices which transform the use case. You can order a more powerful chip with more RAM (engine) and cellular connections (NAV system) directly from the factory to allow you to travel anywhere with ease. You can lift it on a stand and use it with an external monitor and keyboard to go more places, just like a lift kit. You can also use it in tablet mode, which feels like taking the top off and feeling the open air when you shed the confinement of the surrounding case. It's precisely this modularity that makes both the iPad and the Wrangler great. There are people out there that have lived out of a Wrangler, which to some seems like it's crazy – but just like a power user of the iPad Pro using extra accessories to get the job done, this is their preferred way to live. These types of people are pioneers of a new experience, and can open new ways of living which you never thought possible before.

At the end of the day, you have to choose the right vehicle/device to get what you want done in the way you want to work and what trade-offs you're willing to live with to get your work done. I wish they would add more. And I think they will start to do that. After listening to Upgrade^[2], Jason had some great points about the groundwork that's been laid for the future (some of this is quotes, some paraphrasing, but you get the idea):

When I look at what they did in multitasking, I start to think that they're on to something, and that they're headed in a direction that could do more. But that the first thing they did in this release was get it functional and give them room to advance it later. They put a multitasking menu at the top of a window, which is similar to the traffic light dots on the Mac. Also, not mentioned in the Keynote, if you build [universal] apps with the menu bar for Mac, the iPad app has an icon in the toolbar containing your entire menu structure. And the Quick Note feature is literally a floating window. They also added a window that opens up that floats above other windows that you can also add to the Shelf. I look at all of this and I am disappointed that there isn't proper external display support, but literally every piece to do that is there. What that makes me believe is that Apple wanted to walk before it ran. When iPadOS 15 ships, they could literally turn this on at any point.

Am I disappointed that this isn't available now? Of course I am. But I do think that it will be here sooner rather than later. Apple added the external pointer support and released the Magic Keyboard, knowing that users would take this one step further. My own personal setup includes a 27" monitor, which looks comical right now with the pillarboxing and letterboxing. Yet, if I play a movie on just a 1/3 split-screen app, it plays in full 4K on my monitor like it's a native screen. The pieces are all there and Apple needed to fix their mistakes before they can really make it possible. Even with the faults, it can become a completely different experience to what a traditional laptop or computer experience can be if you're willing to put in some effort or follow the guide of those before you. The experience of using an iPad Pro is one that I appreciate and I feel that, despite the limitations of iPadOS, I can do more for the way that I work.

Like many, I'm disappointed in this moment that I effectively have a Hemi in my Jeep but the roads I'm forced to travel are limited in speed, have twists and turns creating indirect paths to my destination, and might even contain speed bumps so that I can't really open it up to its full potential.^[3] But when it gets there, when Apple adds those pieces to the iPad Pro – hopefully in a point release – it's going to afford me a different computing experience which I can make my own and really open this up. There are a LOT of people that don't understand the Wrangler experience. It's not something that most people understand how to use in the full capacity unless you've taken trips and put it through its paces, especially when rocks, sand, and water are involved. But when you do understand the capability, it can open up a whole new horizon of exploration for you. And the iPad Pro is just like the Wrangler. It's no surprise that I love both of them.

Hey, look. COVID happened. It likely influenced a ton of what happened this past year in the development of the new features. The fact that anything shipped is good, and what we got is really good. But I think the M1 suggested that more was coming. But I digress… ↩︎
Time Stamp: 1:46:16 into the show, or the chapter on iPadOS 15. ↩︎
Yes, I do know that the Wrangler 392 exists. I've driven one. It's a monster, and it's fantastic. But that's not my point here. ↩︎

On Difficult Decisions

2021-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

I remember the day back in 2011 where I drove up an hour and a half to go take a visit. "We're just going to look", I said. On the way up, we talked about what we wanted and how firm I was in some of my thoughts and ideas surrounding a life-changing decision: getting a dog. Getting a pet of any kind is an endeavor, and it comes with a lot of wants and desires for what puppy fits your family best.

For example, I didn't want one that shed. Like, at all. But all it took was about 30 seconds of meeting Alaska that I didn't want to let him go. So much for will power. We decided that's what we wanted to do, this was the puppy for us, and wanted him to come home. Of course, someone else had put their name down right before us, so that wasn't going to work out. I was so angry at the time that I didn't drive home. But when we were about 5 min from home, I got a call that the people had passed him over and he was ours. Just had to go back and get him.

And another hour and a half later, along with a trip to the pet store, we had our puppy. He looked like a little Kodiak bear, and that's why we changed his name to Koda. He took a while to train, and I spend many nights in the living room on an air mattress helping him out every couple of hours to pee. After a while, he was all good. He kept growing, and as we soon found out, shed. A lot. Sometimes trash bags full of undercoat. So much for my insistence.

But that quite literally was the only negative for him ever. He is the kindest dog ever. Just wants love. And bike rides where he would pull me at 16 miles an hour. As time went on, we took long walks, went to dog parks ()when that was a thing you could do), and he even made some really great dog friends that he was fond of.^[1] He never had any issues, and was the lovable part of the family that brought joy into our lives.

And then last October, we got the cancer diagnosis.^[2] Thankfully we found it when we did. We started some treatment, but the only real solution was a surgery, chemo, and radiation. And as much as I wanted to keep him around, I couldn't prolong his life without dignity. So we set a path to enjoy the time with him that we could. In November, we did a 5K with him. In December, I even did a 5 mile walk with him. Seemed like things were good. We did regular 4 mile walks in January, but then in February he couldn't go longer than 2 miles without falling way behind. In March, it was worse. then in April, it was less than a mile. He started not wagging his tail at times. He would half-sit to alleviate the pain he was feeling from the cancer, and you could see it in his face that he was suffering. He never yelped, never cried out. But you could tell it was there.

It's tough to make difficult decisions like this. Far too often, we make decisions based on our own needs/wants/desires and selfishly put ourselves over others. We want to hold on to things longer just so we don't lose them, so we don't have our feelings hurt, so that we feel better about everything. And when a difficult decision becomes the obvious one, it doesn't make it any less shitty.

And now he's feeling no pain, but I know I will for a while. This one hurts. But I'm going to do what I can to remember all the wonderful joy he brought to our lives for over 10 years. I'm going to think back to all of those times he got me out of the house, the times he wanted to keep going and push me, and I'm going to remember those fondly. I'm going to miss all the excitement of me coming home, of him wanting to play, and the shear power of the tail he wagged when he saw our family and friends.

I'm going to miss you forever, Koda…

A little too much, sometimes. ↩︎
FUCK cancer. ↩︎

Some Drafts Theme Updates

2021-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Since the very recent release of Drafts 26 there have been a couple of changes to theming in Drafts that make creation, modification, and switching easier.

After appearing on the Automators podcast, I shared my module-switching action group, which included the scripts to switch themes based on workspaces. I wished that this feature get rolled into the workspace manager, and although there are a few complications with doing it this way, I think it will be better overall for users now that it has been added.

Within the workspace manager, choose any workspace, scroll to the bottom of the settings, and you'll find the place where you can set both the light and dark theme you want to load when that workspace is selected. This does come with one small catch: you'll need to do this with most of your workspaces. If you don't do that, when you switch to a different workspace that doesn't have one set, it will retain the set workspace. I personally have all mine set and have removed the scripts for the Module action group. You can set the Default workspace to your default themes as well.

But that's not the big news here. The big news is the new Drafts Theme Builder, an online tool which does a fantastic job of setting all the different colors you'd want in a theme. It's pretty easy to use, even without the tutorial explaining things. There are some very nice additions to it as well: you can import your own theme as a file, modify it, and either import into Drafts or export as a file. But the method that I like using is importing the theme from the Directory straight into the Theme Builder for modification using the provided link on the theme page. This means that you can take any of your favorite themes that you find on the directory, import it into the Theme Builder, modify it to create your own, and then import it to Drafts; if you like the way it looks, you can export that theme right to the Directory. I've done this a lot more frequently with my own themes, and the tool has made the whole process easier.

This means you don't need to use a JSON file editor to create your themes (though you will need to do that with syntaxes), and it's a much more visual, user-friendly way of creating them. My only wish for themes in its current implementation: an interface integrated into Drafts itself. But until that happens, I'm extremely pleased with this online creation tool and the improvements made to my workflow.

It's time for you to go forth and create your perfect theme!

Appearance: Automators Episode 73

2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

In my second appearance on Automators (part of the Relay FM network),^[1] I'm back to talk with David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard once again about Drafts. We dive in on some of the new stuff from version 26 which introduced custom themes and syntaxes. We also touch on a few other updates from the first version to now as well. I hope you enjoy it.

There were a couple of things in the episode that I wanted to follow-up on here, including the homework assignment David gave me. I'm thrilled that the time spent with David and Rosemary gave me the idea, which made me reconsider some things with my personal journaling and changed how I'm doing it going forward.

Theme Switching with Workspaces

Ever since I've used workspaces + action groups to create what I called modules, I've used a script actions to switch between them. Originally, I set each workspace, action group, and keyboard row individually; once the action and keyboard group options were added to the workspace manager, I simplified the actions. I keep the single action in every one of my action groups which I use in the keyboard row to use on the iPhone for quick access to switch. Where I use this switching method a lot is on my iPad, using a hardware keyboard. All of my modules are brought up with keyboard shortcuts, assigned to ⌘2 - 9; both ⌘1 and ⌘9 are reserved by Drafts for the draft and action list show/hide, respectively.

With the addition of themes, I've now modified the modules I have to include themes that I want to use in those different contexts. I'm sure I'll update this more over time. I primarily use dark mode, so that's what I currently have in there. But you could also modify the scripts to include light themes as well. Here's my Modules action group as it stands today for you to play with and make your own. You'll need to change the theme names in each of the module actions, else you might get an error.

I haven't quite yet cracked the switching of syntaxes based on themes. I have, however, leveraged Matt Gemmell's previous Switch Syntax action and created my own which provides a list of all the installed syntaxes. It's not automated, but it does the job when I need it. I'm sure Rosemary is working on something even more clever…

Automated Journaling

On the show, we talked about some of the automations I've used (in most cases, continued to use) frequently. One of my journal shortcuts saves the text of the journal as a PDF for future reading. That's when David brought up a great suggestion: using a Shortcuts automation at a specific time to automatically save the journal at night so I don't have to do it manually.

It took a few modifications to my original shortcut, but I have the automatic saving of journal entries figured out. The Journal • Save shortcut searches my Journal workspace for today's journal entry, gets the content of the draft, creates an entry title (formatted Journal Entry yyyy-MM-dd), creates a nicely-formatted PDF, and saves the PDF version to /iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/Journal/.^[2] I manually move these once a week during my weekly review for now, until the Shortcuts team actually gives me that built in feature.^[3] This action can be used with Shortcuts automation; if you choose to run the automation without asking, it will run automatically in the background. I have mine set to run at 11:00 pm every day, and in my testing since we recorded, it's been working fantastically.

This then lead me to change the way I've been journaling, so that I can just automate the creation of the journal entry and never miss a day. The old way of starting my journal is answering a couple of questions: did I wear my watch to sleep to get data out of AutoSleep – a feature that is broken due to an iOS 14.5 bug – and how did I feel when I woke up. Here's a secret: I'm not sure I sleep all that well generally, I never use the quantifiable data in any meaningful way, and I don't know that I need a reminder of how shitty all that can be and make me feel. If I want a pretty chart or other meaningful insights, I'd be better off going into AutoSleep or the Health app to get it. Weighing the importance of sleep tracking vs daily journaling, having a journal entry for every day that is just automatically there just makes more sense. Using the Journal • Start shortcut in conjunction with another Shortcuts automation which runs at 6:00am, and automatically starts a journal entry for me without any interaction on my part.^[4]

I've been running this for the week, and it's been really great so far. Removing the friction of interacting every time I want to start and save a journal entry has made me want to journal more. Sometimes, it's those little things that get you change your mind. I'm calling this a win.

Thanks again David and Rosemary for having me on, and for the idea to be a better Automator!

You can find my first appearance here. ↩︎
I am having a shortcuts bug where the file from Shortcuts gets created with a -2 suffix, which is hyper annoying. I have to manually fix them. I'm sure it's something I could solve with a script, but I haven't had the time. It's a bug, and the Shortcuts team works it out. Additionally, I would like to have the ability in Shortcuts to save the entries to the Journal location I keep in iCloud Drive. Would make life a lot simpler. ↩︎
I tried to use a script in Scriptable to move the files from the Shortcuts folder to my preferred journal location in iCloud Drive, but it often took a while to run. I can quickly move the files once a week, so I'm not too worried about it. Maybe a future update of my journal workflow will happen if features come to iOS 15. ↩︎
if you want to use this exactly, you'll also need the Journal • Forecast shortcut as well. ↩︎

Drafts 26: The Customization Update

2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Back when I wrote about my wishlist for Drafts 5.0, I wanted to have a custom syntax for the editor in Drafts. At the time, this was based on my usage of other text editing apps, and I wanted a theme with a bit more color for MultiMarkdown. Now we are almost 3 years into the latest major version of Drafts, multiple large feature updates later, and we are finally here at tapping into the realization of its visual customization potential with version 26.

I'll cut right to it – the customization of the appearance through themes and extending the syntax of text in the editor is going to open up a whole new world to explore within Drafts. The modularity that exists with workspaces and actions is about to get a whole lot bigger with the inclusion of custom themes and syntaxes. I won't be able to provide a bunch of different options here, for a big reason: this is about making the app yours.

At a high level, both theme and syntax files are JSON files. I'm sure this might scare some of you already. But thanks to the documentation for creating themes and syntaxes, it makes life a bit easier. While you could use Drafts for creating/modifying these files, I'd recommend that you use different tools to do this. In the process of creating some themes and syntaxes that I'll cover, I've used Jayson to create/modify the JSON files and Pastel to create a color palette based on my website theme. Both apps are free to use for the basics, and I cannot recommend them highly enough for this purpose.

Creating themes and syntaxes is great when using both Jayson and Pastel on the iPad with a keyboard and trackpad.

Custom Themes

This is where I suspect most of you will be modifying Drafts to suit your needs. There is an extensive theme file where you can customize just about anything: there are two separate areas for editor and interface colors. If you already have an existing app or website theme that you want to start with, I'd be first begin at the Drafts Directory; you'll find many themes that might be close to what you're looking for already. If you can't find one there, then I would recommend that you start by creating a custom color palette in Pastel to make sure you have the hex codes associated to the colors at your fingertips. This makes the next part of the process a bit easier. As you explore the actual theme file in JSON, you can easily add colors to the palette to cover the different theme elements.

To create your own theme, start by exporting an installed theme.^[1] To do this, select the editor preferences (the Aa icon in the bottom right), select the "Theme" tab at the bottom, and swipe right–to-left to export. If you have Jayson installed, you can use the share sheet to "Open as JSON"; from there, you can save the file. For each theme that I've used as a starting point, I've immediately gone in and edited the name, author, and the description; this saves you from confusion when you import that theme later. When you import your theme, you can then share it to the Directory.

There are many theme options available with the currently installed syntaxes. I suspect most of you will modify only a theme to start before stepping up to a custom syntax. The wonderful thing about themes is that it can change the way everything looks within the app. I personally wanted to have a custom theme base on my site, which wasn't difficult to create: I have both a dark and light theme for my site. But I also like coding actions in Drafts, and wanted to have a specific theme: one theme I like for coding is the Darker Dracula theme created by Jake Bernstein. Themes are also scriptable, so that if you want to change the way the entire app looks when you write vs when you code, you can can do this within an action to swap workspaces.

My current theme options

As I said, I think themes is where most people will go for Drafts customization in the short term. There's nothing like a fresh look to an app to make you want to use it more, and with the options that Drafts provides to change every color throughout the app, you can make it the custom theme you've always wanted. That said, theming isn't without its faults. One big item that I feel is missing is a built-in interface to create and modify theme colors based on the built-in syntaxes. This would make theming more accessible to users if everything was self-contained in the app. Though I love Jayson and Pastel, having to use other apps for this purpose is a point of friction for many people. I'd even settle for a web-based version which would save your theme to the directory, and allow an install via a link. But built-in is almost always better. My hope is that in the future, we will see this added.

Custom Syntaxes

Custom syntaxes are going to open up entirely new possibilities for using the app. I'm very excited to see how Drafts power users create new syntax definitions for their uses. Because this requires a good working knowledge of RegEx, I think this is something that is going to have more impact for the future; this is something that isn't for the faint of heart, and will require some trial and error to get done. But once you have what you're looking for in a syntax, you can do a lot more. I can see some interesting possibilities open up for users in the future, but more on that later.

There are a couple of simple examples to cover here, which showcase some of the potential of the app. I'll start with a simple Twitter example. I often use Twitter to compose tweets; most time I delete them, but sometimes I sit on it for a bit and exercise restraint like a normal person. With a simple Twitter syntax to highlight usernames and hashtags, you can now see how your tweets will look before you post them. Or if you even post them at all. This could easily be modified to include cashtags $ for companies, assuming you know RegEx.^[2]

Twitter markup is nice for when you don't want to be on Twitter.

Another example of how a syntax could be applied is task marks. There is a great demo of using Task Marks, which has multiple options for tasks. This can be custom tailored to suit your needs. This syntax demonstrates different styles, like standard and three state tasks, but also adds new elements like on/off tasks or percent complete. If you're able to manage the custom syntaxes, you could extend an existing syntax to include some of those elements. These additions could open up new possibilities within Drafts for task management.

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Being a novice to all of this, I started with the existing MultiMarkdown syntax which ships with Drafts. Just like the themes, I exported it to Jayson, and was able to add two new patterns to check for: **_bolditalic_** and _**bolditalic**_. With a little help from Greg Pierce, developer of Drafts at Agile Tortoise, I got the needed regular expressions to add both to my custom version. I also added the way links are displayed: I wanted to make the links almost disappear from view, especially since I operate in dark mode 99% of the time, and that the text size is smaller relative to normal text size. These combined effects make it so that I'm not really reading the URL when editing, but I can see the full URL if I want to look at it. These small changes really can make a visual difference in the editor, and this example of Draftsdown - my simple MultiMarkdown fork – shows how the subtle changes can make a big difference.^[3]

Nahumck Dark theme in Markdown, MultiMarkdown, and Draftsdown syntaxes. Note the small, but meaningful differences between them.

There are a lot more examples I could cover, but I think that over time, other examples and use cases will emerge. I'm sure that the Drafts community will come up with more clever things that I will, so I would make sure to keep an eye out over there or on the Directory for new and exciting uses of custom syntaxes. There will be multiple flavors of Markdown coming from users who like a specific version that suits their needs. Differing navigation methods will be used to navigate a draft for more than just headers. I'm sure that someone out there will pioneer a new way of bullet journaling with a custom theme and syntax, which is certain to be awesome. And maybe, just maybe, Merlin Mann will finally get what he's wanted: a completely new syntax of Markdown + TaskPaper. That was too much to ask before, but now? That's entirely possible if you take the time to develop it. If only we could get folding headers…^[4]

Other Improvements

Balance While Typing is another one of those usability features that I am thankful to have added to Drafts. I honestly didn't know I wanted it until the beta hit, and I don't want to go back to the way things were before. This makes typing in syntax elements for things like Markdown [links](url) and [[wiki-style]] links even easier without the need to have a custom action to do it. Simply typing as you would normally brings the first element in – a ( parenthesis, for example – and adds the coupled element ) after the cursor, essentially wrapping the text you type next to be wrapped like it should be. This works for parenthesis (), braces {}, brackets [] and quotes "". It is important to note that this is as advertised: "While Typing". This will not apply to text written already; for those you will need to use custom actions for each type.^[5] This is on by default so that most users can discover it, in case you do want to turn it off. I personally have it on, as I've found it to be more helpful than harmful in my day-to-day use.

There are several updates to the Drafts Directory. First, you'll find the addition of the aforementioned syntaxes and themes.^[6] There are now also update notes for the actions if they have been updated. You'll also be able to update the actions right within Drafts; note that the update process is manual for now, and only available for items installed after the rollout of the feature. In the future, I'm excited to see the option for an automatic update for actions. And finally, action versioning, first introduced in version 22, has been extended now to action groups. This is great for those that have giant action groups of their own so that users can easily update these action groups rather than delete and reinstall them.

Extending the Modularity

This update of Drafts is going to, given some time, open up another level of Drafts development. It will further extend the modularity of the app beyond workspaces and action groups into full-fledged mini text apps to suit your needs. Want to go from writing to journaling, but have the entire app change from dark to cyan? Go for it. Want to go from journaling to task management? You can change that look too with a theme and a syntax. What about if you're a fan of another app's color scheme like Ulysses or Bear? With a little effort, you can match those apps as well. But it doesn't stop there: you can change the way the app will function for you as you apply a custom syntax. And when you combine the power of a custom syntax with a custom theme, you can create new, modular apps within Drafts.

I'm still getting up to speed with creating both custom themes and syntaxes. Admittedly, I've had a lot going on recently, and I haven't had the proper amount of time to really dive into this update as much as I'm hoping to in the future. But I can absolutely see the amazing potential that it's bringing. I'm going to spending some time over the next few months figuring how to make Drafts work even more for my use cases. Three years ago, Drafts got the update that changed it forever. And three years in, we're getting major updates to core functionality Drafts that are making me excited to keep using it.

This way you have a good foundation for the theme you're trying to create. ↩︎
I do! Kinda. Not really. It's a work in progress. ↩︎
I plan on expanding this in the future. ↩︎
Consider this my official feature request, Greg. ↩︎
Yes, those are in order for parenthesis, braces, brackets, and quotes. ↩︎
I expect a lot more to be added over time. ↩︎

This Is 40

2021-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Today is a day that will change my life forever. It's a culmination of a bunch of events that have happened to me over the past few years. And for all that is going wrong with the world on a macro level, my micro-world has been full of great things. But I'm getting ahead of myself. To tell you where things are and where they're going, I have to take you back…

Several years ago, things weren't going well in my life; it was a mess, and everything was stressful in all the wrong ways. Life needed to change. So, I started making changes to improve things for my family and myself. It was a difficult path,^[1] and something I thought I'd never recover from. Of course, those around me – specifically my family – would often remind me that things would get better with time; the pain that I was feeling and had been feeling would be temporary, and life would improve for me. At the time, I was in a deep dark hole and didn't know how life would get better.

But through patience and therapy, I started getting out of this hole and seeing how much of life was improving. As part of the coping and then healing process, I had buried myself in my work when I could while focusing on being a single father. And that effort with work started to bear fruit. I started to get recognized for my abilities and was given chances for more responsibilities that others in my position had not been offered. And recently, for the second time in a year-and-a-half, I have been promoted. I'm responsible for a lot, and I even have a new and exciting challenge at work ahead. Things with work couldn't be better.

And for the first time, my personal life is matching how great my work life is. Life has been amazing, and I'm in love. It may be a bit cliche to say, but it's a love that really is too deep for words; they simply would not do justice to describe the feelings we have for one another. I don't know that I could have asked for a more perfect person in my life. I'm still in awe of her on a daily basis. I cannot fathom how I've done anything to deserve her as a partner. She's the most amazing person I've known: she's beautiful, smart, compassionate, supportive. When we decided to move in together, we didn't know that the pandemic lockdown would be starting the next weekend. Throughout the pandemic, she's been a mother-like figure to my sons and met any of the challenges of life with poise and grace. Being together so much during this time has only cemented our love, and I knew the answer to a question before I even asked it at the end of last year.

Planning a wedding in the midst of a pandemic isn't ideal; in our situation, there are people from other countries that we would want to come celebrate with us. We decided to wait until near the end of 2022 to tie the knot with the support and company our family and friends. But the more we planned, the more we realized that we could not wait another day to marry each other. We still want the big event, but it feels right on so many levels to do something small first. So we decided to get married earlier than our original date in a small outdoor ceremony. Looking over the days that made the most sense, we chose to get married in March 2021. In fact, later today, we're getting married.

This is also significant because today is also my 40th birthday. If I'm being honest, I've never been a fan of my birthdays. I'm sure there's something in my past, but now that I'm old, I can't remember. But what I can remember is that it's just never been my thing. But this year, I'm making the exception. I'm getting the greatest present I could have ever asked for, and I'm starting a new chapter in my life. When today is said and done, I'm hers forever. My life is about to get even better. The best of my life is still yet to come.

This is 40…

Divorce often is, but sometimes it is the necessary path. ↩︎

Fully Broken

2021-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Well, hello.

It is with heavy hearts (and overtaxed livers) that we tell you we just don't have it in us anymore to keep on going. It's time to take Fundamentally Broken out behind the woodshed and put it down humanely.

Go ahead now, turn away. You don't need to see this.

The past year or so since we last recorded has certainly had some ups and downs. It came a lot of new responsibilities for both of us at work, and frankly at home too. Our lives — like everyone else's — were disrupted beyond any rational comprehension, and we found we didn't have the bandwidth to get on and record conversations anymore. We still talk almost every day, and Tim often says "fuck, why aren't we recording this" and we laugh, but the honest truth is that we're just not interested in producing this type of content for an audience right now, and collectively we just don't have the time.

So we hatched a plan to keep the show alive in spite of the fact that we weren't going to keep doing it. Seth suggested we find a new home for it on the Internet Archive and Tim looked into it. The Internet Archive is something that the world desperately needs, and we always find delight when we head there. In fact, it's one of our annual donations because we believe in the mission and the people behind it.

We've created a page and the show will be available there from now on.^[1] It doesn't make sense to keep paying for podcast-specific accounts for a show we aren't doing, and this way, it's still available for the eleven people (looking at you, Japan) who might ever want to hear it, and it becomes a part of the great ocean that is the 1s and 0s of the past.

We'd personally like to thank everyone who did listen. Your feedback and enthusiasm was a constant surprise to us, and we really appreciated it. We started the show because we thought there might be a place for a simple, honest conversation about a lot of things that interested or troubled us, and the response we received was that we were right about that. It resonated with people, and that was encouraging.

But like in all things, time and life change who we are and what we do, and now we set this little ship ablaze and push it out to sea, gazing fondly as it floats further from us.

Maybe we'll do it again someday. Maybe we won't. That's the beauty of the future. You just never know.

~ Seth & Tim

Tim will be working on making an official collection on Archive.org, but until then, you can just use this page. This link will be updated when/if it ever gets made. ↩︎

Clear Spaces for a Clear Mind

2020-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

I get asked often for what's on my Home Screen: what apps, what wallpaper, what layout. Now with iOS 14, I'm asked about my widget setup as well. I've shared some updates through posts and social media sporadically. A lot of my current setup is visually unchanged (except the wallpaper), but I wanted to cover the why of the Home Screen - where apps/widgets are placed, what stacks are being used, and now I'm using them together for a more streamlined, productive setup.

I'll state this now before we go further: I'm going to cover my iPhone Home Screen. The iPad inexplicably didn't get the same treatment, so the uses of the widgets there aren't the same. The multitasking aspects of the iPad don't lend it to the same use case as the iPhone, which I actually like: these are ever-diverging devices, both with their set use cases. Back to the iPhone…

I try to keep as few Home Screens as possible. I prefer the minimalist approach rather than having multiple pages to swipe through. On iOS 13 I kept 2 Home Screens: the main page – which was usually blank – with a 3-icon dock, and a second page of folders to house my apps. With iOS 14 and introduction of the App Library, I'm back down to a single Home Screen. I like that I can swipe to get to the Today view, or swipe to get to the App Library. Everything is a quick swipe away.

My full iPhone Home Screen experience

I've retained the 3-icon dock, because that's what looks right to me. I've used this time to experiment with a 4-icon dock, but it feels off. Call me neurotic, but that's just how I see it. As I said in my Drafts review for iOS 14, the use of a Drafts widget negates my need of the icon in my dock. So I now had to rethink how I use the dock. And with the change in iOS 14.3, which allows Home Screen shortcuts to be run without bouncing into the Shortcuts app and then to the app you wanted to be in, I decided to start putting apps at my fingertips.

I created two launcher-style shortcuts: these shortcuts present a menu of apps in compact UI; when one is selected, the shortcut kicks over to that app without going to Shortcuts first. I don't know that I would have done this before the change in 14.3, if I'm being honest. The icon on the left is for media and consumption apps; the icon on the right is for social and web-related apps. I am using icons provided in the echoes pack on Gumroad, which I've found to be aesthetically pleasing and matches my wallpaper (which I modified) as well. I like that I can tap the icons and go to multiple apps without having to slide over to the App Library: sure it's easy to do that, but I also avoid seeing the badges on app icons there and keeps me more focused during the day.

Home Screen shortcuts in my dock are more powerful in iOS 14.3

My widget layout has changed a little since the summer betas. I use 4 small widgets and one medium on the Home Screen, all with stacks and without Smart Rotate turned on. I placed the widgets in their respective locations based on use: it would never make sense to me that I put a Drafts widget all the way at the top when I access it all the time. So the order of importance always starts above the dock and works upwards. All of them have a specific function and different apps within; all of them contain one "blank" widget, which is from the app Clear Spaces – but more on why that is later. I think the best way to show you is to have the layout with the stacks and the titles of each, and then explain them.

My widgets and stacks

Calendar: this stack has the calendar to see my next events, as well as a Castro widget to quickly access my queue. This is pretty much self explanatory.

Weather: I use Carrot Weather as my weather app because it's the best weather app for me. I have two different widgets: the first is forecast so that I can see the forecast for the day, and the second is a daily forecast so I can view 5 days of weather if I need to look at that quickly as well.

Task Management: I've been using Reminders more and more, thanks to some deep integrations with task assignment. It's not perfect, but it works. I've tried GoodTask and even used it for a while, but until Apple provides the tools to developers to fully tie into the full feature set, I'll be staying with Reminders. I have two Reminders widgets, one for the Today smart list and the other for my Grocery List. The remaining widget in there is for Drafts, which brings up my Work workspace where I keep my work tasks.

Health: I'm doing my best to be better, I really am. To help me improve, I'm using FoodNoms for food tracking, Fitbod for my workouts, monitoring my rings with Activity, and keeping my diet steady in a shared note with my girlfriend for our meal plan.

Productivity: I have 2 different Drafts widgets and 2 Shortcuts widgets. For Drafts, the first widget is for my workspaces and a few quick actions for adding tasks/drafts or searching. The second widget is a few of the same actions, but adds a few additional actions I use from the widget. I've been set on these for a while, but I have some plans to change them.^[1]

With all of the widgets, they center around an idea of having a clean Home Screen. It's something that I've always enjoyed. But I also like having a productive screen as well, and this method gives me the best of both worlds. In all of the widgets, Clear Spaces is at or near the center of the stack to allow for quick swiping up and down to get to a different layout. As I go through my day, I may change the app that's there to give me a visual cue to focus. I might keep my task manager on work rather than my personal when I need to focus up on work things. I might keep FoodNoms on the screen to make sure I'm keeping track of my food intake, but I'm a quick swipe away to my meal plan so I can know what's ahead for dinner. But as I get through different aspects of my day, I always swipe to the Clear Spaces widget in the stack to have a clear Home Screen, almost like checking off a task. When I'm done with that particular area of focus for the day, it can simply go away. And the next day, I wake up and swipe my widget back in like it's March 294th.

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I'm sure that there will be changes over time, but I'm really happy with my current setup. Of course, there are a few apps that are missing from widgets that I'd love. I'm getting more into photography, and I'd love to see an app like Halide develop a widget to open the camera into different modes for quicker access. I wish I could have a task management app where I could check off the tasks from the widget itself, like the old Today widgets used to be. And I wish that Apple would allow for a 4x4 small widget for Shortcuts and Drafts so that I can have more combinations and possibilities. I'll remind myself that this is just the first iteration of this, but it's something that I still don't understand 6 months into this OS.

But for now, I'm using widgets and Home Screen shortcuts to have more power when I need it. And when I don't, I can simply swipe away widgets to create a clear space for my clear mind. I've been more mindful of my day, and I think this new Home Screen layout has something to do with it. It just might work for you too.

More on that in a different post. ↩︎

New Normal

2020-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

I'm sure all of you have been hearing the same thing: "We have to get used to a new normal." I myself have been hearing this a lot lately as well. Whether it's a global pandemic, social injustices, the attacks on media or science, or changes in our weather due to climate change, there's a lot of "new" out there to get used to.

I've thought about this a lot as I'm getting older: norms change all the time. Our "new normal" – current crises aside – is much different than our parents grew up with. Much different than I grew up with. In the last 20 years, there's been a rapid change in our daily lives for what we consider normal.

Twenty years ago, I was in college. That's back in the days of AOL and dial-up.^[1] Communication was starting to really take off as "instant", with instant messaging and cell phones. It was just at the precipice of it, and back then it was exciting to go through. Now, most of those same services we started with are gone and have been replaced by new things. And those new things are now old and established institutions within our social lives.

Think of where we are today: we have instant access to everything. We are a society that wants everything right now. We always want the new stuff. We want change immediately. We want justice immediately. And we are at quite a crossroads. The people who are making decisions – right, wrong, or indifferent – are by and large from a generation who didn't grow up with instant. They have been adapting to a new normal for a long time, yet still want to hold on to the older ideals they grew up with. I'm sure that you and I will be doing the same as we get older.

We as individuals can adapt to a new normal at our own pace. Society not so much. Society involves more people and moves slowly, which is not the world we as individuals expect to live in today. As we are all striving to return to what "normal" looks like, we need to realize that things are changing rapidly and that a normal or a new normal might not even be what we expect. I guess for now we move forward as the pandemic rages, and wait patiently for what life will be like on the other side.

Maybe take a break from things online. Take some time to figure out connecting to others in the safest way possible. Reflect on what we are all going through.^[2] Do your part to help others through this, whether it be checking in on people or doing the simplest thing that anyone could: wear a damn mask.

I simultaneously both miss and loathe that startup sound. ↩ ↩︎
And realize that you might be in a position of privilege and life might be easy for you right now, where others are struggling. ↩ ↩︎

Clean Install

2020-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Every year, I hesitate on jumping on the betas. I worry about the bugs, the data loss, and all the ways it can screw with my devices. Then, inevitably, I end up jumping on them around beta 2 or 3. When the releases come out in the fall, I usually delete the beta profile and do an install with the release version. I follow the recommended steps for backing up, then just install the OS and carry on.

It's been a long time since I've done a clean install: no restoration from a backup, installing everything as new, letting the cloud services work to bring the data back to my devices on a per-app basis. This is a time-consuming process, and the main reason I haven't done it in so long. It might be all the way back to iOS 8 since I've done this. Those many, many years of little inconsistencies have lead to a lot of cruft, and I think this is the year to do wipe the slate clean.

Playing around with the iOS 14 beta so far, the App Library is a feature that hasn't been my favorite. It doesn't organize the apps in the categories which I would: I think that a banking app should be in finance, not in productivity. I think games should be a category, which include the Apple Arcade titles as well. I get they are pushing a brand, but unless you stay subscribed, that advertising will go away. The search aspect of it is great, but I can also use Spotlight search to find the apps I need.

But where it doesn't live up to my desires, it does deliver on supporting a clean install. I don't have to organize my Home Screen as I add apps one by one. I can hide pages and pages of apps, and organize my true Home Screen. This takes away a ton of pressure and mental overhead that I don't need to carry with me. It will make the process far easier for me than ever before. And in that way, the App Library is actually a welcome feature for me now. I wish that same feature would be there on the iPad, but perhaps there are more plans for that in the future.

This year is the perfect time to do a clean install. I can finally shed the years of issues without having to worry about the time and effort required to get back up and running. I'm all for clearing clutter and minimizing what things I have in my life. And this fall will be no different.

Keeping the Lion Away

2020-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

I'm going to be blunt: I'm not even sure why I'm sitting down to write this. I don't know where this post is even going, and if I'm honest with myself, I'm a little scared by where it might go or what I might say.^[1] But I think I just need to get these thoughts out of my head and out into the ether.

The last few months, in the midst of the pandemic, have been mostly ok for me and my family. I'm privileged as hell: I have a job where I can work at home, care for my kids and my partner, and we're all doing well health wise. I've even gone out to a few places, albeit limited, and it's been OK.

There's this looming feeling over everything though: we're in a pandemic. I'm not sure we as a society really grasp what this means. There's so much information – and misinformation – out there, and not everything is known or explained well. People are taking ridiculous stances on their feelings when we should be focused on science and reason. I've said it on more than one occasion that if we can't pull this together, we have failed as a species and deserve every bit of what we get. And to be clear: you should wear a mask and wash your hands. Please don't bother to convince me otherwise. Go ahead and lose my number if you feel differently.

In the past few weeks, I've been agonizing over the decision for sending my child back to face-to-face learning. I've communicated with our district superintendent for the first time^[2] and voiced my concerns with the plans laid out before the parents. I've lost so much sleep over this I don't really even want to think about it. It's constantly weighed on my mind, and I feel physically tired from it.

In speaking with my best friend today, we lamented how our discussions keep devolving into discussion of the current pandemic, how others are handling it, and how we are handling it. How we feel like bad parents and crazy people for continuing courses of action for months on end. My fight-or-flight response has been in almost constant engagement since this all went down. And I feel exhausted. But what the hell else are we going to discuss? Apps? Technology? More unimportant shit? Of course not. Because we have a fucking lion in the form of a pandemic chasing us.

I've been wanting to be creative for a while. I really admire the people who can be creative in this time. I had some push at the start of this, put out a few posts, and then… nothing. I hit a wall. I had been thinking of various posts over the past few months, but thought to myself none of this shit is important. And then I find myself doing other things. It should be no surprise that the single most traveled place in the past few months has been to the hardware store, masked and gloved, to get things to improve the house. I've learned some new things on how to hang a door properly, and how big a pain in the ass it can be. I'm working with my girlfriend to understand what we want to do the house how we want to make it our place. I've created an office space, and I'm starting on a new, more permanent one.

So when I think about it, I'm being creative, but in a more practical sense. I'm getting my house in order – my literal house – for the first time in a long time. I've made list upon list of what I want to do, and sadly, how much it's going to cost me over time. But I know that in a few short years, I might be in a great spot with a house I'm finally proud of after 10 years of ownership.

I am, however, stifled when it comes to writing. My brain feels like it hurts when I sit down to type things out. My journaling has been hit or miss in the past few weeks, as has my general health routine. I'm feeling burned out. I'm feeling like I need a break. And so, I think I'll continue to take one. This isn't to say that I don't have thoughts and ideas: I've created several mind maps to help me organize what I want to write about in the future, and ideas that I feel are worth sharing. But right now, given the current climate, I just can't bring myself to sit down and really focus on them when so much else out there is important.

There's a level of guilt that I feel when it comes to this. There are times where I think "I owe it to people to write and put things out there". But I keep coming back to the fact that it doesn't put food on the table. That it isn't my day job and takes away from time with my family or my home. Maybe if there was incentive on my end to write, I'd do it more often and carve out the time. But until I focus on how to incentivize all this, I'm going to continue to write at my pace and figure out how to make it all happen.

I'll get back to doing it eventually. And I'm hopeful that some of the ideas that I have in my mind are actually decent enough to share. Of course, I'll be writing about things coming for the fall; maybe saving some of my creative energy for that is the best course for me. We're all navigating this global pandemic differently. We're all trying to do what we need to keep sane and healthy. And for me, that takes the shape of protecting my family and house by working and providing leadership, all to keep the lion away. The writing will have to wait for now. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get a bunch more work done around the house. Enough procrastination. Time to do the work.

I'm just going to write until I feel like I'm done, do some light editing, and then hit publish. You get what you get, people. ↩︎
This was actually a very pleasant experience, and I feel heard. I have a direct line of communication and they are actively seeking counsel from others outside of the district leadership on how to handle everything. It's a course of action I plan on continuing for my son, my family, and my community. ↩︎

The Payoff of Developing Foundational Journaling

2020-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

I'm often asked what different uses I have for Drafts, my everything-text app of choice. I have a variety of core use cases which I use Drafts for every day: even with my posts and large reviews, journaling is by far the highest volume of content I create.

I've journaled for a while. And while I'm not perfect at doing it and frequently miss days because life sometimes gets in the way, there are some considerations I've made for my particular journaling solution. A few years ago, I created my own journal solution: this utilized Drafts + Dropbox + Workflow. That solution morphed into using DEVONthink To Go to save the journal entries, primarily because of security. I was also storing more information there at the time, so it made sense.

Then, in the midst of a pandemic, I started looking at a lot of the things in my life that were just adding to my least favorite thing: clutter. I started wondering where DEVONthink fit into my life. And aside from keeping the rare thing or two in it, I only used it for journaling. So while this solution worked – and worked well – it started to become apparent to me that I no longer wanted this as the solution.

Inevitably, as often these ear worms do, it sent me down a new path. How could I take my journaling solution and simplify it to use the apps and services I want to use so that I can streamline my process, or at the very least, make it easier to use and review later? Just use a dedicated app.

I've been down this road. In the past, I used a dedicated journaling app. And while it was good at what it did, there were aspects that didn't appeal to me: security breaches and a subscription price isn't worth it for me.^[1] I can roll my own solution here utilizing apps I already have, and save myself the cost. And, for the most part, I'm not missing a lot from some of the full-featured apps.

Another reason for not doing this is that most use their own syncing solution, which has me uncomfortable. I like to control where my data is going. I trust Apple more than most, even if it's not a fully secure thing.^[2] Having that control feels right to me, and having my data stored in iCloud Drive will be better for me in the long run anyway.

Moving from Dropbox to iCloud Drive has allowed me to purge my subscription to Dropbox entirely, and I increased my 200GB iCloud Drive plan to 1TB. Now I pay far less for the same storage I was using. I still have my Dropbox account and still use the 7GB free that I have, but I don't use it in the same way; it is for shared or temporary files. I don't need to have DEVONthink installed, thus clearing up some clutter from my life.

So, now on to how I threw this together…

I start my journal by tapping a shortcut in the widget or tapping the shortcut notification, which in turn kicks of an automation; the automation actually calls the shortcut, so the process of them is the same, but how I get there can be different.^[3] This shortcut asks me a few questions, all of which can be run in the widget and is my preferred method, to start off my journal. From there, it adds my sleep duration and resting heart rate, along with aspects of the weather forecast for the day, all formatted how I like them.

All of that text goes into Drafts, along with the proper tags to make sure it gets into my Journal workspace. This is where all of my thoughts go. I have it broken into a couple of categories: quick hits and entries.^[4] Quick hits are just that: quick little thoughts. I found that adding quick hits has allowed me to just write instead of feeling like I need to say anything profound. Just gets it out of my head and on to the pa… screen. Entries are for more long-form writing. I don't do them every day, but when I do, I like to make sure I know what time of the day I was writing it. Over time, I've even seen patterns just knowing the time of day I was writing, which has been interesting.

For entries or even quick hits, I have several shortcuts which can add data to my journal: weather, location, health, and music. Each of those adds pertinent data to my entries at any given time; they start in Drafts, kick over to Shortcuts, gets the data back, and sends a block of text back into my journal entry. For the health shortcut, it needs to be run from the phone. It is also limited to move ring numbers, as exercise minutes and stand hours aren't available via Shortcuts right now. My hope was to recreate activity rings, but I'll wait on that until more support come to both the Shortcuts and Health apps.

Along with the data, I can add a few other file types that might be relevant for me: audio recordings, photos, and files. These don't save the files into Drafts, which does not support them, but rather provides Markdown-formatted links to the files for use later. I occasionally will do an audio file to capture something that's more nuanced than text. Similarly, I might need to reference a file later and having the option here helps as well. It may seem weird that I have files linked to a journal, but, well… it's my journal.

A journal entry in Drafts on the left, as a PDF in Shortcuts on the right.

Now that I have everything in place, rather than save the text, I realized I just want to be able to view the final product after it's completed for the day. For a while, I was saving plain text and viewing it later via a quick look action, but I ultimately just want the rendered journal entry. This sent me down the path to creating a way to save a PDF of the document, along with rendered images and links to the audio recordings and files for later consumption.

This might sound complex, but what it forced me to do was focus on what I really wanted to ever put in a journal, and develop those solutions. Now that they are there, assuming Drafts, Shortcuts, and Scriptable don't go away, I'll be able to have this solution for a long time. In fact, if improvements come to Shortcuts which provide certain features, I might not even need all three to make this happen.^[5]

The trickiest part of all of this was saving the photos, files, recordings, and the final PDF where I wanted them to go. This is where Scriptable comes in. Scriptable provides the ability to create File Bookmarks, something highlighted by Federico in his FS Bookmarks post. In simple terms, the File Bookmark enables me to have saved locations to send data into. Scriptable is able to manipulate files in a way that Shortcuts simply can't: if I want to move a file from one location in iCloud Drive to another, I can't do that natively in Shortcuts. But with a little JavaScript and some help,^[6] I'm able to do just that.

For each one of the different document types – photos, recordings, files, and entries – I have a file bookmark to a folder. They all run generally in the same way, with some exceptions in each. The main point of all of these was I could save them into the /iCloud Drive/Shortcuts/ folder in an automated way, but would have to manually select where to put it if I wanted the file anywhere else. This is less than ideal from an automation perspective. It can be done, but if there's a way to automate it, I'd much rather.

So for each of the shortcuts outlined below, I have a script in Scriptable which is basically the following:

let filePath = args.fileURLs[0];
let fm = FileManager.iCloud()
let destinationPath = fm.bookmarkedPath('Path'); //change this to your bookmarked folder in Scriptable
let fileName = fm.fileName(filePath) + '.' + fm.fileExtension(filePath);
fm.move(filePath, destinationPath + '/' + fileName)

As you see in the comment within the script, you need to change the 'Path' to whatever your file bookmark is called. For my journal entries, I simply have it named 'Journal'. For each one of the file types I have a journal bookmark for where they need to end up. I also have a separate scriptable action which is incorporated into the shortcuts I use. With all of these in place, I can start to send the different files where I need them to go automatically.

Each shortcut is essentially the same: it asks me to select a file, rename the file, and then saves it into a Shortcuts folder. Then, I'm kicked over to Scriptable to move the file from one place to another. Upon return, they each produce a link to the file type. While moving out of Shortcuts into Scriptable and back again isn't ideal, it does work; my hope is that in the future, I won't have to do this song-and-dance maneuver.

For audio recordings and files, I've taken the prefix of the launcher shortcut and just appended the file name and folder location manually:

shareddocuments:///private/var/mobile/Library/Mobile%20Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Personal/Journal/

This works extremely well and means I don't have to create a file bookmark for every file. Photos, however, uses something else. At the time of me writing this, I cannot figure out a way to have renderable links for photos within Files. I've tried everything I can think of, but nothing has worked. I could use my website and upload images, but I only need them on a temporary basis. This is where Dropbox comes in. I save the image file to Dropbox in a temp folder, get the link to the file, and insert a Markdown image link ![name](url); I had to make sure to replace the www with dl to make it render, but it works very well. Every so often, I have a shortcut that I can tap and remove all of the temporary images from the folder. I don't actually need to keep the images here: because they are rendered and a part of the PDF, they are ephemeral files for me. If I ever want to review the image, I can just pop into my photo library, search on the date, and then get the file.

To save my entires, I have a shortcut that is kicked off from Drafts. It accepts the Markdown-formatted text from Drafts, converts it to HTML, and then uses a customized HTML formatting I created to generate a PDF. Once I view the PDF and hit 'OK' to proceed, the PDF is then saved to iCloud Drive in the Shortcuts folder; from there, I'm sent over to Scriptable where the script moves it from the folder to the Journal bookmarked folder, similar to how I do with the other files.

So, I'm sure you're wanting to see these actions. But, I'm not sharing them right now. Not because I'm trying to be mean and withhold them, but they change very frequently; I'm tweaking them so often that during the time I started writing to the time I'm going to hit publish on this post, it will have changed no less than 4 times.^[7] These actions are pretty simple to create, aside from the JavaScript I already shared. The image below will help guide you through some of the Shortcuts. I'm thinking about sharing them at some point,^[8] but for now you'll just have to steal inspiration and create them yourself.

Compared to what I originally started with and even my "upgraded" solution along the way, this new solution is so much better for me and the way I want to keep my journal. I'm even going back through my journal entries, fixing some image and file links, and will be saving those out as a PDF as well.

In the future, I hope that I can do a couple of things to improve all of it: move the files within Shortcuts actions itself, and render images using iCloud Drive rather than using Dropbox. If I can streamline this workflow to be Drafts + Shortcuts – two apps that will be around for a long time – I'd much prefer it. And while I don't mind supporting another indie developer right now, I would love to reduce the digital clutter in my life even more.

The end result of this has paid off for me: I've built a complete journaling system over time, built on the foundation of common formats and apps I use on a daily basis, to create the best system for me. As with a lot of things surrounding Drafts and the way I work, I can see this workflow sticking for a long time. It's evolved from a text based solution to a PDF solution. The PDF format has been around for ages, and I don't see that going away for a while. It will allow me to keep a lot of the historical record intact for at least my lifetime. Will I ever share it with anyone? Probably not. But I can rest easy that if I really wanted to do it, I now have the ability to do so.

I believe that certain apps are good for a subscription model. But I also don't want to pay for a subscription when I can make something like this on my own. I'm frugal like that. ↩︎
Is anything really? ↩︎
Sometimes the automation fails to run as well. I tap on the notification, it opens shortcuts, and… nothing. I'm hoping there will be a change in iOS14 with how all of this works. Not going to hold my breath.↩](#fnref-1866-fails) ↩︎
I grabbed the "Quick Hits" name of this from the Sam and Ross Like Things podcast because I liked the name. And I like the podcast. You should check it out. ↩︎
If you're unsure which one, read the room. You know which one is for sure staying… ↩︎
Thanks Rosemary Orchard! ↩︎
Ok, actually it was more. Nine times. ↩︎
I'm pondering the idea of producing a newsletter. Still in an initial stage. More to come, maybe. Would you have an interest in this? Drop me a line on Twitter or shoot me an email ↩︎

The New Site Design

2020-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Some of you have asked about my new site design, and the reasons behind some of my choices. Rather than explain them individually, I thought I'd drop them all here.

The original site design dates back to 2016. I did most of it myself, with the exception of some help from my sage web advisor – Jeff Mueller. I was happy with it for a long time – nearly four years. There were things that I wanted to add in an effort to make it more modern that I had zero idea how to implement. The development time for me to sit down and figure it out piled up to not be worth it.

And it finally hit me: why not have someone else do this work? There are many times where giving this work to someone else can free you to do what you hadn't before. I do this in other aspects of my personal life, so why not this? So that's when I set down this path, and really embraced this new direction. This time, rather than ask for advice, I contracted out the work to Jeff.

I found a WordPress theme that I liked, but I knew I wanted to make it much more my own. I wanted to implement some things that I had seen elsewhere: a light/dark theme which automatically switches based on your device preferences, code blocks with line numbers, and better support for images with captions. Things that make it feel more in-tune with the improvements in technology and not stuck in the past. It was a relief to not have to dive into the code and tweak it, but rather to give direction as to what to fix and let someone do the work.

The only thing left for me to decide were the theme colors. I had been using a yellow and gray for my last theme. And while I still enjoy that color combination a lot, it doesn't work at all for a light theme, which pushed me to choose something different. So naturally, I started out with a completely different color than most – blue.

Blue is fine. Blue is ok. But blue is used by so many others. Just take a look at your home screen on your phone, tablet, or computer and you'll see a sea of blue in a lot of cases. So, I decided to not to go down the road of so many others. I looked a few other options – some greens and teals – but nothing really jumped out at me. Then, while changing my watch band one evening, it hit me:

Dragon Fruit.

I have had a dragon fruit sport loop band since Christmas. It is my favorite Apple Watch band that I own because it was a gift from my partner (she's amazing) and it's just a solid color choice.^[1] I cannot tell you how often I wear this because it pairs so well with the grayscale pallet, from white to gray to charcoal to black. So I put that color against a light and dark background that came from some Drafts theme colors, and was instantly in love. Pair that with a nice mid-gray which works for both, and I had my palette.

My site's color palette.

This is where the logo journey started. I wanted something different, something new. The same day that I thought about a site redesign and a new logo, I saw a post from another Jeff – Jeff Perry. He was offering to do some work to help others, and boy did I need it. There were a lot of back and forth discussions and directions with him about the logo. Too many. And all of that my fault, as I didn't exactly know where I wanted to go with all of it.

My original logo.

There were multiple iterations of a design. I enjoyed the first logo a lot. I liked the whole idea of having a vague looking N surrounding an homage to Drafts. The idea was clean, but ultimately decided not to go this path because I thought it looked a bit too much like a business card and not something I would want for a website.

Iteration 1: all business

Then I went to another extreme: what if I created a design of glyphs to show what my site is about (most of the time). I liked this idea a lot too. But it looked more like an infographic than a logo. It would be a chunky item to put at the top of the page. I do still like this a lot, and might incorporate some of the design aesthetic into posts in the future, but I ultimately didn't pursue this direction further.

Iteration 2: the infographic.

Then I went back to basics, and hated myself a bit. This… is awful. I'm ashamed of it. So why not discuss it and show it off? It really comes down to this: in searching some logo designs, I saw a lot of line/dot art that looked like an object. And while this worked in practice for other designs, it is a horrible design for what I wanted. And I won't mention it again. Ever.

Iteration 3: the atrocity

I went further back. When a job goes wrong, you go back to the beginning. All the way back to my first logo. It was simply the n in the font choice of my website. I really only ever used it for my favicon, and no where else. I always had nahumck.me up on top. So I went into Pixelmator, and put that on the canvas in text. I started thinking about what I could do to break it up. This lead me to a line, which lead me to a rectangle. and that's when it all started coming together. I'll break up the nahumck and the me with a box, where the period would be a do which breaks up the box.

Iteration 4: the start of an idea

Now, that's not much of a logo. But if I took it down to where I started originally – with a simple n – it might work best. So I handed this off to Jeff, and he created the final version. The corners became more rounded and the line stopped closer to the dot and also followed the outline of it. I loved this little touch in the design. This is what I will use going forward for the website, and I absolutely love it!

The official logo.

It was a process to get this done. Working with the Jeffs was easy, even if I was stressed in my head. Going through some tough discussions and decisions to make way for something bold is fantastic. I was stuck in a rut with the colors at first, much like my writing. But I realized this needed to change. I would have never chosen dragonfruit as my initial color, but I'm happy that it turned into what I ultimately wanted. I was looking to go with a different idea for a logo, but ultimately went with something familiar yet modern. Even better, I'll have a new visual in Drafts for my previews in the future, so the new themes will be everywhere.

I'm happy that this has all worked out for the better. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. And who knows: maybe there are some stickers and shirts in the future…

The Nike Pride band is a close second. ↩︎

Return to Form

2020-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

I'm not ashamed to admit that there are many times that I doubt myself. I suppose that's the nature of a parent. Or maybe I'm getting older and these are things that happen. Or maybe it's a global pandemic and a global call to end systemic racism. Maybe it's all of these things, and probably a whole lot more. But I find that in these times, I often end up finding my way.

Life, for the most part, has been really great for me. I know that with all that is going on in the world, this is a hard thing to say. But given where I've been over the past few years, I'm in a really good place. The past has given way to new opportunities and better choices for my life. I am in a new relationship that is healthy and fulfilling. I've received not one but two promotions in the last year, and I feel like I'm where I need to be with my job.^[1] I'm even down 20 lbs now, and working on the next 20. I'm starting to hit a stride for my life with which I'm comfortable.

Yet, there were some things that were not happening. My personal projects – my writing and my podcast – have been on hiatus for a while. I felt like my creative energy was zapped, that I didn't have the desire to do these things anymore. I'm not sure if it was depression or a culmination of things, but I just didn't feel creative anymore. I felt unmoored while trying to navigate my creative life.

It's in these times that I turn my focus to my journal, so I can start to figure out what it really is that's driving me. Why am I writing? Why am I podcasting? Do people enjoy this? Does that matter? Who am I writing or speaking to when I share my thoughts? At the end of it all, I have to ask: What's my why? ^[2]

This question set me down multiple paths. I sat alone with my thoughts, figuring out what I wanted to do. My initial thought was to stop. Stop writing. Stop podcasting. Do things for me, and forget it all. I don't owe it to anyone to continue these things. If I don't want to do them, then I can just hang it up and walk away. These thoughts consumed me for weeks.

But in my journaling and even in discussions with others, I found myself pulled another direction. I started thinking of the why for my writing. And really, it comes down to what it started to be: I write for me, and me alone. What I have learned over my time of writing is that people seem to enjoy what I write for myself. I'm honestly shocked most of the time that it even makes sense, people enjoy it, and – much to my shock – it even gets requested at times.

So, I'm going to be doing some things to return to form. I'm starting to write again, and it's pouring out of me. I'm going back to the approach I took when I first started: write for myself, and then publish. Some of my stuff might be small, some of it larger. But it's going to be on the subjects and topics that I want. Over the coming weeks, you'll see some posts about my favorite app Drafts: the posts aren't going to be a regurgitation of the release notes nor will I cover everything. But what I will do is cover particular things that speak to me in the various releases. And this is how I will generally approach most things going forward. If I'm being honest with myself, this is what I should have done all along.

With this renewed focus, I decided to update the site a bit. I commissioned a new look and overhaul of the site from top to bottom, which was done by the amazing Jeff Mueller. I also got to collaborate with Jeff Perry to create a logo for my site. These are two things that I have wanted to do, but did not have the time or the creative energy to develop properly. I'd rather have these things taken care of for me than do them myself, and that's ok. This also helps me recommit to the future of my site, my writing, and my creative life in general.^[3]

I hope that this is a new beginning. By reframing my mind, I'm freeing myself of guilt and returning to the positive mindset that allows me to be creative. I've gone through the questions and come out on the other side with the answers. As I wrote recently:

Sometimes we question what is important. I now realize how vital it is to question – but not doubt – your motives as to why you do something and why you might want to continue. I'm not afraid of this process, but rather I embrace it. Onward…

Onward indeed…

I do plan to move up more, but I need to spend some time at this level to cement that next step. ↩︎
I've also been reading some books by Simon Sinek for leadership.(#fnref-1813-Sinek) ↩︎
I'll have a post about all of this as well. ↩︎

This Is Not for Me

2020-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

The new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is now available and starting to appear in reviews. Most of them have been video reviews, but I am starting to see written reviews as well.

In watching the video reviews, my early suspicion of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro was confirmed: I won't be getting it. Not because it's bad, but rather it comes down to a matter of use cases for me. Sure, weight and cost are also factors, but I need to be able to actually use the device if I'm going to make this device a good fit.

Now that I'm working from home for the foreseeable future, I'm using the iPad Pro in a "docked" manner, where it sits off to the right in a stand connected to an external monitor; for input, I use the Logitech K780 keyboard and – new to my home office setup – a Magic Trackpad 2. In this scenario, the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro obviously wouldn't be used, just like my Smart Keyboard Folio sits below my monitor.

I do use my iPad around the house in various ways: handheld, on a table or counter, or to write on. In this way, I could have the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, and just pull it off. I can simply fold the Smart Keyboard Folio around and use it my hand; I am used to the weight now, and it doesn't bother me. I also have a Magic Mouse 2, which I use when I'm away from my home desk, which is small enough to fit in my pocket for me to carry around or use anywhere in the house. So the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro doesn't provide me a benefit here either.

So let's talk about when I'm actually at work. In an office. Remember those times? Anyway, I do go from meeting to meeting in conference rooms. In these scenarios, I'm often at the table in the room where it happens. I often will switch modes depending on what I'm doing: for some meetings I'm able to use my iPad Pro in more of the laptop mode with the Smart Keyboard Folio; in others, I might be writing down notes and focusing on presentations being given. And for those times where I'm not at the table, I'm sitting off to the side where there is no place other than my lap. The Smart Keyboard Folio lends itself to all of these conditions, and affords me the opportunity to use the iPad Pro in any one of those during the course of the day. The Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is sold in a particular way: as a keyboard, not a folio, and is for landscape orientations only. This would hinder the way in which I use the device for my day job.

Looking at all of those use cases together, it really is apparent to me that using my iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard Folio is my best opportunity to meet all things. I can augment the experience when docked, or I can carry around the Magic Mouse 2 when I need to be mobile. It's not always going to be the ideal experience, but it does what I need to get the job done. Also, I already have the components I need, and don't need to spend an additional $300 on something that would be a limited use case for me.

All that aside, I really love the idea of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. The engineering of it seems solid, and it appears to be very well built. The fact that you can charge the device using the built-in port while using another USB-C device in the other is something that I hope gets more extensible over time with software updates. I'm delighted that this device exists: this is the first generation of the device, and it will only get better with feedback and iteration.^[1] The fact that this device exists for everyone is fantastic, so they can choose what works for them. This is what Apple excels at: creating multiple devices in given form factor/class, and providing options for users to suit on their individual needs.

The Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro looks to be an amazing device, but one thing is clear: this is not for me. And that's OK.

I would love to see a few things: 1) a hinge which has detents for the current position i and all the way around, and 2) media keys with a dedicated Siri button as well. ↩ ↩︎

My Home Office Studio

2020-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

For a long time, I've wanted my own office. For a while, I've had a podcast space of my own, but it has never been what I've truly wanted in a home office/podcast studio. So in this time of social distancing and staying-at-home to reduce the spread of COVID-19, I realized very quickly that my podcast area was going to be very insufficient for long-term working from home. This sent me down a path of incorporating what I currently have to what I've wanted for so long: a sit/stand desk.

If you want to see where I've started to where I've ended up, I posted some pictures on Twitter to show the progression. It's a massive change. The original setup was just abysmal. The middle two setup steps were ok, and really just a move from one area of the basement to the other with some upgrades. But this last one has been special for me. I've been able to take my time and craft a setup that works best for this space in my home. As always, the focal part of a new desk setup is, well, the desk. I've looked for a long time at various options for me: buying a pre-made sit/stand motorized desk, making my own table top and using a sit/stand motorized frame, or just making a standing desk with a high stool for the short periods of time I'd like to sit.

Frustrated at the prospect of spending $600 on just the desk, I took a walk to clear my head. During the walk, I kept thinking "sit/stand" and tried to get at the root of what I wanted. I wanted something I could change frequently. I wanted to move from one level to another for comfort. I wanted something adjustable. So when I return from my walk and typed "adjustable desk" into Amazon, a bunch of different opportunities presented themselves. And that's when I saw what I wanted – the Husky 62" Adjustable Height Work Table.^[1]

This is really an adjustable workbench, primarily used for garages. But there's no reason I can't use this; and, at $300 total shipped to my door, it's half the cost of the other desks I was considering. It has the same depth as my old desk, but it's 14" wider than my previous one. The extra room gives me the space to both my laptop and my iPad Pro up at the same time on either side of my monitor, effectively having three screens if I need to do it. It's plenty of space to include other things like my bluetooth speaker, my Yeti mug, a giant mouse pad, and a midi keyboard.^[2]

The other nice part of having an adjustable desk is that I already had an anti-fatigue mat and a balance ball chair to use with it. I adjust the desk maybe two times in a day, so the manual adjustment isn't that big a deal. When I need to stand, the chair goes behind me to the side and the mat is placed on the floor; when I need to sit, I pick the mat up and put it to the side of the desk against the wall, and move my chair in position. If I needed to do this more frequently, I'd be doing something different. But this is more than fine for my needs, and I'm following the ergonomic guidelines I've found. So with the adjustable desk and comfort taken care of, I focused on the top of my desk. First, this all centers around my monitor: it's a 31.5" Dell 1080p monitor with a Logitech webcam on top. It's not 4K but it does the job.^[3] I needed it to be slightly higher up for the setup, so I purchased a monitor stand to raise it up the appropriate amount. I picked this one for a few reasons: it looks clean, has flexibility with the shape and width, and had some hidden features within it. I have a small stand for my work iPhone as well as a drawer/stand for my personal iPhone. I can also store some small items in the drawer. Surprisingly, the 11" iPad Pro Smart Keyboard Folio fits perfectly underneath in the way I have it configured.

In front of the monitor sits my keyboard, the Logitech K780 keyboard. I picked this up before the Logitech MX Keys was released, which I would recommend picking up over the K780. And next to that, I have the Magic Mouse 2; this is mainly used for my iPad Pro, which is primarily to the right of my monitor sitting in my iPad stand. This is plugged into the monitor via HDMI and a HyperDrive USB-C Hub 6-in-1 Adapter. Eventually, I would like to get a Magic Trackpad 2 for my setup, and use the Magic Mouse 2 for travel.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking: do you have a Mac? Well, I do have a late-2012 Mac mini, but it's pretty much invisible in the picture. That's because it's attached to the Vesa mount holes on my monitor in a HIDEit Mount. I've done my best with some velcro straps to keep the cables as invisible as possible throughout the desk, and this was no small feat. But this is working very well so far. I have an HDMI switch also mounted to the back of the monitor via some trusty 3M Velcro Command Strips, which are a big enabler for cable management. I do use the Mac, albeit rarely; most times it acts as a nice mass damper on the back of the monitor. Perhaps one day I will upgrade it, but for now, it's back there when I need it for the singular task of uploading an MP3.

To the left of the monitor sits my mic: this is the Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB microphone in a microphone shock mount which has a metal pop filter, mounted to the desk via a Knox Gear 38" Microphone Stand. I absolutely love the boom arm: it's well made, feels solid and fluid in it's movement, and is long enough to extend the microphone to the center of the desk from the corner. When I'm not podcasting,^[4] it can be moved out of the way.

On the under side of my desk, I have the Elevation Labs Anchor for my headphones on the left, and the Shelf for some odds & sods on the right. I liked these options as they stick to the bottom of the desk, and they aren't holding heavy items. In addition to those items, I also have a power strip along with an Anker 5-port wall charger mounted to the bottom to keep things nice and tidy. On the back side of the desk, multiple command strips keep the cords running out of sight as well. On the right side, I also have a magnetic flashlight attached along with a hook for my iOS Podcasting Kit.

With all the bits of my desk figured out, I needed to make sure I had some decent soundproofing. For a long time, I had some foam in my setup. And while that's good, and looks good, the walls around where I have my desk have had some holes put in them over time when mounting different items, and I'd have to cover the entire wall. I started doing some research and spoke to a few people on the most effective yet most inexpensive options. And I ended up going to something I've said before: use what's around you if you can. I had the blanket I had used previously to dampen sound from the metallic desk worked, and it worked perfectly for the backdrop. Then I added two moving blankets on either side because I wanted it to be as uniform as possible; for the left side, I made a simple triangle out of some wood, and attached that to the wall to create a false wall out of the blanket. I hung all of the blankets using some screws and some washers.

While this doesn't look as "professional" as others with acoustic foam, it actually works better for my situation. I didn't have to spend money to fix the wall, and it looks good enough that I can share it without feeling some shame. To cap it off, I have a decent-looking room divider; in the future, I plan on getting a second, and also attaching some thin sound barrier to the back side of both; this will help with the sound behind me during recordings, but is easy enough to get out of the way. About my only gripe with this setup is that I'm in the basement, but that's nothing that a happy light couldn't fix.

I am overjoyed with how this has turned out. I had to put in a bit of money (around $400 total) to make it this way, and I was able to use all of the other items I've collected over time. However, the sum total is less than what a typical sit/stand desk could cost me, and that makes me smile. With the flexibility that the desk affords me has helped me mentally focus on work and writing, it has been invaluable to me. I feel more professional now, or really, more like an adult who has their own place. Maybe not quite an adult, but at least a man-child with some new toys.

This setup is tailor made for me and my iPad-first lifestyle. I've been using the iPad Pro over the past few years as my main computer, and even at this time from home, I've been using it for both work and home as well. There are very few times I'm reaching for my work laptop. Most everything can be done now for me on an iPad. And with this setup, I can use it as an iPad and the pencil flat on my desk; I can type on my keyboard with the iPad on a stand; or I can turn it into a docking station and use my keyboard & mouse to navigate it fully. It really feels like the modern computer I've wanted, and we are only at the start.

I ended up getting it at Home Depot, as it was cheaper than Amazon. ↩︎
I don't have much use of the midi keyboard right now, but I had it in the house and found it while I've been going through another round of purging. Surprisingly, it actually does work with the iPad Pro in GarageBand. So there might be a use for it down the road. ↩︎
Eventually, I'd love to upgrade to a nice 4K monitor. But it really has not been an issue for me, and I don't feel like dropping $350+ on a good monitor. Once my partner's or this one break, I'll look at upgrading then. ↩︎
Yeah, it's been a while. Maybe soon? ↩︎

My Upgraded Charging Setup

2020-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Over the years, I've added and removed multiple things from a travel kit. When I got my tactical bag, I started to think of minimal carry. In fact, it's starting to bleed into my regular life as well. But that's a post for another time.

At the start of the year, I started thinking of an all-USB-C charging setup. I've had other power bricks and cables, but as I move towards devices which can accept more from higher-output chargers, the idea of using USB-C only is really appealing. My iPad Pro 11" and iPhone Xs are both capable of faster charging speeds, which is really why I started my journey.

Here's what I'm doing for my regular travel setup. And by travel, I mean trips, back and forth to work, etc. Keep in mind that I (barely) use a PC for my day job, and I don't carry a MacBook of any kind. This setup is really for my 4 devices: iPad Pro 11", now with a Cover Buddy case, Moshi iVisor AG screen protector, and the Smart Keyboard Folio; iPhone Xs; Apple Watch Series 4; and AirPods Pro with modified foam tips for extra comfort. I'm not always charging these devices at the same time. In fact, I'm normally charging my Apple Watch before bed, and my iPhone and iPad Pro overnight. At most, I would need 3 USB-C ports to charge. At the time of me writing this, there are zero options for a 3-port single charger, but it's something I hope comes in the future.

AUKEY 63W Wall Charger (credit: AUKEY)

The main source of power in my setup is the AUKEY 63W PD wall charger with dual USB-C ports. This is about the same size as my previous wall charger, but with a lot more power. The top port is an 18W PD port, and the bottom is a 60W PD port^[1] meant more for a MacBook than an iPad. But, thanks to the technology in the iPad Pro, it can accept the maximum charging and quickly power the device.

For the cables, I have a single 6' Anker USB-C to USB-C cable cable to power my iPad Pro and my AUKEY PD Power Bank 10000mAh. There are no dual USB-C battery packs available right now that I can find; but when the technology is there, I'll replace this with a 2-port USB-C battery pack with double the capacity; that way I can charge both the iPhone and iPad to 100%. For the AirPods Pro and my iPhones, I use the 1m USB-C to Lightning cable which came with the AirPods Pro, along with a 6' Anker USB-C to Lightning cable. I travel with 2 iPhones, one for work and one for travel, and might need to charge both at any given time. And given that my day job requires road trips in vehicles for testing, I recently purchased a Anker 2-Port USB-C Car Charger to dual charge devices at 18W each; this has proven very useful on the road. I also carry my HyperDrive USB-C Hub 6-in-1 Adapter^[2] along with a USB-A male to USB-C female adapter, which does allow me to utilize either the HyperDrive's USB-A port or a port in the car when I'm testing and want to use CarPlay.^[3]

To facilitate the watch charging during travel, I was faced with a couple of options: keep the watch charger I have and bring another charing brick with me, buy a USB-C version of the watch charger, or try something new. I voted for the last option, and I picked up a Satechi USB-C Apple Watch Charger. This device plugs into my iPad Pro while I'm winding down for the day, pulling from the battery of the iPad itself. If I find that my iPad Pro is too low on power, I can simply plug this directly into the small Aukey 18W USB-C wall charger I carry; it's a little bigger than a standard iPhone 5W charging brick, but delivers 18W of power over USB-C and has a folding plug. It is a small device, which is great for travel, but I will need to be mindful about where I might leave it.

I've been enjoying this setup. It's not quite the ideal setup that I'm looking to achieve – a future where I have a 3-port USB wall charger and a 2-port USB-C battery pack – but it's what I have available now. With this setup, it's compact and fairly light, and I have charging for all of my devices no matter what the scenario. As the future moves forward to USB-C for everything, I feel like I'm ready to embrace that future, and not much on my end will need to change. Being ahead of the game isn't a bad thing.

The 60W charging is if nothing else is plugged in. If another device is plugged in, it's 18W PD for the top port and 45W PD for the bottom port. In my specific use case, this is more than enough for what I need. ↩︎
I did completely remove the two pieces that come with it so that it can sit flush with the Cover Buddy case installed. It works just fine, and might actually be a bit more stable this way. But it's something to keep in mind. ↩︎
For now. USB-C is coming to more vehicles from everything I can see in the industry. I like that eventual future too. ↩︎

Drafts 15

2019-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Drafts 15 has been released to support both iOS and the new iPadOS 13. And as it is with the major releases, I had the opportunity to write about it over at MacStories.

I encourage everyone to go read it there, but wanted to offer a couple of highlights:

Enhanced Shortcuts Support: the support for Shortcuts has been very well implemented and enables users to not only create, but to pull from drafts without opening Drafts itself.
Multiwindow Support for iPadOS: this is another game-changing feature, and is the cornerstone of this release. This will empower users to create new ways of working on their iPad, allowing users to integrate Drafts into more of their daily lives. I give a few examples here. For more on how Multiwindow works, I recommend reading Federico's review and watching Chris Lawley's video, which provide the overview for all of iOS/iPadOS 13.
Updated Interface: there are a multitude of improvements here, from iconography to re-written UI to contextual menus, new in iOS 13.

This is a fantastic update, and has once again changed the way I use my devices with Drafts. In addition, it's streamlined my workflows and opened up new possibilities for me. I hope that everyone finds more and more use cases for Drafts going forward.

Brydge Pro Keyboard

2019-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

When I purchased iPad Pro 11", I immediately bought the Smart Keyboard Folio (SKF, as I refer to it).^[1] At the time, this was the best – and only – keyboard option made specifically for the iPad Pro. I needed something that wasn't heavy, something portable, and something versatile. Over time, some of those needs have changed, and I've added a few more use cases that might not be best satisfied by the SKF. So when the Brydge Pro keyboards were announced, I was intrigued about the possibility of that option. I reached out to the team at Brydge, who were kind enough to send me an 11" Brydge Pro keyboard review unit to try out.

The unboxing experience is very akin to Apple: everything has a purpose, it's very clean, and well considered. In the box, you get the keyboard, a USB-C to USB-C cable, and the back panel. I like the inclusion of the back panel for most situations. While I do like this for when I'm carrying it around in a bag, I found that it didn't always fit as well as I would have liked; there might be an improvement in the tolerancing of the part that could help. I also found that a few times, I would slide the Brydge towards me on a table, and the back panel would catch on the bottom edge and want to come off. When you use it in tablet mode – the mode where you can write on it with the pencil – it does prevent it from folding fully flat; you'll have to set it off to the side to use it in that way. There's just no room for the back panel in that device sandwich. It just feels odd to throw that to the side when you want to use it in this way.

Brydge Pro in tablet mode

The keyboard itself is a Bluetooth keyboard, and utilizes a USB-C cable to charge. You can even charge the keyboard from your iPad Pro if you're running out of power. Out of the box, the keyboard had about 78% power, which was great to get me started. It took about 5 days for the battery to run down to where I wanted to charge it again, likely due to the backlit keys. I have found that if you're doing a lot of typing with the keyboard lit, you're going to drain it a lot faster.

Having the battery in the keyboard means it was going to be heavy compared to the SKF, which brings me to the first thing I immediately noticed about the Brydge Pro keyboard: this thing is heavy. Not just a little, but a lot. At 700 grams for the keyboard and the protective cover, it more than doubles the weight of the iPad Pro^[2] carry in my bag; compare that to the SKF, which clocks in at just 302 grams, and it's clear to see that you need to be very comfortable with the extra weight if you're going to carry this around. It may not seem like a lot, but it's significant. The extra weight is great for when you're using it in your lap, however, like when you're on a couch or as I did in a car while on a road trip; the SKF tends to be more top-heavy,^[3] and doesn't feel as stable in those instances whereas the Brydge felt solid.

The next thing I noticed: the keyboard is a bit narrower than the SKF. Being that this is the 11" model, that width can take some getting used to. But I was able to adapt over the first several days. The placement of the Siri key is also a bit difficult with the layout, as my finger often presses is when I'm attempting to use the control key. Again, this layout just takes some getting use to and is not insurmountable; I'm even trying to utilize Siri more now with this key, using the Type to Siri accessibility feature, and the availability of such a key is welcome. Having the media keys above the row is great. I really wish that Apple would figure out how to make this happen. I've suggested a couple of different ways before, but I doubt they'd ever consider it.^[4]

My review unit did have a couple of issues: I noticed that the lettering on the keys weren't straight. I notice these sorts of things all the time as part of my day job, so it was immediately apparent to me. It's not a deal breaker by any means, and my hope is that it is because this is an early review unit. The main issue that I did have with the keyboard has been the missed keystrokes. It's not all the time, but when it does happen, it takes me out of my writing focus. I reached out to the team at Brydge to let them know, and not only did they quickly respond acknowledging my concern while assuring me that this is not normal and they wanted to inspect the unit to see what was going on, but they also shipped me a new one the day after. Issues can happen in products from time to time, and even though this appears to be an isolated incident, the quick customer service experience and the fact that Brydge stand by their products is fantastic. The second unit I used did not have this issue, and most of my missed keystrokes were due to the more narrow keyboard or my lack of force to activate the key travel.

Overall, I really like the Brydge Pro keyboard. The keys feel very good, the infinite angles and better lap capability are very versatile, and it really does make this combination of Brydge keyboard and iPad Pro feel like a traditional laptop. But I also couldn't help but notice that this might not be the best keyboard for me for the way I do work. In my day job, I'm often moving between typing and notetaking with the Apple Pencil, and the Brydge is more cumbersome for that particular way of working. I can lay it fully flat, but that doesn't work as well sitting on my lap.

At the end of my time with the review unit, I came away mixed: it's not as flexible for my style of working, but it's a really fantastic option for the iPad Pro. I'm likely keeping my iPad Pro for a few more years, so having this option in addition to the Smart Keyboard Folio and the Smart Folio (knockoff) is the trifecta, and something I'm excited to add to my kit portfolio. I might, however, wait a bit before I buy this: with iPadOS 13 and the addition of an accessibility feature which provides cursor support, I can't help but think that Brydge might be working on a trackpad edition, similar to the version they have for the Surface Pro. If this existed, I wouldn't have to carry an extra piece of kit in my bag. If they added that feature, it would push me over the edge for sure. But if you're in the market for a laptop-like keyboard, I cannot recommend this one enough.

I actually bought the Smart Folio (SF) before this, but immediately returned it after 30 min because I realized that my use cases needed the SKF. ↩︎
the iPad Pro weighs 470g, for reference ↩︎
There's that word again, heavy. ↩︎
My idea: turn the "globe" key in the bottom left of the keyboard with a "FN" key. Add the media functions to the number keys in the same way. This would also allow for the addition of a hard-key Siri button if you press and held the combination for a home button. Again, this is a way to solve it, and certainly not the way I envision Apple would do it. But I really wouldn't mind it being there. ↩︎

Letting Go

2019-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

As I'm writing this, I'm taking a much-needed 3 days of "staycation". I've often loathed this word, but as things have become more and more busy for me at work along with everything that I've endured with my personal life, I need it now more than ever.

I have a ton of things to catch up on while I'm off: some appointments, my house, hopefully a movie, and some much needed writing time as well. But this also means doing something that I'm learning to live with: letting go. I'm in a weird space with work: I'm acting like a boss, but I'm not quite official in the title.^[1] It's a trial run. And for the most part, I feel like I've been doing a great job in handling it. When it comes to taking some time for me and letting that stuff be handled by others, I've noticed that it's difficult for me.

I haven't officially managed others before, but I'm getting the opportunity to manage my peers and others through my role. It's been a unique experience to visibly see the transition from someone who 'does' to someone who 'manages'. And being honest: that transition is much harder than I thought it would be. It's a learning curve of ones self to let it go and get done, instead of doing.

Over the years, I've set some lofty goals and personal standards for myself. These aren't always shared in the same way by the people I work with. There are some ways I conduct myself that others might not.^[2] And it's hard to sometimes rely on others to complete assignments to your own personal standards. Hopefully I've laid out expectations and imparted what little wisdom I can to empower my supporting team to get everything completed while I'm away.

But there are times that you still have to be a 'doer'. You do have to let go, and trust that it's going to get done. The work will still be there when I get back. The building will still be around. The job will still need to be done. But I'm hoping that I can entrust some of my work to others and have them pick up the torch while I'm taking some time for me. I'm hopeful that come Monday, I'll be able to realize that this is ok and that I don't have as much to worry about as I think I do.

I really do hope that a promotion is coming. Not counting on it, but it would be a nice cherry on the top of all this stress. ↩︎
Yes, of course. There are people who are better than me. Not saying I'm the best, far from it. Not the point here. ↩︎

The iOS-Only Podcasting Kit

2019-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

I got into podcasting late. I've been listening for years, but I never started my own. But by the time that Seth and I did, there was an emerging idea started by Jason Snell: recording and editing podcasts iOS-only. As someone who rarely ever touches a Mac for their day-to-day work, this idea has continued to gnaw at my brain. I tried my hand a couple of times at doing something differently with it, but it never panned out the way I wanted.

In an effort to head down this road, I ended up switching microphones last year: I had the clutch Blue Yeti microphone, but decided on the Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB instead. Not only was it better for the environment in which I record, but it also afforded me the possibility to record using both the USB and XLR connections, pushing me closer to the goal of iOS-only.

A month or so ago, I was recording the show via the late-2012 Mac mini I have. I ended up having an issue while recording, and I lost my audio in several spots. Given that this is one of two jobs that I ever ask it to do, I was understandably upset and put off by recording in the same way going forward. The idea of going iOS-only came back to the forefront of my mind. I again turned to Jason's setup, only to realize that this was going to cost me several hundred dollars to create. I don't have that lying around, and I wanted to find something that would work for me.

I can already record iOS-only: I can use my iPhone with AirPods to make the call and use my iPad Pro to record the local audio. This is how I recorded my end when I guested on Episode 23 of the Automators podcast. I enjoyed doing this, but I also don't have a great way of having the good audio from my mic broadcast to the other hosts. I like the idea of using the iOS devices I have to record: I'm always going to have them with me, so it just makes more sense to use them for the complete audio setup. I can use either device to record or make the call, I just need a way to get the sound of the mic to both of them. So that's where my search started. I had most of what I needed, I just needed an XLR interface of some type. Rather than search 'USB XLR interface' like I had done multiple times before, I ended up just searching for 'XLR interface'.

That's when I ended up finding something new and unique: the Røde i-XLR. This device was made for reporters, plugging into an XLR microphone and allowing mobile recording of interviews; when I saw it, I thought it might work perfectly for podcasting as well. Rather than take my XLR connection through an expensive USB interface into an XLR recorder of some type or another adaptor to my iPhone, this allows me to use my XLR connection and plug it directly into the iPhone without all the extra cables and steps. There's even an app – the Røde Recorder – which was specifically made for this microphone. The idea was intriguing, so I decided to purchase it and test it out.

The schematic. Don’t judge my drawing skills.

Here's how my setup is all connected, using my iPad Pro 2018 and my iPhone Xs.^[1] First, I start with the power: I recommend using this Anker wall-charger, which provides a Power Delivery USB-C port along with a USB-A quick charge. I use it all the time for travel, and it's perfect for what I need. I use a USB-C to USB-C to power the iPad. Next, I connect the USB microphone cable to the iPad Pro using the Satechi hub;^[2] this also allows me to use the HDMI for an external monitor and the USB-C port to power everything. Then, I connect the Røde iXLR to the end of the cable which comes with the microphone, and plug that into my iPhone directly. Finally, I connect the over-the-ear headphones to the the Røde iXLR and do a test recording to dial in the sound level for the environment. When I have that part set and I'm happy with the audio, I'll connect the monitors directly to the back of the microphone so I can use them for the audio call; I can monitor the sound visually using Røde Reporter or Ferrite. I prefer using Ferrite due to the smaller file sizes and better recording controls for volume as well as the ability to bookmark the audio when topic change and/or I cough; it helps me in the edit later. However, I have noticed that using the configuration menu in Røde Reporter allows me to use a -20 dB pad for the mic, resulting in quieter background noise and an overall better sound.

I did run into one small technical issue when getting this all set up: when the i-XLR is connected to the iPhone, the cellular radio creates an interference with the audio. To avoid this in the audio track, I have to turn on airplane mode,^[3] then turn on the WiFi and then record. It's a simple issue, and one that I'm not too concerned about: I can still get calls or messages if something is urgent. I also don't want to be disturbed when I'm recording so that I can give the other person (or people) my fullest attention possible, so it's a non-issue for me.^[4]

The iOS-only setup in my home studio.

For home use, I have my microphone on a Neewer boom arm,^[5] which allows me to keep it at the appropriate level when I'm standing. I also have the iPad Pro in a stand and use the Magic Keyboard to type because I had it at home; you could use any wireless keyboard for this, and in the future, I might just pull the trigger on a Brydge Keyboard for my 11" iPad Pro, but I'm waiting for more reviews to come in to make the call. I may also look to improve my home setup with a mute switch, but I'm going to hold off for now.^[6]

This iOS-only setup is completely portable for recording anywhere

With a few more additions, not only can I have an iOS-setup at home, I can also have a completely mobile setup as well. I can start recording more often, no matter where I am: whether it's traveling for work, going to my parents house on a short weekend trip, or taking a long-overdue vacation, I can record from wherever I am. I bought some inexpensive in-ear monitors and some duplicate cables, which complete the mobile setup. It all fits into a hard-side case made for my specific microphone, and the entire case fits in the bottom of my travel backpack, meaning I can go anywhere and record.

Everything fits into one case for easy carrying

From here on out, I'm going to be recording iOS-only using this setup: my iPhone will record my local audio, and my iPad Pro will handle the call. The only bit that I don't have is the recording of the call itself, which isn't a big deal to me as long as the people I'm recording with know what they are doing. This setup allows me to use my iOS devices which have shown to be more dependable than my Mac mini. I find my new setup option to be better for the actual running of the show: I can have my iPad Pro in split screen to handle show notes in Drafts, Safari to do any real-time look-up, and the call in slide over on Skype; if I'm using FaceTime, I can simply just jump back to the call if I want by tapping the green indicator in the upper left of the screen.

This setup works surprisingly well. The audio quality is completely fine for anyone who's not a die-hard purist with bottomless pockets. I've been testing a lot with it and can't notice a difference in what I've been producing in the past. I'm trying to do this for as little as possible. For someone who has an iPad and an iPhone, you can have a complete setup – for both home and travel – for around $400 all-in, including all of the chargers, cables, usb hub, interface, and microphone.^[7] It's even less if you already have chargers or a USB hub. You can even expand the setup over time, making it the most versatile setup out there.

I think this is the best part of the mobile setup I've created: I don't need to have more wires and boxes costing me hundreds of dollars more. I will always have my iPhone and iPad with me, so this just makes more sense. It also helps make my setup portable, making my mobile setup that much better. So while I impatiently wait for WWDC to bring changes to the way I can podcast using only my iPad, I have found the best possible work-around for my uses. I'll share how I edit on iOS in my next post.

Here are the items you need to create the mobile kit with your iPad Pro (2018) and iPhone:

Links to everything will be below. I use affiliate linking. Don't @ me. ↩︎
This is the hub I use which works with my iPad Pro. You can use a multitude of others, or if you have a different iPad, you can use one that works for you. ↩︎
Seth was right. ↩︎
If you have an older device laying around which supports Ferrite or Rode Reporter, you can use this as the "storage" device if you really have an issue with what I've described here. ↩︎
there is a package deal which includes the mic, a boom arm, and a pop filter that I would recommend. This wasn't available when I bought my mic. There are also other mics and stands out there. This is just what I use, and it's inexpensive. ↩︎
I'd love to see a mute feature added in Ferrite for recording in the future to negate the need of an extra box. ↩︎
The prices I'm listing are in USD. Includes tax and assumes Amazon Prime shipping for everything. You may already have the cables and everything, so it could end up being cheaper for you. ↩︎

GoodTask 4.5: Checking All the Boxes

2019-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Over the course of the last year, I had transitioned away from GoodTask to Things, then Todoist, then back to Things. I might have even missed a quick affair with OmniFocus as well. But I digress.

GoodTask has been my long-time favorite Reminders client. From the surprise the first time I started really using it to now, it has made improvement after improvement in both functionality and appearance settings (love me those themes) on all platforms – iOS, macOS, and the Apple Watch. I was inclined to go back to GoodTask when the Apple Watch app was updated, so I moved everything over there in the beta. I had mentioned to the developer that there were a couple features which I was missing from Things, but I was very happy with the improvements to the apps. Those suggestions plus others were carefully considered, because they are now in the version 4.5 update of the app.

Tag Sorting

GoodTask 4.5 brings with it the ability to sort a List or Smart List based on tags. Tags are a clever implementation in GoodTask, which puts a #tag into the note of a reminder. GoodTask can parse this as a tag, and allow you to use that information within the note as a tag, much like the other information the developer uses to implement sub tasks. You can use all of your tags or specific tags per list, which is great for customizing how you view your different lists.

With the new tag options, I'm able to now recreate some of the features that Things provided which gives me a better view of my tasks in different views. It all stems from the ability to sort lists and smart lists using Tags first, then due dates, etc.

I absolutely love the headings feature of Things. When I have a specific project, having the breakout of different subsections is better for my brain. And with the tag sorting, I can re-create this now in GoodTask. For example, I can take all of the tasks in my Nerd Life^[1], apply the tags, and have the list sorted on them. While it may not be quite as pretty as the Things implementation, the capability in GoodTask allows me to break it down to key areas just the same.

Another key feature of Things that I adore is the Today view. Having your tasks along with the calendar is a fantastic singular view of what is ahead of me. Having a separate 'today' and 'evening' section has been critical for me to quickly view and clarify what needs to be done. Now with the tag sorting, I can recreate this view in GoodTask. I created a Smart List which includes my calendar, tasks scheduled for today, and any overdue tasks. This list is sorted by Tag then Due Date, and I also have my calendar events sorted on top, listed under the order section. I created a quick action to apply a #Today and #Evening tag as a toggle, so that I can quickly tag tasks which show up in the view. Again, this might not be as visually appealing as the Things view, but it provides me what I need while keeping the native Reminders service integration.

Completing Tasks

For a while now, I've been wanting to see more improvements to Reminders, but lately I've been wanting improved support within Shortcuts. When I think of what I want Shortcuts to ultimately be, I can't help but want certain features added: for Reminders, having the ability to check off a task would be beneficial for certain shortcuts. So while we wait Shortcuts.app to catch up, GoodTask has added a Siri Shortcut to complete a task (and do so in the background). You'll need to go to Settings → Siri Shortcuts → Add Complete Task to get the Siri Shortcut and/or add it to Shortcuts.app.

I'm getting old, so I take vitamins. I use a reminder to trigger this, so I don't forget. I took this one step further and created a shortcut to run on my iPhone which logs the vitamin intake – including all the breakdown of the various types of vitamins – into the Health app, as well as mark it in Streaks as complete to help me keep track of when I've taken it. I always thought it would be nice to complete the reminder as well, but I the lack of the feature has prevented it. But now, I can copy the exact title of the task (and it must be exact) for my vitamins, add a text block and some clipboard actions to save and retrieve,^[2] then add the GoodTask Complete Task action block; I also turned off the "Show When Run" option so that it runs seamlessly in the background.

I use the native Reminders notifications due to the fact that they remain on the lock screen, but actions like the one outlined above have me rethinking that approach. GoodTask allows users to run a URL from the notification, which means I could run the shortcut straight from the notification and complete it all in one go. I'll likely look to play around with this as time goes on.^[3]

The full list of improvements can be found on the forums. Having been away for a while, I can see that there is a lot more to offer now with GoodTask than ever before. The developer is listening to suggestions, is adding features at a manageable pace, and I can really appreciate the level of continued development for the app.

This is my own affectionate name for these things. ↩︎
I wish they would fix this so that I can just use text and not have the extra blocks. Sigh. ↩︎
Perhaps with iOS 13 around the corner Reminders will be improved, or third-party app notifications will be given the ability to perform in the same manner as Reminders. But I won't hold my breath for either one. ↩︎

Drafts for Mac

2019-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

For many years, Drafts has been the place on iOS where text starts. But for all of those years, there has been a missing component: a macOS counterpart.

That ends today.

Drafts for Mac has finally been released to the public. Last time there was a major release, I wrote the Macstories Review. But when it comes to a Mac and how best to integrate Drafts into the macOS ecosystem, I'm simply not the right person to do the review justice. But thankfully, one of my favorite internet people reached out to me privately about writing the review for it, and I was thrilled to even be asked. To be clear: they didn't owe me that, but it is honestly a nice feeling to feel respected within this community. They also reached out to Federico about writing for MacStories, and he agreed.

So, it's my pleasure to point you not here for a review, but over to MacStories where Rosemary Orchard has written a review of Drafts for Mac. It's most of what I wanted to see when I wrote up my Drafts 5.0 wishlist months ago: a way to edit the notes on the Mac so that users didn't have to roll a different solution or pass notes back and forth in odd ways. What the new macOS app provides is exactly that, along with workspaces, themes, tagging, etc.

What don't you get: the actions that Drafts is famous for on iOS.

Remember: this is a v1.0 application, not the v5.7 application that we have on iOS. It's going to take time to get there. The platforms are different: this isn't a "Marzipan" app, this is a full-fledged macOS app written from the ground up. Things will take time to get there. The macOS app does have the advantage of already having a rich ecosystem of automation apps to pull from, like Automator and Keyboard Maestro, so there are already was to implement some automation.

I'm really happy with the macOS version. For me, it is exactly what I need: a way to view and edit my drafts on the Mac for the single purpose podcasting. Perhaps my needs will change in the future, just like Drafts' place in the Apple ecosystem now that Drafts for Mac is finally here.

#ShotOniPhone Shortcut

2019-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Today, Greg Pierce posted a tweet about the new #ShotOniPhone Challenge:

My favorite part of this #ShotOniPhone contest announcement is the specification of a file naming convention.
I bet less than 0.1% of iPhone owners know how to save a photo as a file, rename it, and attach the renamed version to an email.https://t.co/1DOwvaOjvh pic.twitter.com/7C0Yh5xxlz
— Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise) January 24, 2019

Rene Ritchie followed up with this tweet:

#ShotOniPhone #RenamedOnMac
— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) January 24, 2019

And my reply:

#ShotOniPhone #RenamedViaShortcuts
— Tim Nahumck (@nahumck) January 24, 2019

When I first saw Rene's tweet, I knew he was being snarky. However, my first thought went to Shortcuts when I saw it (hence my tweet). Renaming of files on iOS is a perfect use case of Shortcuts. But rather than stop at just simply renaming a file, it's possible to submit the entry all with a couple of taps on iOS. And now that I've said that you can do it with Shortcuts, I figured I should make one if I'm going to put out the thought. So, with a little bit of work, I created the #ShotOniPhone shortcut.

When you install it, you'll be prompted to input your first and last names: these items are required for the file name if you are going to email in the submission. Once you've entered that information, you can either run this as a stand alone shortcut or as an extension from the Photos app.

The first part of the action checks to see if any images were input, and if not, prompts you to select an image; I've used this little block countless times in other shortcuts, and copied the same method here. Next, you'll be prompted for an image caption to go with the perfect #ShotOniPhone image. Then, the image will be given a new file name – which Apple requires for the email submission portion – using the dictionary items you were prompted for when first installing the shortcut and pulling the device type from the image metadata itself.^[1]

Finally, there are a few options for submission: Twitter, Instagram, or email.^[2] You'll select which one you would like to choose, and follow the steps from there. (For the Instagram step, it is important to note that the caption is copied to the clipboard and you will have to manually paste it in caption area of the app.) Each method passes the image in its full resolution to the application of choice; I'd recommend email as the first submission, as Twitter and Instagram will likely compress the image.

And that's it! This shortcut may seem complex, but it's really simple to run once you get it installed. Not only does it rename the photo for you, it also helps you submit your photo to the challenge. Now anyone can shoot and submit to this #ShotOniPhone Challenge, all from their iPhone. Turns Out™, you don't need a Mac to do it after all…

This was suggested by Thomas Verschoren, and I've updated the shortcut to reflect this. Thanks for the suggestion! ↩︎
Weibo is also a part of this, but I don't have the ability to add the action. So… maybe someone else can add it. ↩︎

Drafts 5.6

2019-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

Last week, Drafts released version 5.6. While it is not as big as some of the other releases before it, it does bring some important enhancements to the app.

Adding Shortcuts

It is now easier than ever to add a specific shortcut to run in Drafts. A new interface is presented when adding a shortcut, as you can see by installing this example shortcut and selecting a shortcut to add. It prompts you for a few different items for running the shortcut, and is a better way of implementing them via the URL scheme. I feel that this method is a bit more user-friendly now that a shortcut has been written to quickly add them, and requires no formal coding knowledge.

Workspace Changes

Workspaces have been available since version 5.0 dropped back in April 2018. It is the single biggest improvement to Drafts, providing users with an infinite number of filtered views of the draft list. Extending it further, you can apply action groups and extended keyboards to a workspace and have what I coined as a module. In Drafts 5.2, the script and capability of automatically making this possible was implemented. In this new version, it is now more accessible to the non-scripting user.

Within the Workspaces menu, you can choose to load in action group or extended keyboard for each of the different workspaces you create. This does sync across devices, so for most users, this is a better way to load module with a single tap without having to know JavaScript. You can also now load a workspace to a specific tab, saving a few taps if needed. However, I personally won't be using this as my setup involves loading workspaces differently based on the device type (as I laid out in my earlier Drafts piece).

Post and File Management Improvements

Drafts uses CloudKit to sync data to the cloud. There are more aspects of the drafts which are stored there, like location, tags, etc. which don't tie in nicely to syncing to an iCloud Drive folder. You can, however, use different actions to save specific drafts to other services like iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive. Previously in Drafts, the idea of keeping things in the app was not always something you would want to do: you might want to save it to Apple Notes via a share action, or send it to one of a handful of other services as a plain text file or Markdown file.

For the most part, I keep all of my writing in Drafts. Over the past year, I have more in that module than I would like to admit. And I feel some stress of keeping all of these posts in the draft list. With the new features, I have several different ways of handling this. First, I could simply mark the drafts which I'm actively working on and load the writing module to the flagged tab; this is easy enough to do in the workspace settings, and would quickly satisfy the need. But the file management capabilities are something else that I wanted to explore.

What I ended up arriving at was this: I can keep one or two active drafts in the list, and save the rest to a specific folder in iCloud Drive. Once I'm ready to work on another one, I can run an action and be presented with a list of titles to choose from; the action would then load the contents of the draft into my draft list with a specific tag, and I can start writing on it again. When I'm ready to publish, I take that final draft and move it in to my posted folder to file it away. This is all possible thanks to the FileManager script object methods.

I first borrowed from some of my previous scripts to ensure that I was saving things with the correct title. To save the file with that name, I used a file action step, set the folder location to /Draft Posts/ and set the content as [[draft]]. Once this action is run, the draft is then deleted from my draft list to keep it uncluttered.

The next action was much more difficult to create. Within the updated objects, I can pull out the path locations to files located in a specified folder. With a little script magic, I can turn those file paths into readable display names to choose from in a prompt; this will work with all of the files in the directory. Once I have the selected name, I can load that file into Drafts, tag it with my writing tag which automatically places the file into my Writing module, and I can start writing; I also used an "Include Action" step to load my Writing module to bring up my entire writing environment with one tap.

The last action is for publishing my post. I modified my existing standard and linked publishing actions – which I first introduced on MacStories for Drafts 5.4 – to save the file in a new way. First, I use the scripting to save the file one last time to the /Draft Posts/ folder location where I keep the draft posts, then move it to the /Posts/ folder where I keep my final posts as .md files. This happens at the end of the action after everything is posted. Why do this? It allows me to take the one true copy that I finally saved in my draft posts and then move it into the final location. I don't have to keep the files in multiple places and wonder which one is correct; instead, I just moved out the finished product.

I have also updated the HTML Preview step in my Post to WordPress actions above to include the new rendering options. With this update, Drafts allows the user to specify the rendering of text. Previously, only Markdown was supported in this fashion. But now, you can specify MultiMarkdown or Github–flavored Markdown, saving a bunch of script steps in the process. I updated WordPress actions with %%multimarkdown|text%% for the HTML preview, as well as improved the scripting to commit the Critic Markup changes to pass MultiMarkdown to WordPress, which you can find at the links above. And speaking of Critic Markup, a new highlight syntax color has been added. It provides a bit more visual difference when looking at all of your credit markup notations.

I'm really enjoying this update, as it's helping me reduce my mental stress by allowing me to manage my files in a better way. Rather than keep all of these possible post ideas within my draft list and cause me more stress. And if you're reading this and follow some of my other work, you know already how much I hate clutter…

Tactical Bag

2019-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

For a while now, I've had the same backpack. It's been my trusted bag for everything: work, travel, day tripping, etc. It carries everything I could think about needing and then some. But with some changes in my needs, I started realizing that for some situations – like going to my 3rd office that is known as Chipotle – it's way more than I need. I need something smaller on the weekends when I'm not lugging my work laptop around.^[1]

I needed something smaller, compact, focused. I needed a tactical bag.

So in my quest, I started thinking about what I would need for a trip for personal life, excluding work from it completely. I started developing a list of what I would need at any given time while on the go, and I was intentionally thinking of what I really needed for a day run anywhere I was going. I had some other needs as well: I wanted it to be as small as possible, have some RFID shielding, and also provide some anti-theft options. I did a lot of searching, and even asked Seth – the man who has a bag for damn near anything – about what he uses for this purpose. He had recently picked up the Pacsafe Vibe 325. It looked like a great bag, but it was a bit more than I wanted to spend.^[2] But when I looked for that bag on Amazon, I found a few other bags that caught my eye.

After a bit of sifting, I ended up finding the Travelon Anti-Theft Urban Sling Bag. While it doesn't look tactical the way a GO RUCK bag does, this thing just screams urban tactical. Even though this is a small carry, it's large enough for me to overpack it and get a lot inside of it. I ended up getting black, even though there is a gray option I might have liked more, because it blends seamlessly with the zippers.

There are a lot of anti-theft details of this bag: there are locking zippers to keep the compartments secure as you are moving around; the bag and straps have reinforced, anti-slash materials to keep the bag from being cut off my body; and the area for cards/passports are RFID shielded. These features make it a great bag for going around town, traveling to a big city via plane, train, or bicycle. I can even put a water bottle or Yeti tumbler on either side for travel.

[![EDC (/images/5156A67A-79D3-4D22-B157-27EBD4E75F15-1024x768.jpeg "Bag 2019]")](/images/5156A67A-79D3-4D22-B157-27EBD4E75F15.jpeg) This bag holds more than I thought it would.[/caption]

With this bag, I'm able to fit most of what I carry on a normal basis. In the bag, I have:

iPad Pro 11" with Smart Keyboard Folio and Apple Pencil
Anker Wall Charger with USB-C and USB-A ports
Cord organizer containing: Anker Powerline+ USB-C to USB-C cable, Anker Powerline+ USB-C to Lightning cable, Apple USB-C to Lightning cable, and the Satechi Mobile Pro Hub^[3]
Airpods
Foldable Wallet Stand
Glyf by Studio Neat
Joby Gorilla Pod
Magnetic Flashlight^[4]
Knife
Pen
microfiber cloth
A collapsible, reusable grocery bag in case I need increase my storage in an emergency, similar to these
Glasses case - usually carried on the side
reduce Water Bottle
Personal items: Passport, corporate AMEX, a Visa gift card (for emergencies only), Kleenex, Boogie Wipes, Purell, Carmen lip balm, nail clippers, and flushable wipes

That's a lot for me to carry on any given day; I don't carry all of the items all the time, but it's nice to know that I can if I want to do so. And while my goal of this bag was to be light-carry, this bag makes all of this feel minimal when I'm out and about, even when it's packed full.

I really love the way this has turned out. I wish I could use this all the time, but there are some things that I do need to carry during the weekday which force me to use my backpack. There is, however, a clear delineation with which bag I grab now. But for the times where I need to be minimal while still being dangerous, this will be my go-to tactical bag for the future.

Funny thing is that I decreased the weight of my work laptop by 4 lbs, but yet I still find carrying the thing a pain in my ass. ↩︎
He got it for free based on his REI dividend. ↩︎
This was a Secret Santa gift given to me by my cousin. It's monogrammed on the front as well. It's perfect for what I need. ↩︎
I got this at a local store. This is the best approximation of what I have. Cannot say I recommend it because I didn't buy this exact one, but it's similar. YMMV. ↩︎

A Little More on Critic Markup

2018-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

After the release of Drafts 5.5, I’ve been using Critic Markup even more for the writing I’m doing.[1]("#fn:1" ""see") I hadn’t really used it before now, so leave it to Drafts to provide me some tools to improve the way in which I write.

In that post about the improvements in Drafts 5.5, I had shared updates to my actions for standard and linked posts. These have been super useful for me. But there are others out there that need to use plain Markdown for their posts. I had a follower pose this request on Twitter, and I decided it would be a small challenge to tackle and share.

Unlike my preview action for my site, I needed to keep the raw Markdown, rather than convert it to HTML. This isn’t something I can do natively using the script objects. So I needed a different way to make this all happen. I first needed to identify the Critic Markup elements:

{++add++}
{>>comment<<}
{--delete--}
{==highlight==}
{~~sub~>substitution~~}

Looking at what I needed to do, it was apparent that I needed to first remove the comment and delete elements completely, then keep the text within the add and highlight elements. The substitution element is a bit more tricky, where I need to delete the first word and keep the second word, while deleting the surround elements. With a little help of RegEx, I came up with the pattern:

\{>>.*<<\}|\{--.*--\}|\{==|==\}|\{\+\+|\+\+\}|\{~~.*~>|~~\}

The pipe characters are essentially the “or”, and the rest is to separate the elements. Combining this with elements of JavaScript and the Drafts Script Reference, I created an action to accept critic markup in a new draft, and preserve the existing draft. I did this to show the main RegEx, but it could be used in other ways: this could be a simple script to create a variable for posting; it could be used in conjunction with a step in Shortcuts; or it could even be used when saving out copies of long-form writing.

As the Drafts community and others create new actions that result in tools for writing, it helps to make Drafts more accessible and adaptable to each user. Writing in it may not be for everyone, but you should try it out to be sure. You might be delighted with what you find.

Yes, it‘s been a while. Yes, I’ve been working on things here and there. More to come later. [ ↩]("#fnref:1" ""return")

Drafts 5.5 - The Markdown Update

2018-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

The latest Drafts update brings some improvements with Markdown syntax. In addition to the standard Markdown (which has been simplified to represent the original Markdown specification), there are two additional syntax options: MultiMarkdown and GitHub Markdown. MultiMarkdown is a flavor which allows for footnotes, tables, citations, etc. GitHub Markdown is a different flavor of Markdown which supports extensions created by GitHub for rendering on their website, and includes the extensions for strike-through text and tables. I personally use MultiMarkdown, the format with which I’ve been most comfortable writing.

One thing that is included with MultiMarkdown as an option is Critic Markup. Looking through the guide, there are several helpful elements that can be used for editing my writing utilizing Critic Markup. I can highlight some substitutions, additions, and deletions. I can highlight text to show something I might want to work on later. I can also add a basic comment somewhere that won’t be shown in a preview. And with this action, I can easily add any of them with a tap and a text entry, which inserts it in the proper format. This is helpful for creating and previewing the documents in Drafts, and gives users the flexibility to mark up files and save them back to a cloud service. I can see myself using this a lot for longer posts or large reviews. I’ve even modified my own site preview action to render the MultiMarkdown via scripting, as well as updating both my standard and linked post WordPress publishing actions to do the same.

Critic Markup in Drafts vs my site post

There are additional Workspace options for sorting. You can now include flagged drafts in the archive tab – the same way it is done today with the inbox – as well as optionally sort the flagged drafts at the top. And of course, support for using these is also added to the script object. This allows you to give a bit of priority to Drafts in your inbox, depending on how you have your workspace configured. I liken it to something like Gmail: there’s a giant inbox of drafts, and you have a starred list that can be used to filter priority; you can also option to have the starred emails on top to bring them into focus, or have them in their separate list. This smart addition enables more focus on key drafts in your list.

There are some other small improvements and fixes; you can read the full list here. It may seem like a small update to some, but for the advanced users of Markdown, this is a fantastic update. What this should give users a glimpse of for the future of Drafts: custom syntax highlighting. Currently, the following syntaxes are supported: Markdown, MultiMarkdown, GitHub Markdown, JavaScript, and TaskPaper. Whereas I love the new Critic Markup portion of MultiMarkdown, I would love to be able to customize my own syntax. When I used Ulysses for writing, I really liked some of the comment, highlight, delete, and other markup styles. Part of what makes Drafts so versatile to each user is the myriad of ways which it can be customized. Controlling the editor in this fashion would, to me, make the editor the most powerful on iOS. No other editor would allow for syntax highlighting for writing and coding in the same way. I know this will at some point be on the horizon, but that cannot come soon enough. I’ll patiently wait for it after the Drafts for Mac release.

Drafts 5.4: Siri Shortcuts, WordPress, and More

2018-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Me, writing for MacStories:

Drafts 5 was recently updated to version 5.4, which brings a host of new features. While there is support for iOS 12's Siri shortcuts and all that they have to offer, there are also other important features that have improved the app's capabilities significantly.

It's a really great release. And I was thrilled to write it for MacStories. If you haven't checked it out, head on over and read it there.

PCalc 3.8 With Siri Shortcuts

2018-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories:

Even though I don't consider myself an advanced PCalc user (I mostly use the app for conversions and basic operations), I've grown to appreciate the convenience of running frequent calculations with Siri and I've started integrating PCalc with the Shortcuts app in some interesting ways. As a result of its adoption of Siri shortcuts in iOS 12, my overall usage of PCalc has increased: I don't necessarily open the app more often, but I access native PCalc features either via Siri or Shortcuts from all of my devices.

I own PCalc and use it often for work. I use it in my widget as well. But I really don't use it much more beyond that. Reading what Federico has done with the app has me wanting to try a bunch of new things with the world's best calculator.

I'm excited to see this integration via Siri Shortcuts, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities that lie ahead with other apps providing the same integrations.

Piques of the Week: Volume 15

2018-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

It's been a bit since I've done one of these, but I wanted to share some of the things that have been piquing my interest as of late. I've made some good purchases on a few times, and wanted to share them.

iPad Case with Pencil

For a long time, I used the Logitech Create. Then I switched to the Smart Keyboard, as it made more sense to me. I purchased a back cover that I thought was ok, and then a magnetic pen holder. But… I really missed how the Create was able to hold my pencil for the few times I use it. Based on my Amazon search history, I ended up finding a new iPad Case w/ integrated Pencil holder. And it's really what I wanted in the first place.

The case provides a rubberized surround, which integrates the Pencil holder. There are two small cut-outs on the back side of the Pencil, so that I can remove it quickly. Once I'm done, the Pencil is secured, nearly encapsulated by the rubber. It also has a cutout for the Smart Keyboard attachment, and doesn't interfere with anything. This is by far the best combination I've used for portability and mode switching. I also know that there are cases like this for the other size devices, so give those a look as well if you're not using the 9.7" like me.

Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Microphone

When I started in to my podcasting life, I had purchased the recommendation de-jour for a microphone: the Blue Yeti. And that mic has served me well for a while. But one thing that has been a problem for me as of late has been the recording device that I use, a gifted 2009 Mac mini. It's an ok device for this purpose, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth.

So, in a quest to simplify things, I wanted to mirror the setup first mentioned by Jason Snell on Six Colors. This idea of recording on iOS only really appeals to me, as I don't edit on a Mac. So I set out on my quest to start this process now. I sold my Yeti and picked up the Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB/XLR Microphone. While I haven't recorded an episode yet with it, I have done multiple sound tests. And it's on par with the Yeti for quality, but it has one benefit for where I record: a reduction in background noise.

I've changed my entire setup now, which is great. I need far less around me, and I'm happy about it. I think the recording will sound better on my end overall, and I'll be happier using it. I did encounter a bug where iOS is not letting me use the mic for FaceTime or Skype calling. This was possible before, and is a bug that has been introduced in iOS 12. I've sent in reports on it, and I hope it gets fixed before release.

Newer Boom Arm

In the change of microphone, the weight has decreased significantly. And now that I don't need foam around the mic like I did before, I wanted to try it on a boom arm. I picked up the Neewer Boom Arm and bought a shock mount for it as well. It's up and out of the way when I don't need it, but it's right there when I do. I would have liked a slightly longer arm, but it does the job well for being inexpensive.

All of this stuff is really driving towards making an iPad-only life a reality. There's really only one thing preventing me from going that route forever,^[1] and I can't wait until Apple makes it possible. I even picked up an iPad stand based on another recommendation, pairing the iPad with the Magic Keyboard when recording. This puts the iPad right at eye level, which is better than constantly looking down. The whole thing feels like an overhaul for me, without costing me a ton of money; the only purchase left is the Zoom H4 recorder, which I can wait on for a while. This setup – even though it may not seem simpler – makes me feel like I'm headed in the right direction.

I need a way to upload external mp3 files into my iCloud Music library. I can only do this in iTunes on the Mac currently, and I don't want to spend $$$ on a new one. ↩ ↩︎

Taking Time With Todoist

2018-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

I've been using Todoist for almost two years now. I started integrating it into my system for work-only purposes, and it has served me very well. I have to use a PC for work, so the cross-platform support was essential in this process; with the Outlook add-on, it has really elevated my work flow of task management.

But it never really clicked for me on iOS. I'm not sure what it was. Perhaps it was the un-iOS-like interactions or the swipe to complete. I knew that there were some nice automation possibilities through various apps like Drafts, Workflow, Slack, and others, but it again, it didn't really grab my attention.

That was until the Drafts 5.3 update added Todoist support. In typical Drafts fashion, there is an action step and a script object, along with a handy integration guide for those that want to get a bit more familiar.

I'm not going to get too technical here, but it uses a particular portion of the API called "Quick Add": the best thing about this portion of the API is that you can type just as you would in the quick add window of Todoist. But the best part of this is that I don't have to leave Drafts to enter the tasks, there's no back-and-forth dance via a URL scheme. Just sending the tasks on their way.

Say I'm in a meeting: I can not only take notes and send the tasks to Todoist, but if I have another random thought I can add via a prompt-only information. And all of this gets added via the Quick Add, so I can type in all the information that I need right away. For example, I can simply type "Call Barney Stinson Tuesday at 7pm #Personal @evening" and it will all get added, with the date being parsed and the proper #project and @label being assigned. I can also create single drafts that contain a task with some notes in the body of the draft, and send it to Todoist with options, which imports the project and labels automatically for selection via a tumbler.

Utilizing Workflow Shortcuts, I've even been able to take some repetitive tasks and automate them with Todoist. Every week, I run a meeting that can be attended by between 1 and 150 people (don't ask). But I have to take meeting minutes for distribution. For a while, I tried just using pen and paper. Then I tried using digital paper on my iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. When that didn't work out the way I wanted, I decided that I would just start typing them out. So when I run the meeting, I present everything from my laptop and take notes on my iPad. At the end of the meeting, I can tap a single action that sends the [[title]] line along with the HTML-formatted text to create a PDF and save that PDF as an attachment to a task in Todoist with today's date and the project assigned. This small but effective automation has saved me tens of minutes per week. And that adds up to a lot over time.

This whole idea of quickly entering tasks is really important. I've talked a lot about capture before. And now I have an even better capture ‣‣ action (in this case send) workflow with Todoist. I can also see a balance of work and home, which would have required two apps before. I still think having that split can be beneficial, but for what is going on in my life – both at work and at home – this singular solution is working out really well for me.

There are some things that still bother me: you can drag and move things around, but it's not drag/drop like I would prefer. I'd like to drag tasks from the inbox onto a project. There isn't a dark mode (yet) for when I'm tasking at night, nor are there alternative icons for the app; both of these are nice touches to have, and is something I hope they consider bringing quickly to the app. And the app itself doesn't feel as whimsical as something like Things. But when it comes down to it, maybe I don't need to have whimsy in a task manager, and that's been holding me back in my tool-of-choice. I need something dependable, accessible, and manageable on a day-to-day basis.

Once I got past my own preconceived notions about using the app, it has been a phenomenal tool for me. I've even started sharing some projects with others via the built-in sharing options,^[1] and it's helpful when setting up something new in collaboration with others. Even though it is a small change in what I've been doing in the past and I've replicated a lot of my actions from other task managers, having everything in front of me is working at this five minutes for me. This is, of course, all subject to change. But I don't see it happening any time soon.

This requires that both people have Todoist Premium. ↩︎

Short Hiatus

2018-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Why hello there. It's been a while. The summer time is normally hard for most people, with big events, family vacations, and the extra daylight to spend all your time outside.

Except this summer hasn't been that for me. It's probably the busiest, craziest summer I've ever had (at least that I can recall). It's been full of ups and downs, and non-stop action every day. I can't remember the last time I had some true down time.

So what's been going on? Well, there's been a lot of personal stuff – too personal to get into on a public site. I've extensively journaled about it, which has been great. Personal life has influenced the vacations I took this summer - a grand total of zero. Kids have been active this summer, there's a ton to do around the house, and things slip through the cracks. It happens. I'm originally from east of Cleveland, so I know what it means to have it not be your year.

Work has been hellacious, but in a multitude of great ways. It's been busy with so much going on, but I'm managing more than ever. There's a shift in the perception of who I am and what I can bring, which has been fantastic. I've even switch to a single task manager rather than having two. Even though I enjoyed the bifurcation, this has been better for me this summer with everything going on. For now – and you know it is always subject to change – I've settled on Todoist. A huge reason why is the addition of the Todoist script objects in Drafts and the speed at which I can enter everything in. But more on that at a different time.

I have spent the summer doing a few things to take care of me. For too many years, I let certain things go. But in the spring, I came to the realization that I put off me too much, and I needed to reclaim some of it. So I've been working out regularly – three to five times a week. I'm making sure to complete those goals not for the gamification, but because I know the end result will be a healthier me. I'm going to bed at a reasonable time, and waking up at 5am every morning to get this done, but it's been better.

All this to say: all of this has made it so that I haven't been writing as much. I had planned on writing more on some aspects of Drafts after I wrote the review. I still have those plans. And I will do them. Life often just finds a way to get the way of some personal life stuff. But I don't regret the decisions I've made in reclaiming some "me" time. I'm working on a better balance, and a better me. A short hiatus every once in a while is a wonderful thing.

First Time Tooter, Long Time Tweeter

2018-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

Joe Steel, Writing on his self-titled blog:

In conversations I’ve had over the past week, it’s become clear that there’s nothing very self-explanatory about Mastodon as a social network, and that in many ways Twitter users are both prepared and unprepared for the experience.

With the state of things at Twitter the company and with Twitter the service, I'd be remiss if I didn't think about moving to a new social network. The idea of going completely dark doesn't seem like the right choice for me, but I'm not enjoying Twitter as much as I used to anymore. This was true before they #BrokeMyTwitter, but it's even more so now that some of the features I enjoyed – like activity and certain notifications – are no longer part of the apps that I use. I loathe the Twitter app, so it's just a horrible experience for me now.

Even though I have no idea what the hell Mastadon is all about, I did end up signing up for an account. I was able to get one on mastadon.social, under the same handle as my Twitter. I haven't "tooted" a single thing yet,^[1] and I'm not sure when I'll start. But I'm glad that Joe has taken the time to write an explainer. I have a much better understanding of what is going on with all of it than I did before, all parsed down to a single post.

The idea of leaving Twitter – one of the largest social networks on the planet – isn't really the answer I'm looking for with all of this. I'm looking for Twitter to take a stand against wrong-doing. I'm looking for them to curtail abuse and the spread of misinformation. I'm looking for them to improve their app experience, while simultaneously not being a dick to the developer community that made them who they are today. They need to be better, and everyone who uses (not abuses) the service deserves that too. But unless there are some major changes ahead, it doesn't hurt to have one foot in another door.

I find this whole "toot" thing hilarious. There's a lot of fart jokes to be made here. Yes, I'm a child. ↩︎

Arrange Mode in Drafts

2018-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

You know that I'm a long-time user, a self-proclaimed Drafts evangelist, and wrote a big review on the Drafts 5 release. But even I can miss some of the hidden treasures of the app from time to time.

As I'm going through the notes of the upcoming Drafts 5.4 update – coming out around when iOS 12 releases – I found myself looking at the upcoming list that will eventually become the notes in the "What's New" section on the App Store. Drafts has some of the best version notes in the app store, typically broken up into a "new features" section and the "other fixes and changes" section. Even in the beta, Greg provides detailed notes about each beta release.

So I was able to grab all of the notes thus far in the beta, and load them into a single draft. I created a couple of new headings for the different sections, and entered arrange mode to move items around. Something I didn't really highlight in my review is that you can use the combination of line and block modes to move items around. There were some beta updates that showed a new line here or there; others were the big new features, and I needed to keep those blocks together. I don't know of another app that provides the flexibility in this way, and it's fantastic.

But to my surprise, there was something I discovered when moving the lines around. New in the 5.0 release – that's right, from the beginning – is the ability to edit the lines/blocks by tapping on them. So not only can I move and change around a draft, but I can also fix a little mistake here there if I find them. I can also add to a section if I think of something to add.

This small, but powerful feature is well considered, even if it is hidden. It's a small delight that I found months after using the initial beta, and I'm so glad that I have.^[1]

Turns Out™, you learn something new every day.

Makes me wonder what other little features I've missed… ↩︎

Fantastically Good Parsers for Drafts

2018-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

One of the small, but powerful for which I use Drafts is sending multiple events to my calendars. And for a long time, I've used the power of Drafts' automation to send those events to my calendar via Fantastical.

That is until Peter Davison-Reiber created something amazing.

The great thing about using Fantastical for this purpose is the natural language parsing capabilities: I can simply type out a calendar event the way I need to type it, and it will populate it for me. But thanks to the incredible scripting capabilities in Drafts 5, it is possible to create the date and time parsing aspects – the part where Fantastical excels – and put that right into an action in Drafts.

The end result is as advertised – fantastically good. Not only does it replicate the way I input events into my calendar, but it does it even faster now that it's all native in Drafts. There is no longer a back-and-forth dance with the action to create multiple events. It runs quickly, and I can move along with what I was working on when it is completed. I can also include locations and durations as well. I can even use the calendar shortcut syntax (example: /w for my work calendar) with the action. It is a really robust solution.^[1]

And if that wasn't enough, Peter requested the changed in Drafts 5.3 which provide the same parsing for reminders as well, which replaces the other aspect of Fantastical for me. You can include the level of priority denoted by exclamation marks ! and use the reminder list denoted by the same shortcut syntax as the calendar (/inbox).

These two actions are what I had envisioned in the GTD module of my review. This is a case where I knew that they were going to be possible, but I do not have the technical knowledge to create. Initially, I wanted to create one based on some unique syntax, similar to the Send to Things action. But what Peter has done here exceeded my expectations and is fantastically awesome.

Cheers Peter!

There is a limitation of creating recurring events via the API. This may come in the future. ↩︎

Homescreen Update (July 2018)

2018-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

People often post about their homescreens. I've shared one of mine in the Club MacStories newsletter, but I thought it might be time to give an update.

A great homescreen starts with the wallpaper. I generally like a dark background for visual deference to the icons, and I like to have the same wallpaper on both. This means I need a high-resolution option. And with WWDC happening, I turned to 512 Pixels for my even-darker Mojave wallpaper.

My second pages on both devices are nothing but folders. This allows me to group apps that I search for via Spotlight search or don't regularly use into like categories. There are a bunch of apps on both devices on the second screen, too many to cover here.

The main focus for homescreen layout should always be around the dock.

The iPad Dock

When iOS 11 was introduced and the iPad dock was changed to be different than a larger iPhone dock, my homescreen immediately changed. I needed to move most apps into the dock to facilitate multitasking with apps in layouts. The usefulness of dragging an icon out of the dock and into a split view or as the slide-over app was a fundamental shift in the way I was using my device.

With using an external keyboard – first the Logitech Create, then the Smart Keyboard – it became apparent that I could use the shortcut of ⌘space to pull up Spotlight search from anywhere, and it meant that unless the app was in the dock, I didn't need to have it on the main homescreen. All I have to is search for the app I want, and then I can either tap to open or drag it into one of the app slots on my screen.

The apps I use the most are in my dock. The three center icons of my dock are similar to what I have on my iPhone. I like having those central in both places. Surrounding them are apps that frequently use during the day and/or in a split-screen setup. I have folders on either side of the dock: on the left is a folder of the "creative" apps that I use to generate podcasts or images for my site; on the right is a folder of reference apps.

Here's a list of the apps that are in my dock:

Creative Folder: Pixelmator, Graphic for iPad, Linea Sketch, Ferrite Recording Studio, Photos, MindNode 5, iCab Mobile, LumaFusion
Workflow 1
Calendar
Notes
Mail
Things 3 for iPad
Messages
Drafts 5
Slack
Twitterrific
Files
Safari
Reference Folder: Maps, News, AnyList, 1Password, PDF Expert, PCalc, Settings, Notes Plus, GoodNotes 4, Gladys, Documents, Transmit (RIP), DEVONthink To Go, and Dropbox.

The iPhone Dock

I tried a new setup a while back after seeing the homescreen master do it for his iPhone X. I thought that it would be great for using a larger variety of wallpapers, and allow me to break from my typical black and white image to something with some color. At first, I was hesitant to do this: it seemed more cumbersome and inefficient. But then I remembered my iPad homescreen, and thought that I should give it a try.

While the mechanics of the screens between the iPhone and iPad are different – largely due to the multitasking abilities of the iPad – the end result of this path has been the same: my most important apps in the dock, and other apps grouped into folders. I'm a proponent of the three-icon dock, and that has remained unchanged for a while. So for me, I needed to put the folder in the center for balance, with Drafts and Things 3 flanking either side. In the folder are my most-used apps: it is a mix of apps that change from time to time, but are all vital to my daily workflow. The folder contains (from top left to bottom right): Calendar, Music, Safari, Mail, Castro, Workflow, Slack, Twitterrific, and Messages.2

And the rest of the rows are blank. Which, as I said, seems to be very odd when you first see it. But, there are a few benefits. First off, I don't have the temptation: no tapping all the icons on the homescreen, no badges on the screen to pull my attention, reduced stress. I don't feel compelled to dive into Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube to look through content. It's clean, it's focused, and it helps me not sit and waste idle time. The other nice benefit is that I have a giant area to pull down on the homescreen, allowing me to quickly access Spotlight search. I'm actually faster at opening my apps now because I just pull down, type a few characters, and I'm there.

One of the biggest enablers for me was the new update of Drafts, and the subsequent updates after it was released. It has replaced so much for me that I find myself not using other apps and figuring out new ways to use Drafts in my daily workflows.

I've tried going back to icons in other rows. But it fills me with more anxiety, mental overhead, and makes me feel like I'm serving my apps instead of my apps serving me. Maybe one day I'll go back to it, especially with Screen Time, but for now, this is what I need and I love using it this way.

Homescreens are very personal. I often change my mind about them, but this is the first time in recent memory where the layout had remained the same. The apps in certain spots may change, but for the most part, the layout has remained the same for months now. I'm happy with it. I'm sure this will change when I get a new device, but for now, I'm happy to have it figured out and have less stress facing me in my daily life as a result.

Soon to be Shortcuts. ↩
I'm right handed, so Drafts is on the right for better access when I'm using my phone in one hand. I also have the folder set up to be more accessible while using my right hand as well. ↩

Drafts 5.2 – The Navigation Update

2018-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

I really like seeing the pace of Drafts development. I can't remember exactly where I heard Greg talk about it, but with the subscription model, he no longer has to wait a long period of time for big updates to drop new features; the releases can be done quickly, with focused changes in each one. This is great for him, and even better for users. Like the previous point release, the 5.2 update includes updates that provide better functionality within the app.

Draft Navigation

When writing my review, I needed a way to navigate between the different sections, and all of the subheadings I had created. I had developed an action to navigate to each of the markdown headers, which I was happy with at the time. It was nice to have that functionality to switch around where I was in my review.

Well, I'm happy to say that I have been Sherlocked.

In the upper right corner of the editor, there is a small triangle icon; when you tap the icon, you are presented with a navigation menu. Not only does this navigate headers in Markdown, but it also navigates projects in TaskPaper, and code blocks in JavaScript. It also include a top and bottom button, as well as a select all button.

Syntax navigation in Markdown, JavaScript, and TaskPaper

Additionally, using the keyboard shortcut ⌘\, you can use your external keyboard now to navigate your way through longer writing, coding, or task management projects. This implementation is much better than I could have ever programmed in an action, and it's great to see this type of behavior built into the application itself. As more syntax highlights come in the future, it will be nice to have navigation along with them.^[1]

Loading Modules

My favorite feature of Drafts has been workspaces. In the initial app release, it was possible to use the URL scheme to switch workspaces. Someone in the Drafts Community forum created a workspace switcher action group that could be customized to switch workspaces, using shortcut keys for external keyboards. While switching workspaces in this manner was fantastic, I wanted to see more in the way of loading modules. From my review:

Pushing modules further, I would love to see Workspaces get improved by allowing a pre-defined action group. That way when switching workspaces, the user can automatically have all necessary tools at their disposal right away, thus speeding up capture.

The idea of modules – using a workspace in conjunction with action groups – has been a game changer for the way I use Drafts. And now through scripting and URL steps, I can not only change workspaces, but I can also change the action groups in both the action drawer and extended row; this takes the module concept to completion. For those that don't want to get into scripting, new URL schemes are available to switch action groups: - /loadActionGroup?name=GROUP-NAME loads action group in action drawer, while /loadKeyboardActionGroup?name=GROUP-NAME loads action group in extended keyboard. If you want to switch workspaces and both action groups, you can have a single module action with three URL steps, one each for the component you are changing.

But for those that use scripting, there are additional methods that allow for some further capabilities with modules. Not only can you switch the workspace and load action groups, but you can show or hide the drafts or action drawer/list; if you had pinned the drawer previously, it will show up as pinned.

When running on the iPad, I want to have my draft list shown (and pinned); however, I don't want this to be done on the iPhone. When I run an action on either device, I want it to have unique behavior. Thankfully, there is a device script object that pulls which device I'm running the action on, allowing me to change the behavior of the action. For an example of using modules in this way, I've shared a Writing Module which contains the following script step:

// Get device model
var model = device.model;

var module = "Writing"
var workspace = Workspace.find(module);
var keyboard = ActionGroup.find(module);
var group = ActionGroup.find("Social");

// Show draft list if action is run on an iPad
if (model == "iPad") {
app.showDraftList();
}
else {
app.hideActionList();
}

app.loadActionGroup(group);
app.loadKeyboardActionGroup(keyboard);
app.applyWorkspace(workspace);
editor.activate();

This loads the Writing workspace and extended row, and puts my Social action group to the side. I can use this module to create posts like this one or share a thought or tweet storm to Twitter. When I'm done writing, I can use the external keyboard to quickly switch modules into scripting or task management.

I have even created some additional options in each one: if I'm on my iPad, my drafts list is shown on the side; on the iPhone, it hides the action drawer, presenting you with the editor activated. In some of the modules, I have also loaded different action groups based on the device I'm using. This gives me full control of what I do and where I share my writing, all with a single action; coupled with the use of keyboard shortcuts, this is now a powerful app-like switcher right inside Drafts. I even created a Select Module action with select boxes to load modules when on my iPhone, which I have added to each of my action groups for faster switching.^[2] I have placed a duplicate action at the beginning of every action group so that I can switch modules on the fly, especially when on the iPhone. And I've thrown them into a module action group, though I haven't made it an extended keyboard row option because I use the single action to switch on the iPhone and the keyboard shortcuts on the iPad.

Other Improvements

Speaking of sharing actions, there have been a few new elements added in the Action Directory. There are two new visual indicators: trusted member and tested action. These indications give users confidence that the actions listed have come from trusted sources and that they do not contain any errors. When I refer to errors here, I am not speaking about programming knowledge and efficiencies. It specifically refers to the result of the action and that it won't damage any of your data. This will be handled by the developer on a case-by-case basis: after all, this is Agile Tortoise's app, and they need to make these decisions for their app and business.

Another nice feature that has been added is the ability to assign tags after a successful action; this can be found in the action editor. When I post to Twitter, I will archive the draft and assign a tweet tag. There isn't a special script code block required like I had before, it's simply baked into the action. Users could apply something like a sent tag for messages or emails, or a submitted tag for when you're sending your writing off for review/editing. The nice aspect of this is that you don't have to apply the tags up front, but you can apply them after the fact.

The small but useful changes and new features are another nice release for Drafts. The navigational improvements are absolutely fantastic for how you move through Drafts. I'm getting very close to never leaving the keyboard when I'm on the iPad. I love how fast I'm able to switch through modules now, providing different the various different mini-apps at my fingertips to productively get everything done.

The navigation feature is based on the syntax highlighting. When customizable options come in a future update, you'll be able to specify the navigation as well. ↩︎
I also have one for buttons, which saves a tap. I do like the idea of "loading" a module, which is why I went with select boxes with a single "Load" button. Yes, I'm nerdy. ↩︎

Drafts 5.1 Update

2018-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

While I'm working on another large post, I wanted to put out at least a small bit about some of the added features in the 5.1 update of Drafts that has been released.

Tag Filter Improvements

I really love the addition of tags, and more importantly, workspaces. I did, however, have a couple of gripes about the features. My single gripe about filtering using tags from the review:

A nice addition to tagging not present in the app is an or function, which would expand the filtering to get drafts that are tagged with red or blue instead of red and blue as it is today, giving better functionality to the feature.

This has now been fixed. Whether in the tag drawer or within a workspace, you can specify "All" or "Any" for the tags. This distinguishes the behavior of the tags so that you can include the correct one(s) as you filter. For example, I have a GTD workspace. Previously, I'd have to rely on a single tag for this to work, and I settled on gtd. But now I can create new tags to not only add new drafts with similar tags, but I can also provide context within the workspace. I can have tasks, events, lists, calendars, etc. included in my GTD workspace simply by choosing "Any" for the tags.

This added flexibility I wanted to see has been quickly added, which is already reaping dividends for my productivity. Now all I need is the ability to set a default action group for my workspace, and I'll be all set.

Action Debugging Features

Action logging has been added to the action drawer. In the top right corner of the drawer, you'll see a clock-like icon located in between the search and menu icons. This contains the log of every action run, rather than finding it in the draft information screen, which is on a per-draft basis. This not only provides a nice log, but provides quick access for when you're de-bugging scripts. I've been doing a few large scripts as of late, and it has been saving me time along the way. You can also delete the logs as you go, if that's your particular cup of tea.

In addition to the log, individual action steps can now be disabled in your actions by swiping on the step in the action editor. This is useful when you want to troubleshoot errors and check steps along the way. Another useful option for this is for when you are someone who likes to move around apps. For example, many of you know that I like to change up my task management app of choice. Rather than create all-new actions every time I switch, I can simply disable the URL block for GoodTask and add a new URL block for Things or OmniFocus or 2Do. I don't need to clutter up my action drawer with similar actions that are based on a URL scheme any more. I'm going to need to refactor some of my actions, but I can already see how this is going to benefit me in so many ways. I've even done a packing list action for you already to show you how it works.

Event Action Step

You can now create calendar events by simply tapping on an action which brings up the default system card for event creation, as you would see in Calendar.app. There is a simple default action in the directory which creates a single event that takes the first line of your draft as a title, and the body of the draft as a note. You can select the rest of the parameters as you would in the calendar. when completed, you're back in Drafts, ready to go.

I've already modified this to take a selection rather than a draft (I don't usually use the note field in a calendar event entry), so that I can quickly add meetings or personal events from a larger note, rather than having to create a new draft when I want to create an event.

We're a month into the new version of Drafts, and already there's been some added features which were missing from the previous version, as well as some carefully considered features to help make life a bit easier for users. There are some other small features added, so be sure to read those in the release notes.

Drafts 5 Review

2018-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

My review of Drafts is out. But it's not here, not exactly anyway…

Drafts 5: The MacStories Review

I reached out to Federico a year ago and asked if he had anyone slated to write the review.^[1] I suggested to him that I would like to write it for MacStories, that I would be happy to do so. It wasn't long before he responded "yes, let's do this".

It was an amazing experience. As the production of the review progressed, that feeling only increased. The entire Team at MacStories has been delightful to work with, and I couldn't be happier than I am now with everything that has transpired over the past few months. It has been an honor to work with that team!

Writing while Greg was developing Drafts 5 through the beta process was a valuable insight into app development. It is rare to directly see the careful consideration an app developer makes when rolling out new features. Using the Slack channel as a sounding board, he would often listen to the suggestions being made; if he ever thought it was the wrong thing to do, he would state why instead of just "no". I know he has more planned for the future, and I'll be sure to follow-up when he does.

You can read the review at the link above. And if you aren't a member of Club MacStories, you should sign up: there's an ePub version of this as well.

Thanks again to Federico and the team at MacStories for giving me the opportunity to write for them, and for you the readers. This has been a labor of love for me, and I hope that shows through in the review.

Thanks to all of you for reading!

I cannot believe that it has been a year. ↩︎

Cheating

2018-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

For the past few weeks, I've been battling a couple of different illnesses. First, it wast the GI flu, then it was whatever I have now. And both times, I was basically down and out most of the day. I absolutely detest getting sick, and I'm admittedly useless when I get sick. Thankfully, my wife has been able to take care of things for the most part. I just pray that she or my kids (who likely gave this to me) don't catch it.

So in these times of being sick, I'm faced with a dilemma: how on earth do I complete my move goal? At the time of this writing, I've completed my move goal 296 times in a row – but it comes with a caveat. My wife will tell me that I'm cheating, but really, I blame Apple for what I'm doing. How am I "cheating"?

I lower my move goal.

I blame Apple because they really need to provide ways for people who are sick to have some rest days. How am I supposed to complete my normal 550 move goal when I have a 102ºF fever? There should be a way to change the Activity rings to a "sick" mode, where it lowers all three rings to a reasonable amount. While I'm at it: there should be a rest day, at least one day a week, that I can not complete my rings and the move goal streak can continue. Activity++ does this, and I like that the streak just continues even if you've taken a day off.

When I'm done being sick, I'll change my move goal back to what it was and complete it regularly. But if I get sick again, I'll likely lower it to reduce my stress and keep the streak alive. Sure, I could let my streak lapse and start over. But unless you're a superhuman, it's difficult when life gets in your way and things slip a day. I'm all for the gamification of things like activity, but I'm also going to game the system if there isn't a reasonable way to let me take care of myself.

GoodTask 3.6 Update

2018-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

There has been an update released today for my task management app of choice, GoodTask. There is a lot to unpack with this update; you can read more in the full details for the update.

There are some great things that I want to quickly highlight:

Full Drag/Drop support: There is a comprehensive list found in the full details. A couple of really nice touches include the ability to drag one or more tasks onto another task to create subtasks. You can also drag subtasks out to be full tasks.
Smart Button: Navigating your lists is now easier than ever.
Enhanced Tasks page: if you swipe from left to right on a task, it now puts you into the Quick Actions screen of your task. From there, you can use swipe to go to the other screens or the buttons at the top to change from screen to screen.
Subtasks: Subtasks have been improved by including them inline as part of the task. This allows you to see what is left of a small project and move forward.

I'm sure I'm missing some items, but it's the things that are making me stick with this. I'm absolutely loving my time with GoodTask.

GoodTask is available on the App Store for Free with an optional (but highly recommended) IAP of $5.

Fundamentally Broken - Season 2

2018-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

We've started the second season… series… whatever of the show. This entire run will be focused mainly on task management. It won't be about the apps we use,1 but rather the feelings behind the how, why, and what of our task management. We're really excited about it, and we hope you are too.

If you're interested, feel free to give it a listen wherever you get your iTunes podcasts, or give it a listen below. You may need to reload without content blockers to show the mini-player below. (Note: this podcast does - for a reason - contain the explicit tag. Not recommended for listening around your kids. You've been warned.)

We have websites to post about those things, after all. ↩

Content

2017-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

I'm usually stir-crazy when I use something for so long. I get antsy about what I'm doing, feel the need to change it all up, and try new things. But every-so-often, I end up finding that perfect blend of things that I need. I finally feel like I've hit a sweet spot for my task management workflow.

There have been changes that have lead to this: first, I strengthened my use of Drafts for trusted capture; this has allowed me to have one central place to enter everything and is engrained in my muscle memory. Then, I focused on how I get my information on a daily basis, which led me to the use of Reminders and the Siri Watch Face. I can use the Apple Watch as a tool to see what is coming next and focus my attention on my next action; I've even started using the Siri watch face in conjunction with my calendar, so that I can better map out my day. And when I started using the very surprising GoodTask, it has all come together in a great new package.

I don't feel the need to change anything, and I'm sure I could improve my workflow by automating it a bit more. I just don't feel like moving around apps and finding something else to distract me from what I'm doing. I'm sure there are some things that will change in the future.1 But for now, I'm content with what I have, and that's enough for me.

I know that Drafts 5 is coming, and I'm sure a GoodTask 4 is as well. Both will elevate my productivity to a new level I didn't previously have. Stay tuned for that. ↩

GoodTask 3: An Unexpected Surprise

2017-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

It's fall - damn near winter - and that can only mean one thing: time to make my task management more complicated. I often use the summer to make my life simple, and then spend some time making things overly complicated. I'm always looking for a better way to handle my tasks. I've tried many task managers, and had gone through all of them. Or so I thought. I've had a few people suggest some apps to me, and I often think: do I really need another app? Apparently, the answer is yes. But this time feels different.

Enter GoodTask. There's a lot to unpack here. I know I won’t cover everything possible, but I'll do my best to tell you why it’s important to me now. First and foremost, GoodTask - available for both iOS and macOS - is build upon Reminders. It uses the Reminders integration and provides very fast sync across devices and with the integrations themselves; in fact, I usually see a task show up in a second or less when I use Hey, Siri. The benefit here is that my tasks don't need to have a separate, proprietary sync engine: it can use native sync with all the benefits therein.

The iOS app is free, with a $5 in-app purchase to unlock the power features. While you can try the app, you don’t really get to experience the full app without buying the IAP.1 I’m using the best parts of GoodTask: the URL scheme, themes (dark mode!), text snippets, and quick actions. I'm not using the notifications, however; I'm still using Reminders for that aspect because notifications persist. Additionally, because I’m a big fan of the Siri Watch Face, my tasks are surfaced there without having to use a different app on the watch. The GoodTask watch app isn’t as good as something like Things, but it does allow you to see your tasks and add a new one from your wrist. In general, I’m adding tasks in other ways; if I have to add a task from my watch, I find it much easier to use Siri to do so. And that's a benefit of using tight integration with Reminders: I get all the benefits of a highly-functional app while using all the benefits of a native solution. There really is no down side here.

There are some additional benefits that GoodTask provides over Reminders. Search in Reminders is great, but GoodTask goes the extra step to have Smart Lists to create saved searches. This goes back to an aspect of what I loved about 2Do, and is something that I've missed while trying other apps as well. I can search text, tags, etc. to compile what I need to view across my tasks. The repeat options are the the same as Reminders, with one notable exception: repeat after completion. I really like using this option for tasks like specific cleaning, furnace filters, and other things that need to be completed with a frequency but have the flexibility of when I do them.

There are two unique ways that you can speed up task entry. First, you can setup customizable quick actions. These quick actions can be dates, times, time intervals, tags, etc.; there are even quick actions to set up repetitive tasks. I have a few set up for dropping off or picking up prescriptions, dry cleaning, and some other work-related tasks that aren’t regularly repeating, but occur frequently enough to have a quick entry option. The second quick-entry feature is user-defined text snippets. While it isn’t full natural language parsing, it greatly speeds up entry. You can add “Wednesday 7p” and it will set the date and time without having to select each one in the regular fields of the task. You can customize the snippets to work for you, using common words or other shorthand to enter your tasks quickly.

The developers at have come up with a way of storing extra information to provide greater functionality than the built in Reminders.app: by using the notes field of the task, they can add details about the reminder that GT parses. Because of this clever use of the field, the app can provide tags and subtasks: #tags have a simple syntax, where subtasks follow a more complex format of

..gt3[{"Subtasks":["0SubTask1","0SubTask2",...,"0SubTaskN"]}]gt3.

With that syntax in the notes field, GoodTask will read that information and treat it like a checklist.

Knowing the syntax of the subtasks and realizing that it can be read by adding text to the note field, I can start opening up some automation possibilities. When I started looking into moving some things over, I quickly realized that I can simply use Drafts for trusted capture, just as I always have.

I set up an action with Drafts that sends over a task via the Smart Add functionality of the URL scheme. When using Smart Add, the text snippets you type automatically expand and populate items. So when I look at the weather and see that it will rain in the morning, I can quickly open up Drafts, type "Take Umbrella tomorrow morning alert", and send a reminder into GoodTask; it will receive the text, parse the text snippets, and create a "Take Umbrella" reminder with due time of 7:00am that will trigger an alert.

That action is great for moving a single task or a selection over, but what about a list? This is where knowing the syntax really helps. I wanted to move my house list over to GT. It's a list of a plethora of items that I don't have time to complete. For a while, I've been using Drafts to store all of those types of lists. I've split it up now, with longer-term projects (like remodeling) residing in Notes and the remainder in a regular list.

Some of the tasks I have around the house are actually small projects, or a task with a few subtasks. Now that I know how the syntax works, I made a subtask creation key that takes a group of lines and turns it into the proper syntax for GT to accept.2 Then, I simply put each main task in the format task|note so that I could use this action that moved it over into Reminders. Here's a small example:

Again, the benefit here is using the backbone of the Reminders integrations. The input of the tasks from Drafts to Reminders is simple; the syntax that GoodTask uses to parse subtasks and tags allows for even better integration when using GoodTask as the manager. There are also numerous other possibilities for task entry. Users of Fantastical are able to use NLP to send tasks into Reminders, which in turn would show up in GoodTask. I can use Siri to add a simple task. I could use Workflow to create a task from the widget or the watch. I can use the Share Sheet to select Reminders, and input a task in that way. There are a ton of ways to enter my tasks.

There are some weaknesses, but they are small: I can’t use drag/drop to add a message in the same way I can in the Reminders app; I also can’t view a note when I use the “remind me of this later” feature of Siri.3 I’d really like to see 3D Touch and drag/drop improvements for the iOS app, automatic theme options for day/night based on location, and better visual indications for tags. I’d also like to have my view state saved by list, so that I can better view my tasks in each list; my all tasks list would likely be a week view, while my individual lists would be a list view so that I can see all of them. The basis for all of these things are there, and it will just take a bit of effort to incorporate them. Judging from the emails I’ve sent in and the quick responses from the developer, I’m guessing these things are coming soon.

I'm really looking to the future of this app, and I feel like I have found a solution where I can get all of the benefits of a power-user app while keeping the native aspects I wanted. GoodTask is the perfect blend of what I need: it's a powerhouse tool when it needs to be while giving me all the benefits of the Reminders integrations that proliferate throughout iOS for easy task entry. Until Apple does an overhaul of Reminders, this will serve as a phenomenal surrogate.

My hope is that in the future, the developer will allow a 2-week trial similar to other productivity apps so that you can really understand the full potential of the app. ↩
I’m not a programmer, so the key isn’t perfect. It will take separate lines and group them in the syntax. If you don’t highlight the lines, it will input some text. If I was better at this stuff, it would be improved. But, it’s what I know how to do. ↩
Which works about 10% of the time and is frustrating as all hell. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 14

2017-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

iPhone 8 Plus + Portrait Mode

I said I wasn't going to upgrade. I was just going to keep my 7 Plus and not bother with the hassle of going to the store and getting a new phone. I didn't want to get yet another case; I'm partial to the Apple Leather Case for my phones, and spending yet another $50 on one wasn't appealing.

But as I looked more into it, there were some appealing features. Apple also removed some of the friction for me: the iPhone Upgrade Program was streamlined to be done through the mail at home;1 my beloved case could be reused on this new phone. I was also reminded a friend of mine that I got into the upgrade program for a reason. And I have childlike will power with things like this. So, naturally, I upgraded.

The phone is great. It's even more capable than the 7 Plus, and I thought that was plenty fine. The updated hardware is great: faster chipsets, upgraded specs, new (to the iPhone) technologies, and the improvements to the screen thanks to True Tone. All of the this is enhanced by the features in iOS 11. But the one place Apple - and Phil Schiller - really push the phone to new heights is the camera.

The iPhone optics and sensors make this a fantastic point-and-shoot camera. At the very least, it is good enough to bring with you and not have to carry around another electronic item. Sure, there will always be those that prefer a true DSLR and lenses galore. But having a camera always with you in your pocket is great to capture a lot of moments.

With the improvements to portrait mode and the additional features brought to the iPhone 8 Plus, this camera is simply stunning. There are much better photographers out there that can take way better photos than I can. But it really is amazing that my not quite 5-year-old can take a photo that looks really great. I had to instruct him what to wait for, but once he got it and knew when to snap the photo, he has been able to take some great photos on his own. The photo below was taken by him; it is a portrait mode photo with the contour light mode selected. My dad told me it was one of the best photos taken of me in years. I’m really looking forward to the images that I — and more importantly my son — can take with the new phone and the new features in the future.

Anker Wireless Charging Pad

I’ll admit, when I saw this I shrugged my shoulders. It didn’t seem like it was something I was going to need in my life. I have about a dozen extra lightning cables and [ineffective] small wall chargers that I get with new devices. I have plenty of places I can get power.

I thought I should, at the very least, get one to try. I’m huge fan of Anker products: they make great stuff and reasonable prices. I have an assortment of stuff from them — wall chargers, lightning cables, a Bluetooth speaker, etc. — and all of them are fantastic. So when I wanted to search for wireless charging, I sought out Anker for my needs. I found the Anker Wireless Charging Pad which was compatible with the fast-charging on iOS (with the right adaptor and a forthcoming iOS update).

And go figure - it’s exactly what I never knew I always wanted. Being able to set my phone down at night and just let it charge has been a delight. I’m curious to see when it gets the fast charging later this year, but for overnight it is perfect for what I need.

I’m sure I will test other options in the future, but for now this little puck has brought me simple joy.

Apple Watch Sport Loop Band

Hello, my name is Tim, and I have a watch band problem.

There, I’ve said it. I feel better. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m likely going to buy more bands. I have a lot of sport bands in multiple colors — 11 in total. I have a Milanese loop and a Monowear nylon active band in olive green. I really like coordinating them with my outfit and having different options for the activity I’m doing, whether it be working out or yardwork. For example, I have a Nike sport band (knockoff) for when I work out. And while it’s nice to have the breathability with the extra holes, it still picks up a ton of sweat. It was the best solution for me at the time.

Enter the Sport Loop for the Apple Watch. This thing is awesome. It's basically the cloth equivalent to the Milanese loop. It's breathable, soft, and holds my watch snugly in place without being too tight. I've worn it while working out and sweating profusely. I’ve also worn it in the shower, and it was dry before I left the bathroom; it doesn’t stay waterlogged like you think it would.

To date, this is my favorite band; I haven't taken it off since I got it. I keep looking at all of the other bands and wondering if I even need them. I look forward to additional colors as time goes on.2 If you have the money, I highly recommend picking one up.

Seriously, the ease of doing this and not going to the store is huge, and reduces the anxiety I would feel when going to the store. The packaging for it was phenomenal. Highly recommend this option for anyone out there, even when your store is down the street. ↩
What, you thought I was going to stop at just one? ↩

Rethinking Reminders

2017-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

One of Apple’s fundamental strengths is creating software for the masses. You may scoff at this remark, but it’s true. Look at the ubiquity of Messages, Mail, and Notes: there are other apps out there for power users, apps that offer greater functionality, and apps that have better design elements in place.

And while there could be improvements to a lot of what Apple creates in their software, they have been getting better at creating apps that most users will want to use. If we take the example of Notes, we can see the potential Apple has for creating great software for most users. With the added features in iOS 10 and 11, Notes has become a powerhouse app while maintaining the usability for everyone. Over time, Music and Podcasts have gotten better.1 Mail isn’t great, but that might be more a function of email and email providers rather than Mail itself. But one of the most useful apps on iOS is in dire need of a refresh, a reimagining, and a glorious rebirth.

Reminders.

Task Management for All

It’s no secret that I love task management and task management software. And given that I’ve tried a bunch of software, I’d like to think that I have some perspective on the subject. I think a lot of people’s lives can be improved by task management. For years, I’ve tried to get family and friends to see the benefits; sometimes they do, most times they don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from trying.

What I have often found is that the idea of downloading a separate app bothers people. Sure, they’ll have a few dozen free apps - camera and photo editing apps, several social media apps, a bunch of couponing apps - but heaven forbid they get a paid productivity app involved in the mix. The mental friction of having a separate app to manage their lives can be difficult to get over. This is usually the point where I suggest simply using Reminders: it’s basic enough to get the job done, it’s a part of the OS, and they don’t have to pay to try it out. But the app isn’t where it needs to be.

Apple could take Reminders forward as a key app in the ecosystem if they wanted to do it. And it’s not too far off now that iOS 11 has been released. Reminders can improve in a lot of ways to support further use of the app without taking away from its simplicity. It can be made into more of a task management system with some small changes to the layout and features, all while keeping it simple and easy to use. Sure, there might be some better options out there like OmniFocus, Things for iPhone/iPad, 2Do, or Todoist; but each of those options are for different levels and styles of task management, and can be difficult to onboard with someone who has never used a complex app before.

What I can envision for Reminders is a blending of the some commonly used features for these apps, and doing what they do best — create a version that, while not first, is nearly equal to alternatives and is natively a part of the OS. And it can do all this while maintaining one of its own strengths: being native. There are some simple features that could be added without much of a problem, while others might take some re-thinking and redesign in the future.

New Layout and Aesthetic

There are many changes I would like to visually see, as well as adding some new features. Doing so would not only help this app excel, but also by extension help the user better understand his/her tasks and aid in a true task management system. First things first: take the linen paper background and burn recycle all of it.2 In the UI refresh of iOS 11 and the move to the Editorial-style layouts, I am surprised to see Reminders be left behind. It’s dated, serves no purpose, and really limits the possibilities of the interface going forward. If we look at something more modern, say Files or Mail, there are many positive things that Reminders could borrow from its native counterparts: the dedicated side bar and its behavior, sort states that could be modified to fit the task management paradigm, and there is enough space to have clarity and utilize the space to push an updated UI that works for lists and tasks.

Now that we have a better canvas to work with, the view into your task management can be changed. For the most part, keeping lists separate can still work; in fact, for non-power users, this is likely a preferred method of seeing tasks; in a compact view or slide over, it would present in the same way. For power users like myself, I often want to see all of my tasks at once. Sure, you can keep a separate list of your tasks in another app like Drafts or Notes and move them over when you need them; but using a system like this (as I’m currently doing) is a bandaid. It would be nice to keep all of this information in one place.

I think Apple can accomplish this by utilizing system lists, like that of the Scheduled list. It could be in its own section of the app, similar to how Favorites is contained in Files. By adding an All Tasks list, the user can see all of their tasks presented to them. There would be headings for each list, denoted by their color, which separate the tasks; additionally, these can be foldable headings to minimize what is in view. This would also enable drag/drop within the full task view between lists without having to leave the current view. In the future, allowing for the addition of user-generated Smart Lists would be a huge benefit to those with many tasks. There could also be a completed and recently deleted task item for the times you make a mistake so you can recover your work, or if you really want to see what you have completed along the way.

By providing a more modern design, Reminders can have the simplicity it has today while expanding its capability. The utilization of space and information density can be increased with the new UI, while still maintaining the most basic task management. Some of the existing interface for lists can be carried over, namely the color and sharing interface. The task editing can remain the same, but can be presented in an iOS 11 style. It no longer would make Reminders the bastard child on iOS, but would make it part of the new iOS family.

By giving the user an opportunity to view their entire task management structure, it will allow a more-than-casual task management aficionado to really power through a review of what is going on with their entire life, all while using a native solution on iOS that integrates with the entire system.

Drag and Drop

Speaking of drag and drop, I would love to be able to drag anything over to be reminded of it. Think of the “Hey Siri, remind me of this” feature, but without using the voice. I can do this already with a link from Safari or an email. But what about a specific Note? Dragging over a specific note currently copies the entire text contents of the note, rather than a link back to the note itself; I can, however, ask Siri to remind me of this note later, and a link to the specific note is inserted. The difference in behaviors is maddening. Unifying them, or at the very least presenting a user with the option to import a link to the note or the text using a contextual menu, is better for the user in every way.

Additionally, drag and drop could bring some other features into Reminders. The ability to add documents, images, etc. to any task is now possible thanks to drag and drop. Having the option to add additional contextual information to a task would be immensely helpful. Need to get a grocery store item, but want to make sure you get the right thing? Now you can take a picture, and drag it right onto the task; the image would be added into the notes section of the task. Want to be reminded to take action on a specific file? Simply drag it from Files, and a rich link to the file would be created. You can tie the important information into a task from multiple sources across the system.

Other Features

Sorting is badly needed in Reminders. The UI elements are there today in Files, and they could be presented in Reminders in the same fashion. Having the ability to sort lists based on due dates, priority, tags, and name are basic functions that any good task manager should provide. If they are provided in other Apple apps, why not this one?

The repeat features of Reminders have been greatly improved over the years, but there’s room for improvement. Most 3rd-party applications have options for repeat after completion, weekday/weekends, and other custom repeats. Going forward, having a pause option for repeating tasks3 would be a fantastic feature to implement; it is a great feature for the user going on vacation.

One of the biggest benefits to making these changes in Reminders is the additional benefits of a native solution. This will play well with Siri, the Siri watch face, and all of Apple’s 1st-party apps. I don’t have to figure out how to mispronounce the name of the app I’m using, I can just speak what I need to do. It can utilize all of the newest frameworks and APIs that Apple releases. It also means that some of the existing features, like list sharing, and can be applied to tasks as well. How great would it be to have native, 1st-party collaboration for task management right out of the box in iOS?

I could go deeper into this, but I’m leaving a lot open for Apple to figure out. The mockups that I have created — all using Pixelmator on iOS — are just a start of what could be; I would love to see some small UI differentiation while still maintaining the overall aesthetic that is found throughout iOS. Maybe they have a better solution in mind, but I hope that they take some key elements from amazing tasks management apps out there, while simultaneously combining it into their own solution that works across the operating system. It needs a functional and visual overhaul, and with the new Editorial UI that has been put into the system, now is the time to make that change.

Presenting new users with a deep-linking paradigm in a non-complex manner will help them better understand what is possible with their operating system and allow them to explore new options. Giving users the options to view their tasks in multiple ways by making things extensible using existing system-level interactions is the best way forward for Reminders. If it is built into the system from the start, there’s a better chance that users will utilize its functionality to enhance their lives, which is something that Apple as a whole strives to do with their products.

It’s time to rethink Reminders and give it the update it so desperately needs and deserves.

I know there are some out there that would argue this point and say that Spotify or 3rd-party podcast clients are better. But this isn’t about the tech users, but rather the general user. ↩
Grab Notes and do the same, while you’re at it. ↩
Steal inspiration from Things here. ↩

Keep It Simple

2017-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

After my big work trip, I immediately loaded the betas of iOS 11 and watchOS 4. I spent the whole summer showing restraint, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. So I backed everything up fully — once to iCloud and once to iTunes — and loaded them on.

What I’ve noticed in two weeks is that there are some small, subtle changes in a few key areas that have a very large and profound impact on how I use my devices. And some of them are really, really great. It’s brought me back to a place I’ve flirted with before, but now I can see my tasks with a new perspective and with a renewed focus. And it started with trying out iOS 11…

iOS 11 on the iPad

Fairly recently, I got an iPad Pro. It changed a lot about how I use my devices, my workflows, and elevated my productivity. I was able to get a lot of things done before; now, with iOS 11, I’ve never been more productive. Having iOS 11 on my iPad is like having an Aston Martin DB11 and adding all of the James Bond gadgets you can handle; it becomes a much more capable machine without changing its form.

The multitasking has taken some getting used to, but I’m constantly flying between spaces and slide over. I’m using different apps in slide over depending on the mode or context I’m in (think social, productivity, finance, etc.), but it feels very freeing now that I have somewhat of a handle on it. As time goes on, I’m sure that feeling will increase even more.

There’s a lot more with iOS 11 - like the new on-screen keyboard that has the flick gesture that I want on the iPhone too - but I’m going to let that be done by the professionals.1 The good news of loading on the beta is that I no longer have a desire to figure out how to sell the 9.7” iPad Pro to get the improved 10.5” model. This thing handles everything that I throw at it, and I don’t have to jump through hoops to get there, which makes me happy.

Management of my tasks is now primarily done on the iPad; there are so many times that split screen has been a godsend for my productivity, and that is the most true when it comes to my daily task management. Having a good watch face to help me through my day had been pretty great before. I often used the Modular face with my task manager’s useful complication and watch app. But with iOS 11 comes watchOS 4, and now there’s a better way…

Siri Apple Watch Face

I’ll admit, when I first saw the watchOS 4 portion of the Apple Keynote, I wasn’t really blown away by everything. As I started working out, there are were some small improvements to how the workout app behaves on the watch. And when I loaded the beta on my Watch, I discovered that I was enamored with the Siri watch face.

A while ago, I created a Today workflow: this workflow would pull all of the information from my calendars, tasks, etc. and put it into my focus for the day. The problem with that was always this: I had to go seek the information, i.e. run the workflow. What I had always wanted was that information to automatically surface when I needed it. What I really needed was an assistant to get me my information and send it to me. I tried using Slack and IFTTT to help me with that, but it never seemed to work out the way I thought it should.

Now I have the Siri Watch Face. It brings up my calendar, the weather, the sunrise/sunset all in the order it’s happening. It still doesn’t bring up my tasks, at least not where I had them.2 I would love to see 3rd-party integrations for task managers or other calendars, weather apps like Carrot Weather or Weather Atlas, and even an Activity card to keep track of my progress throughout the day. Opening this up to the 3rd-party ecosystem will bring powerful new tools to the user, and allow the user to use their default applications in a new way to benefit their daily lives.

Overall, the Siri Watch Face is really fantastic, but there’s one thing that would make it even better: surfacing my tasks for me. And to do this, I need one more thing…

Reminders + Drafts

I’ve been down a road like this before. And there were some things about it previously that didn’t work for me. But there are a lot of things that have improved with the new operating system updates.

What I realized was that although having a dedicated task management app like 2Do, OmniFocus, or Things to house everything can be helpful, I really don’t need to have a complex system. What I needed was a place to house a large list, and then a way to move some of those things that are ready into my focus and apply some triggers (reminders) to execute my next actions. I don’t need a complex set of nested folders and lists; after all, I used to use a piece of paper and a pen for all of this stuff. After I sat down to figure this all out, I ended up just needing a more simple list structure: my master lists in Drafts which provide my areas of focus, my Inbox in Reminders for focus on next actions, and my recurring list in Reminders for when I need nudges for medicine, trash, and the like. And this setup works extremely well for me on the iPad Pro in split screen.

There are some challenges to using it in this way: how can I see everything that relates to my Home list now that it’s split between Reminders and Drafts? Tagging. While I wish that Reminders would get the ability for tags as has been done in Files, I’ll have to run with my own solution for now. It’s something that I’ve seen before,3 and it should help me with a lot of what I’m doing. For each list, I’ll tag it with a x[tag] format: for home, it will be xhome; for podcast stuff, it will be xpodcast. I’ll apply this to the items in my master lists and also the reminders that I pull into my inbox. I can then use Spotlight search to view everything related to that; within the apps, I can search for them. In Drafts, I have a filter created to search for xtasks, which I have put in each focus list I have. It’s a bit more work to type those tags in, but it’s going to be extremely useful going forward when I need to find something quickly.

Previously, I tried using Drafts + Reminders.app. I would send tasks over via actions and then apply the date/time to get them done. And while that could have worked then, for one reason or another it didn’t. But now that I’m a little older and little wiser, my mind has been opened slightly and I’m learning about how I operate; what I’ve come to realize is that I need simplicity. So with that in mind, now I can highlight my next actions/tasks in Drafts and drag/drop them into Reminders. From there, I can set all the things I need to do.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why not use Notes for your lists? That has a lot to offer: search, formatting, rich links, images, etc. That seems like a better solution. And you’re right. Well, for now you’re right. Part of why I want to keep Drafts as my repository for the lists is because I want to future-proof my plan. And I’m hopeful that syntax highlighting comes to Drafts sooner rather than later. On the image below, I have the same list in Drafts and Ulysses, just to show the difference it can make. The visual difference between the two is important. Now I can navigate through my lists with ease. So in the short term, I’ll live with the syntax the way it looks in hopes that the next version of Drafts supports this so that it makes my life easier. If for whatever reason it doesn’t, the good news is that Drafts is extensible enough and I can share this into Notes without a problem.

If in the future I need to expand my lists, I just simply need to create a new area of focus, tag the list appropriately, and add tasks to my Inbox in Reminders. From there, I just have to utilize my watch to help me get things accomplished. The system is good for small amounts, and I’m sure it can handle even my complex projects with ease.4

What it comes back down to is using Drafts as a central place of capture, something I have utilized before. My system has changed once again, but here it is that Drafts is at its core. This small little thing has reduced the mental friction of “where does this go”. I know where it goes. It goes in the place where all of my thoughts start. I might need to send it to another place — via an action, with drag/drop, or simple copy/paste — and then attach a reminder, but that’s ok. I can do that sort of thing on the fly without having to worry about where to start it. And for someone that can often get overwhelmed with how much there is to do with all that life throws at me, knowing that I can start in Drafts is a huge key to any success I have with my tasks life. Using Drafts in conjunction with native apps has led to bigger and better things that I originally had planned.

I’m also reminded of something that Merlin Mann often says on his multitude of podcasts (paraphrasing):

Try just talking to your dingus. Use Siri. Use the new features. Use the apps that you haven’t tried in a long time. A lot of this technology has improved with time.

He’s right. Things have improved with the help of integrations over the years. And while I would absolutely love to see Reminders get the same awesome treatment that Notes has received, it’s still not going to have a ton of nit-picky settings that other task managers do.5 So I should try to use it the way things are intended so that I can see what I can get out of it. Does it mean that I’m going to be able to manage some complex stuff? No. But it can be awesome when you start working within the ecosystem to make it work for you. You might not have a flesh-and-blood assistant, but you can have a better digital one than you’ve had in the past. The more you use it, the more you figure out how to work with it, the more you are going to get out of having this virtual assistant on your wrist.

With all of these changes, I can now manage all my tasks using my iPad Pro or iPhone running iOS 11 - my master list in Drafts, my focus list and recurring tasks in Reminders - and have it all surface for me on my Apple Watch on the Siri watch face. It puts it all there for me to look at in one scrollable view so that I can make sure I’m focused on the right things. The information I’ve stored is being surfaced to me. I’m letting go of the preconceived notions I had about what I should be using, and thinking about the way I want to work. I’m pleasantly surprised by how well this is working, and it’s only been a couple of weeks. How long will this last? Who knows. But I really like where this all is headed. I think I’ll set a reminder for next September: “Hey Siri, remind me in September to keep it simple.”

This post was originally a “Piques of the Week” post. I have taken most of that post and turned it into this one. Apologies for those that are re-reading some of this again, but it was the right thing to do.

It’s a fantastic review that you can read in chapters on the web. Or download the ePub. Or listen to in audiobook form. It’s just very, very well produced. I hope to eventually be as good as Federico and the team. Bravo! ↩
I was using Things for iPhone and iPad for most of the summer. Fantastic app. I’m still using Todoist for my work tasks. ↩
I think I saw Gabe do this first, but it could have been from Merlin Mann as well. I can’t remember. Whomever it was, thanks. ↩
My life is complicated, more than a lot of others. However, most of the tasks that I do are simple and don’t require a lot of steps to be written down. ↩
Please, anyone at Apple that reads this: please make this happen. Reminders could be great, but it needs a bit of love. It’s not that far off, and I have ideas. Perhaps I’ll write them out. But it can be done. And I hope that you do it. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 13

2017-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

In preparation for my upcoming trip, I wanted to make sure I had the right stuff for travel. Being that travel preparation is so important, I wanted to make sure I had the right stuff. I wanted to travel light, small, and better than I have previously ever done. In my research, I found these items:

Dash Hardside Carry-on by Brookstone

I've wanted a piece hardside luggage for a while. From what others have shared with me, it can allow you to pack more while using less space. And while there are many travel professionals out there with their ultra-fancy suitcases, I didn't need that much for travel. I ended up finding the Dash Hardside Carry-on by Brookstone as a perfect carry-on bag.

Why a carry-on? A couple of reasons. First, I tend to overpack.1 But I need to travel extremely light for the trip I'm undertaking. I can also do laundry when I'm there, so I'll be good. Second, I wanted a bag not only for this trip, but for future family trips where that can be our carry-on bag. The Dash is designed to fit into any overhead bin. With the 360° spinning wheels (which I love so much), it's going to be great for going through the airport.

This bag is light-weight at 7lbs thanks to the polycarbonate shell, and I've been able to pack a lot of things in there thanks to the expansion zipper and some other travel accessories which I'll get into below. I'm all packed and ready to go for this trip, and I'm thankful I'll have this bag with me.

Eagle Creek Garment Folder

Packing a lot of clothes in your suitcase can be tricky. And even though some bags allow you to compress the items within, there are some other options to help minimize the space certain garments take up. Enter the Eagle Creek Garment Folder.

This folder comes with a helpful folding board with instructions. The two wings on the sides offer compression of the clothes to help minimize wrinkles and save space in your bag. And at 12" x 18", it fits perfectly inside my 20" carry-on.

Packing Cubes

I've never really thought of using packing cubes. But for one reason or another,2 I ended up finding some to try out. First, there are a lot of options. But I ended up going with the Mossio Packing Cubes: there are 3 cubes, 3 laundry bags, and 1 shoe bag. And for $15, this seemed like the best deal for me to try.

While they are inexpensive, these bags are hardly cheap in feel. They use YKK zippers stitching, and have a thicker nylon fabric. The bags and cubes come in small, medium, and large sizes. The cubes fit nicely in the bottom of my bag, arranged neatly. Next to them are the laundry bags that also contained some items. I was able to place the garment sleeve on top of these, and the entire other side of my suitcase was left open.

I'm so happy with these, that I've ordered 3 additional sets: one for each member of our family, each in a different color. This will be very helpful for longer family trips: we can cut down on the number of bags we take, and use the packing cubes to distinguish which close belong to which person. For $60 total, we will be more organized as a family. I'm all for this.

I'm traveling for 2 weeks straight. And while there will be an opportunity for me to do laundry, I'm going to be happy that I'm able to pack everything I could need into my new suitcase and my backpack. Bon voyage!

I like being prepared ↩
That other reason being Amazon Prime Day and a bunch of them were on sale ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 12

2017-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Smart Cover for iPad Pro

When I first purchased my iPad Pro 9.7, I immediately wanted to get the Logitech Create Keyboard Case. That has served me very well, and something that I have really enjoyed. But there are a lot of times when I'm just going around the house where the added heft of the functional case really didn't work well. I started to remove the iPad from the case fairly often, but lost some functionality.

That's when I thought to pick up the Smart Cover for iPad Pro 9.7. Not only does the Smart Cover allow for protection of the screen, but it also can prop up the device in two modes: the "viewing" mode and the "typing" mode.1 The viewing mode allows me to FaceTime with family, watch a show or two, or read the news if I feel like screaming into the void. The typing mode allows me to respond to people without having my device in a heavier case; this does require me using the on-screen keyboard, however. I can also pair the device with my magic keyboard for longer writing, which might come in handy for a large fall review that I'll be working on.

I'll even store my pencil up at the top, which is secured by the magnets. The pencil also fits in the groove on the front of the Smart Cover, but I'm nervous about it falling off and me losing it; it's not something I often do while moving about, but while it's on my desk or on my counter, I will keep it around.

If I had the choice to do it over again, I might have picked up the Smart Keyboard, but I like having the options. Using the on-screen keyboard has showing me that the larger devices might be better suited for that use case; either way, if I upgraded to the larger size, I'd likely get the Smart Cover for the 10.5 / 12.9. Highly recommended for sleek carry and around the house use.

Akwox Silicone Cover for Siri Remote

With multiple devices around the TV, there comes multiple remotes. And while I could get some sort of universal remote for everything, I much prefer using the remotes that come with the devices.

We have a small remote caddy at home, but one remote we have the most problems with is the Apple TV Siri remote: it's always getting misplaced, and because the face is black, there's a risk of it being lost. So rather than continuing to look around, I thought I would get a smarter solution - to Amazon!

I did a quick search for Apple TV remote silicone case, and arrived at the Akwox Silicone Cover for Siri Remote. There are multiple color options, but if we are going to see it in our house, I wanted to get something bright. I settled on a bright orange color for easy visibility. The case is a nice fit, and even helps point which way is up. For $7, I won't have to worry about losing the expensive remote any longer.

This is just my nomenclature for these. I can use the typing mode for note taking or drawing with my pencil, if I wanted. ↩

Dismantling

2017-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

Usually every summer, I'm going through a clearing of my life. It initiates in the spring, continues through summer, and then I start getting things back in order in the fall. I'm not sure why this happens, but it does. Rather than trying to fight it, I have learned to go with the ebb and flow of it all.

One big area of this is apps. I always try to reduce the number of apps that I use at any given time and cutting the reliance on multiple services when and where possible. I started using Slack as a personal information center last year, which prompted me to create a workflow that put my daily agenda front and center (when I would remember to run the workflow at night). That evolved when I got my watch, where I modified the workflow to run that morning to give me today's agenda. And that worked well for a while.

Then, there was a change to the way Slack ran groups: the ability to delete archives went away. For one reason or another — ok, multiple reasons — this didn't sit well with me, especially when I'm pulling in personal data into it. I'm not going all tinfoil-hat paranoid on this one, but if it's going to be my personal Slack channel, I'd like to have the control to wipe out channels without archiving them.

This got me thinking about what I'm really using my personal channel for, and it really came down to several key things:

Alerts for Calendar events on Google Calendar.
Alerts for my local township news.
Image sources (NASA, Unsplash, etc) to get some cool images.
My RSS and feeds.

All of the rest that I was using it for didn't seem so important. There was a sense of tinkering that I enjoy like when I used to build with Lego when I was a kid. I liked putting all of the pieces together because it was fun. And maybe the Slack thing was ultimately more fun than useful with all of the tinkering I needed to do to make it right.

So, I started looking around for other ways that I could accomplish those specific items. I realized that I probably couldn't just use a single app for this, and although I like minimizing my apps, this sat well with me. What I started to realize that I was doing some tinkering again, but this time with the built in features of iOS. We've been accustomed to having dedicated apps for things that we often overlook the built-in solutions that have come a long way.

So to satisfy my needs and my desires, I started tackling these items one at a time.

Calendars

I've wanted to get away from using Google Calendar for a while. So the timing seemed right, and I moved my entire family over to iCloud calendars. With this change, I get the alerts where events have been added, changed, deleted, etc. There isn't any special integration that I have to pipe in, and I don't have to wait a while for the notifications to arrive. The speed of iCloud sync appears to be faster. I've removed the Google Calendars from my devices now, and things are going smoothly.

RSS & News

I've used RSS readers in the past. The problem with them is that I wanted two different things: a curated list of specific websites I want to follow, and the news. I don't subscribe to a plethora of websites in my RSS, so using a dedicated app didn't seem right.1 Up to this point, I had never tried using the Safari Reading List feature. Within the bookmarks area of Safari, there are two other options: Safari Reading List and Subscriptions.

I took all of my RSS feeds from Slack and have started to use the Subscriptions feature. Now I have my curated list in a single place, and I can add and remove them as I need.

For my read-it-later service, I'm using the Safari Reading List. Not only is this a native part of the OS, thus eliminating a need for a separate app like Instapaper, but I can also add a link to the reading list from nearly everywhere, including from Mail.app. This means that when I get the Club MacStories newsletters, for example, I can tap and hold on the link in the email, add it to my reading list, and continue on processing my email.

I'm also using another native app — News.app — for getting the news. I have thoughts on this, but I'm going to save that for another post. But in short, I like using it, even if I need to get better at doing so.

Local Alerts

Apparently my township website has a handy link to alerts; they have a service for text alerts through a service called Nixle. There aren't too many messages that get sent, but if there's an accident and I need to avoid a specific area, I get a text. If there are downed power lines, a fire, or some other emergency, I get notified through that system as well. It relies on the men and women in our police and fire departments to send in the alerts, but they are really excellent at doing so. I've also added the local government RSS feed to my Subscriptions so I can stay up-to-date on township news.

Images

I don't usually subscribe to an image of the day type of service. But with all of the exploration to Pluto and Jupiter as of late, the images of space are amazing to see. We are witnessing some history, and I like seeing that as often as it comes. So I'm using the subscriptions feature in safari to handle this also. Image sources are piped into Subscriptions and are bookmarked as well.

Dismantling my personal Slack has been an interesting endeavor. I'm usually a fan of single apps, piping in a bunch of information. But as the native apps have gotten better and better, I'm starting to utilize them more often. I've replaced the complexity of Slack with Safari, News, and Calendar - three native apps. I'm not relying on a middle-man anymore, and that feels better to me. Even with my current task manager, Things 3 for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, I can use the Reminders integration with Siri and Drafts actions, which feels more native than a custom sync solution.

As time is going along, I'm finding that in general, the basic solutions work for me. I don't need complicated workarounds. Even though the same information I was gathering before in one place has now spread amongst several places, my perception is that it's lightweight, cleaner, and better. Sometimes your perception of something being better is all you need to make it reality.

And it would ruin the Feng Shui of my homescreen. ↩

Building Habits

2017-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Habits are difficult. It is very easy for me to build bad habits, and I struggle to build good habits. The positive/negative effects of habits can be far reaching, depending on the scenario. One thing that I often struggle with is my weight. I'm not morbidly obese, but I am fat. This is due to bad habits that I've maintained over a number of years: stress eating, bored eating, poor portion control, poor diet, not enough exercise etc. The long story short is that I don't do enough to monitor myself and don't exercise nearly enough; I'm not doing a good enough job at taking care of me.

In admitting to myself that I have a problem, I talked about this with Seth on our podcast where I told him that I eat my feelings. And while I understand that a lot of people do this, it's not a sustainable thing for me to do. There are a number of reasons why I personally wanted to devote an entire episode about it, but there were two big reasons: that 1) Seth had gone through something similar before, and has spent some time building good habits which he maintains today; 2) I needed to gain some accountability. It kind of sounds stupid when I start thinking about it. Why do I need to be accountable to the listeners of a podcast that I do? Why do I now need to be accountable to the people that are reading this?1 Why can't I be accountable to myself and to my family? When it gets down to it, I really need to be accountable to my family the most: my wife and sons count on me, and I need to be around for a long time to help them through life. I also want to be a good role model. So this isn't a question of something that I just want to do: I have to do it.

One of the things that I talked about on the show was time management. I needed to set aside some time to do this. And with as busy as my life can be at times, the morning is open. It just requires that I wake up earlier. And since I'm going to the gym, I can just get ready for work and leave from there. The only thing that I need to do is prepare my workout and work bags the night before, plan my meals/snacks for the next day, and get to bed early. The more I think of this, it's really coming down to time and task management: setting aside the time to do it, and completing all the steps.

Since we recorded that show, I've been to the gym at least 3 times a week; I'm now in the fourth week, and I feel like the habit is there. I'm getting things set up the night before with my bag and clothing, and getting to bed earlier. I'm not seeing significant weight loss yet, and I don't expect to anytime soon.2 But what I am feeling is more energy throughout the day when I work out; the off days aren't as energized, but I feel better than I did before. I'm generally feeling better with everything in life. I'm able to handle stress better. I just feel better.

I'm going to follow some of what Seth said, even though he isn't a nutritionist or personal trainer. He's more of a personal productivity advisor and life coach.3 I'm not setting out to hit quantitative metrics: I don't care about tracking my calories; I don't care exactly how many minutes I'm working out; I'm not tracking my weight every day/week/month. I'm going go by qualitative goals rather than quantitative: Do I feel better? Do clothes fit better? Do I have more energy? Do I have less anxiety? Am I building stamina in my workouts, and improving my fitness overall? If I'm hitting all of those, I'm doing the right thing. Hopefully over time, I can build the healthy habit to get healthier and more active. And if I can accomplish this and stick with it, then that takes all of the things I once thought to be impossible in my life and makes them possible if I want them to be. I'm really enjoying this renewed focus in bettering myself. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Hello, dear listeners/readers. ↩
I am down 5lbs in 3 weeks, however. ↩
Seriously, he's amazing at advice. Well, most of the time… ↩

The One That Got Away

2017-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

There are many thoughts I've been having since WWDC. I'm mainly lamenting the choice I made by buying an iPad Pro 9.7", 3 months before the new 10.5" was announced.1 But somewhere in the mix of all of my feelings and re-watching some of the keynote, I had some really awesome thoughts about some amazing productivity ideas. One of the biggest improvements for iPad productivity is drag/drop when incorporated with Split Screen. For simplicity, I'm going to denote the apps side-by-side by writing app | app for each scenario below. The main part of this centers around Workflow. It's an app that I've had a love affair with for a long time now. It's so useful, but I can't help think of the amazing things I'll be able to do. Imagine these simple possibilities:

Quick Memes

Workflow | Safari

I do a search in Safari, searching for the perfect image for a meme idea.2 Now, imagine if you could drag that image over to a specific workflow in Workflow, one that makes quick memes. The image automatically gets added as a variable into the workflow, you type the joke, and you can share it wherever you'd like.

Tasks

Workflow | Drafts

Let's say you're taking meeting notes in Drafts. Now you have a list of actions there, and you need to move them over to something like OmniFocus. You could simply drag/drop them over to your Inbox within things. But what if you want to add dates/times/contexts/etc. for them? Well, now imagine if you could drag that list of text over to a specific workflow that would parse each task and allow you to add those elements, then send them to OmniFocus?

Combining Screenshots

Workflow | Photos

You have several screenshots that you want to put side-by-side to show a point. Using the multi-touch gestures with drag and drop, you can tap and hold one image to initiate drag/drop. Then you use a different finger to add another screenshot. And another. And another. Now, imaging dragging them over to the combine images workflow you've created to put them side-by-side, complete with spacing. All of this is done as soon as you drop the images on the workflow to run it.

Pretty sweet, right?

Now, here's the thing to remember: none of this will happen with Workflow because the app isn't being developed with new features. Yeah, it's kind of a gut punch for me too. This is an example of an opportunity that will be missed.

But maybe, just maybe, someone at Apple will read this, see the merit, and push to update Workflow for iOS 11 while Apple figures out how to best integrate what Workflow brings into iOS. If it doesn't happen, this is going to feel like the one productivity feature that got away…

Not the worst thing in the world, but it kind of is a kick in the dick. ↩
I love jokes. Don't you? ↩

3 Things About Things 3

2017-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

I recently picked up the iOS version of Things 3 for both iPhone and iPad. And there's a lot to love about the new version: the new look is great; the simplicity of the layout is fantastic; and all of the small, purposeful animations are phenomenal.

As an app developer, giving users options — even if your own opinions don't match those users' thought patterns — is ultimately the best way to go forward. This doesn't have to be tweaks to everything in the app and giving the user options upon options. But often, these features would benefit the app for both novice and power users, increasing the flexibility and functionality of the app. And I believe that there are some very meaningful changes that could be made in Things 3.

Here are 3 things I want to see in Things 3:

1. Complete Feature Parity

At this point in macOS and iOS development, the feature parity between the Mac and iOS apps should be the same, except where Apple places a limitation. And when there is a redesign of an app, there really shouldn't be any difference between the two. As more and more users are going iOS only, the functionality of the app should not depend, in any way, on having a Mac. And there are several examples of ways that the Things iOS apps are not on par with the Mac app.

Things 2 had several keyboard shortcuts in iOS. If nothing more, they allowed a user - more specifically iPad Pro users - to quickly create a new task via the ⌘ N shortcut. And it's a big omission for the growing base of iOS-only users. They exist in the Mac app, I would like to see these get added to iOS, as to make the app more usable when using an iPad Pro and an external keyboard.

The Today view is a great way to view your tasks for Day/Night. But one advantage that the Mac app gives you is the ability to sort based on Area; once set on the Mac, this option syncs over to iOS. It's an odd choice that you can set it on macOS, but not set it on iOS. This could simply be another sort option placed in the upper right carrot icon, where you find the sorting by tag, select, and share options.

Speaking of tags, there should be a proper way to manage your tags on iOS. As of now, the only way to manage tags would be when editing a single task. What I would propose is an added menu item in the settings list, so that tags can be managed outside of tasks. This will allow you to organize your thoughts on them in one clear list, group them together, and become more useful as you manage your tasks going forward.

2. Dark Mode

The look of Things 3 is clean. Bleach clean. Almost too clean. And while that's awesome at times for clarity, it is almost too much white. I would love to see a dark mode added. The development cycle has been slow and deliberate with Things, and I feel like this was a miss for some polish and user-facing customization.

As much as I don't like it, there are are many times that I will dump tasks into my inbox just before bed, because I'm thinking of them and I need to remember them for later. Having the dark mode/theme added would be a welcome change. There are elements of it already on watchOS, and something I'd like to see carried into the app.

3. URL Scheme Support

I am a huge proponent of iOS automation. I am constantly using Drafts and Workflow to get things accomplished on iOS. But there aren't too many URL schemes available.

What I would like to see them do, at the very minimum, is open up the app from a URL standpoint to allow the use of an x-callback-URL perspective. This will allow other apps to chain into task creation. Rather than send a list from Drafts to Reminders to Things, I could send that list over iterations from Drafts.

Once that is added, adding additional items like due/reminder times, tags, etc. would be easier. There are many reasons to do this: if you're a new user, you can simply import a text list of items into the app and get going; if you have meeting minutes, you can export the tasks for further processing in Things; and you could build templates outside of the app for importing, similar to how OmniFocus and 2Do currently support. It would make it more powerful while remaining simplistic, which is really what this app strives to be.

Piques of the Week - Volume 11

2017-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

Apple TV

We recently decided to get a fourth-generation Apple TV. My entire family uses Apple products, from iOS to Mac. And given that we recently cut cable, we needed something better to watch shows and movies with. Prior to now, we'd have to watch either via the smart TV built-in apps, or through plugging something in. Not ideal at all.

One of the things I really, really like about having the Apple TV is AirPlay. We can use the iPad mini 2 as a giant remote for the TV as well, if we want. My youngest loves the show Thunderbirds Are Go, and until Amazon brings their app to the tvOS, we can just use the iPad to project it on the TV.

The Siri remote is really nice and the battery lasts a long time. I'm a bit paranoid about losing it, and they aren't cheap to replace. But so far, I'm using a remote caddy that I found for less than $10, and that helps keep it in one location. I am considering getting a remote cover for it in a bright color, just so we don't lose it somewhere.

One additional aspect of having the Apple TV: this can lead to HomeKit-enabled devices being a part of our house, as the technology improves and our finances allow.1 It will open up a new possibility for us going forward, even if it's not going to be anything more than a set-top replacement right now.

Overall, I'm really pleased with how the Apple TV is working for us at home. I'm sure Apple will announce something even better at WWDC, but I'm happy with it as it currently stands. I'm sure I'll find even more uses for it over time.

Ecobee 3

Home ownership is... well... fun? Yes, fun. Let's go with that. Owning a home means often maintaining or improving it; improvement is often necessary and can be expensive. But spending the money up front can yield dividends down the road.

Recently, I improved the insulation and ventilation in our attic — something that was long overdue. With that in place, I wanted to keep the house at a good temperature year round, no matter what the weather. We had a basic thermostat that worked well. But one thing we have to consider in our climate is which mode — heat or cool — we have to be in at any given time. In the spring/fall times of the year, we might want cooling in the day and heating at night; the temperature swings can be 40-50°F difference, and that has made from some interesting mornings when waking up.

So I started searching for a thermostat which would automatically switch, thus providing better HVAC performance. And much to my dismay, I wasn't coming up with much. Really, when it comes down to it, I just wanted to have my thermostat automatically switch modes. Then, at the suggestion of a friend of mine, I started looking into smart wi-fi thermostats. He has a Nest, and was really happy with it. My house is a little larger than I think the nest could handle accurately, so I looked at an Ecobee3 Thermostat w/ Remote Sensor.2 In addition, also picked up a 2-pack of the remote sensors. Now I can monitor the whole house temperature: I have one sensor on each side of the 2nd floor, one in the family room, and the integrated sensor on the thermostat in the center of the house.

The setup for the thermostat is pretty rad. If you download the Ecobee app, it guides you through the installation process complete with instructions, images, and videos. There's a bit of wiring involved, but at no time did I worry about it; the app does a great job at doing everything needed. Speaking of the app, it's a really nice app that supports iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. I can make adjustments when I'm gone, or even if I'm feeling lazy and don't want to get out of bed.

Now, one big reason I went the route of the wifi thermostat vs a traditional one: rebates. Before you look into purchasing one of these, see if your electric and gas companies offer a rebate on wifi thermostats. I was able to get one for each utility company. With those two rebates, and a third for my newly-installed insulation, I was able to completely pay for my new thermostat with the extra remote sensors. Not bad at all. With the new insulation and thermostat, I'm really anxious to see how well this cuts down on our energy bills.

BUBM Universal Accessories Bag

I might have a watch band problem. It's not be as bad as others, but I have a total now of 12 watch bands. And for a while, I haven't really had a good way to store them. There are times that I would like to take them with me: if I travel or change from work to workout, I want to be able to grab a new band whenever I feel the need.

I stumbled upon the BUBM accessory bag thanks to this article on iMore. Priced at $13, this seemed like the best choice on the list, rather than going with the $50 option. The bag comes with enough space to store a total of 16 bands, 2 in each slot provided. It also gives me a little spot to include four to six more bands or some other accessories, such as a Speck CandyShell Fit Case or a charging cable for the Apple Watch; I'm also keeping the Lightning to headphone jack adaptor and the Apple Pencil charger adaptor. The best part is that it is better protected and takes up less space than what I was using previously. It's the perfect little carry case for all of my extra accessories.

The smart light bulbs and switches are still expensive. But I think the cost is coming down, thanks to more manufacturers developing products in this space. ↩
I found this on sale at The Home Depot, presumably because the Ecobee4 thermostat is now on sale, which has an integrated Echo into it. But I'm ok with not yelling at my dingus to change the temperature. ↩

My Podcast Setup

2017-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

I've recently ventured into the podcast world. I've been wanting to do one for a long time, and I'm thankful that I'm finally able to do that with my friend Seth. Now that it's been out for a bit, I thought I'd share a bit about my setup. I'm starting out in this space; I went with some equipment that, while not the top end, is widely recommended for a beginner: the Blue Yeti microphone. I ended up getting one on Amazon Prime Day, as well as a DragonPad pop filter. My initial plan was to use 2 iOS devices: an iPhone 5c for the FaceTime call and my iPhone Plus for recording, utilizing the Lightning to USB3 adapter to record my end using Ferrite.1 However, I was gifted a 2009 Mac mini, which surprisingly still works well for recording. We use FaceTime Audio to make the call and Audio Hijack to record. So while I use iOS for everything in my personal life, this is the only thing for which I use a Mac.2

With my recording hardware set, I needed a good space to record. One particular area in our basement was pretty well isolated from the house, and would be a good place to start. First, I needed a decent desk. My parents brought me the unused drafting table from their house, and I was able to set it up at a good height for standing. I added some 2" scrap foam blocks and an unused piece of 3/4" plywood to elevate the desktop to a comfortable height for me; I also added some other spare wood that I cut to length so that I could elevate the monitor a bit. I covered it with a blanket I wasn't using to help attenuate the metallic noise from the desk itself. Though that portion of the basement is carpeted, I also bought an anti-fatigue mat that helped with standing while recording.

Even though the area was isolated from most of the noise in the house, there was still some ambient noises coming from the air conditioning ductwork above my head and the two vents into the basement on either side of me. So I got to work [over-]engineering a solution. During my research, I found a portable mic surround that would isolate the noise around the mic; rather than line the wall with foam, I thought this would be a good idea for the space. Later that day, my wife came home one day with a wooden crate at Michael's, presumably for my youngest's toys. But the moment I saw it, I thought of creating a box to stick the Yeti into, surrounding the mic with foam in order to isolate the mic from the ambient sound.3 After a few iterations and some on-hand materials, I had something I was happy with.

Although the desk is a nice height for standing, the microphone wasn't in the proper height for me to record, and I needed to elevate it. I looked around the house for unused items, rather than buying a stand or a boom arm. I ended up making a stand for it using the base for our TV that was going unused, as we had wall-mounted the TV. Using some spare plywood around the house, I was able to make up a shelf for the mic box to sit on. The mic can now be used sitting or standing, which gives me the option depending on how I'm feeling.4 I've also added a couple of brackets to set my headphones and cable ties to clean up the cords a bit.

Here's a "pro-tip" for setting up your own space: before you go buying anything, use what you have around you. You'd be surprised what a little thought and time will get you. I was able to get a lot of things just by rummaging around my house. The foam, the TV stand, repurposing the desk. Even the shelves I have for my desktop speakers were things just sitting: in fact, they are actually the corner packaging from a MacBook Air box. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

I've also been able to think about this space with more than just my podcast setup in mind. When I'm not recording and I want to do some serious writing, I can use the stand to elevate my iPad Pro in the Logitech Create Keyboard Case. For ergonomic purposes, I ended up picking up a Magic Keyboard to use not only with the Mac mini, but my iPad as well for longer writing sessions. Not only do I have a podcast space, but I also have a quieter space to write, be creative, and is a retreat that I didn't have previously. Having personal space is important.

I've used various foams I had around my house in the setup to isolate different things: the mic to the box, the box to the stand, etc. There was also ambient fan noise from the furnace. To minimize a lot of it (most of which was coming from the closet behind me), I had found some scrap foam and carpet remnant. I attached the carpet to the wall using a staple gun, and glued the foam to cardboard to hang behind me. Glueing the foam to cardboard didn't turn out well, and I ended up getting some foam-core poster boards. I attached the foam using special foam adhesives and are easy to apply (peel-and-stick). I affixed two adhesive hooks to hang each board by two small screw eyes from the ceiling. I also created a board for the ceiling, using the same strategy and a small piece of chain that I had lying around. We had some standing dividers, which were useful to set to the side to help minimize noise on the sides. With all of this set up, I basically ended up making a small studio.

I'm really happy with how all of this turned out. It's efficient and I've minimized how much money I wanted to put into this thing. I really truly have only put in under $100 total (not including the equipment), and the rest I was given or able to find/repurpose. In the future, I might pick up some better sound isolation foam from a local store, replace what I have, and add more; but for now, I'm going to keep utilizing this and be happy in my personal space. Being resourceful, reasonably mechanically inclined, and thinking outside the box about using some old items in my house, I have been able to make a decent setup that sounds good enough for audio quality. Sometimes, all you need to do is look around you and you'll find everything you need.

There's a great reference for using the adaptor over at Six Colors. It includes helpful tips and the capabilities/limitations of using it on iOS. ↩
At least until an iPad Pro with updated software can record both ends. Once that happens, then I'm likely going to be back to only iOS for everything. ↩
I was able to scrounge around and find some foam from various sources: old packing boxes, an old SuperDrive shipping box, some free toolboxes I got while in college. You can get it multiple places, but if you can get it for free, do it. It can only help improve the isolation. ↩
I'll generally be standing for recording, however, as I tend to fidget a lot. ↩

Linea, My Unexpected Weekend Companion

2017-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Every year in spring, it seems as thought I get sick at least once: the changing of the weather, additional allergens in the air, kids bringing home more and more germs. Whatever it is, it sucks more now that I'm an adult. It usually knocks me down in one form or another, and harder than it used to previously; I need more rest in ever increasing amounts. Getting old sucks.

So, as is tradition, I spent all of this past weekend sick. Naturally, the weekend hit a multitude of complications with our plans and family productivity. Obviously we, as a family, need to be flexible when something like this happens. But when I get sick, it puts a tremendous strain on everyone else in the family. Not as much gets done, our plans change, and everyone is usually bummed about it.

This time, the sickness also took something that made everything that much worse: my voice. It's simply laryngitis, and thankfully nothing worse. Not having one's voice is difficult, and I couldn't imagine life like this permanently; it's incredibly frustrating to have to figure out ways of communicating other than by speaking. I count myself unbelievably lucky that I have my senses. In a way, I'm grateful that this happened, because it has allowed me to think of things differently in terms of the accessibility of my devices, and also brought an unexpected accessibility feature along with it. There are times that we, as a family, need to communicate via messages — mainly due to the youngest one sleeping. I'll have to send messages to my teenager, who purchased his own Bluetooth on-ear headphones, and sometimes can't hear me talk, even when I'm right behind him.1 But this weekend was especially important. I don't like being a family that just texts from couch-to-couch, but we ended up planning dinner and our evening activities together in a group chat. Sometimes simple text can adequately convey your message.

When it came time to make dinner, however, I wanted my oldest to make it. I try as often as I can to impart wisdom and small tasks that he should be able to do. But how on earth, with no voice, can I give him directions? My first thought was to send a text, but even though I can type fast, it wouldn't be good for what I need. So I looked on my iPad to see what tools I have at my disposal. It was pretty apparent that I should use Linea. I could simply use a white canvas and a black pen or marker to write. It was easy for me to write down some simple instructions for him. Using layers, I ended up writing out how to put things together, just as a reminder of the things he should be putting into the meal because he has made this before. It made it easier to communicate with him, and dinner turned out pretty well. Being able to simply write down directions to him was a huge help.

As the weekend went on, I continued to use Linea for communication in my house. We ended up doing more than I thought we would, despite my inability to communicate verbally. I interacted with my youngest by working on letters and numbers with him; I also drew him small pictures to make him laugh. While Linea is primarily an app for artists,2 Linea allowed me to get past a communication barrier I was facing, and interact with those around me.

When life throws you a curve ball or two, sometimes you find something unexpected that can help you along your way. I'm very thankful that I picked up Linea as soon as I got my iPad Pro. It was a wonderful weekend companion for me and allowed my voice to be heard with my family.

Linea is $9.99 on the App Store.

Much to my dismay and frustration. ↩
Some of the drawings I have seen are incredible. I can only hope to one day be that good. ↩

Trusted Capture with Drafts

2017-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

Recently I started playing around with different systems, making different changes to how I work. This should surprise exactly no one. Long story short, I'm reading Getting Things Done for the first time:1 not just passively reading and finding little hacks, but rather studying the material. I'm reading it very slowly; I'm using iBooks, highlighting passages and taking notes in various places on how it applies to me. So many people swear by the system, and I want to see what this system could do for me. With all that I have going on, I wanted to make sure that I have a handle on anything and everything that needs to get done. One of the things that has resonated with me so far is that the system isn't about just one task app. The notion that you can only utilize one of those apps often gets lost on people; the idea that a single task manager will solve all of your needs 100% of the time is a falsehood, even if someone tells you that "This task app is the best ever!" — even if that someone is me . Your needs change, your roles change, your life changes. Things need to evolve as you do.

From the book:

Your life is more complex than any single system can describe or coordinate…

Single system. You might need multiple as your life changes. You will, at the very least, need multiple parts for the system: a task manager, a calendar, email, and even some long-term reference storage. This could be all in a single app, but more than likely, it will be multiple apps. Sure, in the grand scheme of it, having multiple sources is really hard when it comes to conducting a weekly review and making sure you capture all of your tasks; it puts the onus on the user to review multiple places, which some can find difficult. Due to constraints at my workplace, I need to use two task managers to get my life sorted out as part of my system. This works for me if I am diligent about my weekly reviews; the weekly review is vital to making sure you don't miss anything, and you need to be relentless about conducting them. The weekly review is one of the key elements to a successful system, and I've been able to set up weekly reviews utilizing reminders for both work and personal, and I'm getting through life mostly unscathed.

One of the keys to the GTD methodology is capture. It works best when you have a single, trusted place for capture, so that you can process everything later: this is your Inbox. So while I could use any app to input tasks — like 2Do or OmniFocus or Reminders or Todoist or [insert app name here] — the important part for me is to set up my system so that the inbox for capture is the same. So that it's muscle memory. As it turns out, I have the muscle memory for this already: Drafts. As it is a permanent member of my dock, and that's where 99% of everything text related starts already, it makes total sense for me to use this as the GTD Inbox with my system. I utilize the app for so much, and I was doing most of this already. But one thing I wasn't doing was really utilizing it in the best possible way.

Before, I would write tasks down in a draft. Sending to a singular app is easy. Then, when I bifurcated my system and utilized one app for work and one app for home, I created separate lists to send over with actions for each list. But the separation was really hard for me to keep when I started trying to think of everything that I needed to get done in my personal and professional lives. In episode 3 of the GTD podcast, David Allen — the man behind the method — guides you through a mind sweep. I recommend sitting down and listening to the episode, and highly suggest you follow along. When I went through it the first time, I listened through it and often paused the episode when he mentioned certain things that triggered some tasks or actions that I needed to remember. I've done it a few times now, and each time I've thought of at least five additional items - some even larger projects - that I needed to ensure are in my system.

You might think that you need to use a singular task management app for this to work effectively. But through the power of Drafts' ability to tie into multiple apps, you can make it so that you can effectively do the mind sweep, and send things to where they need to go if you use more than one. For multiple reasons, I will need to keep a separate system for work so that I can process tasks on my work machine. But chaining things together in the right way will allow me to keep both task managers in my system, and really focus on capturing.

If I were to use a single system, the Drafts Action Directory is filled with great actions that can send various bits of the text — [[draft]], [[selection]], etc. — and create tasks simply. I most often use [[selection]] in my actions; if nothing is selected, it defaults to [[draft]] and grabs the entire contents. If I'm in a meeting taking notes, I can quickly grab each task out of that meeting and send them to Todoist, my work system. If I have an upcoming business trip that I need to make sure I have something packed for, I can send that over to my ever evolving personal system. I can add a calendar event or send an email. If I need to store some text for reference, I can even send it over to DEVONthink. You get the idea.

Even when I use a split task system, I can utilize multiple actions and send items to the apps I need them to go. However, to help better facilitate sending the mind sweep of my tasks all at once to other places, I created a simple workflow that takes the draft text as the input, then allows you to parse the tasks line-by-line into the system of choice.2 I don't need to think only of home, work, or family oriented tasks in separate ways when sweeping; I can think of everything in my life all at once, and send it where that needs to be. Not only can I send to multiple places, the workflow allows me to tinker with multiple apps to broaden my knowledge and experience.

What I'm finding out the more I get through the book is that even though I am using multiple-app system, I'm using as many apps as I need and as few as I can get by with. This reduces my mental overhead, and allows me to focus on the task(s) at hand; it's always there, always available, no matter where I am. Most importantly, I trust in it to work for me, so that all of the people around me at home and work can rely on me. As I continue to read and learn more, I'm hoping that this sparks some more ideas to apply the methodologies I'm learning. No matter what systems I try, no matter what new methods I am experimenting with, at the center of all of it is the foundation for my productivity: Drafts.

If you've read the book, or are a guru of this stuff, bear with me on all of this. You're probably going to think I'm really late to the party, and you're right — but I'm glad I'm expanding my knowledge. ↩
The workflow contains four such apps that I have used, but you could use whatever works for you. I made this simple example, but it can be done a number of different ways and you can make it customizable for your needs. You can add calendar, email, or reference storage to this as well. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 10

2017-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Logitech Create Keyboard

The moment I made the decision to get the iPad Pro 9.7", I knew that I wanted to get the Logitech Create Keyboard. This is hands down the best keyboard for the iPad Pro, as many other people will tell you.

What I love about this keyboard is that while it adds some heft to the device, it is still ultra-portable, and contains my entire work station in an all-in-one setup. In most cases, this is the only thing that I need to bring around with me. I can do some of my work, write to my heart's content, and get anything and everything done with efficiency. The keys are backlit, which is a nice touch over the keyboard that I previously had. It's the perfect compliment to the Apple Pencil, with the built in pencil loop. And the best part of all: it's attached to my iPad Pro. FINALLY.

iMangoo Foldable Stand

Now that I have my iPad Pro with the Create keyboard, my old Logitech k480 has been given to my son for his use with his iPhone at school.1 Because I want his iPhone to last and it is permanently in a LifeProof Case, his phone doesn't fit so well into the integrated stand on the keyboard. So I started looking at options for him to use for a stand.

I originally was going to go after the current stand I have, but it isn't portable enough for what he would like. That's when I ended up finding the iMangoo Foldable Stand. It is a very portable stand; in fact, it's a little thicker than a credit card when fully collapsed. But it's capable of holding your phone or tablet just fine. It's not going to be the stand that looks pretty and is a perfect compliment to the Feng shui of your desk. It will, however, serve as a nice piece of kit in a carry bag that is a no-brainer. In fact, I ordered one for myself, and it's been working out very nicely. The perfect complement to the mobile workstation.

SOMAN Solar Charger

This charger came my way at Christmas time as a gift.2 During that time, I was also reorganizing some things inside my house, and put it somewhere out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind — and I forgot that I had it. Then I finally remembered it on a recent trip I had.

The SOMAN® Portable Solar Panel Charger is a 10000mAh battery dual-USB battery pack with a solar charger option. It is also rain-resistant, dust-proof, and shockproof. It charges via a microUSB cable that comes included. I used it at various times during the trip, and never had to recharge it the entire time.

The solar panels are meant to keep it topped up with charge, but can also fully charge the device if you are somewhere that wall charging isn't. And it even comes with an LED flashlight if you need one in a pinch. This battery pack is rugged, capable, and — best of all — fairly inexpensive at less than $15.

We've offered up to have him use a tablet, but he doesn't want to carry it. He only wants to carry his phone. A chip off the old block... ↩
Thanks, Mrs. Claus... ↩

Perfectly Mobile

2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

In this modern world, I love the idea of mobile computing. And for the longest time, I was doing just that with my iPad nano (a.k.a. the iPhone Plus). Then I added an external keyboard, and things started to improve for my productivity. I started envisioning a future of an iPhone Pro, where iPad features were added to a smaller form factor. For a long time, I thought that would be all I needed. After a long while of some self-searching, and some poking and prodding by my co-host, I really started down the path of wanting an iPad Pro. The allure of it captured my imagination of what could be possible from a larger workstation. How much better could my daily workflows be? What are the limits I'm facing now, and how could those limits be shattered on this new device? Now I don't have to be eager to find out.

I am finding out. Finally.

I now have my iPad Pro (9.7"), along with a Logitech Create Keyboard and an Apple Pencil. My workstation is now perfectly mobile. I can take it anywhere, along with my iPhone 7 Plus, Apple Watch, and Beatsx earphones. A complete ecosystem of devices to allow me to be anywhere and everywhere, all while fitting everything into my backpack, including the cables and chargers. It is a powerhouse of portability and capability that just keeps getting better.

It took a while to get to this point. There was a lot of justification of the need and showing restraint, as opposed to giving in and satisfying my child-like want. It became more of a need as time has gone along,1 and now that I have it, I don't want to go back to life without it. I'm like a child that has discovered the power of Lego for the first time, but now it's all just ones and zeros. Digital (keyboard) and analog (pencil) inputs. Workflows and actions. Apps and systems. Simplicity and power.

Let's see where this new portable power takes me…

We've been without a proper computer for over a year now. The last one died in a fire pool of water. ↩

Loss of Function

2017-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

There are millions of apps on the App Store. I've downloaded more than a few of them. But there are a handful of apps that have really made an impact on my daily use of my phone, and an even smaller subset that I flat-out require. But what happens when things change? What happens when these beloved apps of mine switch hands, pivot to do more or less, or worse — go away?

Well, I try not to panic.

This week, Workflow was acquired by Apple. And I could go into the pros and cons of this acquisition, but others have, and so I won't. In short, the app that so many people love is changing hands and the future of the app as we knew it before might change drastically, even more than it already has. So, with all the uncertainty, what do I do?

I should say this now — I'm very happy for the Workflow team. They deserved every bit of the Apple Design Award they won, and a ton of credit for pushing the forefront of iOS automation. My mind is being filled with the possibilities of tight integration of the Workflow capabilities at a system level, allowing power users to really flourish and be as productive as anyone simply by using their iPhone. Maybe it will push also HomeKit farther. There really might not be a limit to what they can do other than their imagination now that they can get system-level access to anything and everything if the decision to do so is made. With that out of the way, I digress…

I'll admit — and it's slightly embarrassing — I had somewhat of a panic attack when I saw the news. This likely isn't due to the news itself. And it's very likely additive to the tremendous amount of stress with home, work, and everything else in life; this was just that one thing to push the button and release the flood gates. But what it ultimately did was send me down a path of introspection on how I'm using my devices and apps, and how I could rein in these feelings to a calm state.

My mind started with a question: Without Workflow, what am I going to do? Then: Without 2Do, how will I get all of my tasks managed? Furthermore: What am I going to do if [insert app name here] goes away, and there is a loss of function in my workflow(s)? How can I combat the changes that lie ahead that are completely beyond my control?

When I sit down and think about it, there are a lot of possibilities. For example: if 2Do stops being developed, there are a plethora of other task management apps on the App Store to choose from: OmniFocus, Todoist, or even Things 3.1 I could use a number of apps to replace it. What I can do is keep informed and up-to-date on the other apps out there, just in case that possibility becomes a reality. That's a simple way to calm my nerves.

When I use fundamental file formats, like .txt or .md for text files or .pdf for documents, I can mix and match apps as I see fit. I can look at alternatives to use like others do. It levels the playing field and allows the movement of data back and forth, allowing you to feel more comfortable that your data isn't going to remain in one place and be stuck.2

I can also simplify the number of apps I use, eschewing some of the powerhouse apps for something native to iOS. For a long time, I would use Fantastical as my calendar of choice. But I've traded that in for Calendar.app. The only time I use Fantastical now is when I have to do a lot of date entries, and I can quickly process them from Drafts using automation. But that's just it: it's saving me time, but it is actually possible to enter it in manually. I've used Reminders.app as a task management system, in two ways. Using native apps can surprise you from time to time, and in most cases, they are getting better with each iOS release. Using the native app means that it's going to be there for a long, long time.

What Workflow brings to the table for me is efficiency. It reduces the number of apps I need: I don't have many photo editing apps; I don't have small, single-use utilities that I used to have; and I can enter things into apps in multiple different ways. It's even allowed me to replace whole apps just by using some workflows in conjunction with other apps. It's a powerhouse app when I need it to be.

I have a few workflows where I'm able to get the daily view into my work and personal life. I can kick off processes or make calls to specific contacts. I can share my music using affiliate links. I can share entire blog posts from any text editor I want. I can copy bits of text I use repeatedly to my clipboard and quickly paste it in any app. All from the widget, if I want or need.

And even though it's made me more productive, faster, and efficient: I could, in theory, go on without it — I just don't really want to do things the old way. When it comes down to it, I think there's really one app I couldn't live without, and that's Drafts. There's no other app that I use which feels completely irreplaceable to me. But given that I can talk myself down off of the ledge and say that I could live without Workflow — and with an optimistic mindset for the future of automation at Apple — I probably could live without Drafts, but I sure as shit don't want to do that. Luckily, the app as it is today is powerful, and I could continue to use it in the current form; however, I'm really hoping that further development continues to make the app even better. And the same for 2Do. And the same for Workflow, whatever that future looks like.

When faced with the state of the App Store economy, there's bound to be some disruption that happens in your daily workflow due to a demise change of part or all of an app. And while I'm hopeful that the team at Workflow is going to be given the ability to positively influence iOS, to elevate it to the next level, and provide tighter integrations for apps — I also have to start thinking of other ways of doing things. The important part is to not lose focus on what you have to do, and figure out ways around it. We all did it before, and we could do it again — even if we don't want to. At the end of the day, we really just want iOS to be fun to use, and the platform to push the boundaries of what is possible.

We all lose sight of our perspective. I lost it a bit this week, but I got it back by sorting out my feelings, chatting with friends, and realizing that this problem of an app being acquired and not going away isn't a really difficult thing in the grand scheme of it all.3

For some, this may seem like the end. For others, this will be a new and exciting app to try for free. And ultimately, I think it will end up somewhere in between - simple for those that don't know much about it and powerful for the users that know and love it, just maybe not to the extent they're used to. I'm thankful for the progress that the Workflow team has made for iOS from outside Apple. Now I'm excited to see what they do from the inside.

Sorry, Josh ↩
Anyone remember the PictureLife debacle? ↩
Mind-mapping and writing about it helps, of course. ↩

Break

2017-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

Earlier today, I was reminded of a post that I remembered being great, but at the time was aspirational to me. And it shouldn't surprise you that it came from Seth. With this post brought back into the forefront of my mind, it got me thinking about what I'm doing, and how I'm ultimately failing at a lot of things right now.

There are some things that I really need to spend some time on: my physical self, my mental self, my family, my home, my job, my podcast. And the list could go on. But you get the point.

One of the things that I love to do but don't really have the time to do is read. And with the complexity of my life not letting up, I need to get a better handle on life. Part of doing so is removing some of the distraction that I have, and that starts on my personal device. I'm going to be making a few changes until I get my house in order, so-to-speak. First, I'm going to remove all of the Twitter apps from my phone. Then, I'm going to set up email alerts for mentions and DMs. I'll still be active in the various Slack channels, where I have a lot of fantastic conversation without the politics, hate crimes, and other bullshit that can be seen.1 If I want to see horrible things in life, I'll look at Google or Apple News.

This isn't in retaliation to anything about Twitter nor the people on it: it's still a decent platform for social engagement if you do it correctly. I'll still be using it for the podcast when we announce new episodes, and anything I post will also automatically get posted.

What I'm attempting to do is minimize my distractions, focus on what I need to get done, and get back on top of my life, and hopefully be more productive.2 This will be one less thing I idly read, which can be devoted to other, more important texts. I'm hoping this will spark some creative thoughts along the way, and some introspection that will lead to some good journaling.

I'm also wanting this to kickstart my time for other aspects of life. I'm going to devote time to healthy eating, living, fitness, and relaxation in the form of meditation and yoga. I might use some apps along the way to help me, which would be a far better use of my time than thumbing through a feed. And maybe, just maybe — I can be a better husband, father, family member, and friend.

No matter what, I know this will lead to some good things, even if this feels a bit scary. But now that it's out there, I can't take it back. Onward.

Ok, ok… for the most part. But it's all in good fun there. ↩
As much as one can with all of the other distractions in life. ↩

Convenience

2017-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

I first started into the world of expensive headphones when I bought my first pair of wired Bose in-ear headphones.1 They were $100 at the time, and it wasn't much more for the extended warranty. And as it turns out, I'm really glad I purchased it: over the next three years, I ended up exchanging three different pair because the cable had worn out near the connector, causing a short and either choppy or no playback. Upon my fourth exchange, I was done with a wired connection. I finally stepped into the Bluetooth era, and got some Jaybird X2 earbuds. And for a long time, I was happy. Then I started getting connection issues. I exchanged them under warranty. Then I had the same connection issues on this new pair, even though this time the phone was different. I then exchanged them, this time picking up the Jaybird X3 earbuds.

Jaybird makes a fantastic product — when it works. The biggest gripes I have with the X3's: 1) the use of a proprietary charger, and 2) the continuation of the connection issues. Both of these drive me insane, but Bluetooth is Bluetooth, and I don't think it's any fault of the Jaybird team. In regards to the charger: if I lost this tiny adaptor, I'm screwed. It's not an item I could go get at the store, like it was on X2's, which was a micro USB connection. It's a design choice that while provides the "sweat proof" design,2 is puzzling to me from a customer perspective. There are other minor gripes: the weighting is imbalanced due to the inline controls,3 and there is some minor latency at times (something that Bluetooth hasn't mastered yet). Overall, it's a solid option; but I'm still not personally happy with them.

So, while I was recently in the Apple Store to get my wife's phone upgrade, I was able to try out both the AirPods and the Beatsx Earphones. They were gracious enough to get me the demo models, and two alcohol wipes (which I used liberally for both pair). The setup process on both is really nice. Quick couple of taps and done. And while the AirPods have that bit of magic and whimsy with them, they don't work for me: they don't fit my ears well, and they do nothing for sound isolation. Sure, I could get something like the EarHoox, but then I wouldn't be able to put the AirPods in the case with them on.

Speaking of cases, the Beatsx come with a case, but it's not really great for the headphones. However, I have found it very useful as a carry case for my lightning cables, a flash drive, and a microUSB cable. I'm usually just wearing the headphones during the day even if not in use, so I don't really have a need for the case as it was intended. I would like to see some sort of closure to ensure that nothing will come out of it. It's something that other headphones have, and would be a nice touch here.

The Beatsx sound was very close to that of the X3's, but only after I messed around with the Jaybird MySound app for a while. The Beatsx sound profile is actually more pleasing to me than other models I've tried right out of the box: both the bass and treble are crisp, but not overpowering. It's a good mix of sound for something that you might wear for a long time. Even though it's not customizable to the nth-degree, it's convenient for me to just pop them in and not mess with the sound. They don't have the sound signature that true audiophiles enjoy, but they would likely work for most people.

There are a couple trade-offs with the Beatsx: they aren't advertised as sweat proof, so I have to be more careful with them; however, I don't foresee that being an issue. It's not quite as good at noise isolation, but only marginally so. And when I use the Comply Comfort Foam Tips like I had on the Jaybirds, they isolate just as well. The tips are well worth the money, as they are more comfortable for my ears over longer listening times than the supplied silicone tips.

The convenience of the Lightning port/cable for FastFuel charge is unreal: no proprietary cable to carry around (or worse, lose), no microUSB cable, no adaptors. Just a standard Lightning cable, which I always have with me when I travel. This makes my everyday carry minimal yet more functional for my needs. And if I forget to charge them, 5 min charge for 2 hours of playback gets me what I need in a hurry.

The W1 chip is a breeze for setup. The range on the earphones is phenomenal thanks to the upgrade in Bluetooth class and the W1 chip pairing: I've been able to leave my phone in the basement, go into the 2nd floor room that is on the opposite side of the house, all without losing playback once. I can go anywhere around my house and have a solid signal. With the Beatsx with me, along with my Apple Watch, I'm completely mobile around my house without my Plus-sized phone going with me.

As I'm getting older, I'm often swayed by the ease and convenience of different things: apps, processes, and products. When I'm presented with a choice — in this case between two great products — I'm going to trade convenience for a few minor features. There's less to think about, less to worry about, and at the end of all of it — that's the most convenient thing I can think of for my life.

Quick note: I'm considering $100+ headphones as expensive. Most people use whatever they can find that is cheap or is supplied with their device, so most will consider $100+ as a considered investment. ↩
Except that I have heard of people who have gone through several pairs due to sweating so much… ↩
I think they could have done a micro USB charging port on a similar-style inline "weight" to balance the design, and also provide for a standard cable charger. But what do I know, I'm just an engineer. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 9

2017-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Reduce Tumbler 2-pack

I've wanted a stainless steel tumbler for a long time. I've owned several vacuum-insulated tumblers in the past, but they are all plastic and break over time (especially if accidentally dropped). I looked for alternatives, and found several brands: Yeti, Rtic, and many more that are all about the same. All of them were anywhere from $15-40 for a single tumbler.

On a recent trip to Costco, however, I found a 2-pack of the Reduce Cold-1 30oz tumblers for $20. I thought I would give them a shot. And I'm a big believer in them now. The day I brought them home (at about 2pm) I washed them, and put ice in my tumbler. I refilled the water several times for the remainder of the day. I placed the cup next to my bedside and fell asleep. When I woke in the morning, I grabbed my tumbler and to my surprise - there was still ice in there!

I highly recommend these if you get the chance to pick them up. I included the Amazon link, but if you live near a Costco, you can save some cash by picking them up there.

Rinfit Silicone Wedding Bands

My wife and I have never had our rings re-dipped since we've been married, and I thought this year would be a good year to do it. Additionally, there have been times at work that I have been messing with electrical equipment, and my wife's rings don't quite fit her.

So I started looking for alternatives to wear while we get our wedding bands all fixed up. I stumbled upon the Rinfit line of silicone wedding bands. I was able to pick up a simple men's band in black, and picked up a multi-color pack of women's bands for my wife. We are both really please with how well they fit and how they can adapt as our hands expand/contract with heat and cold. As an added benefit, I won't get electrical shocks from this at work. Maybe I won't miss that metallic taste in my mouth after all…

Fundamentally Broken

2017-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

All too often, I realize the paths I take in my daily life have problems. And it makes me realize how broken I can be, often times at very basic level. But when I have these moments, I'm able to overcome them through creative methods, past experiences, and most of all friends, and build it back up again. And sharing the problem makes me feel that I'm not alone.

Seth Clifford and I met as all modern-day bromances do: on the internet. Over time, our internet acquaintance has turned into a solid foundation for a friendship. And now, he is one of my closest friends. Through some time, patience, and a lot of some badgering, we are finally taking the next step: a podcast.

A special thanks to the amazing Satchell Drakes for the incredible artwork. I couldn't be happier with how well it turned out. He is the best!

In the first episode, we talk about the reasoning for the show, and what we want Fundamentally Broken to be. For now, this is going to be monthly-ish: it could be sooner, it could be longer. We are busy with work and family, and sometimes our available time is slim. So it's just going to be a surprise when you see it pop up in your feed.

Hope you enjoy the show!

Website | iTunes | RSS | Twitter

Notes and Taxes

2017-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

There are two certain things in this world: death and taxes. And since I'm not dead yet, I'll have to do some adulting on a yearly basis and do my taxes. I'm not upset about paying taxes; in fact, I'm one of those people that likes knowing how my taxes work and figuring it out myself, because it's my money. And sometimes, doing some tedious tasks bring me joy. It's a sickness really. But I digress…

Let me get this out of the way: there is nothing wrong if you want to pay someone else to do your taxes.1 It might save you time, you can deduct the fees on the next year's taxes, and you have piece of mind that things [hopefully] didn't get screwed up to avoid an audit; if something does happen, at least there's some recourse in getting it taken care of without cost to you. You may have more complex taxes because you run your own business or whatever. And there is zero wrong with paying someone who is well-versed in tax filing to do this work for you.

But rather than pay $150 (or more) a year, I fill out my own forms. For my adult life, I have done my own taxes almost every year, save two: the year we bought a house and got married, and the year right after that. The years prior to us getting married, I was able to fill out the EZ forms, which are just as they sound: easy. The tricky couple of years, especially the second, laid the foundation for me to be able to handle more complexity with taxes with a house and family. The only other big life event that influenced our taxes was the birth of our youngest son, which from a tax perspective, only adds another dependent. We've had miscellaneous forms here and there to fill out for credits when we've purchased energy efficient windows or new appliances, but nothing has been so complicated that I can't figure it out.

For the last few years, I have downloaded the documentation and forms that I needed, filled out everything, and printed it all from iOS. I usually make a checklist in my task management app for the things I need. But this year, because I've been using Reminders.app for the last several months and it is limited in structure, I needed a different way to keep track of my taxes.

In general terms, I need to do the following:

Make a checklist of personal information and documentation to gather like W2s, taxes paid, etc.
Make a list of forms and instructions to file.
Store gathered documents in a single place, so I know right where to go.
Fill out the forms and store the completed, signed versions for my records.
File my taxes.

This year, I'm going to use Notes.app for getting my taxes done. There are a lot of benefits now that Notes.app has been improved starting with iOS 9, and is flexible enough to handle this. My taxes are relatively simple, and I can follow along with the information I needed from the year prior to see what I need to gather. I entered everything into a new note, capturing everything as plain text; then I formatted a note like this:

Now that I know what I need, I can start gathering the information into the note. I can include images of my license plate fees, and store them directly into the note. I can download the other documentation and forms as PDFs, so that everything is in one convenient place.2 And, I can also lock the note, so that my personal information won't be easily accessible.

For completing my tax forms, I use PDF Expert to fill out all my forms. I also use the wonderful PCalc for my calculator, especially in the widget: utilizing the copy/paste functionality there helps me as I go line-by-line when I'm filling out the forms. I always fill the forms out at least twice: the first time to fill it out, the second time to double check that I'm right. If there is a discrepancy, I'll fill it out another time to reconcile the other two. Repeat as needed. Again, my taxes are relatively simple, so doing this work just takes a bit of my time. But if I have everything I need right there in a note, it's a breeze to go through.

When I know that I'm done and it's ready to send out, my wife and I will digitally sign the forms in PDF Expert, and I'll save a flattened PDF into the note. I'll print it out, and send it in. Yes, I'm one of those people also. I could e-File my taxes, but I have envelopes, so I might as well just print it out and mail it in. If you do mail it in, send it in USPS certified mail. It will cost you a minimum of $7.54 total for both Federal and State taxes,3 but it means that if it gets lost in the mail, you won't be assessed late fees on your taxes.4

I already made a note template so that next year, I can copy it, and then easily change the tax year; I can also save things in there as the year progresses, which will be super helpful for me. Doing your own taxes can be tricky, and it's not for everyone. But it's made that much easier when I have one place to look for everything, and it's even easier when the tool I need is natively there in iOS. Notes.app has really come a long way, and I'm hopeful that it keeps improving.

Note: this is for the US tax system. So if you're outside the US and reading this, I have no idea if this is done in the same way. ↩
I would, however, love the ability to edit the PDFs in place in Notes. If I can fill out forms and sign them right from Notes.app, that would be amazing. ↩
Depending on how thick the stack of paper is to mail, your postage may be more. ↩
Just make sure you keep a copy of your receipt(s) for this. Pro tip: take a picture or scan, and add that to your note. ↩

Using Simple Dictionaries in Workflow

2017-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Normally when I have an idea, I'll write about it. This past time, I decided to do something a bit different, and write more about how I felt rather than explain it. But, I also realize that this new-to-me idea might need a bit of help and guidance for those that aren't well versed in the subject, like me. So I'll do my best here to explain.

Full disclosure: I'm not a programmer, I'm not a developer, I'm not an expert. So don't rely on this post for complex methods.

Dictionaries

In simple terms, dictionaries are a place to store information in a tabular-like format, similar to a database or an array.1 The difference with dictionaries is that they use key/value pairs: using "keys", you can call specific "values" for each item. An example of something you might want to put into a plain-text dictionary would be a rating system:

Rating	Number
Poor	1
Marginal	2
Acceptable	3
Good	4
Best	5

If you are given a descriptor of "Acceptable", you can understand this numerically on a 1-5 scale. Using a table is great for viewing. But if you want to actually use that data, then changing the table to a plain-text dictionary will allow you to pull information out of it based on a search string.

Entering Dictionaries

Plain-text dictionaries follow the following format:

{"key 1":"value 1",
"key 2":"value 2",
.
.
.
"key n":"value n"}

For every line, you'll need to follow the quotes, colons, and commas exactly as above for it to work.2 So for the example Markdown table above, I can write that in plain text like so:

{"Poor":"1",
"Marginal":"2",
"Acceptable":"3",
"Good":"4",
"Best":"5"}

Once you have everything in that format, you can place this simple dictionary either as a text block or a .txt file that you can call out of iCloud Drive or Dropbox in Workflow.

Workflow also has the capability of entering in a dictionary. Workflow asks for different types of values; it can get complex, and I'm not going to cover that here. But to enter this simple dictionary, we can use the Dictionary step as follows:

Once completed for any of the methods — Text Get File or Dictionary action blocks — be sure to include a Set Variable step so that you can call it later.

Personally, while Workflow is very powerful for this type of thing, I would prefer to enter my dictionaries in plain-text form. This allows me to duplicate workflows more easily while calling a different directory. It also means that I can edit them quickly in a text editor like Drafts and save them. What I do for files in Drafts is use the [[title]] for the name of the file and [[body]] for the dictionary, like so:

Pulling Out Information

Now that the dictionary is set, we can pull out specific information. For example, you can call out a list of the keys you have stored in the dictionary. Once the dictionary is called using the Get Dictionary From Input step, place a Get Dictionary Value block with All Keys selected. What this will do is provide a list of the keys, which you can call using a Choose From List block. One thing that calling dictionaries doesn't do well is give you the values the way you have them stored. For example, the stored rating list is presented like so:

The list is out of order. Unfortunately this is an inherent thing with dictionaries, and slightly aggravating to someone like myself who likes things orderly. However, there is a small thing that can be done: using a Filter Files block after the Get Dictionary Values, you can sort by Name and select A → Z; this sorts the list alphabetically, which is more helpful to find what you're looking for instead of a random list.

Then, set that chosen value as a variable. This will become the variable that you look up in the dictionary. Use the Get Variable and Get Dictionary From Input blocks to call it again, along with a Get Dictionary Value. This time, however, use Value and put in your search variable in the Key field. This will search the dictionary for the given key, and give you the value associated with it. What you do with that value is up to you.

Here is the rating system workflow in its entirety:

Say I switch companies and start using a different rating scale that goes from 1 - 10, along with a change in descriptors. I can simply go to my draft, edit the plain text, save the file, and I'm all set; there's nothing to change in the workflow.

Reminders Example

I've been using Reminders a lot more lately for tasks. The Siri input is really great from the iPhone and the Watch. But there are times that I need to be silent, and can't say "Siri, remind me to [do something] when I get [home/work/etc]." I've been using this workflow for a while to do just that.

However, I can have one master contact file for frequent addresses I might need, and use it for two purposes:

A [Route to Address](https://workflow.is/workflows/a9a5af2c216941a39384b65efa2e641e ""Route to Address…" Workflow") workflow that allows me to select a location, and route directly there.
Use that same location file to select a location for use in a modification of the Reminders workflow above.

While these workflows are different in what they produce, at the core, they call the same information to be used in different ways.

Advantages

Through the Reminders example, you can start to realize the big benefit of using the plain-text dictionaries stored in your file system: using one file in multiple workflows.3 I can change the text file one time, and my workflows will pull in the updated information when it runs. Did one of the frequent addresses change? Edit in one place, use in multiple workflows, all with minimal effort. For automation, a write-once-use-anywhere mentality is ideal.

If I move or change roles at work, things that I regularly access are easily modified by typing, instead of duplicating the work again in another workflow. Need to add or change an address? An email address? Or maybe add or change [phone number](https://workflow.is/workflows/2563ac9600dc4ba5b474f3e7f80f545a ""Call…" Workflow")? Type in the change to your text file, save the file to your system of choice, and you're done.4

When I worked with Seth on creating some workflows, I didn't realize that it would allow me to expand what I'm doing with Workflow. I plan to explore further, perhaps going deeper into more complex dictionaries. But that time will come. For now, using these simple dictionaries to give me the flexibility to create has been fun. I hope you enjoy them as well. If you come up with something cool, hit me up.

Note: the dictionaries mentioned here are JSON. ↩
One thing that tripped me up was putting a comma at the end of the last line. If you do that, nothing gets passed into the dictionary, and your workflow will crap out. If you experience that error, check it out. ↩
I do wish, however, that I could copy a block of commands from one workflow to another. Looking at you, Workflow 2.0… ↩
Just make sure you follow the syntax from above. It does require a bit of caution, after all… ↩

Gaining Experience

2017-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

There are a lot of times where I seem to create good workflows or actions. They sometimes come out of nowhere, and really elevate some of my productive life. And sometimes I create them for friends based on their original ideas.

Recently, I was helping Seth work through an idea, and it turned into an awesome evolution clipboard management. There's a lot of useful tips in there and new ways of using Drafts and Workflow, so go read it. Now. I'll be here when you get back…

Ok, all done? Good.1

Being that Seth and I talk often — OK, a LOT — and we often bounce these things back and forth, I helped to create some actions and workflows to make those ideas become a reality. One of the important parts I came up with in the article he posted was the use of a dictionary to produce a list, which is helpful in so many things and a "damned creative" way of doing it, as he put in. Using this same idea, I improved a workflow that I had made for my frequent contacts, pulling from a plain-text dictionary of names and numbers instead of listing out a menu and contacts, while also leaving the option to input a number to call. I made an additional one for the doctors and pharmacies we use. And I plan on creating more.

I was really pleased with myself for coming up with this idea. But here's the thing: I have done this kind of list lookup before, however, it was used for a completely different purpose. I had previously posted about a Today workflow that helps me see my daily agenda ok my Apple Watch. In that workflow, I had a part that used a dictionary which formatted the time of events or reminders: it would change a give time of 12:00 AM to 12⁰⁰a. I did this because, well, that's just how I like to see the times. As I was working the idea of these clipboard snippet workflows out in my head, it dawned on me to try the same method to replace text with a link. After trying some different things, I ended up creating something that was even better than I had hoped. I had taken something from before, changed it up, and made it work for me in a new way. Keeping text files that I can change and pull from in iCloud Drive isn't a new concept, but using it in this way has elevated what I'm doing and made it more powerful for many other productivity workflows.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was the smartest technical person I knew. He had such a breadth of knowledge about a lot of things: cars, home repair, gardening, etc. And while I know my dad is incredibly smart, what I've come to learn as I've gotten older is that he has the intelligence as well as the experience. Having the experience from previous situations or obstacles and knowing how those were solved before can make all the difference in the world. He could look at anything like a puzzle, break it down to its parts, and then work to build it up and make it a functioning whole. And I feel like I have learned a lot from him in this regard, and still often learn now that I'm older.

Now, I have a wonderful community of like-minded nerds who challenge me and help me to learn new things or new methods of working. And some of them have become great friends - even best friends — that foster the creativity within me to use the tools that I already have or learn new ones to apply in different ways, create new methods, and solve other problems. The reality of my circle of friends and the greater productivity world I poke around in: I'm not the smartest person when it comes to this stuff, nor will I ever claim to be. There are other highly-capable, intelligent individuals who have more experience than me at putting the pieces together to create amazing workflows. But I'm always gaining the experience necessary to improve, put things together into something new, and be able to create some useful workflows of my own. I started out not knowing what I could do with Drafts and Workflow to using it daily, unsure of how I'd live without them. They really have taken my personal productivity to another level.

As Seth said:

I realize it seems circuitous and somewhat silly, but the whole point of all of this is to play and learn. … these small excursions also allow me to think through problems and find new ways to solve them. … These are the little puzzles I like to solve.

Personal growth can come from a lot of different places. And in my life thus far, nothing has made me grow more as a person than gaining experience. It has allowed me to learn as I go and further my personal and professional lives in positive ways. It allows me to have new insight into different puzzles that need to be solved, and I can't wait to see what my experience helps me do for the next one.

If not, seriously. GO. READ. IT. NOW. ↩

Drafts TapCellar

2016-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

I don't often take requests for creating actions or workflows. If I did that for everyone, I wouldn't be able to get anything done at all. But, there are times that I have a good friend in need, and I'm willing to help them in any way that I can.

Jeff, one-half of the team behind TapCellar — pour one out — and the Nerds on Draft podcast, asked me a few questions one day about the possibility of re-creating the basic information from TapCellar, but in a text document format. There were several different fields that he wanted:

Beer Name
Beer Style
Brewery Name
Grade
ABV / IBU
Notes

We went back and forth on a few different iterations. Then I had a follow-up request from another friend Nate. He wondered if it was possible to get the text input or the button that is pressed in a prompt step within Drafts. It took me a little bit to figure out how, but by placing a script after the prompt step, I was able to extract either the button selected or the text passed from the prompt step. I could go on about how useful this is for other multi-step actions, but I'll save that for a different day. You can view the example of just that part here if you want experiment.

What I ended up creating was an action containing multiple prompt steps that recreates some of the text fields of TapCellar, using Drafts and Dropbox.1 If you follow how I set up the action, you can easily add additional prompt steps to further add information you'd like to have. Additionally, I've formatted it the way I like it, and made it so that when the image links are appended, they are at the end of the draft; this can, however, be changed to suit your needs as well.

In addition to creating a draft with the information, I can use an action that I tweaked from my daily journaling that utilizes Workflow to take an image, upload it to Dropbox, and save the link into Drafts. This workflow allows me to add images and keep it all in the same space.2 I can preview the entry if I wish in HTML, which will give me the text along with an inline image.

I did also work to create a workflow that will do all of this, however, the preview of it is not as good. As a person who uses Drafts every day, I'd prefer using the separate actions. Additionally, if you keep the entries in Drafts and apply a filter, you can search within Drafts for them, rather than having to view them in Dropbox, which won't give you the preview. If you are interested in the workflow I created, you can find it here.

I'm sad to see TapCellar go. I'm not a beer guy in the slightest and the app wouldn't have been useful to me, but I like it when people who make great software succeed. It was fun to help my friends re-create part of the system in Drafts, an app that we all use and love. I hope all of them find it useful going forward.

Cheers, Gents!

I use Dropbox for now, but you can use iCloud Drive, Box, or One Drive - any of the systems that Drafts supports. ↩
Note: You'll need to create a folder in Dropbox called TapCellar, along with a sub-folder called Images for this to work. ↩

The Sum of the Parts

2016-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

This summer opened my eyes to trying new things with task management. I had a great, wonderful system, and then split it in two. Then I tried Reminders instead, and loved it even more when I got my Apple Watch. And life as I knew it was going along just fine. Until something just felt off.

I couldn't put my finger on it. I was accomplishing what I needed, and there wasn't really a hole in my system. Life had just gone from chaotic to simplistic. And maybe that's why things felt wrong. I can't explain why, but it just didn't feel right anymore. I'm sure it's a bit of a sickness, but I have come to realize I need to have some complexity in my life.

So I started thinking of what to do next. Did I need to try a new system? I've tried OmniFocus, Things, Due, etc. and nothing really stuck, despite those apps being great in their own ways. I thought about what made the Reminders experiment so great: the simplicity. But yet, when I needed to look at everything going on, it was cumbersome at best. I tried to make something work, but it just felt wrong to me. So maybe it wasn't a problem of the tools I have and what I'm using, but rather how I'm using them (or not).

And it's led me to a strange, crazy place.

The New System

So, this system I've developed uses four — yes, you read that right, four — different applications: Drafts, Reminders, Fantastical, and 2Do. I know, I know: this is NUTS. Why on earth would anyone want to use FOUR apps when you can use ONE task management system? I'm clearly off my rocker here. But here's the thing: it's really using one task management system — Reminders — all while giving me the flexibility I want while keeping the simplicity. So let me break it down.

Drafts

Drafts is the place where a majority of my tasks start anyway. It may be something I'm quickly thinking of, it might be grocery items, it might be a one-off thing that my boss said I need to get done. But it still goes to Drafts first.

The beauty here is that it's one main point for entry, with the exception of capturing anything with Siri. Now that I have my Apple Watch, I find myself using Siri to do just that, and I've realized I need to have some sort of Reminders integration into my system. And because Drafts can also hook into Reminders, it's an integral part of the system, even beyond everything else that I use it for already.

Fantastical

One area where Reminders.app falls short is input. I have, for a long time, loved the natural language parsing (NLP) capability of Fantastical. And I use that a lot for calendar entries for both work and home.

But one place I wasn't using it before was for reminders. When I was using a dedicated app for task management before, I was using Dropbox to sync it all. I had a vastly different need then. I was using it for work and home, and Dropbox was the only way to have everything that I needed fully backed up if something bad were to happen to my device. But since I have made that split, my home task list became much easier to manage, and I don't really need it.

Using NLP, I can send text from Drafts in a specific format to create a reminder at a specific time, set a repeat, set a list using the / followed by the list name, or even a priority by adding up to three ! marks after it. The best part of this is that I can quickly take a list that I've entered into Drafts, add some key information about due dates/times, priority, or whatever - and send it along to get into my system. The parsing is flexible enough to handle the simple stuff all the way up to the more complex task entry.

Reminders

Reminders.app by itself is an OK app. There are a lot of improvements that could be made to make it better for most people - just like Apple did with Notes. But it does a lot of things really well. Notifications are really great with it because they stay persistent on the lock screen, even if I am turning on/off my screen; think of it like nagging alerts, but without the repeating sounds or occasional bugs of it not working. Reminders can really be what I need: simply a collection of lists, each with tasks that may or may not have a due date.

But the biggest power of using Reminders lies in the backbone that is the CalDav sync. And because Apple has made this something that developers can tap into, it allows you to use the simplicity of Reminders, while adding some layers of complexity if another app provides it. It allows me to enter in tasks from various sources, and have it show up in one place. And this is primarily how I was enjoying life since summer.

I still use the watch app to quickly check off a task, as the native watch app is really great. This may change in the future if a certain app gets a certain update that I want to see, but for now this is good enough for my wrist.

But the Reminders.app on the phone viewing wasn't doing it for me. I needed to see everything in my system at once, and you simply can't do that in Reminders. But, I know a few places that can. And that's where an old friend comes in…

2Do

I have long loved 2Do, as you all well know. And somewhere beginning in the fall, I decided to start trying other things. I wanted to try them to gain perspective, and because I truly want the app to be better; trying out other apps allows me to gain insight on how it improve something and make it even more vital to my system. And as Fahad can attest to by my numerous messages and lengthy notes on what I would love to see going forward in the app, my passion for it has not dwindled at all. In fact, some of the experimentation of other apps has actually made me appreciate it more. Recently with my uneasy feeling, I've been pulled back to 2Do more and more.

And so I was torn: I like a lot that Reminders has to offer, but I like a little more complexity like 2Do can provide. I like Reminders, I like Fantastical, I love 2Do. I like Drafts + Reminders, I love Drafts + Fantastical, I love Drafts + 2Do.

Drafts + Reminders.
Drafts + Fantastical.
Drafts + 2Do.
Drafts + Fantastical + Reminders + 2Do.

There was the answer I was looking for, and I had it in my grasp at any point in time. 2Do has Reminders Sync capability. I previously was using Dropbox to get all of the benefits of 2Do, but now that my needs are simplified, it's possible for me to use 2Do with Reminders Sync to bring the system together, without having to worry about the caveats. I get the benefits of Siri, Drafts, Fantastical, and 2Do, all in one system.

I think a big part of why this make so much sense to me is the GTD mentality of "review". Using 2Do as the window into my tasks, and having the ability to tap an icon to view all of my lists at once, it's basically the Review feature I was missing from my system. I tried to simulate this by keeping a big list in Drafts, but there are times that I need to have everything in one place, and using two different apps wasn't working. I struggled to get my arms around it all, noticing that things would slip through here and there. I can also create smart lists, which can really bring it all together.

I can also sort the tasks in my lists in 2Do, which is something greatly lacking in Reminders. I can look at the Scheduled view in Reminders.app, sorted by due date, but it's not what I need from my other lists. There are times I want to see everything by priority or by a location or by due date. There are other times I want to take my entire list and focus on what's really important. And using 2Do features on top of Reminders allows me that window into my life.

A New Way Forward

So, I now have Drafts as my entry point. Fantastical, Siri, and 2Do can handle the processing of tasks that I throw their way. Reminders will give me the notifications I need, except the badge count. And 2Do will give me the viewpoint into what the overall landscape of my personal task life will be, including the badge count, so I know if I haven't gotten something done. And even though it sounds crazy to say that using four apps is better than using two, it's 100% true for me. I'm entering tasks in a few different ways, being notified by persistent reminders, but my viewport into all of it is in one spot. And it's a place I feel extremely comfortable in.

I've been using this system for only a short time. I'm sure that things will change. But I haven't been this excited about my tasks in a while. Reminders is great, but it needed a little bit of help, and it came from an amazing, familiar place that I love. And even though I'm only a short time in — I can already tell that this is going to be something that I am extremely happy with for a while.1

The sum of the parts really makes this system feel whole. It's making me feel better about the things I'm doing. It's helping me see what might have slipped my mind, or what glaring items I have that need to get done. It's taken some time to get to this point, and I cannot believe that I wasn't using this sooner. I guess all good things come to those who wait, right? I'm glad I took the time to wait for this to happen. And now starts the count of how long it will be until I change my mind again…

Until 2Do 4.0 happens. But, maybe even then, it won't change my system much. Who knows. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 8

2016-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Activity Tracking / Sharing

The gamification of this is really good. I had a Fitbit before, and it was all about step count. But now that I have a Watch, it's much more about being up and active. With watchOS 3, Activity Sharing was added: this allows users of the Apple Watch to view not only their fitness data, but their trusted friends as well. Within my ring circle of friends, it's been nice to motivate each other into doing a little more, even when we aren't talking. I can see that Sam just rode his bike, I can tell that Jeff has hit the treadmill - and I can feel like I'm not doing enough and get after it.

We also get to send responses when someone hits an achievement, which we have made more fun by using the standard responses of the watch. I can be encouraging, or I can be sarcastic. I'm not seeing the results I want to see in my health just as yet, but I know I will be soon. And I'm happy that my friends will also get to encourage me along the way and share in the fun.

Watch Bands

One surprising bit for me has been the customization. I'm really enjoying the swapping of bands, the changing of watch faces,1 and the unique way I can match all of this to the outfit or activity I am doing at the time. And while I'm not going to get all crazy and buy every band out there, having some options has been really great.

Currently, I have a couple of third-party bands that I really like. Aside from the black sport band that came with it, I also have a concrete-colored band that is the same. Well, nearly the same. Apple's material feels better, is likely better made, and will likely last longer over time; however, for $8-10 per band, I can get five of the 3rd-party bands for the price of one Apple band. When the Nike Apple Watch was announced, I liked the look of the new band; the fluoroelastomer bands can retain heat/sweat, and the Nike band seems to be better at reducing the amount. I also got a nylon band that is extremely similar to Apple's version, but for less than a third of the price. I wanted to get something fancy, but thanks to trade with a friend of mine, I now have a Milanese loop that has quickly become my favorite band. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I have, but it's really, really great.

I'm sure I'll get more bands, and I'll likely have to get help for the amount that I ultimately get. But I'm trying to keep it limited, trying to keep it fun and interesting, and have something that's personal to me. I'm digging it.

Note: when ordering bands, especially on Amazon, make sure you are ordering the correct size for your watch. The links above are for the 42mm M/L size bands, where applicable.

Anker Power Charger

I had purchased one of these for my wife a while ago, as she was charging multiple devices by her side of the bed. I had just been using the power bricks that came with my devices. But right after getting the Apple Watch, I needed to change this. It had become cumbersome. So, I ordered the Anker 40W/8A 5-Port USB Charger PowerPort 5 for my own use. And although I didn't get in time for a recent business trip, now that I have it at home, the cord management has never been easier. Couple this with a few Monoprice Cable Ties - power & cord mischief is managed.

I'm hopeful that Apple will allow custom watch faces at some point in the future. ↩

Second Screen

2016-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

I've been using my iPhone as my primary computer for a long time now. I've been limited to one screen, not able to have a second screen to rely on for viewing or other interactions. And whilst I can get all of what I need done on a single screen, having a secondary screen would be really great.

Most people I know use multiple screens: a phone and a computer, a phone and a tablet, or even a phone + tablet + tablet + PC. But when I really started thinking about what I need my second screen to do, I wasn't thinking of something larger than the Plus-sized screen I currently have: I get enough done on that already. I wanted to think portable. I wanted something to complement my mobile experience — and that's what led me to get my Apple Watch.

Having this as a second screen has been really amazing. Sure, it's not like an iPad or a Mac. It's severely limited in what it does, but it also changes my device interaction for the better. The notifications are worth the price of admission. My phone is always on silent. The only notifications I get are on my wrist now. No longer am I checking multiple things all the time, I'm focused on the quick tap, decide if I need to respond, and move along with what I was doing. It doesn't disturb my conversations, it allows me to focus more on my family, and makes me a present individual.

I didn't expect was how having the second screen would change the way I use my devices: not just behaviors, but also with my app selection. There are apps that I'm giving another shot because they work so well with the watch. There are other apps that I've used for years that I'm eliminating because their watch experience is just awful. Native watch apps are really great, like Reminders and Calendar. Other apps, like Carrot Weather, are worth the extra money for certain features like complications that make their app the best for both phone and watch. And I finally get to use Drafts on my wrist to capture text, which is incredibly useful.

If you're reading this, you know that I love workflows. If there is something I can set up to make my life easier, then that's what I want to have. And now that I'm able to kick things off on my wrist, it's making things a little bit easier. Previously, I had a workflow in Workflow that gave my a daily agenda. Over time, I've modified it and changed it based on my ever-changing needs/apps. But, I had to set a reminder to remember to run the workflow the night before, which ultimately lead to me not running it at all. But when I got the watch, that changed things. Seth and I got to talking one day, I modified the workflow I had, formatted it in a bunch of different ways, and made it available in the widget and on the watch. Now, not only can I look at a daily agenda, I can do it today, from my wrist, with a single tap.

Another thing that has been useful is Reminders on the Apple Watch. Using Siri is by far and away the easiest way to input a reminder, especially on the watch. But there are often times that I can't have my phone out, and I also need to be silent. Using this workflow, I am able to put in a reminder from my watch, but I'm able to use the scribble input (thought I can still use dictation if I wanted). A few taps later, and I have a reminder saved with a time or a location.

As I'm walking out of work, there are a lot of things that I am now actively doing on the watch rather than my phone. I'll review the shopping list to check if I need to stop in the way home. I'll also send a message to my wife to let her know I'm on my way. I've also created a workflow to send a few different canned messages, along with a Dictate option, so that I can quickly message her when I leave.

I'm actually surprised but the amount that I use my Apple Watch to respond with my voice. It's starting to become my preferred way of interacting with a message. The watch is quick and easy for responding. Additionally, if I'm listening to something on my headphones or watching something on my phone, I can respond on my watch without having to pause the audio/video.

But even more surprising is that I am just recording my voice more. I was using an app called Just Press Record that I used to capture audio snippets when on the go. I might do it for more complex thoughts or for when I'm journaling. Sometimes my youngest says some funny stuff, and I never know when I'm going to need to be ready. But now, I can use Workflow to record and save these things to iCloud, which eliminates another app for me.1

I'm actively working on more of these that will improve my life. Sometimes, the workflow is too much or it doesn't go anywhere. But I'm really starting to think in new ways of how to use this all to my advantage as a second screen. The future of the Apple Watch looks bright. It's not a device that is required by an means, but it really improves a lot of the daily use of my connected devices. It tends to make daily tasks better for me, make me feel better about how I interact with the world around me, and if that's all it does — then it's completely worth it.

Now that I have a second screen in my Apple Watch, I've been thinking more and more about adding a third. There's a lot of compelling things out there about an iPad Pro. I've written before about how much I can do from my iPhone, and that's absolutely still the case. However, I still feel drawn to having this larger screen.

I have read other people's posts about how much they love their iPad Pro. I've read about some of the cool features, like handwritten notes and podcast editing, that really appeal to me and benefit from a larger screen. And while I'd like certain things to come to the iPhone, I'm not sure Apple really feels the same way.

So, I'm having a bit of FOMO. Actually, it's more than that: I know I'm missing out. I'm not trying out a different set of interactions that others do. I'm not able to try more complex automation to propel iOS to new levels and try new things. I'm missing out on trying a new way of interaction and computing that could be helpful to me, my family, my friends, and others. The perspective that I'm losing is substantial. There's always another new thing, but at this point, I've been missing out for a while now.

If I can get this much done on my phone, and now my phone + watch, what the hell could I get done on an iPad? I'm really anxious to find out. It can't come soon enough.

This is something that I've been actively doing now for a while. Feels good. ↩

Basic

2016-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Over the summer, I experimented with a lot of different app configurations. I tried too many task management apps to see how different things fared. I loved my solution, but I wanted to see what else was out there. Then I bifurcated my tasks and used two apps. Splitting my brain in this way was tough, but has been extremely rewarding.

A few months later, I found myself with an Apple Watch. Now that I have an extension of my phone always on me, I started realizing a few different things with my tasks. When I take work out of the equation and only focus on the things I have to do at home, I really don't have a lot of tasks to manage. In fact, it's almost scary the amount of tasks I don't need to constantly parse through when it's locked away in another app. I've even started and am actively going through and refactoring my home tasks to ensure that I am not missing anything.

I ended up also liking different experiences once I started using the Watch. Having things like a good watch app or a good complication can really make an impactful difference. I've started using different weather apps, different navigation apps, different Twitter apps than I did before — and it's really had a profound impact on the way I think of all of this. In fact, I have a secret that will surprise many of you: I've actually been using Reminders for all of my home tasks for the last few weeks.

The beauty with Reminders is that the app is generally good anywhere in the Apple ecosystem, and it is really fantastic on the Watch. And because I'm not managing so many tasks in my personal life, it's been working out really well. Need a grocery item? Add it via Siri. Need to remember a key task in a meeting? Send it from my meeting notes in Drafts to Fantastical, use natural language parsing, and load that into Reminders. The fact that many apps can tie into Reminders is nice.1 I can envision improvements to Reminders, just like in Notes, that would make Reminders a more powerful application for many. There are small changes that could be made to improve it,2 and I hope that some of them actually make it in to a future release.

The other thing I've noticed: in the complexity that is my life, having something simple and basic is refreshing, yet terrifying. I've upended a lot of different apps that I use, and even though it's taken me down scary thought experiments and upended my daily device interactions — it's changed me for the better to do so. I'm constantly tempted to switch everything back, but have resisted the urge in favor of the simplicity, at least for now.

I've still been keeping up on 2Do, used the betas for testing, and I have a long, long list for features and improvements I'd like to see. It's still my favorite task management app on iOS. And I'm really excited to see what happens for the next big release. That will likely pull me back into that camp, and I'll be in love all over again. But for now, using a stock iOS app has helped me think of how I can manage my tasks a little more simply and gain better understanding for what I need to have in order to pacify my infantile, fickle mind.

And the same can be said for Calendar and Mail. I've used other apps for a long time. And little by little, the stock apps have become better, and are on the verge of being great. If Mail.app would just get a damn share sheet and Gmail push notifications, I'd never think twice about using it. However, I've noticed that by not having the notifications has made things better with respect to email. So, maybe it's actually a good thing. Ok, fine. I really just need a share sheet.

But back to the point — I'm really shocked at how well things have improved after months or years away from using the Apple apps, and it really has been a nice experience using the integrated solution in iOS and watchOS. I'm changing the way I'm doing things, and optimizing my life to do more, with less reliance on other services.3 I've gone from using tons of 3rd-party apps to using Mail, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Maps, etc. — and it'a an oddly wonderful feeling. I don't recognize this person is that I'm seeing in the mirror (or on my homescreen), but he seems ok for the most part. And it's a nice change for this five minutes. I think I'll keep him around a while, until something else changes.

One point of order here: I realize that I can use 2Do with Reminders sync. But the point of this is to use the stock app. I don't want to muddy the waters and lose the Dropbox sync. I've even made a few different w-flows in Workflow to move things back at the press of a couple buttons to make sure that I can move back quickly. ↩
Yes, like a good iOS beta tester, I've sent in suggestions using the Feedback app. ↩
Hell, I'm even considering just using iCloud Drive and ditching Dropbox. ↩

The Age of Wire-less

2016-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

The keynote address that unveiled the iPhone 7/7 Plus, the delayed AirPods, and the new Apple Watches got me thinking about the upcoming future of our wireless world. The announcement was met with some praise and criticism,1 but also a vision of the future.

In college while getting my degree in Mechanical Engineering, I was fortunate to have cooperative education available to me; in fact, it was required for me to graduate. For one of these assignments, I worked for a company that engineered and sold the fuel filling systems at gas stations. When I was there, they were working on a "dripless" nozzle: the idea of a gasoline nozzle that did not drip anything onto the pavement below was something that the emissions agencies set their sights on obtaining. In the end, thanks to physics and fluid dynamics, this was found to be impossible. So the focus became to create a "drip-less" nozzle: while the drips might still happen, they wouldn't be as frequent.

And that's the future we are headed towards with wireless and connected devices. As the devices we use get better with time, as they gain more features while consuming less power, as we get better connectivity through chipsets and software, our daily experience with these devices will be improved. For the foreseeable future, we will still need the use of wires to charge; however, we will use them less, and that's really the point of all of it.

Recently, I was able to pick up an Apple Watch for fairly cheap.2 Within the first 48 hours, I could see how much of a game changer this is for me. First off, my phone is pretty much silent now: there's no vibrations, no sounds, and ultimately no distractions. The only notifications I get come to the Watch, but only through the haptic feedback; I can choose to ignore it or answer it. But the big difference here is that I'm not tempted to check other things like email or Twitter as frequently. I'm handling the incoming notifications and going back to what I was doing, greatly reducing the time I'm using the device. If it needs more attention, then I'll pull out my phone, but only when I'm ready to do so. I'm more present in the moment, and that's better for family, friends and work.

The idea of having an ultra-mobile computing center is appealing; it's no wonder people are moving towards an iOS-centric computing platform. Even now, as I use a wireless keyboard to type on my iPhone, while listening to music on my Bluetooth headphones and glancing occasionally at the time or a message on my Watch, the freedom from wires is liberating and gives me a better feeling about my technology use. The key focus of the Apple Event really was to show the ecosystem; every component of the system compliments one another. The goal is to have a series of connected devices, but not with cumbersome wires.

The fact that I am typically able to get through the day without charging any of my devices is fantastic.3 But the devices I use will still require charging, and therefore wires — but it is less frequent than ever. And until the day comes where there is power freely floating through the air and good enough that it can charge devices quickly, there won't be an Age of Wireless. We have, however, entered the Age of Wire-less — and I love the freedom it provides and the direction this is headed for the future.

Hot Take: I'm thankful that they got rid of the headphone jack. I haven't used it much in over a year since I purchased wireless headphones, and didn't miss it at all. ↩
You will actually be able to hear about it soon-ish. Stay tuned. ↩
And in the case of the watch, maybe every 2 days. Still waiting to see how well this works over time. ↩

2Do Goes Free

2016-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

With the latest update in the App Store, 2Do has gone free for 14 days, with an in-app purchase to keep pro features. But the big news here: if you've ever wanted to try the app out in its full capability can now do so to see if switching to 2Do is right for them.

Although I am happy to support developers — as I've probably purchased hundreds of dollars of apps — I'm really happy to see this type of change for productivity apps. So many of these types of apps need to have sustainable business models to keep them around, and are worthy of a higher price. But many users are hesitant to buy before they try. I like that these apps are starting to explore the try-before-you-buy model, and I hope that it brings more revenue to the developers that deserve it.

As I've written many times before, 2Do is the best task management system I have ever used on iOS, hands down. And I'm really excited about the potential of a big 4.0 release in the future, full of a long wishlist of new features.^[1]

If you've ever wondered what it was like to move to a new system, to try the best, now is your chance. What's holding you back? Nothing now - go get 2Do on the App Store for free (to try). And if you like it, get the IAP, and support its continued development.

Not that I would ever send that to Fahad. Nope. Not me. I wouldn't send him a super-long list of things I'd love to see in the app, causing him to work night and day. Because that would be cruel. (Sorry Fahad. So sorry) ↩︎

A Little Note on Notes

2016-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

As I was preparing to receive my Apple Watch,1 I started gathering different information that I wanted to refer to when setting it up. I used Notes.app to make saving links a breeze, and I like the way they are saved because they are visually appealing.

I also encountered several watch face layouts along the way that I wanted to keep in mind when setting it up. When I started adding the images, they weren't visually in the right spot; I wanted to have them indented to the right. Turns Out™, that's not possible in Notes.app.2 But I ended up stumbling on a feature of Notes.app that I didn't even know existed. Here is the view of the note that I was compiling:

It's nice that the full resolution size is in there, but scrolling that is a pain when all I need is a quick view. But if I highlight a picture, I noticed that I can select "Small Images" from the pop-up menu, and the images are made smaller in the view.

I can still tap on them to see at full resolution, but I don't have to have that in the main view. So the long note becomes something shorter, and I'm happier.

One caveat: it's applied to all or none. You can either have small or large images. You can't apply it to each image, but I'm hopeful that Apple will include that in the future. For now, I'm happy that my original frustration yielded this feature discovery.

through some epic schemes that I won't even begin to describe ↩
C'mon, Apple: how is this not a thing?!? ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 7

2016-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Here'a some kitchen things that have piqued my interest:

Kitchen Aid Spiralizer

I received the KitchenAid Spiralizer as a gift from my wife. I do enjoy cooking because it's therapeutic most of the time. I'm also a sucker for good pasta,1 so getting me something that helps me make pasta alternatives is amazing.

One of the best meals I've made in a long time has been chicken zucchini pesto. It's a simple, healthy recipe; I had been attempting to make zucchini noodles by hand (with a peeler and a knife), and things turned out mostly ok.

But now that I'm using the spiralizer attachment, I do not know how I survived without it. What used to take me 45+ minutes to do by hand now takes 10 minutes, including cleanup, with this tool. It's an attachment for our KitchenAid mixer, which does all the hard work.2

This is easily my favorite thing I've had in the kitchen in a long time, and makes me want to create new things all the time. Easy set-up, easy clean-up, easy dinner - and healthier living.

Mezzaluna Knife

I gifted this Mezzaluna Knife to my wife.3 Cutting up fresh herbs can be a [literal] pain, but this makes that process easier. We tend to do a lot with fresh herbs, and although I could use a knife and cutting board, anything to make my work easier — and safer — in the kitchen is better for me.

Tritanware - Camping Silverware

I usually pack food for work. Which means I go through a lot of plasticware during the week. After a few times of eating what I normally eat for breakfast (see below) and breaking my fork/spoon in it, I needed to look for something better.

This camping silverware is a combination fork, knife, and spoon all-in-one. They come in a nice carry case with carabiner in set of five - one for every day of the work week - and are machine washable. I can also use them while camping, which means they get a dual purpose. They've been outstanding for what I need. I also feel better that I'm not contributing more to the garbage pile, and that's enough for me.

Recipes

Like I said above, this dish is great. I've been able to tweak it for how I like it. You can download a printable version here.

Chicken Zucchini Pesto

Ingredients

6 zucchini (medium sized)
1-2 lbs chicken breast
4oz basil
4oz spinach
4oz arugula
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 - 1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste
water

Directions

Use the spiralizer to make the zucchini noodles. Set aside.
Cook the chicken in olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Cut up into strips or cubes; set aside.
Make the pesto by combining the basil, spinach, arugula, nutritional yeast, and olive oil into a blender until smooth. Salt & pepper to taste. Note: This makes a lot of pesto, which is good for leftovers
Place 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Add zucchini and cook for 1-2 min, stirring occasionally. Add 1/4 - 1/3 (depending on portion) of water, and cook for an additional 6-8 min, until the desired firmness is achieved to be like pasta.
Add chicken and the desired amount of pesto to the meal, stir until warmed, and serve.

This is completely dairy free, and is amazingly filling.

For those that want the recipe for my breakfast, I got the inspiration from a recipe I found online and tweaked it. Hope you enjoy it. You can download a printable version here.

Breakfast To-Go

Ingredients

1 container of liquid egg whites (or 9 eggs)
2 packages of uncooked turkey breakfast sausage patties, total of 24 patties
small amount of shredded cheese of choice
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

I start off by using 12 4-oz mason jars in a 9 x 13 baking pan (to avoid spillage in the oven).
Place 2 patties in each container. Use your fingers to line the jar with the patties, making a spot for the egg to fit.
If you want to add cheese, add just a pinch to each one. You can also add a slice of mushroom, or a pinch of chives, or whatever else you'd like.
Evenly distribute the eggs, leaving about 1/4" from the top. If you are using the eggs, beat them together first.
Cover the entire baking pan with aluminum foil and put in the oven for 55 min at 375ºF.
Let them cool down and put the lid on each one. These can be refrigerated and/or frozen.
When you heat them up in the microwave, be sure to heat them all the way through with the lid off.

For how I make this recipe, it's about 120 calories or so, and it's the perfect amount to go with my coffee.

Pasta is my spirit animal. ↩
If you don't have a mixer, The Pampered Chef makes this standalone version of something similar. ↩
The sixth anniversary is iron or wood, so I got both. ↩

Dictation Dingus

2016-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

There are a lot of things during the day that I often need to remember. And most of the time, I'm trying to get things into my phone quickly without having to think too much about where it's going.

Enter Drafts.

Drafts is a wonderful tool for this kind of activity. I can simply enter the text using my fingers and thumbs. Starting ideas here has been the natural place for me for a long time now. And with the latest update, it's now made even easier with the dictation feature, thanks to the changes made in iOS 10. It takes cognition-to-completion, something I first heard from Merlin Mann on Back-to-Work, down to seconds to complete. All you have to do is 3D Touch the Drafts icon on your iPhone and start talking: it's as simple as that. You don't have to tap anything to make new draft or think where the icon is on your home screen – even though it should be in your dock – and then start typing into whatever keyboard you choose. You just press and talk.

We often use technology, even if it's pen and paper, to get the thoughts from our head to paper so we can remember it later. And now with modern technology – i.e. the smartphone or smartwatch – we can really shorten the time it takes to get these things out into our digital sheets.

Back in February, Gabe at Macdrifer posted about talking to his Apple Watch. In the post, he was able to dictate the entire thing while he walked to the grocery store. If I had an Apple Watch, I would be capturing things left, right, and center with my voice — likely to the annoyance of those around me. With the improvements in iOS 10, I can turn my iPhone into the same thing, but better.

When the first beta with this feature rolled out, there was a limitation of the capture time.1 But later in the betas, Greg was able to cleverly work around this limitation, and it's a game changer. The first time I tested it, I picked up my phone when leaving work, and just talked for 20 minutes while I captured the main portion of this post. I was able to use the pause button if I needed to stop and think of how I was going to say something. This eliminates the need for creating multiple drafts and allows me to have one continuous, fluid session. With that limitation removed, I can just talk to my dingus on the way home. With this feature, I can literally complete 90% of my posts on the way home, just by talking. I can use the time to be productive, fix small mistakes or add links later, and then get posts out.

If I spoke multiple languages, dictation entry in Drafts would be the best way to do it. The official dictation support — along with all of the new features of the release — can be found here. With the new multi-keyboard feature in iOS 10, it's limited to similar languages, like English and Italian. But with the dictation feature, any language that is supported by Siri works with dictation, so you can go from English to Russian to Italian to Mandarin and back again, pausing between each, all in one session without fully stopping.2

Of course, Drafts wouldn't be complete without a custom key for dictation. This allows you to use a keyboard shortcut to start dictation on the Smart or a third-party external keyboard.3 Now even as I'm writing, I can simply activate the shortcut key and talk; it inserts the spoken text where I had my cursor. There are times that I might be cooking in the kitchen, and with this, I can hit the keyboard and just start talking while walking around, dictating my shopping list without stopping. Then I can send it along to AnyList with an action later.

If you've never used dictation, there are helpful things to know. Macworld has a good article — albeit from 2013, but it's still true — covering some key basics, including commands, that I have found to be incredibly useful:

Speak punctuation and symbols: To include punctuation in your dictation, you need to say “comma,” “period,” “hyphen,” and so on.

You can say “new line” to dictate a return character, and “new paragraph” to add two returns. You say “apostrophe” for a possessive noun, such as “Jerry Garcia apostrophe S guitar,” for Jerry Garcia’s guitar.

When you want to capitalize a word, say “cap.” If you’re sending a message to someone about a movie preference, for example, you might say “I’d like to watch cap lord of the cap rings.”

Journal entries have been made way easier now. I've been using Drafts for my journaling, and this takes it from typing to a (one-sided) conversation. The beauty of this is that it sounds more natural, more in line with how I speak, rather than me trying to perfect my words. I often just dictate the entry, save it, and move on without editing it (other than for any dictation errors). Slowly but surely, it's becoming second nature to me to start a new draft, insert the timestamp, and then start dictating the entry.

While I'm doing most of my long-form writing in Ulysses these days, this really has me pining for using this feature in combination with things I think about for Drafts 5. The power of Drafts really shines here by cutting down the time it takes for me to get my thoughts out, and is so much better for idea generation. If I have an idea while driving or walking around the house, I can just simply pick up my phone, 3D Touch the Drafts icon, and start talking. This makes Drafts a very compelling writing tool, now more than ever.

With this new feature in Drafts, it can turn my powerful pocket computer into a dedicated dictation dingus for me to get more thoughts out, things accomplished, and go about my day.

Drafts is available on the App Store for $4.99 — which is a steal at this price. You can even throw him a tip now too.

This is an Apple limitation. ↩
Impressive. Most impressive. ↩
Mine is ⌘ + / , which is a part of the "?" key. ↩

Bifurcation

2016-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

This summer has been a busy one. It seems like the time of year that things will always get busy for me. I'm currently working on a global launch of a product in four countries, and with all the little differences and nuances in each place, it has been difficult to keep track of all my tasks.

Which is why I love 2Do so much.

But this summer has been really different for me. Instead of one thing to focus on, I have a bunch more. More than I've ever had to keep straight. And it's made even further complicated by personal life stuff. So there's been a need to re-evaluate what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it. Luckily, I have some amazing friends, and one in particular that has had similar issues and feelings this summer. Seth and I have had many conversations about this, and he's had a lot of sage-like insight on the topic. In fact, he's written a three-part summer series on it, and I highly recommend that you take the time to read it (if you're in to the nerdy stuff we're in to). It's some magnificent writing, and I couldn't have said it better if I had tried.

I can manage a lot with 2Do. In fact, I can typically manage everything with it. It's the central hub, the central nervous system to my task management. But this summer has shown me one thing: I often need to split stuff in my brain and do things differently. Sure, I can filter what I'm looking at, but it was starting to not feel like enough. Earlier this year, I tried some new things as experiments to see what else was out there, and how it could better serve me. Ultimately, I came back to where I started, and things were working OK. Kinda.

What I was noticing for work is that I wouldn't always see everything that I needed to do. I was managing my work tasks on my personal phone so that I could keep track of them, and keep them close at hand. But then I would forget to add an email to follow up on, or not remember to enter something from the chat system we use at work. If I'm missing tasks that others are depending on me to get done, then I need to fix something.

I don't use a Mac at work, but rather the eight pound monstrosity that is my laptop. So I needed something that talked between iOS and my PC, but only for work. For many reasons, I'm not going to keep my personal life on my work computer, but I didn't mind the reverse.

So I once again tried Todoist. But rather than moving over everything and having the app on my first home screen, I put only work tasks in it and moved it into a folder on my second screen; this allows me to be able to access it, but it's not in my face. As Seth said:

Now I’ve realized with all the things I’m tracking, the best way to do that and accommodate my personal wishes to keep work and personal life connected but separate means I take that information and split it right down the middle.

Now, I really didn't like this to start. Not at all. It broke my brain. Give it more time: it will be OK, I was told. So I did. And as I continued, I had the same feeling as he did:

For the next 36 hours or so, I had all of my life in those two apps. And then I just freaked out. No, seriously, I did. I had a baby anxiety attack, quickly righted the ship, realized I’m a total asshole, thanked the heavens that this was my biggest problem right now, and just said fuck it, it’s going to be [my app] again, and that’s that.

After about a week, I began to see how much I actually really love this. I've been able to install the Outlook add-on for Todoist, so that it's completely integral to my workflow. And that's been a game changer. In fact, it's been a huge boost in productivity for me. I was originally going to wait until I had my new job,1 but the suggestion that I set this up now instead of when I'm in my new role was a great idea.

So here's my current setup: I'm still using 2Do for my personal tasks. But I'm also using Todoist for work. And this bifurcation is working. I'm still as just productive as using one app, if not even more so with two. I can use the right app, at the right time, in the right place.

The big thing with all of this: you shouldn't worry about what app(s) others are using, but rather you should focus on what makes sense to you and how it makes you feel. If your work and personal life need a specific solution, whether that is one or more apps, it just needs to help you stay focused, feel OK, and allow you to take care of your needs.

I'm really glad I'm not alone in this. Not by a long shot. I have made several friends specifically because of this condition line of thinking. We're not in the same physical space, but at least we have a way to talk about it. As Seth put it:

If you’ve made it this far, I truly am sorry. And thankful. We should hang out.

We should. And we will. But for now: we'll continue to talk frequently about things like this, commiserating, changing, learning, and sharing our experiences. And that's good enough... for now.

Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, I got a new role at work. It's going to be great. ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 6

2016-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

Science Vs

I really like the Reply All podcast from Gimlet Media. If you haven't listened to that show, make sure you go listen to it. At the end of episode #71, they had a preview of the second season of a podcast I had never heard of, Science Vs I listened to the preview, which was the first half of the "Fracking" episode, and I was hooked.

Hosted by Wendy Zuckerman, the whole idea of this show is to take a topic, break down the key points, and scientifically back-up or refute the validity of said points. The topics range from fracking to diets to medical marijuana. In the latest episode and first in a two-part series titled "Guns", she tackles a fiercely debated topic dealing with guns in America. It points out where some of the groups that use statistics get it wrong, and shines some light on how some of these figures get collected. The difference the podcast brings to the debate is that it's not from a passionate point of view, but rather a scientific one to help understand what is really going on. Is it a problem? Is it a problem with incorrect statements of fact?1 I'm really looking forward to part two.

A nice touch in the beginning of the episode: she gives the telephone numbers for two suicide prevention and crisis hotlines, and even more in the show notes. This is a touch of class that I have not experienced while hearing another podcast, and given the subject matter, was the perfect way to start the show. Bravo, Wendy.

I'm happy that Reply All featured a segment, and I'm going back now to binge-listen to season one. I highly recommend you do the same.

Science Vs on iTunes

Reply All on iTunes

The Black Tapes

I don't remember how I heard of The Black Tapes, but ever since listening to the first few episodes, I've been enjoying this serialized docudrama. The show features Alex Reagan sharing her journey, along with her producer Nick and the focal point of the show, Dr. Richard Strand, through a complex web of a story. The show deals with the "Black Tapes", a series of tapes that cannot be scientifically explained. It covers elements of the supernatural, demons, the occult, and other topics; some of the are downright terrifying, and often makes me thankful this is an audio-only show.

I should state now that this is not a show for kids, or even listening to it with kids in the car. It can be more intense than other docudrama podcasts, with the background soundtrack adding effects that can make you feel a bit uneasy (but adds to the ambiance of the show). The story starts from the first episode, so if you want to get into the show, you really do need to start with episode one. I've really enjoyed this podcast, and if you enjoy Lore, I would definitely give it a shot.

The Black Tapes on iTunes

Lore on iTunes

I've often hear this statistic: "90% of all statistics are false." ↩

Something Different, Something New

2016-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

I often can get stuck in my ways. I might find something I really like, and use it until it breaks. And then I'll go get the same thing to replace it. The exception is apps: I like trying things, even if I only end up back where I began. And when I find a great app, it usually makes me want to use it often.

For a long time now, I've used Drafts for all of my writing. I absolutely love Drafts: I've written about my love for it and the amazing things it can do multiple times over. I write and process posts through Drafts, using a combination of keys, actions, and Workflow to get them published. If my dreams come true for the next big version of Drafts, it will further cement it as the single app on iOS that I can't live without.

There are three main ways that I use Drafts on a regular basis (for writing):

short snippets of text that I need to transform into something else in another app
my daily journal entries (typically short)
my website (usually too long)

The first two are made easier with Drafts, due to the custom workflows I have set up to make them happen. But having a dedicated app to concentrate on my website, where I don't get distracted — by notes, calendar entries and tasks that reside in Drafts before they are sent elsewhere — is extremely appealing to allow me to write in a more focused manner.

So in the year of great writing apps, and my own interests with trials and experiments, I began feeling like maybe I should sit down and really give some dedicated apps a shot. Am I using the right tool for the job? Are there things that I'm missing or could improve upon by not trying something different, something new?

Byword

I first went back to Byword to see if I could start with something simple. Byword has a great, simple interface and is a traditional Markdown editor. The direct publishing from within the app is pretty great. But for me, the experience is about the same as Drafts, and I don't want to add an app into my workflow unless it's going to make things better for me.

Editorial

I've used Editorial quite a bit in the past. It's a solid text editor that not only uses Markdown, but also TaskPaper and other formats; the editor itself is much like Byword, but with the addition of folding and arranging headers. It has a very powerful automation component, powered by Python, which can do some amazing things if you know what you're doing. It integrates well with Dropbox, which is something that I like to have so that I can keep my files all in one place.

But the development of the app has been stagnant. Pythonista is the app that makes the developer money, so justifying development time on an app that isn't going to make you money is something that few app developers will ever do, let alone with great frequency. If an app isn't moving forward and progressing, I can't stick with it and be left behind.

Scrivener

Scrivener for macOS has been around for a long time, and users of the app have wanted it to come to iOS for years. Now that it's finally available for iOS, I wanted to see what the feature set was like.

It didn't take me long to realize that while Scrivener looks to be an amazing app, it wasn't going to work for me. I am spoiled by Markdown: composing anything in a Markdown format has become second nature to me. And while I'm willing to try new things, changing from that markup style isn't one of them. That said, if you're penning a lot of books, screenplays, etc., — it looks to be a solid app for you.1

Ulysses

I had previously purchased Ulysses for iOS to do one thing: make an ePub for my post on moving over to 2Do. I was astonished at how well it worked, especially when it was all from my iPhone; I created an ePub in an hour. But aside from that, I had never really spent any amount of in-depth time making it my only long-form text editor.

I'm very used to posting from Drafts via Workflow to my WordPress site. There are times that I will need to make changes to the formatting, so I had to make a workflow to send the text to Drafts.2 But I have yet to do that again in practice, thanks to how well the direct integration of publishing to WordPress has worked for me.

The customization of the editor and the export formats is where Ulysses really does shine over other apps that I've used. The clarity it allows is simply amazing, and is something that I will hold other apps to when new ones inevitably come along. You can change fonts, colors, line spacing, etc. in the editor for a fully customizable experience to make the writing environment comfortable for you. The Markdown XL color syntax elements allow you see an element of your text as a formatted or special element, but do not really take away from reading like other traditional Markdown editors can.

There are existing Ulysses themes and other preset customizations that you can choose from, but if you have the Mac version, you can create your own custom style. I spent some time with my MacBook Air Water, and after a little time and tweaking I was able to make my own custom theme based on my vision of a Drafts 5.0 color syntax.3 Additionally, I was pointed to a post which allowed me to get SF Mono as a font choice. The combination of the two has lead to the most visually stunning writing experience I've ever had, and actually makes me want to write. I really would love to see the ability to create the theme and other customization options come over to iOS, even down to my iPad nano, so that I don't have to touch the Mac at all. Hopefully The Soulmen will add this functionality as it continues to gain feature parity between macOS and iOS.

And just when I didn't think it could get better, typewriter mode showed up in the Ulysses beta. I previously had written off the idea of a typewriter mode in apps; I thought that by having a changing focal point within an app, it would make for a worse experience. But I can tell you now that I was so very, very wrong. Having this mode has been incredibly helpful, and allows me to write words more fluidly than I ever have before. I can focus on the sentence, line, or paragraph I'm trying to write, rather than being distracted by everything within the entire sheet.

As I'm writing, I often have edits upon edits that I do; I write, rewrite and remove a lot. But now with Ulysses, I am able to use some of the extra markup styles not available in most text editors, and I can apply multiple markup styles to text in my posts. If I need to look something up, I can simply wrap the text with the "marked" syntax, denoted by :: :: . And later, if I decide that I don't want to include a section, I can use the "delete" markup || || ; this is nice because I can keep everything in the text, but it won't post that text upon export.

Another thing to love about Ulysses is the find/replace feature. It's more than just find and replace: think of it more like search and replace. The search (find) function of the app allows me to search to ensure that I'm not repeating too many instances of the same word. I have previously not had this option available to me on iOS, and I'm very grateful to have it to improve my posts going forward.4

I do miss some of the custom shortcuts and ways that I can use the Safari View Controller to search for links that I have set up in Drafts. There is a way in Ulysses to search with text by selecting a word, pressing "Define", and then pressing "Search Web" in the bottom right corner; that will kick you to Safari and you can tap on the upper left corner to return to Ulysses. This is far from elegant or easily discoverable, and I'd like to see this improved, especially for users using smaller screens.

I'm starting to train my muscle memory to work better with Ulysses. For example, I had some difficulty getting the external keyboard shortcut keys down. To help with this, I actually went and changed my Drafts keyboard shortcuts to be the same (as much as possible) as Ulysses. I'm still learning, still making mistakes, but using the same shortcuts in two places has been helping immensely.

And ultimately, it's been helping me do the one thing it was designed to help me with: write. I'm able to take my ideas and converge on what my message is going to be. I'm able to discern between what is important and what is not. I can write in sections, splitting a post (like this one) into smaller, focused chunks, and accomplish more in less time.

When I started this experiment, I only set out to try out another way, feeling like I'd end up back where I started. I thought I'd see how a dedicated app fares in my method and style of writing and determine that I was ok with what I had. But I wanted to give it a fair shot, before I completely discard it as something I don't need, free from the sway of prominent bloggers and tech influencers telling me what I should be using.

To my surprise and delight, I'm absolutely in love with Ulysses. It has transformed the way I'm approaching my writing. It's not replacing my journal or quick notes, but it is serving as the focal point for my site; I have more clarity, more enthusiasm, more determination, and I think I'm producing better results. And an app that does that is nothing short of fantastic.

Ulysses is available on the App Store for $24.99, and well worth every penny.

I'm really excited to see what lies in store for Federico Viticci's review of iOS 10, which is going to be completely written in Scrivener. But even he has said it is not his go-to app for his normal posts. ↩
It took me a while to realize that the export was a .zip file. Slightly annoying, but not insurmountable. ↩
You can also download it here if you don't have Ulysses yet and want to make sure you can save it somewhere. ↩
In one of my drafts for this post, I had the word "writing" in it 35 times. I got it down to around 10 by using this feature. ↩

Trials and Experiments

2016-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

There are many times with many things where I can be afraid to try something new. Trying something not in my comfort zone can be downright frightening. Other times, I'm plagued by the friction that comes from doing the new thing. But for all of the reasons not to do it, I still want to try them: I'm curious about new things, new possibilities, and wonder if there are better tools out there for me to use. And I'm easily distracted by new, shiny things.

Recently, tried using new task management apps.^[1] There have been updates to several apps, most notably Todoist and OmniFocus. I wanted to see what benefits they could offer me over my current app, 2Do. There was a huge group of people that really started loving 2Do on iOS. Many users switched over. But for many [private] reasons, there had been a slowdown in development. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't worry me a bit; after all, it's one person doing the entire app.

So in this slowdown, I wanted to experiment to see what else was out there. The first point of friction was moving select things over; most apps don't have easy ways of export/import. The second was the nomenclature: can often get lost with naming conventions until I have an equivalency to something that I know, something that is familiar. With those things out of the way, I could try doing things in a new way.

There were things about Todoist that I really liked: clean UI, collaborative tools, and the ability to enter in tasks for work via the Chrome extension. And while this felt OK and I spent a few days with it, it didn't feel right. I don't collaborate with many people on tasks, and when I do, it's usually work and I need to go see them anyway.

So I once again tried OmniFocus to see if the new changes – especially to the input method via TaskPaper format – would work for me. The taskpaper format is really interesting, when it works well; it was cumbersome to get right, however, which is probably due to my lack of knowledge of TaskPaper more than the feature itself. I also dove into the MailDrop feature, and it's fantastic: the ability to set email addresses, even as a temporary one, is great. And I definitely missed the Forecast and Review features, both of which are top notch. But one of the big things that I had difficulty with was the lack of batch editing. It made it very difficult to move a huge Inbox full of tasks to one context or another, and is something I cannot fathom as to why it's not implemented yet.^[2]

So after spending some time entering in all my tasks to other apps, I was met with a notification when I got home: 2Do beta v3.8.3. Couldn't really have been timed better, huh? After a long period with no updates, I was happy to see the improvements, offer some suggestions, and talk to him about the ones to come. Most importantly, I needed to implement them into my daily workflow.

Initially, I was upset with myself for wasting time: why had I spent the effort to move things over to different systems, only to find that my current app was what I needed? I have things to do, and messing around with my task management system shouldn't be one of them. I felt like I should have said "I'm sorry", like trying to convince an ex-girlfriend to get back together after taking a break to see what else is out there.

But…

It was actually the best thing I could have done. What this has shown me is invaluable: ways to use my current system that are even better for what I need. There were positive things of these other apps that I tried, and fortunately, I can bring a few of them over using the current feature set.

A prime example was something that I completely missed when Email 2Do was first launched: if someone sends me an email to a specific email address, they can send me a task. Even better, if my wife sends me an email with the subject "Groceries" and puts a numbered list in the body of it, now I can get the shopping checklist right there in 2Do without any input from me.^[3] I'm hopeful that with future updates, that there will be the ability to add more functionality to Email 2Do, so that there can be more detail added like due times, tags, locations, etc. I can see this being useful for when I get a grocery list and have to get something after I leave work.

Another thing I learned in this experiment was that I was over-tagging and over-searching. I had too many tags that I was using to identify tasks. If I have a task in the "Home" list, why do I need to tag it with "Home"? This is completely redundant. And I really only need a handful of Smart Lists, not the 10 that I previously had. I completely rebuilt my work tasks from the list I created when I moved things to Todoist and OmniFocus, and had a better understanding of what needed to be accomplished for each of my four programs. And I also am now sparingly using starred or priority tasks, reserving them for only the highest of importance. All of this has helped me clean up my task list and get more focused.

The biggest thing I've learned from this: fundamentally, at my core, I'm a broken person. I do a lot of this to myself. But I accept it’s in my nature to always wonder if the grass is greener, and spend my time playing with new things when my existing thing works perfectly well. Having gone through this, I can see where I can make changes, and build my tools in such a way to make them work better with my current thing than I did before. And even though it may take some time and effort to do these things only to find them futile, I learn a lot new methods, better ways to use my current system, and clear out the stuff that isn't really important.

Conducting a trial of apps was a great exercise, and I'm glad I did it. It was painful, but rewarding. I learned a lot, rebuilt my paradigms, and I learned how to do things better with what I have. And that's a great feeling.

"But you literally wrote a book on 2Do!" I know, I know… hear me out. ↩︎
I hope that this comes soon for iOS users. This is by far one of the biggest complaints I have heard amongst my friends who use OmniFocus. ↩︎
The hardest thing at this point would be getting her to use that, not the Reminders integration we use in AnyList; I think we'll be sticking with AnyList for that purpose for the foreseeable future... ↩︎

The Daily

2016-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Slack has recently become a focal point of my daily interaction: I have many friends who use the service, most of which I’ve never met in real life. It’s been a valuable personal communication tool with them, and I’ve appreciated every second of the time with most of the groups I’ve joined.

But while Slack touts it as “Team Communication”, it also has become a great tool in becoming my personal information center. I get information from many sources through Slack. There have been several apps that I’ve just flat-out replaced by using Slack with other integrations. Things like RSS readers, daily weather alerts, and even notifications of new Drafts actions are all piped in to various channels in my personal Slack group.[^1]

My friend Seth and I were conversing about how we could use Slack more in this way. What information could we have delivered to us? What could we include that would eliminate a need for this? Productivity is always a discussion that needs to be revisited, but you need to have a discussion about why you need something, if it can be thrifted from your daily life, or if you can make it better.

Seth came up with a brilliant idea: What if we could take several things — calendar, tasks, and notes — and combine them into one note into a specific channel, and that’s the first thing we look at in the morning. This would be run before settling in for bed, so that you can capture those last minute thoughts before passing out sleeping.

And with so many things that Seth and I talk about, it sparked some thoughts of how this could happen. After a little bit of time, I had a general concept of what I call “The Daily”.

The Daily

So the concept behind this is simple: get bits of information from different sources — a note taking app, calendar(s), and our task management system(s) — and pipe them into one spot. For me, everything starts in Drafts, I use 2Do as my task management app of choice, and I wanted to send everything into a “#daily” channel in Slack.

Because I start the note in Drafts, I can simply take that text and pass it to Workflow; it can grab all of the information I need from the various inputs and place it into one easy text block that I can format to my liking. One of the benefits to using Slack for this purpose is that I can use the Markdown-like format to highlight text in different ways, allowing me to view sections.

In addition to the information in The Daily, I wanted to also have the daily weather for the next day in the same channel. Using IFTTT, there is a simple recipe to pipe in a daily alert for the tomorrow’s forecast. One problem that I encountered with this, however, is when I am not at home and traveling; the recipe is for a specific place, and doesn’t update. To solve this, I took the Forecast.io API, and used that to add tomorrow’s weather forecast to my report.

I’m not going to get technical about all the specifics of “The Daily” workflow, but I’ve put comments everywhere I could think of within it to guide you.[^2] It’s very complex, and too complex to go through the “how and why” in a post; if you want to know how/why, it’s all in the workflow. I’ve also created them as separate workflows: one that contains the weather, and one that has everything else. All of these workflows can be found in the Workflow Appendix section below.[3]

But the combined workflow does a great job at aggregating all of this information in one spot so that I can see what’s ahead for my day, all in one convenient spot. And really, it’s not about the how, it’s about the why.

Having one place to go to for information is difficult in the Age of Apps. Widgets are great for glanceable information, but that’s still multiple sources for looking at things. It’s like getting a news report about your day in the morning: “Here’s what’s happening in your neck of the woods. Now here’s Tim with the weather!”

It’s been really fantastic to use this at night, and view it all in one place in the morning. I can see my day ahead without having to go multiple places. I’m not trying to clear all of the badges from my phone. I don’t have to go to multiple apps and waste time. I’m not tempted to peruse Twitter to see what I missed. I can get this information about my day, and head out to face it.

If Siri is the digital assistant for my phone, think of my personal Slack as the assistant for my portion of the internet. Like with any assistant, I need to be able to direct them to get the information I want in the manner in which I want to see it. I get notified of the information I find important, interesting, and in some cases vital to what I’m doing.

I love the direction that this is heading, and I’m finding new use cases for Slack. It is slowly but surely becoming one of the most powerful apps on my phone.

Workflow Appendix

The Daily - Full Version w/ tasks (for 2Do users)
The Daily - Full version, URL to tasks
The Daily - no weather w/ tasks (for 2Do users)
The Daily - no weather, URL to tasks
Tomorrow’s Weather - only the weather

Slack party, channel for 1. ↩
If you do have questions, shoot me an email. ↩
A note to non–2Do users: I have created two workflow below that does not include the steps in getting tasks from 2Do, and provides only the URL block to paste into your note for the day. From what I have read, there isn’t another app that allows for the task export in the same manner. Additionally, if you use more than one system, the step will allow you to add more than one URL to add for your daily report. ↩

Making 2Do Lists Better

2016-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve recently traveled a few times for personal trips with my family. It’s been really great to get away, and I’ve appreciated the time spent not working or stressing out about my house.[^1]

I specifically made it a point for these trips to focus on the pre-travel things: packing, getting the house ready, and making sure that we left with everything and with no stress.

Normally, I would make a small list in Drafts of things I needed to pack. I might keep it in Drafts, or I would use a checklist action and workflow to move it over to my Travel list in 2Do.

And while that worked, I really wish I had the new features that come with the release of 2Do v3.8.3. Now, I can simply copy/paste the list over into the Inbox; keyboard users will love the ⌘C and ⌘V functionality. It really makes entering lists a breeze.

When I saw this in the beta, I thought it was awesome. It’s so easy to copy and paste a list of tasks. But what about projects? Those still required some manipulation. But if you use a tab key or several spaces, you can copy and paste projects. This is where things get interesting.

The nomenclature needed is simple. If you want tasks to be a part of a project, you simply indent them under the parent project. You can also have multiple projects, or a mix of projects and tasks, like this:[^2]

Random Task
- Powerlifting
- Throw Shoes
Hire Better Henchman
Odd Job
- Be Quick
- Throw Hats
Make Better Judgements

One thing I love is automation. So, I suggested to the developer of 2Do that having an automated way of doing this via a URL scheme would be great. And a little bit later, it was in the next beta!

So now I can add projects and tasks even easier from Drafts. Using this action that utilizes this new URL scheme, I can take a task or list of tasks and easily send it to 2Do; by using the x-success parameter, I can even come right back to Drafts in less than a second.

This can even be expanded to take a large list and enter it in as projects/tasks all at once. One time when my dad was visiting, he brought his hand-written checklist for travel that he had put together over years; it’s a list of things that he’s likely forgotten at one point or another on a trip.

I formatted the list using the new paste URL scheme syntax, and entered into a clipboard step. The power of the clipboard action step is that you can have a multitude of text in there in addition to what is in your draft. If I have miscellaneous things that I know I will need for the trip, I make sure add each one on a line, and indent them.

At the end of the clipboard action step text, I added a “Misc” line, with the [[draft]] tag indented. This will take the draft and add it to the Misc list, and pass it to the URL step. I added the same URL scheme as above, but added the optional forList variable and set that to “Travel”. I would have thought about doing something like this in Workflow,[3] but now entering in my pre-travel checklist is a breeze and takes almost no time at all.

Update: Michael brilliantly took my action and forked it. This allows for multiple instances of the packing list, and for you to identify a trip. You could even label it with the airport name you’re going to, for a short indicator. I’ve installed this one and deleted my old one.

For me, traveling has been just one thing made a little easier with these simple tools. With a little modification here and there, you can turn these same methodologies in to a template for other things.

Repeating work projects, podcast templates, or other lists can be moved into 2Do with ease. You could even take a list of things that a user sends to you for improvements to your app that they would like to see, and copy/paste them in to your development list.[4]

In the future, I’d really like to see an update to the Email 2Do functionality to add larger lists, complete with tags, due and start dates, etc. This would allow for not only checklists/projects/tasks, but even potentially allow you to move your thoughts to 2Do in one single step. Now that’s some serious automation power.

The little additions in v3.8.3 have made entering projects and tasks so much easier. The beta had only been available for a few days, and it quickly made a huge impact on my day-to-day life. I’m thankful that one of the apps I rely on is getting better with updates, has a developer who listens, and has a ton of other things coming. I’m really excited for the coming months and what’s in store for 2Do.

2Do is available on the App Store for $14.99.

Who am I kidding — the house always stresses me out. ↩
You can change these to checklists quickly if you wanted within 2Do. ↩
I did actually do this a couple of days before the beta hit. The workflow ran for a long time. I deprecated my own stuff, and happily so. ↩
Not that I would have ever sent something like that for a certain task manager I happen to write frequently about. Nope. Not me. ↩

Drafts 5.0: A Wish List

2016-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Every year, users talk about the ways their favorite apps could get better, but it’s not written about publicly or not communicated early enough to developers to include the refinements in the next release. But for iOS, the tech community talks about the improvements for iOS at length, and occasionally, we even see an awesome concept of potential new features.

If I’m using an app on a daily basis, I’m going to have some opinions on how I think it could be improved. And rather than just talking about it with some friends or not sharing it with the developer, it’s time for me to put it out there to make the software I love better.

Here’s my wish list for my favorite app on iOS, Drafts.

Price as a Feature

Drafts is probably the single most important app on my phone. I’m not sure that I would be able to use my phone in the way that I do without it. It’s in the center of my dock for a reason.

Right now, the app is priced at $9.99 with no recurring payments, no in-app purchases — and it’s a steal at that price. I think that many users of the app would consider a couple bucks a month to be a fair price for ongoing development so that it stays around for a long, long time.

Prior to WWDC, the App Store announcement came for subscription-based apps; now, certain apps like productivity apps can charge for sustainable updates year after year.[^1] Before, developers were forced to create a new app to charge a new amount. Many users and developers alike wanted to see upgrade pricing, but it seems like Apple does not want to see that come to iOS.

I think the subscription model might be a great thing for developers that want to provide cornerstone productivity apps to users, but also make a sustainable living off of them. So while this isn’t functionality that could be added to Drafts, what it would provide is the necessary means to provide new features going forward.

New Features

Search with Find/Replace

I’ve always found any “Find” action in the Drafts Action Directory to be lacking. It never works the way I want it to, and it is something that I’d like to see improved. There are other text editor apps, like Ulysses and Editorial, that do this very well.

What I would like to see is this: having a dedicated search icon at the top of the editor or just above (to the left) the extended keyboard row. The search will scan the current draft for instances of the search and provide the number of matches for the search. Additionally, the replace option would be right there so you can do that within the draft without an action.

By far the best implementation of this feature on iOS has been Ulysses, and is something that I would like to see Drafts copy steal inspiration from. Editorial’s implementation is ok, but I don’t find it to be as user-friendly as Ulysses.

Folding Headers & Arrangement

Speaking of Editorial, I would love to see Drafts implement the same functionality of the folding headers and arrangement features. As I use Drafts more and more as my text editor of choice, especially for longer posts like this one, I really wish I had the ability to fold the headers. I certainly could write sections in separate drafts, and combine them at the end. But there are times that I would really like to just fold up the headers as I write.

The arrange mode in Drafts today is good, but I think that if I could drag the lines on the side of the editor, it would be better and faster for me to move things around. Where this Editorial-style arrange mode is extremely useful is when you have folded headers: you can simply drag whole sections around instead of each line.

Customizable Syntax Highlighting

Drafts has three main color themes: light, sepia, and dark. And while I love having the option of theme, adding color syntax highlighting would help users, and is something that I think could greatly change the way in which people use Drafts for their writing.

Prior to me even trying Ulysses for writing, I often found the differentiation of text vs Markdown-formatted items to be a bit difficult at times. The improvement here that I would like to see is the addition of colors for Markdown items. This is going to make it easier for users to differentiate between headers, bold or italic text, as well as highlight links or images or footnotes while writing. Again, Ulysses does a great job of this differentiation.

Using Pixelmator, I was able to conceptually visualize what this would be like on iOS. I was able to create this for all three themes, and I think the result ends up making things easier to read, better to work with, and makes me want it now now now.

I would love to see this be user customizable. If you want your links to be red instead of blue? You got it. Do you want everything to remain as it is today? You can make that happen too. And while I think this would be a lot of effort for Greg to add, I think that this would be great to implement as an in-app purchase (if the app remains a fixed price) or would be a great example if the new app becomes a sustainable subscription model.

Touch ID

Much like Notes.app, it would be nice to bring security to Drafts. There are times that I have kept some personal information in a draft, or even something like a gift list for my wife. I don’t want her to see what I have in store for her, so the ability to do that on an as-needed basis would be great. Others might want Drafts itself to have a passcode as well. By no means a deal breaker, but it would be a nice added touch.[^2]

External Keyboard Setting

I love to use my keyboard to write with Drafts: it allows me to get out massive amounts of text and speeds up my productivity. But one thing that isn’t actionable by the keyboard is draft/action lists. My thought here: allow the arrow up/down to highlight the draft or action you want to select, and press the return key to run it.

Always On

As was suggested by my friend, a nice feature to add to Drafts would be a setting to have Drafts keep the device active when it is the active app on screen. This would be helpful for meetings, where you might need to take notes on a meeting that lasts an hour, and you don’t want to have to keep waking up the device.

This would, of course, mean a small hit to the battery. But having a small dialog box pop up to give a warning of the decreased battery life would prevent (most) complaints.[3]

Other Improvements

Action Arrangement

I often times want to re-arrange my “All” action list. And it can be tedious to do. But something that would be helpful is arranging them by name, both A to Z and Z to A.

Dropbox File System

This is something that a lot of users have asked a lot about, and while my needs are met using the current tools of today, I think this could be something that would work for a lot of people. There are ways to implement this, but is way too complex for me to even attempt to figure out. I’ll leave that to Greg, if and when he decides that’s a good idea.

Sharing Your Setup

When I am trying to get a new user to Drafts, I often get asked “how do you have it set up?” If a user is new to Drafts and I trust them, I can send them my setup. But if I am wanting to share several actions with a current user, this is cumbersome at best.

Right now, if I want to share multiple actions, I have to export each individual one. And if I want to use a short link like those from the Action Directory, I have to save each one to the directory as an unlisted action, then share it.

I would love to see the option of selectively sharing actions and keys. When you select multiple drafts, there is a way to select individual or all of them. The same approach could be taken for both the actions and keys. In an edit mode, simply tap on the ones you want to share, and share them all at once with someone else via messages/email/Slack/etc.

macOS App

I’ve thought a bit about this, and I think there could be a market for a macOS app. However, I think it would need to be limited to one thing and one thing only: a text editor. Using the features of sync via iCloud just as the iOS app does today, allowing users to edit on a Mac would make some sense. Having access to the drafts list would be nice to make multiple edits to different things.

One of the things that makes Drafts great is how well it integrates with other iOS apps. But having an action list in macOS would be overly complex, and is something I’m not even sure would be worthwhile to attempt. I’m not sure if the benefit would be worth the development time, especially when it would take away from iOS development. Thankfully, this decision isn’t mine to make.

Wrap-Up

I feel that these features, or at least some of them, would elevate Drafts further on iOS. The app can still be the simple text editor that it first appears to be, while still providing the power features we’ve come to know and love. And these are just my thoughts and mock-ups; others may have their own ideas, and I’m sure that there are a number of additional features that Greg has in store for a future update of Drafts.[4] And, to me and several others, they can’t come fast enough.[5] I’m really looking forward to seeing what is ahead.

We have yet to see what Apple will allow, but listening to Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi on The Talk Show with John Gruber, it sounds like this is well-suited for productivity apps. ↩
Sorry for the terrible pun. So sorry. ↩
People will complain about damn near anything. It won’t eliminate it, but it certainly would reduce it. ↩
At least I pray and hope he does… ↩
We are impatient children. ↩

Overwhelming Productivity

2016-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

As of late, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with work, house, and home life; and this feeling has a negative impact to my productivity.[^1] But, has it really? I feel like I’m not getting things done, but what’s the reality?

The reality is that I am not Getting Things Done, but what I’m doing is getting things accomplished. I might not always track what I am doing, but I’m getting a lot done. Work has been extremely busy as of late, and my day is often filled with fire-drill tasks that I barely have time to even write down.[^2]

Those that know me know how much I love being productive, all my workflow tips, and how I love my task management system of choice. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that at times, it seems like more work for me to track everything and that often has more negative effects on me than it should. My task management system falls apart because I’m not stopping to enter things with start times, due dates, tags, etc. While it’s nice to have a lot of that information, sometimes I just simply need to have a task that says:

Task - Due Today

I don’t have to know where it fits or when it’s due: I need to get it done.

Whilst focusing on productivity is a very positive and beneficial thing, over-planning, over-thinking and over-complicating your productivity can be just as detrimental. If it comes down to making a list and checking off the boxes or paying attention to my sons, the choice should be very clear in the latter. But I have, for far too long, made different choices which I’m not proud of.

As an example — do I really need to track the meals I make in a task management app? Typically on Sunday, I made 2 dinners at the same time for the week. This little productivity hack will save me hours later. I don’t enter this in 2Do, but rather I just get it done. It’s part of the habit I’ve set for myself, all without entering it anywhere.

One use of the Inbox feature of 2Do (or even OmniFocus) that I’ve had is for my immediate tasks. It works well, because the Inbox is where everything goes when I’m moving tasks around in iOS. Whether I’m sending an email to 2Do via Airmail or using Drafts (with Workflow integrations) or just using the 3D Touch gesture on the icon, it all goes to the same place. I can capture things fairly quickly.

But lately, I’ve been putting simple weekend lists in Drafts because it’s easier for me;[3] it also helps keep the clutter down in my task manager. A lot of people use the taskpaper format and find it very useful. I’ve been making checklists in Drafts using a key that can both create a check box and complete it. It’s been very handy for packing lists, small grocery lists, or weekend lists. This has been working very well for me while I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, and it’s helped me to get back on track in a lot of ways.

I think where the mental anguish first starts for me is that I don’t often see the accomplishments I make because I’m not tracking them. I don’t make lists of the things that I’ve already done, only to go back and check them off right away. But not having the feeling or visualization of accomplishment makes me feel bad for not doing “enough”. And if I’m not doing enough, I get the overwhelming feeling that I’ve missed something, and I often put aside other things that are more important just to feel like I’m doing something. I start to feel awful about myself, and that’s not healthy.

So here’s what I really need to do: step back, relax, and realize all that I’ve accomplished. I may not be able to pull up my phone and look at what I’ve done, but I should be able to look around me and see all that I’ve accomplished. I don’t need to feel bad about any of it. At the end of the day, the worst critic I have of my system is me.

Thankfully, a recent vacation and Twitter hiatus have fixed some of that for me. ↩
For some of it, I’ve resorted to sticky notes or small pads of scrap paper to jot things down on. And yes, I know I could get Field Notes and a nice pen for that. Back off, hipsters. ↩
I’ve seen others put checklists into Notes.app ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 5

2016-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Here's a couple of things that are piquing my interests this week:

Pixelmator for iOS

Pixelmator is a powerful image editor on iOS and Mac. I can’t remember when I picked up, but for a while I did not use it. It wasn’t until earlier this year when Gabe Weatherhead of Macdrifter had a fantastic use for it: annotating screenshots.

This opened my eyes to the app in a new way, and I’ve been using it ever since. Recently, there have been a few thing things that have bugged me when it comes to using my iPhone as my computer, and rather than bugging the developers incessantly for a change, I used Pixelmator to create mockups of how I want things to look and shared them.[^1]

Each one of the mockups is about 5–10 separate screenshots. I’m able to splice them together, create different elements, and size things the way I think they should be. I was able to show how split screen apps might work on the 5.5" iPhone with ease.

There are a few key things about the app that I really like over many of the other editors I’ve tried. First is the cropping tool. This is far superior to the native iOS editing tools, and seems to handle small images well; this has been helpful for changing some text or an icon in some of the mockups.

The second function, and my personal favorite, is the option for copy/paste. If you want to modify something with your current image, you simply tap the share button in the upper right of the screen and select “copy image”. Then, navigate out to your images, and press the “ ” icon; select create image, and there will be an option to use the clipboard.

This has been immensely handy when creating the mock-ups. I can simply copy the image that I’m currently working on, paste it as a picture, and modify it in a manner in which I need. I can even use Longscreen to take the mockup screenshot and put it on an iPhone.

Pixelmator has been moved from my second-screen photo folder and moved to my homescreen; it has been the main image editor that I use for a while now. You can find Pixelmator for iOS on the App Store as a universal app for $5 — I highly recommend that you do.

Slack

I haven’t really been using Slack for very long. I’ve joined a few groups, and even created my own personal Slack. And like many other things, I’m a little late to this party.

First off, I love some of the circles I’ve gotten into and use with Slack. Over the past couple of years, I’ve really made some amazing friends that I wished I lived closer to.[^2] We often use links in those chats which generate the rich previews we like to see, with Apple now incorporating into iOS 10; the reactions and custom emoji I have been wonderful when responding, allowing us to convey feelings or intents more than just words. Customizing Slackbot with witty responses to key phrases has made the chats more fun. It’s been one of my favorite messaging clients that I’ve ever used, but it’s capable of so much more.

Last year, I read about using Slack as a personal information center to aggregate information into one focused place. And at the time, I didn’t get it. But now that I have been using it more and diving in to all that it can do, I’m finding all the little uses I didn’t even know I wanted.

I’ve been using it for several different things, either as integrations or through IFTTT:

Chat client
RSS feeds
Twitter notifications [3]
Calendar events
Daily weather forecasts

With all the integrations possible, it’s really something that you can make your own, and personalize things just right. I’m open to more suggestions about ways to use it, which you can feel free to tell me about.

It will be interesting to see how much Slack progresses going forward.[4] It’s amazing that one app, along with some key integrations, can replace several other apps. I think Slack is a fantastic solution to a lot of things, and I feel like I’m just getting started with it.

which they seem to have appreciated. ↩
Or we could just go live on Hangover Island ↩
for my site and other key words ↩
I’d really want to see landscape mode for the iPhone 6s Plus. ↩

Lazy Markdown

2016-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

No, this isn’t a new fork of Markdown. This is just a better way of doing things.

Jeff Mueller recently came up with a clever way to use Workflow to help pull in links after writing a post in Drafts. It’s seriously a fantastic idea that I wish I had thought of before.

After he sent it to me to check out, I thought of another use of Markdown links that I use: Blink affiliate links. After some quick changes to Jeff’s original workflow, I came up with a new one that allows you to select where the link is coming from: you can choose Search, Blink, or manual entry of the URL (note that this requires Workflow 1.5.1 to work).[^1]

This is extremely helpful for writing. As Jeff said:

“I love these workflows because they let me focus on writing. The research can come later.”

And he’s 100% right. Little hooks like this allow me to focus on writing, rather than doing all of the little things. It’s the reason why Drafts is my main text editor, and I keep finding more and more reasons to keep using it.

I am hopeful that the same functionality will come with a future update of Associate and that Workflow will implement this quickly so I can incorporate Amazon links too. ↩

Making the Case for an iPhone Pro

2016-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

With the two major events coming up, WWDC and the inevitable September event for the next iPhone(s), there are a lot of articles about the future of different devices, changes in the software coming with iOS 10, and how you can do real work on them.

This got me thinking about my own setup, and the things that I’d like for the future. My current setup is extremely simple, and some might even find it downright crazy. But it’s the best setup for a computer that I’ve ever used.

My Setup

My setup consists of two things, and these two things only:

A Logitech k480 Bluetooth Keyboard
My iPhone 6s Plus

That’s it. I don’t use the MacBook Air that we own. I don’t use a PC except for work. I don’t use the iPad Mini we have either. This is my only device, and I’ve accomplished quite a bit with it.

Before you toss this idea aside, realize what I’ve done on my computer phone:

Started my website, including the domain names and hosting
Made two different themes for my site, while learning to code in HTML
Written thousands of words in over 30 posts
Converted a post to an ePub in under an hour[^1]
Created my own journaling solution
Created and saved audio/songs
Created logos using vector graphics
Read more books in the past year than the prior three years
Connected with friends and made some fantastic new friends

And I could list a ton of other things. All of this is made possible by the portability of the device and apps I’ve chosen to use, and I can’t imagine working any other way. Apps like Workflow and Drafts have become so powerful that it’s easier for me to do my work on my phone, rather than a PC. And because the Mac feels like a better version of the PC, it is off-putting for me to use.

iPads Pro

I know what you’re probably thinking: just get an iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard.

There are two iPads with the Pro moniker available, which essentially are just two different screen sizes; I think I would get the 12.9" screen size if I had to choose, as that felt the most comfortable when I was recently in the Apple Store. At this point, it is essentially a portable laptop, and can do many of the functions thrown at it. It even has an advantage if you get the LTE version, because you can connect anywhere you get service and don’t have to worry about finding a place with wifi.

I can see that working on that size of a device is appealing. I can see where the extra screen real estate allows you to see more of what you are doing. Apps like Ulysses are better suited for split screen support; on one side you can have Ulysses, on the other Safari for researching.[^2]

I might even be happier with two devices: a small portable phone, and a large screen iPad with everything else. I can envision a future with a 4“ iPhone, a larger Apple Watch, and a 12.9” iPad Pro.[3]

This really has me thinking of what I want versus what I need for the future of my devices. Sure, having multiple devices is great; but I think that for me the only benefit would be the larger screen size, and it is really hard for me to justify spending that much money when it’s not needed.

iPhone Pro

What I really want to see from Apple is an “iPhone Pro”. No more numbers. This would help differentiate the product line, and simplify the name. It is done today with the Mac line, and I see no reason to make the iPhone any different, other than people’s own vanity about owning the latest-and-greatest device as a status symbol.

This needs to be a powerful device and be given some of the Pro-level features given to the iPads of the same designation. Essentially, I want this to be an iPad Pro nano.

The new hardware, together with software features from iOS 10 — and even some available from iOS 9 on iPads today — would give me the Pro-level features in an always-with-me device.

Hardware

The iPhone Pro should get the same processor given to the iPads, but certainly would be a clocked-down version. It doesn’t need to be as quite powerful because of the screen real estate being much smaller; but what this would do is give the iPhone Pro the proper processing power to push auxiliary things, like a USB microphone for podcasting when multi-threaded audio is inevitably introduced. How great would it be to hear an episode of Canvas that was fully recorded through an iPhone?

Another thing I would like to see is a thicker phone: not by much, but enough to put a larger battery inside. It could even get thicker by the camera bump to make it a flush back again. I’m a pro user, and I do a lot with my device. On the days where I do a lot of writing, I usually have to charge my 6s Plus because of the Bluetooth keyboard usage. More battery can only help me, and I’m positive I would get used to the weight. I came to the Plus-sized phone from a 5c, and it was comfortable in about a day.

Many iPhone SE users say that they don’t miss 3D Touch, but I use it daily: I use it to launch apps, preview links, and I use the 3D Touch trackpad gestures for navigating around anything with a text field. It has become second nature to me, and now the it’s muscle memory, I don’t want to see that go away.

These are relatively small improvements to make, but making them would yield a better class device, and enable the software improvements that would make this Pro phone great.

Software - iOS 10

I can confidently say that I want everything that was in the MacStories iOS 10 Wishes post. And I want to have all of the iPad features come to the iPhone Pro. If you haven’t seen the video from that post, here it is:

One of the biggest overall sweeping software changes I would like to see is landscape layout for all apps. There are many apps that support this, but not yet all; Music.app would greatly benefit on iOS from a landscape option. Another of my favorite apps, Slack, does not yet support landscape mode on the iPhone: having to constantly rotate the device when the technical support (via auto layout) is available is maddening.

Split Screen Apps

Despite what others have said, the 5.5" screen is plenty big enough to have side-by-side app support. Don’t think of it as split screen on an iPhone Plus, but rather split screen on an iPad Nano. Android has this feature, and I think this could be done eloquently. I do understand that a small screen would not be ideal when using the software keyboard in split screen, but using an external keyboard allows the full screen to be utilized.

There are so many times that I want to have two things side-by-side just to review them. If I’m reading a book, which I do almost exclusively on my iPhone, if I ever want to take notes on a book, I have to either use the 3D Touch gesture to switch apps, or double press the home button to go back. With the drag-n-drop copy/paste concept shown in the MacStories concept, this would be an awesome productivity addition.

This would be even better than picture-in-picture, where I think the 5.5" screen is too small. I know that YouTube has their own way of doing it in portrait mode on iOS, but to really see a video, I believe it would be better in split screen mode.

Improved Bluetooth Keyboard Support

I would really love to see the iPhone Pro get the same support for Bluetooth keyboards as the entire iPad line. Currently, I can’t hold down the ⌘ key and get a menu of available keyboard shortcuts. An iPhone Pro would need to be a first-class citizen from a software perspective. Apps like Drafts get this right for the iPhone, but I want to see it happen across Apple’s own apps and be made available to all apps where it makes sense.

Having the Bluetooth keyboard is great. I don’t always need to use it when I’m out and an idea quickly hits me. But when I want to get serious about my writing, I can use it with my phone and just start typing. It effectively makes this device a small iPad.

Apple Pencil Support

Apple Pencil Support. I’m not sure how much I would use this, but I think this would be a welcome addition to a lot of people. I can think of document signing, quick sketches in an app like Paper by FiftyThree, image editing in Pixelmator, or even adult coloring apps like Pigment all while on the go. I can even envision a line of iPhone Pro cases that would fit an Apple Pencil in them for easy carrying.[4]

Ok, after writing all of the possibilities of what Apple Pencil support could bring, I want it now…

iPhone Only

Am I crazy to want this? Probably. But I run my site with it. I can take it anywhere. I can type a lot with the keyboard, but I can also just use voice dictation, the software keyboard, or even something like Gboard. Am I limiting my multitasking ability due to a smaller screen than an iPad? Yes, but in my experience, it hasn’t been an issue. Does it look dumb? Yes. I’ve used my current setup at work, and had more than a few strange looks sent my way. But I’ve also shown people what is possible today, and they are amazed.

So why run iPhone only? Well, frankly, I’ve been doing just that for well over a year; I’ve increased my productivity by simply adding the external keyboard. The only time I touch a computer is when my cousin drops a new mix that isn’t available on Apple Music or Spotify, or if my wife has a problem that she’s encountered and can’t fix. But those instances are far and few between.[5]

Additionally, my wife and I have made a conscious decision to be better about how/when we spend our money over the past few years. We have often put off purchases to make sure our future is ok. We’ve had surprises in the past, and they have caused strain that we as a family don’t want to have to worry about again.

Being conscious of these things means not getting shiny new toys every year or every few years. But with the advent of the iPhone Upgrade Program, this means I can get the latest-and-greatest iPhone every year if I choose. Being iPhone-only I’m only locked in to one device, not trying to manage two, and save myself hundreds or thousands of dollars in the process.

I’m a mechanical engineer in my day job, and I don’t run a business as part of my writing, so I can’t count a second device as a business expense and use it as a tax write-off. I don’t get to have some of the benefits that other writers do when it comes to multiple devices. There are limits, and I have to be an adult and live within them.

And here’s the other part of it: I get as much or more done all on my phone than most people do on multiple devices.[6] It still surprises me the things I am capable of doing - I can and do get real work done on my iPhone. It is my only personal computer, ultra-portable, and incredibly powerful.

To date, the iPhone 6s Plus has been the best computer I’ve ever owned. It travels with me everywhere and allows me to be incredibly productive with everything in my life. Enhancing that experience, adding improvements to the usability of the software, and adding some Pro-level features would make the best computer even better.

When it comes to cameras, they say that the best one is the one you have with you; I think that the same can be said of my computer.

This post was 100% made on iPhone using the following apps:

Not an exaggeration. Ulysses is an incredible app. It took time to format it to Markdown XL. The ePub creation took seconds. ↩
I would love to see the team at Ulysses add a Safari View Controller in their side bar. This would allow it to be out of view, but when you need to do research, you wouldn’t need to leave the app. Having a search field that kicks it off would be perfect. ↩
Now if someone just wants to pass me that spare $2,000, please… ↩
Trademark Tim Nahumck 2016 ↩
I would really welcome a change in Apple Music to allow for an upload of music and match it, much like you can on the desktop, even if that requires that you pay for iTunes Match for the year. ↩
And it’s not even a “Pro” label. ↩

Automated Tables

2016-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

When I write most anything, I’m writing in MultiMarkdown. It’s a “superset” of Markdown, giving you more options to create text formatting with ease: features like tables, footnotes, and citations are simple to create, but can greatly enhance your writing. The use of tables is a feature that I don’t often use, but probably should. There are many times that I would like to use a table, but I often get the setup wrong and just give up, very frustrated.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

The other day, there was a question posed in the Drafts channel in the AgileTortoise Slack group:[^1]

I’d like to make an action to create a Markdown table that asks how many columns you want and then asks what to call each column (based one the number of columns you requested). Is this possible?

I thought about this for a little bit, and figured out that while Drafts would be capable of this with JavaScript (in a way), I could easily solve this with Workflow.

Table Format in MultiMarkdown

If you aren’t familiar with creating tables in MultiMarkdown, I highly recommend that you review the Syntax Cheat Sheet. There are some helpful format tips for tables and more, which I will let you figure out on your own.[^2]

Example Table

First Header	Second Header	Third Header
Content	Long Cell
Content	Cell	Cell
New section	More	Data

The table consists of three areas: the header, separator line, and rows. While the number of columns and rows are user determined, the number of separators must match the number of columns.

One thing that I did learn when coming up with the workflow was how to use the syntax to align the text of the column. By using a colon, you can choose right, left, or center; if you don’t use them, then it chooses default based on your language (e.g. English is a left default). Here is a helpful table that covers how to align the text using the heading separator line:[3]

Position	Syntax
Default	`
Left	`
Center	`
Right	`

With this formatting in mind, I can create the workflow.

Workflow + Drafts Action

I started off by writing a draft with the logical steps I would need to make:

Get the UUID of the current draft
Ask for the number of columns
Ask for the name for each heading
Set the separator line
Ask for the number of blank rows
Export the table to the current draft

Originally, I had a much more complex workflow with less flexibility. But after a bit of time thinking about it, I had a bit of a breakthrough, and cut the steps down by a third. By iterating both the heading and separators in the repeat step, I don’t need to have a special block that creates the separators and merges them together. I also can set the text alignment of each column as I iterate in the repeat step, which I couldn’t do before. Here is the workflow:

Markdown Table Workflow

The Drafts action is pretty easy to create. First, I added an action step to copy the UUID of the draft to the clipboard using the [[uuid]] tag. The next step, I use a Run Workflow action step using the name of the workflow “Markdown Table” as the input. Here is the action for the above workflow:

Markdown Table Drafts Action

What if you don’t use Drafts?[4] I’ve also made a Markdown Table workflow that does not use Drafts as the output, but rather just uses the Share Sheet to send it to the app of choice.

Share Markdown Table

Drafts Key

If you don’t have Workflow or don’t want to mess with it, there is another way. Ciaran Connelly made an action key to take a list and convert it into a markdown table. This takes a list in separate lines and creates the table based on the selection, then leaves you with a starting pipe to fill in the rows.

One clever addition is the inclusion of allowing for the text position by using a text shortcut at the end of the line to position the text. Adding a column to the position table from before, this is what the key will search for on each line:

Shortcut	Position	Syntax
,l	Left	`:----`
,c	Center	`:----:`
,r	Right	`----:`

If there isn’t anything at the end of the line, then it defaults to the left alignment. This works phenomenally well, and is a really well done key. He’s also made a table cleanup key; this works only for people that use a fixed-width font like Courier so that the table looks good in plain text too.

Cheers to Ciaran for creating these and showing his JavaScript magic.

Using Tables

Now that the ability to create tables is made easier, what should use use tables for in your life?

One of the things that I have recently created is my “Recurring Charges.md” file. This is where I keep track of all the little subscription payments that we have as a family. This isn’t a list of bills (though I should probably create that in a table as well): this list is keeping track of my online subscriptions so that I can see what things cost me per month or per year, and avoid subscription exhaustion.

Name of Charge	$ / Mo	$ / Yr
Dropbox	-	$99
DreamHost	$8	$96
SSL Cert	-	$15
Netflix	$12	$144
Hulu	$8	$96
Amazon Prime	-	$99
Apple Music	$15	$180
iTunes Match	-	$25
iCloud Storage	$1	$12
Club MacStories	-	$50
Totals	$68	$816

Thankfully, I haven’t gone too crazy with my subscriptions and I have room available for things that make sense to me. But it really helps me to visually see where the money is going.

My hesitation with using tables in my journals, posts, or other writing was because of the way the formatting would work; and after researching this, I realize it was my fault for not looking into the syntax enough. Now that I have multiple ways of creating these tables in markdown, I think I’ll use them more often.

┬─┬ ︵ノ( °‿°ノ)

This group is for use by the users of the betas released by AgileTortoise. ↩
There are too many to cover here. ↩
because it would be wrong of me not to include a table in a post about creating tables, right? ↩
If you don’t use Drafts, I really don’t know what’s wrong with you. Have you seen my site? Seriously, get Drafts. It’s awesome. ↩

Alternative Methods

2016-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Seth Clifford posted a fantastic article titled “The Similarity of Differences” on his website the other day about how Apple and Google are approaching similar solutions to the complex problem of virtual assistants. He wrote:

It’s a very interesting and important time in personal technology. Data moves through our lives like air. We want to protect it (some of us, anyway), but we want the value that sharing it can provide us. We want the future we were promised in our childhoods, but the changes we find occurring around us can be discomforting. This kind of change is everywhere, and it continues to move like perpetual motion, unstoppable. It’s beautiful and frightening. But it is inevitable.

I couldn’t agree with him more. This change is coming whether we want it or not. Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was a kid, I was fascinated with how the computer would pick up a command, even if Scotty’s accent was thick and it’s hard to understand.[^1] I wanted that in my life then, and it’s taken years to get there. And we’re really at the start of where this is headed.

Having alternative methods of approach is a good thing, and is the way humans (and groups of humans) approach problem solving: you may have a solution in mind, while others might approach the problem in a completely different manner. You may use an app like Drafts 4, while others use Workflow or Pythonista to get the same thing done, and vice versa. The specific difficulty with machine learning is that people are complex, and can have entirely different ways of thinking.

I’m not looking at who’s going to win or lose this perceived battle: I think there’s going to be multiple ways of solving multiple problems, and the users will just have to find what’s right for them, just like we do with iPhone vs Android. No matter what, with respect to these new devices and AI-like interfaces: it’s a great time to be alive.[^2]

Permalink

not to mention Chekov’s “wariables”. ↩
Assuming that the impending doom of Skynet doesn’t kill us all… ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 4

2016-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s a few things that are piquing my interests this week:

Associate

Associate is a new app from Squibner, makers of Blink. Like Blink, this is an app for individuals who use affiliate/associate links on their websites. But instead of using iTunes, Associate is an app for those that use the Amazon Affiliate Link Program.

Associate vs Blink Search

Much like it's iTunes counterpart, you simply search for an item within Amazon that you want to share, and you can generate and/or share the link right from the app. Associate doesn't have everything from Blink yet (like a URL scheme), but this is a solid 1.0 release.1 I would really love to see the same preview layout that Blink has for the detail view, so that I can visually see what I'm linking to; the current way makes it so that I can't tell by just the link. With time, there will be improvement, and I'm really looking forward to the updates in the future.

Associate vs Blink Detail

Associate and Blink are the best way to get your affiliate links, period. If you link to anything iTunes or Amazon, these will pay for themselves over time. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Update: Associate by itself is $5, but for those that are new or already purchased Blink, there is a bundle deal that ends up making it $8, or $3 if you already own Blink. Both apps together for $8 is a no-brainer for those that use these affiliate programs.

Anker Ergonomic Mouse

I sit at a computer every day of the week, except for maybe the weekends. Using a mouse on a daily basis has some issues over time, and when I found myself in need of a mouse last week, I wanted to get something ergonomic to prevent any RSI from happening.

Anker Ergonomic Wireless 2.4GHz USB Mouse

After some searching on Amazon, I found the Anker Ergonomic USB Mouse. The mouse has a nice soft-touch feel, and is really comfortable in the hand. The "vertical" setup makes it so your forearm isn't turning, and keeps your arm & hand in line. It doesn't have as many buttons as some other mice out there, but with what I use it for at work, having the regular right/left buttons, a scroll wheel, and two side buttons for forward/back for navigation are perfect.

One setting in particular that I like is the sensitivity button that allows you to control the speed of the mouse movement on the fly. When I'm working in a CAD model, it's nice to slow down the movement when I need to zoom in on a feature.

It only took me about a day of use to get really comfortable with it. I've had zero issues with it, and I'm really happy to have found it.

Apple Leather Case

I've always used a case on my iPhone.2 I've tried some cheap TPU cases, some Speck cases, and even Lifeproof cases — but I've never really found them to be a good fit.

When I got my iPhone 6s Plus, I opted for a silicone case in charcoal gray. But with time, there were a lot of wear marks that made it visually unappealing. So I returned the case and got the Apple Leather Case instead (also available for the iPhone 6s).

The leather case is slippery at first, but now that it has had time to wear in, it's perfect for what I need. It is showing signs of wear, but unlike the silicone case, this case is looking better with age. The Genius at the Apple Store had a saddle brown one that looked awesome due to the wear marks he had. I'm starting to see similar results in mine, and I love it.

I've asked the developer, and the URL scheme will be coming in an update. ↩
Except when my last iPhone 5c case broke, and I ran that device naked until my upgrade. To date it is the best feeling phone in the hand ever. ↩

Rolling Your Own

2016-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Journaling has been something that has been difficult for me to get into. I’m still not great at it. I often forget to do it, and then when I remember, it’s cumbersome to make it happen. I’ve never kept a physical journal for any length of time, mainly because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to journal.

There are a lot of apps out there for journaling, but I’ve only tried Day One and Momento. A lot of people love those apps, and they get the job done. But for me, they never really captured my interest to write, defeating the purpose of a journal.

I think that the problem with using these apps is that it’s yet another source of mental overhead for me. Sure, I could use Day One. It looks sharp, and satisfies the singular need. But that doesn’t feel good to me. I like rolling my own solution.[^1] I don’t have to figure out how to save things in a special way or how to back up to my own solution so that I don’t lose the data.

This friction, albeit not horrible, really didn’t sit well with me for whatever reason. If I’m going to do more journaling, I needed a better solution that works for me. I need to use something that allows me to write the way I like to write. I need something I can make my own. And it just so happens, I use it daily.

Setup

First, the solution has a few parts. You need Drafts, Workflow, and Dropbox for storage.[^2] There are multiple actions & keys that I use, along with an Action Set. You can find all of them below.

I understand that using two apps plus a storage service to replace one, single-focused app may seem like nonsense or something that is more clumsy. But I am constantly using all of the apps for this solution; they’re in most (if not all) of my daily workflows. Also, I trust Dropbox with my data, and I’ve never had a single problem with it; sync doesn’t break, there’s no down time, and everything is well integrated across iOS and most apps.[3] So in reality, I’d really be adding a fourth app in my life if I want to use a dedicated journaling solution. As of late, I’ve been pulling back on the apps that I rely on.

The beauty of this is that I don’t have to rely on another 3rd party sync service to keep my data. There have been too many times where an app or service changes their policy, changes their business model, or does something else that limits the way something works. I have yet to see Dropbox do something that I dislike. Drafts & Workflow are in active development. For the foreseeable future, I don’t have to worry about an integration going away.

This feels like a service that is my own, and I don’t have to fret about negative changes that break my habit. And should a new text editor get released or a current one go away, at least the pieces of the workflow stay there, even if it is not as well integrated as it is now. I can change, I can adapt, I can flow with whatever comes next.

Start Writing

Getting started is the hardest part. Using 2Do, I set up a reminder to help me remember to journal.[4] I set this for the morning based on the recommendation from my sage-like friend Seth, so that it was in my head first thing, and I would be cognizant of using it during the day. I open up Drafts, and add the time using a key in the extended row, and I’m ready to write.[5]

Add Metadata

One of the many things that is nice with journaling apps is the ability to add different metadata to each entry. If you keep things like a workout or sleep journal, this can be helpful in checking progress. Lately, I’ve been paying attention to my step count to see how well I sleep; so far, if I have a high step count, I have deeper sleep. Imagine that — if I move more, I sleep better.

Remembering a time, place, what the weather was like, what you were doing can all be key memory triggers that will help put you back in the moment when you reflect on it. So, how can I add this to my entry? Other apps have that integrated. Well, it took some time, and I had some help, but I finally made it work.

For me, I wanted to have the following:

Steps
Weather Conditions & Temperature
Location
Map
Altitude
Currently Playing Music

All of them are optional to include. Simply tap on the ones you want, and the workflow does the rest. Music, location, maps, and altitude are all able to be done within Workflow using your phone’s built-in GPS. Getting the step data uses either your iPhone, Apple Watch, or a Fitbit (more on that below). And weather required special integration, as you’ll find out.

Weather Conditions & Temperature

The one part of the workflow that I needed to get help on was the weather information. Thanks to the help of Workflow guru himself, Stephen Millard, I was pointed to a workflow that called the Forecast.io API. This method requires that you get an API Key, which you can get for free on the developer page of Forecast.io; your first 1,000 API calls per day are free, which would likely be impossible for you if this is for journaling. This is the same service that powers the great weather app Dark Sky.

This returns the data I need, and from there I take out the specific variables I want. This doesn’t require that I leave Workflow, making it seamless. There are multiple other variables that you can get information for if you look at the documentation, but I only included the current conditions and the temperature.

Steps

The step action is defaulted for iPhone. If you have an Apple Watch, select that by pressing on iPhone and switch it.[6]

For Fitbit users: this isn’t as easy as if you have an Apple Watch. There are more steps involved, and you’ll need to buy Sync Solver to make the steps work. But it does work. Sync Solver is an app that syncs with the Fitbit Dashboard, then pulls that data into the health app. I don’t have a watch, but I made a different workflow that first pulls up the Fitbit app, then pulls up Sync Solver, then you can return to the app to finish the rest.[7] You may enable permissions for Workflow to open Fitbit and Sync Solver before working properly, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work the first time.

Add Photos

I’m sure you’re thinking “But wait — Drafts doesn’t support photos.” And you would be right. Sorta. While Drafts doesn’t support inline photos per se, it does support Markdown-formatted image links.

I was given a workflow that used Workflow.app to copy the Markdown link to a selected photo onto the clipboard. I took that, modified it, and came up with a workflow to select one or more photos right from Drafts, save the photos, and return all of the image links in a new draft. This is especially handy when you want to add all of the photos to a single entry at once. There have been a few times where I wanted to remember a meal, and I’ve attached several photos of the meal using this action.

Journal Preview

I wanted to be able to view the journal posts like you would in some of the other apps. I created a custom Drafts HTML preview for this so that I can make sure that my image is correct and that things are formatted the way I want them to be before I save off my entry.

Saving

This is a simple thing. I have a folder in Dropbox called “Journal”, and an action that saves the journal entry into that folder; it uses the current day’s date as the file name. Recently, I added a prompt step so that if I forget to save the journal entry, the prompt will appear (with the current date displayed), and I can change it to a different date if needed.

I only have one journal for now. But what if I want to make another? I could easily add another action to save it in a new location within Dropbox. I could also use the Journal folder and have sub-folders to have one for personal or work or coffee or beer. There’s no limit to how many you could set up.[8]

Reviewing

I don’t typically go back and pine through my journal, relishing in the past. But, should I ever need to do this, I have the option of viewing it in Dropbox or importing the file back into Drafts for view.

There are also a bunch of text editors that, when paired with Dropbox, will allow you to review them. Most of the editors like Editorial, 1Writer, and Byword will render them pretty nicely.[9]

Journaling

What should I write about? Who knows. But I can write about whatever I want. I suppose that’s the beauty of this. And with the mental overhead greatly reduced for me by rolling my own solution, I can just write what I want to write.

I’ve been writing a lot more. My journaling is becoming more regular, and I’m starting to understand what I should be doing with it. It’s a fantastic tool to help me get through life’s ups and downs, to mark occasions that are important in my family’s life, and helps me focus my thoughts.

What might start as a simple note could turn into a journal entry. What becomes a journal entry could turn into a blog post. The fantastic part here is that no matter what I’m writing, I’m starting in the same place every time. It’s the spot where I’m the most at home.

Setup Links

Drafts Actions

Workflows

Action Set & Key

because I have issues and like making things difficult for myself until I figure it out and then try to forget how much trouble I went through. ↩
Full Box integration is currently not yet supported by Workflow. If/when that becomes available, it is likely that you can modify the actions & workflows here to use Box instead. ↩
A lot of Drafts users really want to have Dropbox integration. Maybe this will come in a future update. ↩
This is a huge step for me. I will easily forget this if I’m not reminded to do it. Use the todo / reminders app that you like most to accomplish this. ↩
There are several keys that can do time. Pick the format you’d like or make own to suit your needs. ↩
This may be defaulted to Watch automatically. I don’t have an Apple Watch myself, but I’ve been told that it might change upon installing the workflow. ↩
This makes me want to get a watch just to simplify this. ↩
Except your 1TB of storage… ↩
And, you likely already have one of those anyway. ↩

Named Identifiers

2016-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

I wanted to share with you a quick tip on footnotes. I love using them in my posts, mainly because it’s how I talk.[^1] I’ve implemented the use of Bigfoot.js footnotes in my site, and I’ve been happy about it ever since.

Recently, I asked about how I can renumber footnotes in my writing when I use Drafts as my text editor. I had been using a footnote key that Greg Pierce created. On the surface, it seemed to be a simple key: it inserted a numbered footnote, and would give me the next number if I inserted another. And then I would have to re-order my footnotes & numbers before posting. And for someone that uses a lot of footnotes,[^2] it’s a giant pain in the ass.

But what I was missing from the functionality of the key was that you can select text, and that selected text becomes a named identifier in MultiMarkdown, an offshoot of the original Markdown format.[3]

The beauty of using named identifiers is this: when you convert Markdown text to HTML, the footnotes automagically get numbered in the correct order. Moreover, no matter where the footnotes fall in your document, they will all get sorted out at the bottom of the HTML document. Because my custom preview formats the [[draft]] tag as HTML, I can simply view my preview at any time without having to convert my post.[4]

It’s such a small little thing, and one that I completely missed when I installed the key.[5] Now that I fully understand what it does, it takes me no time to add a simple footnote here or there. I also have a shortcut for my external keyboard set to ⌘+6 to speed up the creation. I don’t want to get too crazy with them,[6] but it’s nice to know that I have that ability available with relatively little effort.

I don’t have to stop and think about where things fall, how to rearrange them, what number I left off on, etc. Using them in this way allows me to write as I need to write, without the stop in my train of thought.[7]

This is a pretty fundamental change in the way that I work, but I think the result is really profound. If it’s a little difficult to understand my explanation, I hope that when you see the end result you’ll understand why creating footnotes in this manner can be very beneficial to your writing.

Having quick access to things like this just reminds me — yet again — that Drafts has a ton of hidden power, unlocked by the actions and keys. The more I use it, the more I explore the possibilities, the more I love it.

I’ve said this before. ↩
See what I mean? ↩
I love both of these formats so much for so many reasons. ↩
This saves me a ton of time now. ↩
You should really read the descriptions & the code a bit to understand what it fully does. And if you create your own keys, you should annotate the hell out of them. I need to be better at that, too. ↩
because that’s just annoying ↩
It gets derailed enough. ↩

[Not] Getting Things Done

2016-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

This past weekend was a typical weekend by any measure. The weather was hovering around 70º as a high, with lows in the 40s. Barely a cloud in the sky. Just an absolutely perfect weekend. What a perfect time to get things done.

Friday evening, I opened up 2Do to look at what I needed to get done over the weekend. I checked some things off, I added new tasks. It was shaping up to be a normal weekend.

When Saturday morning hit, my youngest son, 3 1/2, got up when the sun, and he didn’t want to waste any time. We ate breakfast, I had my coffee, and we were ready for the day. My oldest son also got up and seemed surprisingly awake for a Saturday.[^1] And just as I was about to look at my phone and take a look again at the list, I noticed a few other things I wanted to do.

This is where I deviated from my normal routine. Instead of pulling out my phone, adding the items to the list, and then planning out my day based on a focused list, I just kept my phone in my pocket, got us ready, and we went outside.[^2]

I didn’t focus on my tasks; I just saw things and did them. I cleaned out the front flower bed, which had a ton of leaves in it left over from the fall. My oldest mowed the grass to pick up all the leaves, with the help of my youngest using his trusty bubble mower. We washed both of the cars, and the youngest got completely soaked. They boys played with each other. We were having fun.

We worked. We played. We enjoyed the present. I didn’t focus on getting things done. I spent a lot of time not Getting Things Done, but rather just did things as I wanted to do them. I didn’t need my task list at that moment to help me. And where I’m sure I could have done a lot with my time had I followed the list, not following it was freeing and empowering.

I can often struggle with putting everything into my task manager, losing sight of just doing something and moving forward. Other times, I’m diligent and can manage tasks like it’s nobody’s business. I enjoy playing with task management systems in general[3], but I forget too often to just let go and be present in the moment, and do whatever comes naturally.

Using something to help you constantly can end up being a detriment; you can lose sight of the task(s) at hand, focusing on the creation of work and not the completion of it. Using your system consistently can yield great results and increase your productivity, but it’s good to take a break once and a while to find fulfillment in other ways.

Did I screw up my Sunday because it was filled with all of the things I had put off the day before causing a lot of stress and frustration? Yup. Did I use my weekend to its fullest productive potential? Hell no. But did I ever have fun and feel accomplished with my kids. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Teenagers can sleep for seemingly forever if they want to ↩
Outside is that scary place where the big ball of fire in the sky lurks to kill us all… ↩
clearly, I have issues… ↩

Piques of the Week - Volume 3

2016-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s a few things that are piquing my interests this week:

Monoprice Fastening Tape

Jeff Mueller mentioned this life hack to me after he purchased the same backpack that I did a few weeks ago. By using this, you can get rid of the flapping straps using simple fastening tape.[^1]

I ended up purchasing the yellow version because I not only wanted to have something other than plain black, but I wanted something that would help me easily identify my bag if I ever needed to check it or set it somewhere.[^2]

Not a bad deal for about $5.

Copied

This app was of zero use to me when I picked it up. I’ve never really warmed up to having a clipboard manager before. But that was before Gabe had another terrific idea for using it not only as a text replacement tool[3], but for something that holds affiliate links, animated GIFs, email signatures, etc. I’ve moved a lot of stuff out of Drafts that really belonged in a clipboard manager.

To unlock the power of Copied, you'll need to get the $2 IAP. This unlocks the ability to have multiple lists of your choosing, backups to iCloud for syncing your iOS devices.[4] This has been so helpful to me in just such a short time. I highly recommend picking this up.

Coda

How on earth did I run my site without Coda?

Coda is from the fine folks over at Panic, makers of other fine apps like Prompt, and Transmit.[5]

Coda is an editor for multiple web languages; I’ve been using it for HTML & CSS. It is specifically designed to manage your site via FTP, allowing you to manipulate & customize your site. I’m just barely scratching the surface, but I can already appreciate what it will help me do in the future.

or what you might call Velcro® ↩
Also, that makes my bag grey & yellow. Notice anything? ↩
in the wake of the TextExpander 6 fallout ↩
There’s a separate app for Copied on the Mac that you’ll need to buy if you use a Mac. It syncs using iCloud. I’ve not used it, but I also don’t regularly use a Mac. ↩
There are also Mac apps for Coda and Transmit if you’re interested in those. ↩

Gold Is Best

2016-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

From Yahoo Finance:

"Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold — well over a ton.

At the current spot price of $1,229.80 per troy ounce of gold, Apple recovered just under $40 million in gold from old phones and computers."

Liam was well worth the investment.

The Distraction of Inadequacy

2016-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

One of the biggest questions that I have had regarding my use of 2Do as my task management system of choice is how, with a plethora of other solutions, I arrived at this one. When I started, my old system was not handling what I needed to get done. I looked at what other people were doing, what they were accomplishing, and wanted to know what solution they found to get their tasks done.

I follow some prominent figures in the tech community, people that are well respected in the world of productivity. A lot of them were using OmniFocus as their task management system. I was gravitating to that app, drawn to it because so many others were able to accomplish wonderful things by using the app suite.[^1] Because my system wasn’t working, I started to have feelings of inadequacy.

As I was trying OmniFocus, my friend Rob and I would debate this a lot: which one was “better”. Through all of those conversations, we would make quips back and forth about the other’s system and how we thought things were better. I tried OmniFocus, asked questions, and got answers. And I really wanted to like it. We were talking about it a lot, and it was helping me feel more adequate. But ultimately, it was a couple months of a distraction.[^2]

This is a powerful feeling: feeling inadequate can happen in variety of different facets of your life — where you work, the job you do, social status, skills, financial success, etc. The list of things that can lead to that feeling is only bound by how humans think, and how everyone looks to someone who appears to have their collective shit together.[3]

As I wrestled with my own inadequacy of my system, I felt a tremendous pressure to try out a new method. When something isn’t working, it is a natural human tendency to want to switch to something you think will work. It is something that is healthy to attempt from time-to-time. Setting aside reasonable amounts of time to test new things is good, and can curb some of the productivity addiction that can come into your life.

Generally, you look at someone else’s life, how successful they are, and you covet that lifestyle: you want your success to be like theirs. “Great artists steal inspiration”. And while being inspired to create new things of your own, including personal productivity, you also need to be careful to not be distracted by someone else to create what works for you.

I had been using 2Do on iOS for a while, long before it started gaining the much-deserved acclaim it has been getting over the past months. And unfortunately, I became very distracted because I allowed my feeling of inadequacy to get the best of me. I was changing myself to make something new work, losing the originality that I had with how my brain works.

Had I put as much effort in to learning 2Do the first time as I did when trying to learn OmniFocus, I would have been months ahead on the guide I recently published. I would have been near the front of the pack rather than in the middle. Prominent figures like Federico Viticci and Benjamin Brooks published their love of the app while I was still trying to figure out all of the nuances. I was behind the curve due to my distraction. And while I can look back with some regret at the path I chose, I can see the valuable lessons that it taught me going forward.

I can’t really explain why I felt this way. Maybe it’s a bit of wanting to fit in, feeling like I’m one of the cool kids and I’m earning my place at the table. Maybe it’s a case of FoMO, and I don’t want to be left behind when a new, popular app gets released. But it’s a false peer pressure, because at the end of it all, no one really cares what I use. The biggest person I fight with over the things I use is myself. And maybe I don’t tell myself often enough to shut up and just be me. I don’t need to go all Tyler Durden, but I should stand up to my own internal thoughts.

The short version of all of this: use something that works for you. Try things out, see if you like them. But if your current system works, if you’re handling what you need to get done, don’t distract yourself from what you’re doing to move to another system because someone says so. You don’t have to succumb to the social pressure and feelings of inadequacy with what you are doing.

As I continue writing, I hope to look at more things from my own viewpoint, but also not be distracted by other things. I can use my custom solution rather than something that is popular. The Internet is a big place, and here I have my own little spot. Here, I can explain why I’m adequate. Here, I can release the peer pressure and be true to myself. Here, I can focus and work to provide useful things to others. And that’s the feeling that I really wanted all along…

I say app suite because, as I later found, to really make OmniFocus work, you need to use both an iOS device and a Mac to get the full feature set of the app. ↩
This was also the time where I showed Rob some things that were great about the way I was working, and he ended up switching to 2Do ↩
Spoiler alert: some how, some way, there is at least one part of their life that is a complete and utter mess. No one’s life is perfect. ↩

2Do Workflows

2016-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

I've been asked a lot lately where people can get the workflows I've developed utilizing Workflow, Drafts, and 2Do for the creation of tasks, projects, and checklists.

In short, they use the input from Drafts, which takes the [[title]] tag and places it on the clipboard, then passes the [[body]] to Workflow. For each line, the | delimiter for the notes of a given item.

Here are the latest Workflow workflows1 and Drafts actions I've created for input, all in one handy place:

These can be customized to suit your needs. You could have multiple | delimiters to add tags or due dates/times or start dates; all you need to do is modify the workflow to include them.2 You can also make a Drafts Action Set.

Go forth and automate your productivity!

Update: I forgot that you will also need to have the remove blank lines action installed for the Drafts actions to work. I did that in case I had multiple blank lines in the draft. Sorry this wasn’t included before.

The Right Tool for the Job

2016-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

There has been growing discussion lately about apps of choice, why you should choose them, and which apps are better. I’ve talked about my affection for 2Do and Drafts at length, and I get asked often about moving to these apps because of what I’ve written. And while that is a humbling thing to know what I write helps people and is something that I immensely appreciate, I usually respond in the same way:

“[This app] isn’t for everyone. Use what works best for you.”

Today in the Club MacStories newsletter[^1], Federico Viticci published his thoughts on using the wonderful text editor app Ulysses on iOS. There’s a lot to love about the app: I used it recently to create the ePub for my article on 2Do, which made it a breeze[^2]. It’s very powerful, yet simple, and is a fantastic choice for a lot of people. I’m happy to see it getting positive reviews and hope it continues to improve. It’s a text editor that works well for a lot of people.

The other day, I wrote about using Drafts as a main text editor on iOS. I shared why it fits my needs and how it helps me write. It’s the app that makes sense to me on how I approach my writing, from the simple outline to a full HTML-coded post. I’ve been a user for a long time, and short of Agile Tortise stopping development[3], I’ll this app to write for as long as I can. How I feel about Drafts is the same as how Federico feels about Ulysses (and Editorial before that): it’s the app that feels right and makes me want to write.

And the same line of thought could be said for task management or email apps, streaming music services, backup systems, or even backpacks. There are so many options that it’s hard to classify what is the “best” solution out there. Every user has their unique needs that need to be met: fit, form, function, price, etc. If the “best” solution out there is $500 and you can only afford $100, then that isn’t the best solution for you. If a potential solution is missing something that is important to you, figure out a simple way around it or move on to something else.

Really, when it comes down to it, you need to be using the solution that works best for you, and makes you want to do the activity you’re trying to do. If you have a solution that doesn’t make you want to handle your tasks, doesn’t help to manage your email, frustrates you with the music choices that you are presented, doesn’t fit your backup needs, or doesn’t carry your gear the way you need it to at the price you can afford, then you need to find something else. Don’t base your solution on the needs of someone else. If what you are currently using doesn’t think like you do or work for you, then you need to move on and find something that does.

The Internet is a big place, full of a lot of people, different needs, a plethora of options, and even more opinions. Figure out what your needs are and do your research. View the opinions of others, but also understand what needs are being met by their solution of choice. Use these things to make the decision, but make it right for you — and you alone. Try something new, because it may surprise you. And remember that it’s ok to change your mind later and go back to something you know and love.

Using anything that doesn’t make you want to use it isn’t helpful to you: find and use the right tool [for you] for the job.

I am a proud member and I highly recommend that you become one also. It has been immensely helpful on many occasions. ↩
I still want to see a way to make custom styles on iOS to match my website; it can be done on a Mac, though. ↩
Greg — please don’t ever do this ↩

Using Drafts As A Main Text Editor

2016-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Drafts — Where text starts on iOS. This has been the tag line for the app since its inception. Many people use this as their single place of text input and output, exporting ideas to other apps for a myriad of reasons. It supports writing styles like MultiMarkdown; it supports scripting via JavaScript and x-callback-url schemes for easy use with other applications, making it one of the most versatile apps on the App Store.

The main use of Drafts is writing down ideas, and then sending them to another app. Sometimes, I get an idea for a post (like this one), write down my thoughts, and then send it elsewhere for long-form writing. But is that really necessary? Do I really need to move these items out of Drafts? Why couldn’t I write everything I want within the app from start to finish? The answer is simple: I can do everything here. And maybe what you need to do to use Drafts as a main text editor is set things up for how you need it to work now and in the future.

How I Write

I usually start a post with an outline; it helps me formulate where I want to take a post, and also helps to keep me focused over the time it takes me to complete it. I have a temporary name for the post as the first line (this is the [[title]] tag I’ll cover below), then use an unordered list to capture major points; the reason I use an unordered list is so that I can use the arrange mode in Drafts to reorder points if I feel like I want to move topics around. If I want to expand a thought more, I’ll use an indented list for clarity; if the mood strikes me, I’ll just start writing my thoughts.

For as amazing as Drafts is, the whole idea of keeping track of everything in the inbox can be tough. Thankfully, filtering on a particular text can help you sort out different notes and group them how you need them. When you first launch Drafts, you have an inbox, an archive, and a trash. Trash saves deleted drafts for 30 days, unless you empty them sooner. Optionally, you can create and apply filters to narrow in on particular drafts or “sort” your inbox. You can have the filters scan the inbox, archive or both; you can check by status or sort in a specific way to suit your needs. For my writing, I use a tag of @post to have a filter; I place the @post tag right after the post title.

Another feature of Drafts allows you to keep multiple sections of writing separate. One of the big things that I came to find with other apps, most notably Ulysses, is the idea of writing individual sections in different files, then combining them at the end for one post. This is surprisingly helpful for clarity. It allows you to focus in on one part at a time, without you getting lost somewhere else.

In Drafts, the same is possible by breaking your outlines into individual Drafts. To do this: highlight the section name, tap & hold the + icon, then choose “New from selection”. Another option is to use the Split Draft at Cursor action; this splits the draft into two separate drafts. I can do this with each section of the post; I can then add the @post tag to everything to easily apply the filter and see all the sections.

When I’m ready to combine the drafts back together to publish, I simply tap “Select” from the drafts list, highlight the selected ones in the order I want my post to flow, then press “Operations”, and choose “Merge” from the menu. Now I have one draft that I can manipulate for final formatting.

Action Tags

One of the powerful things that Drafts utilizes is tags for actions. These tags come in a variety of choices that you can use in and use from different action steps. Familiarizing yourself with these tag options is beneficial in how you think of your writing as it pertains to actions so that you can easily use them.

This is the transformative power that can separate Drafts as a powerhouse text editor.

Because I use Drafts for most everything on my phone, I have become very familiar with how and when to use certain tags. The standard tag for anything is [[draft]] which grabs everything in the current draft. But there are times where you want just the first line or everything but the first line; here, you would use [[title]] and [[body]], respectively. This is especially important when you are building custom actions, as it can yield you drastically different results.

Another useful tag for searching or replacing selected text is the [[selection]] tag. One example of this is how useful it is to create affiliate links via Blink. As I am writing, I just write the name of the app/album/book; I can later go back, select the name, and run the Blink Replace action to replace the text with a Markdown link. The smooth automation makes it easier to bring in all of my links. This functionality is something that few writing apps offer.

Running a DuckDuckGo or Google search using selected text or the text from a prompt window will bring up the Safari View Controller within the app, so that I can easily look up information on the topic, and select the link I want to reference; on my phone, this is especially helpful because I don’t have Split Screen for anything, and it helps me do some research without leaving Drafts.

There are countless other actions that do little niche things: you can convert your entire draft to HTML, you can remove duplicate lines, or even expand short links all with a few taps. You can see from these examples that Drafts really feels like an all-in-one solution for getting useful information into your writing.

Custom Keys Make You Faster

Another one of Drafts’ features that really helps improve your speed is custom keys. These are the keys that are in the extended keyboard row. Drafts comes preloaded with several keys, but there is some real power here once you get familiar with the app.

The Drafts Action Directory has a lot of custom keys available, and they are as easy to install as actions. You can also assign shortcut keys for them if you have an external keyboard. (I use this one.) One way to use the custom keys is to run an action.

There are many times that I want to search using selected text. I have multiple actions for search that are all in one Action Set. But I will use this DuckDuckGo (DDG) Search action to show you how to assign it to a key.

First, you need to have that action installed. Then, you need to go to your extended keyboard row, and flick all the way until you see the pencil icon at the end; tap this to edit. Next, you can add a key by pressing the “+” button at the top right. Now, select “Run Action” and fill in the action name field with “DDG Search”. If you wish to assign an external key, do so in the given field. It is important to remember that you will need to select one of the operator keys (Shift, Ctrl, Opt, or ⌘) to differentiate your custom keys. You can also optionally hide the key if you don’t want your keyboard row to be cluttered. Finally, tap save, and then you can move it into a position that makes sense.

Now all you need to do in the future is highlight the selected text, then press the key above your keyboard to search. While this only saves you a swipe when you’re using just your device, this can be sped up if you have an external keyboard by not taking your hands off of it.

Another thing running an action can allow is previews. I have a preview for my site that allows me to see how it will look once published. I can catch a lot of formatting errors this way, and has been extremely useful. How did I do it? I talked to someone about it and they offered help. If you know how to make CSS, then you should be able to make it from your site.[^1] I have a key that runs the “Preview…” action, and allows me to select from a number of different previews; I also have a shortcut key of ⌘ + Shift + P to quickly call it up when using my Bluetooth keyboard.

A few other keys that I have found useful are all based on the smart parentheses created by Greg Pierce that puts in, you guessed it, “smart” parentheses: this inserts an open parenthesis if none are present, closes them if you have an open parenthesis, or — and this is the best part — wraps selected text in parentheses. There is also a smart bracket key that uses the same script, but calls the open and close brackets.

I have modified the script and created three of my own. I created a smart braces key that uses { }. I also made a smart double bracket key that creates [[ ]] that are useful in creating [[tags]]. And finally, I created a smart code key that inserts html code blocks <code> for when I want to highlight something related to syntax.

Using the custom keys while writing has increased my efficiency in everything I enter into Drafts. I can insert a Markdown link by typing ⌘ + L to create my links faster. I can Change Title case by using ⌘ + T. I can encode or hyphenate text with a press of a key. As I have gotten more comfortable with writing this way, it is hard to see myself using anything else.

Setting Up Dropbox “Integration”

Dropbox has been a foundation for me using iOS. Most people that I’ve talked with pine after Dropbox integration for Drafts — and perhaps that will happen some day. But you can have something like it now, even if it is a bit more involved.

First, let me say that the iCloud integration has been rock solid for me. I have never had a single issue. The only things that I ever save into Dropbox are things that I know I want to save permanently; this could be a small note or a list or a post.

The key is setting up actions to allow me to save these items efficiently. Tags are particularly useful for creating a Dropbox “integration”; this isn’t a true integration like other apps have.

Dropbox > Save As…

This is an action that I created to allow me to save any sort of document; think of this more as a File > Save As… that you would see on a desktop menu. It uses a couple of Prompt steps: one for the file path and one for the extension. Using scripts, I am able to take the file path and action extension and parse the one I choose, giving me tag outputs that I can use in the final Dropbox action step. The Dropbox action step takes the [[title]] as the file name, then uses the two scripts to complete the rest.

Dropbox > Save As…

Create vs Replace Post Version

Dropbox Pro users can get the option of versioning through the web, which is a nice a feature as it can be (and has saved me several times), still isn’t something available in the iOS app. To replace this for me in iOS, I have made it so that I can create backups accordingly. There are times that I will want to create a backup of my post; other times, I might want to backup a separate post version.

The first action is Create Post Version. This simply uses the Dropbox step, with the use of the [[title]] and [[draft]] tags. As I said above, part of my writing setup is using the title of the post as the first line; the reason for doing this is because I want to be able to save the post in this way. If I feel like I have something that is ready to be archived in Dropbox, I can simply tap on my action and it’s automatic.

The real difference in Create vs Replace is in how I tell the action step to behave. When I replace, it is simply that: it over-writes the version that is saved. And while Dropbox Pro users could go onto the web and rollback the version they have, standard users cannot. This is where Create comes in to play. Using Create will save the initial version of the post, but on subsequent Create saves, will put a (n) version number after it; this allows you the ability to go back to a previous version of what you have written.

Didn’t like the section you just added? Want to pull from a different version? No problem. To create a draft from a file in Dropbox, simply tap on the “+” button, select Dropbox, and locate your file. You won’t be working in the active file, but this is OK. It allows you to edit without having to worry about affecting what is in the cloud. When you’re ready to put the version back, because I’ve kept the first line as the title by using the [[draft]] tag, I’m able to re-use it again to save the file.[^2]

Create Post Version Replace Post Version

Action Set

As I wrote about previously with Action Sets, you can easily create one for your Dropbox[3] setup.

Here is a link to the Dropbox Action Set I’ve created for the actions above.

Publishing

Now that I have everything backed up, I can move on to formatting and publishing my document. The first thing I do is run an action to remove the @post tag I created for the filter.[4] This is easy to do with the Find and Replace action.

I then take my screenshots and upload them, replacing any of the image placeholders I have with the final versions. I used to have to painstakingly do this one at a time, using the web uploader on WordPress. When Workflow received an update that integrated publishing things to WordPress, my friend Seth created an action to upload an image to WordPress.[5] This was very useful, but I wanted to allow for multiple images; I also wanted to get each of the links for the images I uploaded. I ended up creating this workflow which takes the selected images, gives you a preview of them, allows you to rename the image, then uploads it to Wordpress. It then returns the URL of the image and adds it to a list, which it then exports directly to a newly created draft in Drafts. The action has an area that you will need to change for your site, so make sure you take a look when you download it; also, if your upload settings are different than mine, you’ll have to change it to suit your needs.

Next, I view the post one last time with my preview, then I convert the entire post to HTML using this action; this allows me to change a few things prior to posting in HTML that Markdown doesn’t allow. I then run an action to change all of the <img> tags to be centered.

The last thing I do is strip the HTML from the title, and then I am ready to hit the Publish action. This uses Workflow to publish to WordPress, the platform I use for my site. This action takes the [[title]] and puts that on the clipboard; then it takes the rest of the text ([[body]]) and sends it over to Workflow. There is a way for me to post via email and rely entirely on Drafts, but I really appreciate the way Workflow handles the publishing where it can allow me to put in categories and tags, and even different publish dates or states.

That’s it. What started as a simple outline has now turned into a full post. I am able to write entire posts simply and efficiently, with access to everything I need right from within Drafts. This seemingly simple text editor is made massively powerful by the actions and keys that I am able to create.

Future Improvements

With all of that said, there are some improvements that I have seen in other apps that I would love to see happen in Drafts. Having these features would be useful for long-form writing and navigating within a draft itself.

There are two things from Editorial that I would love to see get added to Drafts {Maybe Drafts 5? Please let this happen…}. The first is the folding of sections when Markdown headers are applied; having that allows me to fold sections as I’ve completed them, or to simply get them out of sight. The second thing I would love to see is the arrangement of lines; Drafts has this functionality via arrange mode, but I find the the implementation used in Editorial better.

I would love to see the ability to search for something within a draft and see it highlighted. That way I can find a specific section or see how many times a word has been used in a post. Expanding on this, the find/replace action could be built in to the search, which is something only a few apps offer, and would be a welcome addition.

The last thing that I would like to see is better syntax highlighting. I really appreciate the syntax highlighting in Ulysses. It uses multiple colors to distinguish between links, images, footnotes, etc. It is visually nice to to see these items as you write, and is something that I would love to see added. Drafts does currently support some of this now, but it only uses a de-highlight of text if it is part of a link.

These improvements would be welcome, but don’t stop me with how I use the app. They would only make my experience with using it better.

One Text Editor to Rule Them All

So is this the only text editor that you need to use? No. For me, I can’t use just one for everything. The issue is that all of the apps have different features and do things a differently. Ulysses on iOS is great: the MarkdownXL writing is clean, the interface is beautiful, and the ePub export is outstanding. Editorial is nice because it has great Dropbox integration and can do so many things; the folding and arranging of lines and sections is top notch. Byword provides a nice clean interface and some good export options, but lacks some of the power features that Editorial, Ulysses, and Drafts have. Pages is cumbersome, but can provide you with a nice visual of how things will ultimately look. And there are a ton of others that I’m sure I’m not mentioning that are incredibly useful and have other features.

With all of the options out there, I’m sticking with Drafts. The app, coupled with all of the great custom actions and keys, gives me the freedom and flexibility to do so many things, write once, and send everywhere. After experimenting with other apps and trying new things, Drafts is still where my writing starts.

I don’t have a magic solution here, sorry… ↩
Thanks, past & future me! ↩
Box also can be used in place of Dropbox. Simply download the actions, change the Dropbox step to a Box step, and you’re all set. Just be sure to match the fields when doing so. ↩
This was extremely difficult for this post, because I was using @post in the text of the document. I actually just deleted them all manually to make it easier this one time. ↩
He is always doing clever things like this. ↩

Things I Like This Week - Volume 2

2016-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Here are a couple of the things I've been enjoying this week.

Osprey Momentum 30 Backpack

For work, I have a laptop. A 7.8 pound laptop. I used a messenger bag for years[^1], but it had started getting very uncomfortable for my walk in and out of the office. So I started searching for a bag that would not only be good for carrying my laptop, but also would be good for travel, biking (if I only had time to do it), hiking, and anything else I threw at it.

After several recommendations, looking at $200–300 bags, I finally looked into a recommendation from a colleague of mine: the Osprey Momentum 30. As the name implies, there’s 30L of storage in this thing. It’s big enough to hold my work laptop (at nearly one inch thick), a 13" MacBook Pro in a sleeve, my lunch tote, a water bottle, and a ton of gear. I’ve only been using it for a short while, but it works perfectly for what I need.

I can’t wait to use it more outdoors and while biking, assuming the weather improves. But even if it’s raining, the backpack comes with a rain cover that is stowed on the bottom of the bag to keep your pack and belongings dry. I picked mine up at REI with a 20% member discount, but it is also available on Amazon and other places.[^2]

PCalc

I’m very, very late to this party. PCalc has been around a long time. It’s not just the best calculator: it has conversions, formulas, a plethora of options, and — my favorite — customizable layouts.

The option to customize layouts is amazing. You can start with a given layout, but you can also rearrange the buttons as you need; you can also add your own buttons to include frequently used conversions, constants, or functions. This can also extend to the 2nd function, and you can have 2 buttons occupy the same space. I’ve just started playing around with it, and I’m already coming up with a default layout that is all my own.

I’ve had this app for a day. My only regret with this app is that I didn’t purchase it sooner. This is worth every penny.

In fact, my L.L. Bean Messenger bag had been my primary bag since college, which I started in 1999. ↩
One thing to keep in mind: buy it from one of the authorized sellers listed on Osprey’s website. Osprey offers a stellar lifetime warranty on their products, but only from those places. ↩

Remember One Thing

2016-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

In light of the events of today, like so many days before it, I have to reflect on how these actions affect my thinking.

I could get political. I could get upset. I could get angry.1 I can get frustrated with all of it. I can feel sadness for those that have lost friends or loved ones to senseless violence. I can feel sorrow that things won't be done to help solve it. I can feel a lot of things.

And today, I have all the feels.

So in times like this, it is important to remember one thing: any time you talk to someone you love and care about, make sure that you tell them or show them, in your own way, how you feel. You may never get the chance to do it again.

And to those that fester and plot to hurt others, remember this: even if you don't agree with them, get along with them — even if you feel that you hate them — you can still let them know that you're a good human by leaving them alone. We all have differences, and committing these senseless acts of violence is heartbreaking for humanity.

This is not the future I want for my children. I hope and pray that things will change, that this festering hatred toward one another goes away. I want to run home and hug them and keep them safe the best that I can. If we would all just be good humans to one another, maybe this would be a better time and place to live. Until then, I want to go to Hangover Island to get away from it all…

Move Your Thoughts to 2Do

2016-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Task management is a very personal choice. Every person has their own idea of how they'd like to organize their life, which is why there seem to be as many task managers as there are people. I’ve tried a bunch of them— Reminders, Clear, Due, Wunderlist, Trello, Things —and through that journey I’ve found 2Do works best for me.

ePub Version

Thanks to the power of Ulysses, I was able to create an ePub version of this post. It's not in the same format as my site yet, but when I get more accustom to the app, I'll likely update it to the same format.

Click here to download the ePub.

Moving Over to 2Do

I first stumbled upon 2Do during its Free App of the Week promotion on the App Store in June of 2015. I wanted to see how well that worked, so I moved everything there. After a short while, I was overwhelmed by all of the options and features. My brain wasn't thinking how the app seemed to want me to operate.

I started thinking I needed to try something new. There are many in the tech community that considered OmniFocus as the killer to-do app, and I had a bit of a curiosity based on all of the people I respected that were using it.

So, in the fall of 2015, I started to dive into OmniFocus as my new Task Management System (TMS). I was added to the beta program in TestFlight, which gave me basically a "free trial" to see if I could make this work for me.1

I learned a lot from that experiment. I am primarily an iOS-only user. And while OmniFocus is great at many things, there are several things that don't have feature parity between a Mac and an iOS device in their apps; you almost need both to accomplish everything needed for task management. There were also things that I wish would have been incorporated from other apps to use in my system. About 2 months in, I found myself using not only OmniFocus, but also supplemented it with Due and Reminders. My task management system was now three apps, which is far from ideal.

I started wrestling with the looming feeling: while OmniFocus is great for some, it's UI design is stunning, and comes highly recommended: it just wasn't for me. 2 It didn't integrate in the way I thought it should and I had difficulty conforming to a set system. I even reached out to friends who had used OmniFocus for years to see what I was doing wrong. Turns Out™, it wasn't me.

Now I had a dilemma. For as much as I wanted to make my system fit OmniFocus, I didn't stop to think about what I needed to fit into my system. The system I was looking for needed to be flexible, to handle the small task to the large project, and help push my TMS to the next level. Around this same time, I could see that work was going to be picking up and I needed to get a handle on things fast.

I spent a lot of time moving around in different systems, trying them out to see what did and did not work. It took time and effort that I could've devoted to other things, but I found it necessary to help me hone in on what I wanted and needed from a TMS on a daily basis. If I use a product and I'm unhappy with a feature (or lack thereof) or I'm not compelled or excited by it, I won't use it. It's a bit of productivity addiction, but as long as I set aside the time to review how this works for my life, then I'm happy to do it.

So with all of the apps that I currently had, I started looking at what each one could do. What I needed to do. Clear and Reminders were too simple. Things didn't have enough reminder options for me. Remember the Milk hadn't been updated in a long time. I looked at other options, but each had limitations that I couldn't handle and didn't have multiple integration points into iOS.

And that's when I saw it: 2Do. It was there the whole time. It had the features I needed. It had the automation I wanted. And aside from some UI elements that I would like to see changed, it proved to be the system I wanted. What I came to realize later is that I just didn't take the ownership to learn it like I should have, and I didn't understand its full potential. So now, I needed to move things from OmniFocus to 2Do. And this, as they say, is where things started to get interesting.

Expectations of What Follows

I want to make sure I state that I'm coming from an iOS-only perspective (and primarily my iPhone). I don't use a Mac for much of anything, except to upload something to iTunes every once in a while. So your mileage may vary.

Entering things into your new TMS is easy; getting tasks out of your current system is a way more difficult task. For anyone that has ever moved/switched anything (houses, jobs, etc.), it can be:

a giant pain in the ass
a scary thing to undertake when you do not know fully what you're getting in to
difficult because you have to retrain your thinking and methodologies
extremely rewarding

It's the last part that takes some time to realize. But it really is the most important part. And if your current method isn't doing what it needs or isn't something you really feel like using, break through the fear of change and push through.

Choosing a Sync System

Before you begin, consider these options. There are pros and cons to each, and starting off with the right one for you will help as you get more of your tasks into the app. 2Do gives you several options for sync, but I'm only familiar with two of them:

Dropbox is great. It is the recommended sync service by the maker of the app. One downside is the lack of Siri Integration, but with the invention of Email 2Do, as Federico Viticci suggested in his review of the feature, you can simulate a "task assistant" for implementation.3
iCloud is good if you share lists in Reminders with others (especially family) and gives you Siri integration. I have found this to be solid as well, but I wanted to keep this separate from iCloud because of the way it handles sync (see the manual). The only list I share is a grocery list, so it's not compelling enough for me to use this option.
While I haven't tried the others, I would be concerned about using them based on the limitations highlighted by the 2Do User Manual. I would want to use the full feature set (and full sync functionality of everything in the app), so I personally wouldn't recommend another option.

How I Moved Over

Here's the TL;DR — from my experience, there's not an easy way to do this.

I had tasks with notes entered that I needed to carry over. If I had started from scratch, I would've likely forgotten about them. I needed a way to get things out of one system and into another.

I tried a few different things, and while they worked, it was difficult and required way too much input; frankly, I don't even want to get into them because it was awful and not valuable to you, dear reader. It was so bad, that I ended up completely deleting everything in 2Do and starting over again. I stumbled on the the method that worked for me, and made the most sense.

Here are the tools I used:

Numbers (to deal with the export of the .CSV)
Drafts
Workflow

First, I started with an export of the CSV from my former TMS.4 I imported the file into Numbers and deleted all of the completed items. Then I deleted everything except the task names and notes columns. I took those columns and pasted that into Drafts. I separated the Task Name and the Notes fields by the | delimiter, and ran the action that utilizes this workflow I had come up with to import tasks.5 This dumped everything into 2Do in my default list (I use the GTD Inbox, so that's where it went for me).

You won't be bringing in flags or dates or contexts/tags or priorities — nothing but what needs to be done and descriptions. And, even though this puts a tremendous amount of effort in front of you to re-enter that data, it has great benefits as you learn your new system:

Exporting in this manner allows you to keep your original database intact. This is especially useful if you're on the fence for moving everything over.
You can move a smaller amount over to learn the interface, methods, and all of the useful features of 2do.
It allows you to refocus and rethink your task management. By stripping away the cruft of your legacy methodology, you can start to change your system.
Re-thinking your approach allows you to really focus on what is important. Perhaps you don't need every little step in a checklist or project. Getting rid of the clutter allows you to retrain your focus.

One feature that 2Do provides is batch editing. This will allow you to quickly apply various things and power through a bunch of tasks. This is something that other apps simply don't have, which not only helps move you over from another system, but also helps you in the normal day-to-day use of the app.

A Few Missing Things

There are a few things that I have enjoyed in other apps that are not in 2Do. While these aren't a deal breaker, they would some useful additions:

Review Mode

Review mode is something that I really found useful with my time in OmniFocus. This allows you to review specific projects or lists to make sure you get an overview of what is in your TMS, and is another way of helping you remember some of the tasks that could get away from you.

Granular Location

Another thing that I have found in other apps (Fantastical or OmniFocus, for example) is the ability to set leaving/arriving parameters for tasks. You can set nearby locations, which is better than having no location reminders, but I would really like to see the improvement here. I often want to get a reminder when I'm leaving work to pick up the groceries, but I would really like to set it for a distance away from work, and be able to go directly to the list.

Sequential Lists

I haven't really used this feature, but I've created the same basic thing in 2Do by having a specific Project or Checklist with priority and/or different start dates to accomplish the same thing. I know several other users have been asking for this, and I would love to see a smart implementation of this type of feature.

Management Hierarchy in 2Do Parlance

If you've been a long-time user of your current system, you are used to specific nomenclature in regards to your tasks. 2Do offers many of the same features, but with different names. But the key to using 2Do when leaving your old system is this:

Throw out the old, and embrace the new.

New terms scare us. While it's easy for me to say now, in practice it can be difficult. You can learn new things, even if you are afraid of change.

There's a hierarchy of how to organize things in 2Do. This isn't a rigid system, but rather one that you can customize to your liking. Here are the basics:

Groups
Lists
Projects/Checklists
Tasks

Groups aren't required, but if you have a layered setup, they are useful. Inside of the groups, you can have multiple Lists. Within each List, there are multiple Projects or Checklists or Tasks with the grouping.

Think of the TMS as a traditional file cabinet: each drawer (Group) contains hanging files (Lists); within those hanging files, you can have folders (Projects/Checklists) or pieces of paper (Tasks); and inside the folders, you can also have paper.

If that doesn't make sense to you, here's a visual mind map to illustrate:

Now that you have things organized how you need them, it's time to start using the features.

Features to Start Using

As you start to try some of the power features, I would consider first moving over a small, manageable list. This will allow you to customize 2Do to your liking before moving your entire TMS over.

Groups

Using groups for me is a power feature. It allows you to be more granular about where you place your tasks, and you can then use the Smart List feature to extract out what you specifically need (more on this in a bit). They have helped me keep work and personal tasks separate, all while having one central database for everything.

When you begin thinking about organizing your tasks, I recommend you start thinking of groups like buckets. I have 3 main buckets: Personal, Home, and Work.6 Within each of those groups, I have multiple lists. Here's an example of my Home Group:

Due Dates, Start Dates, and Duration

There are 3 types of time-based metadata that you can apply to a given task/project:

Due dates are simply the date/time that a task is due. New with 3.8, the digital clock option was added to the existing analog clock option for easy time selection. For due dates, you do not need to select a time; sometimes you know that a task is due on a particular day — like mowing the lawn — but the time is flexible. This is where setting a due date with no due time is useful.
Start dates are useful for tasks that you want to have appear in your list, but at specific times. By default, tasks with start dates are hidden from view, but can be shown by tapping the clock icon that displays Scheduled Tasks. This helps to get the clutter out of your view, and get you focused on what needs to be done.
Setting a duration is a very helpful option for when you need to be notified of something in advance. If you know a task is going to take you a few days to complete, but need to be notified to start that task, using duration in conjunction with a due date is a good choice.

There is a great video on the 2Do YouTube channel that shows you how to use due dates, start dates, and durations, and gives you good use cases for when you would apply a start date or a duration, and I highly recommend watching it (along with the other videos).

Federico Viticci mentioned in his post on MacStories on why 2Do is his favorite iOS task manager that setting start/due date shortcuts is helpful for entering tasks quickly. I encourage you to read his review to better understand those options, as they will save you time and effort as you are creating new tasks.

Projects & Checklists

Projects and Checklists allow you to set up smaller projects that contain a set of tasks. They are the same in basic function, but differ in the way start/due dates get applied.

Projects and Checklists can have an overall start/due date applied to the entire set of tasks; the difference between the two is that tasks within a Project can be independent of the overall start/due times, whereas tasks within a Checklist inherit the start/due time.

As of 2Do 3.8.1, there is a great way to use a Checklist with alerts to set up a recurring list of items. This allows you to set up an alert for each task that is based on the start date. When the Checklist is completed, the checklist start/due date are repeated for the specified repeat cycle, and the alert times adjust with those dates.

Here's an example:

Say you needed a reminder to refill your prescription every 30 days. This involves a few steps to complete:

Call your doctor to have the prescription written at least a week in advance.
After 24-72 hours (depending on the office), you need to drive to pick up the prescription.
Then, before you run out of your current prescription, you need to get the new one filled.

Now with a Checklist, you can set the start date seven days ahead of the due date. Then, you can set up your Tasks within the Checklist, and apply an alert to each one at a date/time relative to the start date:

Update: Many people have asked where they can get the workflows for tasks, projects, and checklists. I have created a post here with all of the updated links to those workflows and actions.

Sort Navigation

One thing I have heard from others is that 2Do has a lot going on in the screen. There are layers of UI, and there are things that can be missed.

Just prior to posting this, I was contacted by a friend of mine asking how to accomplish sorting. He wanted to sort the tasks manually, without applying a Due Date or a Priority; he just wanted to take a list, and move a task up from near last to the 4th position in the list.

I had always assumed that sorting manually was missing from the app. But, as was pointed out to me, it was right there all along. After all this time, I was glancing over navigational cues that would help me find these items. It would behoove you — and me for that matter — to play around with this a bit more. Let's use the example of the sort options.

Say you have a checklist of groceries, entered as you think of them:

When I go shopping, I like to have my list in the order I move through the store. I generally know the layout of the corner grocery store and the larger store that is a few miles away. I don't have a due date or priority to sort on here, but I want to sort them in the order I need for the store.

First, locate the Sort Bar. Tap on the sort bar to reveal the other options. You will be presented with the first screen, but notice the three dots:7

So now, as I swipe left and right, I have multiple options to sort a list, a project, or a checklist. If I select manual, I can move around the items that make sense to me; simply tap on the batch editing icon to enable the mode.

Sort works on the list or Smart List view you are in. You can have one list or project be sorted by due date, one sorted manually, one sorted by creation, etc. It is fully flexible to suit your viewing needs.

Embracing Smart Lists

The creation of Smart Lists is one of the most powerful features of 2Do, but also has the highest learning curve. There are some limitations that hopefully will be fixed with future updates of the app. Users coming from OmniFocus will find that they are very similar to something like Perspectives, though they may not perform the same way.

One of the biggest tips I can give: learn the syntax. Yes, it's nerdy. Yes, some people don't like reading the owner's manual to understand how things work.8 But you absolutely should.

The idea behind Smart Lists is this (from the User Manual, emphasis mine):

Smart Lists, in simpler words, are in fact saved searches. A smart list only ﬁlters on the original list it was create in (such as Home, 'All' and so on) and can be used for applying dynamic date range searches, keyword and tag ﬁlters.

This clicked for me as soon as I started thinking for what I wanted to search for, rather than what I thought I want to see. I input many tasks and can't always remember where I put them. Searching for them is helpful; having a way to regularly search for a set of parameters is a godsend.

Many times, I just need to search all of my tasks for things. I may do it once, twice, or a few times - but being able to create a saved search is great. When I complete my search, all I have to do is tap and hold the icon to save And that is why Smart Lists are great: they allow you to customize your search parameters to find the tasks you need to do. They can help you organize your lists across one or multiple projects.

I would recommend that when you create a Smart List, you start off from the All list; searches only refer to the list you searched in, and this will capture everything for you. You can then search in specific groups or lists to narrow it down.

Examples of Work Smart Lists

I have a Work group of a few lists. Keeping one list for me with Projects/Checklists was not helping my organization, and I needed that extra level of management. As I enter tasks into my Inbox, I can then sort them based on which list they go into. But if I want to get a look at my whole list, I need to create a search and save it as a Smart List. Here's the syntax I use for searching only items from my Work list:

groups:work type: task or proj or chck

I usually view this Smart List by list view; this way I know where I have each item located.9 Now all I need to do to save the Smart List is to press the icon, and I'm all set. I can name this Smart List whatever I want, and even place it inside the Work group I have set up.10

These work great for showing me everything, but at times I want to see just my work for this week. I can take the same search syntax, modify it slightly, and add a parameter:

groups: work type: anythisweek and proj or chck or task

This shows me everything I need to get done this week. One thing to note here is that this only shows you things due this week, and interprets the weekend as the end of the week. So if you look on a Wednesday and you know there's something due Monday, you won't see it.

So how do you get that early look ahead? This can be set up using a Date Range or Dynamic Date Range. To do this, you can apply the first syntax example, and apply a dynamic date range. In my experience, I have found it better to search for the parameters I want to see (proj, task, chck, etc.) and then apply the dynamic date range; it assures you that you're entering in the syntax correctly before applying the date.

Here, you can see the difference in the searches:

Example of Location Search

Let's say you are headed home to your family's house for Thanksgiving. There are a number of items you want to pick up or do:

Pick up chainsaw
Pick up tree trimmer
Pick up power tool (that you only need to use once every 10 years)
Pick up Micro Machines and Starcom toys
Talk about that embarrassing time when I was 6
Talk about planning a multi-national trip to Europe

These tasks can reside in any given list. But first I need to create a location where the family home is located, then create the tasks.11 This location needs to be applied to each of the tasks. You can add them to your default list or select a list to which they belong.

Next, you simply go to the All list, and search:

There you have all of your tasks for that location. You could also accomplish the same concept by utilizing a tag called family home and search tags: family home. Use what makes sense to you.

Example of Important Tag Search

If there is a task that I really need to get done and I need to visually see that it is important, I have started to use the ‼️ emoji for a tag. Yes, you can use emoji for search! Now, I can search on that emoji to see the important tasks, and save a Smart List:

tags: ‼️

I can even rename the list as ‼️ to make sure that I see it on the side.

Other Possibilities

These are some small examples of how to use this feature. There are way more complex syntaxes that can be created to look at your tasks. This is the beauty of this feature. It works for you (once you learn how to make it work), and allows you to customize how you view your entire system.

Helpful Links

If you're on the fence about moving over to 2Do, or have other questions, you may find some of the following links useful. Also, as I said previously, you really should read the 2Do User Manual and check out the 2Do YouTube channel.

MacStories Review of 2Do
MacStories Review of Email 2Do
Benjamin Brooks on Moving to 2Do
Nerds on Draft Podcast Episode 60 about 2Do (and beer). You can also find it in iTunes.

Wrap-Up

There is a lot to unpack with 2Do. I admit, it can be overwhelming at first, but it takes some time, testing, and use. I didn't find 2Do useful the first time, but that's because I didn't sit down and figure out how to use it. It isn't a program in which you have to fix your mindset to use it properly; it can be simple just like Reminders, or it can be complex like OmniFocus.

This isn't a pure Getting Things Done (GTD) system, but something that adapts to a user's needs. That said, you can make this a GTD app if you so wish, but you can also break the barriers a bit so that you don't feel confined. (It's a new kind of hybrid system, with just the right rigidity, just the right flexibility…)

2Do is in my dock. It has been firmly planted in the management of all my projects and my day-to-day life. My thought process is now captured as tasks when needed, and it has helped me focus on accomplishing the complexity that is my life. I am thankful that I have finally found something to work for the way I think of my task management.

I really wish that Apple would give the developers options for this. You cannot learn if a system will work for you just by pictures alone. You need to set it up, take some time, and see how it works in your life. ↩︎
This could be any app: Things, Todoist, Remember The Milk, Clear, Reminders, etc. It just happened to me while using OmniFocus. ↩︎
If you use Dropbox, I recommend that you immediately buy the Email 2Do IAP. Start with the $2.99 option to play with the integration. The MacStories article in the Helpful Links section will help guide you on setting that up. ↩︎
In this case, I was trialing OmniFocus, and I exported the .CSV from the settings menu. ↩︎
At the time I did this, I did it in a way more inefficient manner. I'm thankful that this action has been massively improved. ↩︎
Some people think that you should keep work and personal separate, but when things get chaotic for me at home and at work, I need to see it all. ↩︎
This is what I missed; it's subtle, and I missed it for a long time. Happier now that I have found it. ↩︎
Looking at you, BMW owners… ↩︎
I also use a tag work, and could make a search using tag:work type: task or proj or chck. ↩︎
Having a list of lists is a productivity nut's dream, right? ↩︎
You can do this in the reverse, but it's more cumbersome and takes more time. ↩︎

Drafts 4.6

2016-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

I am constantly finding new things to use my favorite app Drafts. Everything text starts in Drafts, just like this post. All of my lists, my notes, and my thoughts start here. It is a big part of how I get things done at work and at home.

I’m also in a quest to automate as much as possible. If I’m doing things over and over, I want to take away the friction no matter how small it is. I understand that this is borderline OCD, but I can’t help myself from finding joy in these little things.

New Features

With the Drafts 4.6 update today, there are several new features as highlighted on the Agile Tortoise blog:

Trash Can: instead of deleting your drafts, they are now stored for 30 days. This was apparently a big complaint of users who happened to have their default setting to delete. This is much like how Photos handles the recently deleted items.
Box.com Integration: this is just like the current support of Dropbox, and provides the same functionality.
Open in Drafts option: this uses the Safari View Controller, and is great for using a search option, such as DuckDuckGo.
Tag Helpers: an added keyboard row that gives you tag options when editing actions. Very useful.
Added Glyphs: this is something that I’ve personally wanted for a while. This update provides a lot more options for customization of your actions, and is very welcome going forward.
Include Action: gives you the ability to run actions/scripts within Actions.^[1] This means you can create separate actions or scripts of a repeat nature that you can call into any action you create. For those that use a lot of scripts within Drafts, this is going to be huge.
And many more.

Include Action Step

Long-time users are familiar with how to chain actions together, adding a multitude of different action types into a single action.

I recently thought of how I enter groceries. My wife and I use a shared Groceries list in Reminders, which then gets synced over to AnyList to group the items and make it easier for shopping. Until now, I would enter the items we needed, make sure they were in the correct format, and send them over. I would open up AnyList to make sure they were imported and also to review the list. Lastly, I would then make sure to let my wife know that I added items to the list.

There have been times that I have pulled a recipe in from a website. I copy and paste the ingredients over, delete the items I don’t need to buy, and delete all of the blank lines.

I do this often enough that I should automate it. Thinking of how I would do this, I thought of the steps that could be automated, and in what order:

Remove any blank lines from the draft.
Pass the list from Drafts → Reminders → AnyList.
Send a message to my wife to let her know it has been updated.
Open AnyList.

Step 1: Thanks to this action, I can run a script to get rid of them. And with the Include Action function, I can add that right to my action as the first item.

Step 2: This is a built in function of Drafts. It process each line, and you can optionally specify a delimiter for writing notes, which is helpful when adding a description to “lettuce” to give you a specific type or quantity.

Step 3: This is also a built in function; I set the number for my wife, then a canned message to let her know I updated the grocery list.

Step 4 utilizes the URL scheme of AnyList, which is anylist://.

Now that I have the action set up, I can run it on a list I have entered. My list is passed over, I hit send on the message to my wife^[2], and then I am automatically taken to AnyList. The items appear, and I can go on about my business.

I’ve also created one that doesn’t does message my wife, because I don’t always need to let her know. And of course, I made an Action Set for both of them.

Could I enter the items into AnyList directly? Sure could — if I was an animal. Instead, I can freely add them in one place as I think of them, and send them where I need them to go with the press of a button. This is a simple example of how you can include different actions, especially scripts, to automate and manipulate the text as you pass it along to the next app. It has saved me time ever since it was introduced in beta, now available to all of you.

This doesn’t allow for running multiple URL actions. ↩︎
There is a limitation of iOS in this step. The system software does not allow for the automatic sending of a message. I would love to see this changed, but I’m not going to hold my breath here. ↩︎

How to Apply the Note

2016-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

My day-to-day life is filled with tasks. Work, home, personal — they pile up more than I would like to admit. I’ve been off and on with managing my tasks, the apps I use, and my workflow(s) of getting tasks together.

At the end of 2015, I started to change my behavior: I spent my holiday time off work researching methods, reading articles and books on Getting Things Done. I searched for things to improve workflows at work and at home, improve my task management and find a system that works, and start daily habits that increase productivity.

The Note

One of the simplest habits that I started implementing was one that I learned from Shawn Blanc’s “The Note”:

“[The] note is the single most important element of my personal productivity system. Because that note is the single most important thing I have to do today.”

I’ve been writing myself a note before bed ever since I read those words. Now, I don’t write this out by hand like Shawn suggests, as I’ve been increasingly moving towards getting rid of much of the paper we have in the house. I also don’t write the single biggest task for the day. But the concept of The Note is simple: get it out of your head and into a format you can read the next day, so it’s not keeping you up. It frees you from the stress of trying to remember that small thing — or set of small things — you needed to get done. And although I shouldn’t, I usually am on the phone before I go to bed.

Before I go to bed, I start my Note. My Note starts where all my notes do: Drafts. I follow the format of Task | Notes when typing in my thoughts: this allows me to identify the task, and if I think of anything I want to elaborate on, I can add it after the | delimiter. I also include any meetings I might have the next day (from memory) for which I want to be really sharp and attentive. And then… I sleep.

That’s it. Pretty simple, right? Something so easy helps me get it out of my brain and into action. This daily habit has boosted my productivity level in a big way.

Previously, I posted about two things that help me: Building Projects in 2Do and Using Action Sets in Drafts. In these two posts, I outlined some workflow methods of getting information from one place to another, and setting up action sets to reduce the visual clutter. But how do I personally use them? The Note is a perfect example.

In the morning, I will review my calendar for the day, as well as my Note from the night before. I’ll sift through the lines I have written, deleting any of the items that don’t need to be moved over to 2Do. Then, I look at my remaining tasks to determine how I will enter them into my Task Management System (TMS). Because I do this daily, I have automated these things on iOS; Projects, Tasks, and Checklists all have their own methods for me as workflows.

Below are some of the actions that I use in getting my Note into 2Do, using Drafts and Workflow.

Actions

Tasks & Projects Drafts → Workflow → 2Do)

I use two similar workflows to create tasks and projects in 2Do, passing text through workflow. The text passed into a variable that can be used to split the lines into tasks, and each line can be separated by the | delimiter.

You can see the full workflow image here.

You can download the actions needed for Tasks(Drafts→WF→2Do) to work here: Install Workflow Install Drafts Action

Projects is similar, but has a unique method for saving the project, then the subsequent lines as tasks. Using Workflow allows the use of 2-variable storage when passing to 2Do , made possible by Extensions in iOS: text from the first line can first be copied in the system clipboard, which gets saved as a variable in Workflow; the rest of the text can be passed via extensibility into a variable for processing.

You can see the full workflow image here.

You can download the actions needed for Projects(Drafts→WF→2Do) to work here: Install Workflow Install Drafts Action

Unless you change the specified list, the two actions will place the items in the default list. I use the GTD Inbox, so that it is the default list, and I can triage and move tasks as needed. As I said in my previous article on the subject of Projects, you will need to manually move the Tasks created by this action into the Project. This is something that I hope is updated for the next release.

I have also added a few small improvements to the workflows:

I added a small script to remove white space lines in the main portion of the task list (The first line cannot be blank).

I also added a check at the beginning of the action for a blank Draft: there were a number of times while writing the article that I would accidentally trigger the action, and it would create a “New Task” in 2Do. This notifies you that the draft is blank, and gives you an option to cancel the action before anything is passed to 2Do.

If you have previously downloaded these actions, I recommend deleting the old actions and downloading them from this article so that you have the latest copy.

Email Checklist

Checklists are very similar to Projects, but with one key distinction: tasks within a Project can have their own due/start dates, whereas tasks within Checklists cannot. For the Email 2Do Checklist action to work, you need to have the items below the first line in a numbered list in order to capture the tasks within the checklist, so be mindful of that when formatting your note.^[1] Also, using Email 2Do requires the use of the GTD Inbox for capturing incoming email; I suggest you read the support article on 2Do’s website for full setup details of the feature.

The advantages here are that you don’t have to leave Drafts to send the information to 2Do, and this automatically moves the tasks within a Checklist. I would really like to see Email 2Do get updated to allow for the creation of Projects in the same manner.

Other Actions Available

I have some other actions that I still have in my Drafts Action List, but I do not use.

If you have the GTD Inbox enabled in 2Do but do not have the Workflow for iOS, this action is a good option. It takes a single task and places it in the Inbox. But now that I have the Tasks workflow that can handle one or more tasks, I don’t need this option.

Now that I can use Siri to email my Task Assistant and send an individual task to myself with the Email 2Do feature, I don’t use Reminders integration to sync anymore with 2Do.^[2] But for those who do use Reminders integration, this action is great for getting a list of tasks over. This also allows for the | delimiter, which in my experience, did not work all the time.

Drafts Action Set

Now that I have all of these actions in Drafts, I created the 2Do… Action Set to contain them all. Now, I have one place to look when I want to send my items to 2Do from Drafts; it doesn’t matter if I’m passing the Note directly to 2Do or if it is going through another app. This streamlines the mental friction for me.

I’ve improved my routine by following the habitual writing of The Note every day. By utilizing my powerhouse trio of apps to automate my tasks, I can make the Note work for me as another tool in my productivity toolbox .

Be sure to change the email in the Drafts Action. ↩︎
I use Dropbox, which gives you full control over the feature set. ↩︎

Using Action Sets in Drafts

2016-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

Drafts has long been in my dock. It is the essential start for almost all of my text: messages, emails, Tweets, notes, post ideas, etc. all start there, and go some where else thanks to the power behind the app’s simplistic interface.

The other day, Gabe over at Macdrifter wrote a great post, Getting Drafts Right for 2016, in which he reviews his setup for the app; I highly suggest you read this post because it gives some very helpful tips when getting started with Drafts (that I won’t be covering here).

Now that I’ve been using the app for a while, I have a few tricks of my own. One of the items listed in Gabe’s post is about not letting your actions pile up.

“Part of the problem I created for myself was an overwhelming number of conduits. My solution was to cut way back to only the actions I use regularly or that do things that the iOS 9 share sheet doesn’t do.”

I must admit, I had that problem for a while too. And while I haven’t gone the same route to reduce the number of actions, I have found something that worked for me — using a method to shrink the Action Lists, while still having a large number of actions available.

Action Sets

Enter Action Sets.^[1] I define an action set as a single Drafts action that presents a menu of actions to choose from, then runs that selected action with your current Draft.

The developer, AgileTortoise, originally posted an action called “Select Action” where he demonstrates the concept with 2 built-in actions how this can be used. It is a simple 2-step action:

Prompt:
The spot where you list the actions you want to be grouped into a set.
URL: drafts4://x-callback-url/open?uuid=[[uuid]]&action=[[prompt_button]]

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But when I started realizing the power this had to clear up my action lists, I immediately started grouping my actions together in this way. The first time this started was with Fantastical. I had 6 actions that I used with the app:^[2]

Event and Reminder are single items, and require the user to hit “Add” in the top right. Events and Reminders also require the user input, but the actions call each line of the Draft instead of a single line. Quick Events and Quick Reminders do not require user intervention, and call each line until there are none left; this is especially handy for when you need to input many dates, such as importing your company holiday schedule. These are all great actions, but it took up 6 lines of my Drafts space.

I made one Action Set called “Fantastical…”. One line, but with 6 different inputs. Later, I modified it to only have the 3 events-based actions, because I do not use Reminders integration now for 2Do, my task management app of choice.

Action Set Keys

When you have finally created the Action Sets you want, and if you run them frequently, consider making an Action Keys for your Enhanced Keyboard row. If you assign an Action Set to a Key, you will be able to bring up the Action Set menu quickly for manipulation.

This is especially powerful for users that have an external keyboard that they use with their iOS device. I’ve been using one for a while, and I don’t think I could ever go back. For example, I use ⌘+shift+C for my “Clipboard” Action Set, which gives me a number of actions to use and manipulate text with the system clipboard. This gives me more power than the traditional ⌘+C for copy. They key is hidden from the Enhanced Keyboard, which de-clutters the row.

I currently have 4 Action Lists in my current Drafts setup. I don’t have Action Keys set for most of them yet, but I’m working towards having them for all of my most-used Actions and Action Sets.

If you need another reason to set up Action Lists & Sets: look at this picture for the individual actions I have in Drafts in one long list. (Warning: it’s a long list.) It’s a lot to scroll through, and I much prefer the lists I have set up.

The application of the Action Set is just one more example of how the most simple looking text editors available is really one of the most powerful automation apps on iOS.

Drafts 4 is a universal app and is currently 50% off in the App Store for $4.99.

at least that’s what I’m calling them ↩︎
I did change the names, but included links to the original actions for your use. ↩︎

Building Projects in 2Do

2016-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Earlier this year I experimented with several task management systems (TMS) for iOS to help me get better organized for both home and work. After a lot of trial and deliberation, I finally found a home in 2Do. Now that I am deeply rooted in my app of choice, I wanted to start getting smarter about getting things done for work. There are projects, both large and small, that I have to manage:

Programs
Compliance Reports
Mundane Reports ^[1]
Weekly Checklists

And while each of these types have varying levels of importance and complexity, how I input them can be the same by using some powerhouse apps on iOS. Let me show you how I integrate Drafts, Workflow, and 2Do to help me input these projects with ease.

Typically, at the start of the program, I will make a specific list for it. For this example, I’ve created a list called “Post Examples” in 2Do.

With the list set up, now I can start placing items into the list as normal. But say I’m in a meeting. I need to have something that can take my meeting minutes, and create actions inside of the list and/or a project. For that, I turn to the power of Drafts & Workflow.

For most meetings, I’ll start off by creating a new Draft using the help of a meeting notes workflow. This workflow allows me to select the current meeting, and automatically set up a Draft with a number of parameters.

After I have input the action items, I can select them and create a new Draft based on the selection by tapping the “+” in the upper left. Once these action items are in a new Draft, I can manipulate the text and format it into Task | Notes, using the | for a notes delimiter if I need to expand my thoughts on a given task.^[2]

As you can see from this [obviously fake] meeting, I have a lot of actions given to me from this one meeting; if I had a single action to move into a task, I would use one of a number of ways to move it to as specific list or the Inbox within 2Do. But because all of the actions help complete this task, I want to set this up as a project; moving each of them individually would be a pain using the share sheet. I don’t use Reminders integration for 2Do, so I cannot use a Drafts action to move them over to a list via Reminders.

But I can easily solve this with automation using Drafts & and Workflow. First I set up this action in Workflow to take the first line from the clipboard, separate the Project Name and Project Notes at the | delimiter, and save that as the Project. Then, it takes every line after that, separates the Task Name and Notes at the | delimiter, and saves it as a Task in 2Do.

Next, you need to download this action for Drafts. This copies the first line ([[title]]) to the system clipboard then passes the remaining list ([[body]]) to Workflow as text.

At first, I ran into a scenario where the Task Name would be repeated as Notes if there were no notes on the line. I did end up fixing it by placing an if statement that checks if Notes equals the Task Name. Now if there are no notes, the tasks are entered with an intentionally blank note, which 2Do ignores.

There are a lot of things you can use like Start/Due dates, Priority, Tags, etc. when you run the workflow. While this doesn’t suit my needs for what I’m looking for, it can be changed for your needs as you see fit.

Now that the project and all of the tasks have been entered into the specified list, we can go into 2Do and use the Batch Edit function that makes it so powerful. Simply activate Batch Edit in the upper right, select the tasks you want to move, and then move them inside the project.

The batch editing feature of 2Do is top notch; it was one of the biggest items that pushed me towards 2Do over other TMS apps. It makes moving the tasks into a project or checklist very easy. But one improvement that I would like to see is the ability to move the tasks into the project using Workflow. There is some documentation on the 2Do website, but it is not clear on how to implement it and I have not found a way to use it. I have asked the developer of 2Do and Workflow to take a look at how to integrate this easier.

Another thing that I would like to see from 2Do here: the ability to have checklists inside of projects. (I used MindNode to show this visually.) Below, you can see the current state of how Lists, Projects, Checklists, and Tasks exist in the app. But I would really like it to become more nested, as shown below.

For big projects, having checklists nested inside of a specific task would be a welcome addion to the already powerful task manager.

As part of my job, there are times that reports have very similar tasks associated with each, but may have a different project title. This workflow can help by keeping the Draft available for future use using the workflow, or by creating a project template in a specified list.

Another clever way to use lists would be to store specific project templates into a separate list (called Templates, perhaps), then select the project template and copy it to a new list. Currently, if you do this at the project/checklist level, it will only copy the project; I would love to see this behavior change to copy all of the subtasks within the project. If that was available, all I would need to do is simply save a copy, then edit the title and assign a date, and I have everything I need to ensure that I’m getting that small, repeating project/checklist done. By creating these templates, so much time can be saved for the future.

These workflows have allowed me to take notes from a meeting and turn them into actionable items that I can use to get things done at work. They have allowed me to create numerous project templates for future use. From the large project to the simple checklist for the day, I can manage everything I need by using these actions.

Note: I’ve updated the actions and placed them all into one post. You can find that here

let’s call these TPS reports for now ↩︎
A delimiter is something that splits a line. This can be changed to suit your preferences, such as a comma ↩︎

Things I Like - Volume 1

2016-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard

A while ago, we got a Bluetooth keyboard for one of our tablets. It was a slim keyboard, not full-sized, and didn’t fit my fingers well. I never tried it, casting it aside as unusable because of how tight the keys were.

Then, the day after Christmas, I tried it again while using my iPhone 6s Plus. It quite literally changed the way I use my device; it opened new possibilities for what I can and will do. That said, I still couldn’t use it because of the keyboard layout. I searched for alternatives, and landed on the Logitech Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard.

The keyboard is a full-sized keyboard, with additional keys for navigation. It also gives you the option to pair it with 3 devices. I like everything about the keyboard with 3 exceptions:

It doesn’t fold up. I also had looked at the Microsoft Universal Mobile Keyboard and thought that it would be nice. I did end up buying a 13" laptop sleeve, which gives me the option to carry a stylus pen, a laser pointer, and a note pad with me to meetings at work and makes the folding aspect of the design moot for me; surprisingly, the sleeve makes a huge difference for me in that I have everything I need with me when I’m on the go.
The batteries are 2 AAA batteries, not a built in rechargeable battery. I will have to see how battery life plays into things, and I’m not sure if this is really a negative thing; if I run out of power somewhere, I can always find a place to sell batteries, and won’t always be able to plug it into a wall.
There are no keyboard keys to adjust the screen brightness. I would love to see this functionality be added in some way. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it would be a nice feature. Other keyboards made by Logitech do allow for a change in brightness, but they are 2x the price of this one; however, many competitive keyboards have this functionality.

This is a real thumb-saver for me; prior to this, I have typed out everything written on my site with my thumbs, only from my iPhone. Now, I can use the device in a much different manner than before. Writing this way becomes much easier for me. I’ve found more ways to be productive using keyboard shortcuts (looking at you, Drafts) and tackled large 2Do lists because it is far easier for me to enter information.

Jaybird X2 Sport Bluetooth Headphones

I picked up the Jaybird X2 Sport Wireless Bluetooth Headphones in the middle of October. I didn’t write about them then, but when I was at home on vacation at the end of the year they really were a wonderful piece of kit.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and now that I don’t have to be tethered to my phone via a cable, it has been great to roam around. I have been able to leave my phone in the center of my house and travel virtually anywhere inside and still connect.^[1]

The earbuds come with 3 sizes of tips in 2 styles (memory foam and silicone), as well as 3 sizes of fins for a custom fit to your ear. It took a little while to figure out which ones worked the best, but once I figured it out, they have been very comfortable to wear all day. I used to own the Bose in-ear buds, and they are just as comfortable to wear. I also went and purchased a variety pack of memory foam earbuds at Jaybird’s website; the comfort ear tips have been great for normal use. I also have enjoyed the isolation tips, which block out everything.

Only negative is battery life, but with buds this small, I can understand. I can get anywhere from 8–10 hours of listening time, depending on the day; not sure I have any room to complain here, but if I could go 12–14 hours that would suit my needs much more on longer work days.

If you’ve been on the fence about Bluetooth earbuds, these are definitely worth picking up. Amazon usually has sales on them, discounted to around $150 or so. They are more expensive than some, but I have yet to find a major issue with them.

Your footage may vary… ↩︎

My Year in Music (2015)

2015-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

As we are getting close to closing out the year, I wanted to share what albums I’ve loved from 2015. I was surprised to see a lot of music make it to me for the first time this year; some old, some new, some forgotten — it’s been very refreshing.

I selected these albums based on their original release within 2015, and I didn’t want to pick any re-released, remastered, or “best-of” albums. I’m also not picking anything that is new-to-me this year, but more on that later.

Top 5 Albums of 2015

Picking a set of 5, let alone ranking them, was a tough task for me. I initially had a list of 20, and paired it down from there; I was also not going to rank them, but during the course of listening and writing, it became clear that I had some favorites and a clear favorite.

1. Steve Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

Steven Wilson has had a prolific career as a solo artist,composer, engineer and producer; he is the most well know for being the frontman for Porcupine Tree.^[1] In so many ways, the artistry that he creates in his music defines the progressive genre that I love today. He can do so many things from the creation to the production; he owns the whole stack and is involved at every level, which shows through in his success.

As is a progressive music tradition, this is a concept album; one unique element is that it is told from a female perspective features several wonderful artists on the album, including Ninet Tayeb adding the female voice and the great Marco Minnemann on drums. The music itself has everything from jazz to light, airy music, from heavy rock riffs to pop rock hooks, odd time signatures, classic instruments, synthesizers — it really covers so much ground.

I have been so impressed with this solo album, which is a tremendous addition to his already amazing body of work. My only problem is that I found it late in the year, and it hasn’t been played enough in my ears.

This is without doubt my hands-down favorite album of the year.

iTunes / Apple Music

2. Muse - Drones

The power trio that is Muse gets back to their rock roots with Drones. This continues their concept album tradition of the last few releases.^[2] But unlike their last two albums, this album hits harder and has resonated with me much more.

I think one of the most relatable aspects of this for me is wrestling the feeling of being a human drone. Working a nine-to-five can make you feel that way, and it’s important to break free. Every time I hear this album, it reminds me to keep doing things to not fall into that mode.

Of all the Muse albums, this is my favorite — it’s phenomenal album from top to bottom.

iTunes / Apple Music

3. God Is an Astronaut - Helios / Erebus

I never knew God Is an Astronaut existed before I heard them as the weather segment on the Welcome to Night Vale podcast.^[3] They have been around for years, and they are known for their instrumental progressive sound.

This album has gotten me through many days at work going through large Excel documents and standards. It’s a great album to use for the backing track of your day.

iTunes / Apple Music

4. Puscifer - Money Shot

I’m not sure that I’ve ever disliked a single thing that Maynard James Keenan has ever done.^[4] About the only thing I could complain about MJK is that there isn’t a new Tool album yet, but hopefully that will be soon.

This album showcases the multi-faceted band and continues to push their sound, which sounds like it came directly out of the Grand Canyon itself - vast, mysterious, jagged, and magnificent. The whole band sounds settled, driven, and confident. The harmonies from MJK and Corina Round are powerful and amazing, while simultaneously haunting and melancholy. Their voices aren’t just lyrics, but emotion that plays like another layered instrument.

iTunes / Apple Music

5. Chvrches - Every Open Eye

I got hooked on this album from the release of the first single, Leave A Trace. The emotionally complex lyrics fit well with the band’s post-EDM, multi-layered sound. The pulse of the music ranges from elation to chill to quiet reflection.

Lauren’s vocals sound confident and resilient, unwavering in the confrontation of her own emotions. It’s almost as if she uses the music to bounce through her thoughts and come out better on the other side. The band’s vocals and driving beats propel this album to be what I think is their best to date.

In December, I was very happy to see that my cousin, Goldroom made a remix of Leave A Trace. If you like the original, I highly suggest you give this remix a listen as well.

iTunes / Apple Music

Other Albums

Here are some other albums that I really like, but at the end of the day, don’t make it into my top 5 for various reasons:^[5]

Elle King - Love Stuff

iTunes / Apple Music

Death Cab for Cutie - Kintsugi

iTunes / Apple Music

Mumford & Sons - Wilder Mind

iTunes / Apple Music

Of Monsters and Men - Beneath The Skin

iTunes / Apple Music

Coheed & Cambria - The Color Before the Sun

iTunes / Apple Music

Silversun Pickups - Better Nature

iTunes / Apple Music

Mutemath - Vitals

iTunes / Apple Music

John Williams - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

iTunes / Apple Music

Reflection on Music

Looking back at this past year in music, I have had a wide range of things that I have enjoyed. My musical tastes have changed over the years; but another huge part of it has been Apple Music. The service is it allowed me to add a bunch of new albums to try and expand my musical knowledge (even from years prior to this one).

I’ve learned more about some amazing artists, and have been able to get their music with ease. I’ve been able to get more back-catalogs of some of the artists I’ve known for years. I’ve tried new, popular music artists on the top charts like The Weeknd and Elle King; and I’ve listened to Hall of Fame legends like Miles Davis and The Beach Boys.

Apple Music has several features that are really great; one wonderful feature I particularly like allows users to create their own shared playlists. Creating them is very easy, and if you enjoy sharing music you like with others, it is a simple way to do so. I have included playlists that have the albums listed above:

My Top 5 Albums of 2015

My Favorite Albums of 2015

When I first started writing this, I thought it would be good to share my favorite albums from this year. What I didn’t realize is that Apple Music had a profound impact on me this year, especially the last quarter of it. It has opened my ears to new types of music I would have previously shied away from. If I want to listen to something, I can; but I don’t have to keep it or regret my purchase.

Personally, this year has been a great year of music for me. I cannot wait to see what music, old or new, captures me in 2016.

Did I miss some of your favorites? Feel free to let me know yours on Twitter or via email.

Can we please get a new album soon? It’s only been 6 years…article") ↩︎
I apparently like concept albums. ↩︎
See, native podcast ads can work. ↩︎
I have not tried the wine out of Arizona, but I’m going to say that he doesn’t do anything half-assed, so it would be great. ↩︎
None of which I’m explaining here ↩︎

Out of the Fog

2015-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

The last day of school for any kid is always a big one: the excitement of summer, the long school year over, the finality of another year. Many things can be exciting on those days, and this was certainly no exception. In 2011, my oldest son was finishing the 4th grade. He had a particularly bad year; his teacher was exactly like the witch in Miss Nelson is Missing!. He gathered up what little belongings he needed the night before, and was ready for the day.

At 6 am the following morning, he was awake with excitement. No one wanted this school year over more than him. He had one request: he wanted his my world famous French toast. How is a dad supposed to say no? I stayed later to make it for him, knowing I would get home late from work, but it would make his day better. He enjoyed his breakfast, and I wished him well on his last day, telling him “I love you” as I walked out the door.

The next 10 minutes changed my life.

My morning commute was an average drive: 20 min of time, give or take some traffic. Leaving later means more traffic, but it also means that there is additional traffic from people coming home after working midnights from the assembly plants and other jobs. About 10 min into my drive, I made the left at the light I always do, and accelerated at the rate I normally did. I was following a large SUV, and I drive a sedan. Suddenly, out of no where, the SUV swerved onto the shoulder^[1], and I had no time…

SMASH!

That is all that I remember. That and my chest hurting. I don’t remember the man crossing the road to find out if I was ok, but I remember him tapping on the window. Through some effort, I was able to get my seatbelt off, push the door open, and get myself to my feet. Nothing felt broken, but I was clearly in shock.

My car sat on the side of the road totaled. My phone, which normally sits in my cup holder when driving, was wedged between the dash and the windshield. The officer said I was likely going about 40 mph. An judging from the pain in my chest, he was right. I didn’t take the ambulance ride that was offered, even though my blood pressure was over 190/130 at the time. My wife came and got me at the scene, and with her insistence, we went to the hospital to have me checked over. I was convinced nothing was wrong, that I was just shaken up from the impact.

We got to the hospital, get all checked in. All the blood tests & simple scans you can think of, then off to X-ray. My wife left to go get our son, who had a half day on the last day of school. It’s an X-ray: what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, a lot can actually go wrong.

As I was standing at the x-ray machine, I started feeling really off. I began feeling like I was going to pass out, everything going white, and grabbed on to what I could; I probably looked how an infant would as it was trying to maintain its balance. When I came back into consciousness, I had a team of people around me. I felt a warm feeling, which I then realized was the sensation of me pissing myself. They get me out of my clothes, get me back to my room, and start an IV. Probably just a response to the stress. After a few questions about me shaking when I was unconscious and me telling them everything went white as I faded, they were very concerned about the situation.

They hooked me up to heart monitors. After giving me some time to rest, they want to get me back to X-ray. They stand me up, make sure I’m ok. I asked to pee, just in case I pissed myself again. I felt good better, I was ready to go. Then, without warning, I feel awful. Nurse asks if I’m feeling ok. I’m not. Like I want to puke. Like my body was going to shut down. Everything started going white again…

I remember being in a peaceful dream, surrounded by warmth, feeling happiness and love; it felt like a good place. When I came to, I felt no pain, no stress, just calm. I looked up and saw 2 doctors intensely focused on my heartbeat in the monitors, about 10 nurses, and some aids frantically moving in the tiny room. Asking me questions, checking out everything they can. After a few minutes, the docs want send me off to get an emergency CT scan.

It is then they tell me what happened, about the events that had just transpired: my heart had stopped. Stopped, flatlined, no pulse for 30 seconds. The nurse who asked if I was ok was also the one who had thumped her fist on my chest to get the heart going again. The doctors were looking for something specific in the monitor: the p-wave that precedes the normal heart rhythm that wasn’t showing. It’s basically your internal pacemaker that sets off the normal sinus rhythm, and I didn’t have it. So there I sat, waiting for the machine in the hallway, with nothing but my thoughts and a lot of tears.

What do you do with that news? How do you even process that without knowing what is wrong? It seemed almost surreal, until I thought that I wouldn’t see my wife & son again. Even though the experience was peaceful for me, the thought of what it would do to family & friends was overwhelming. The technician was very understanding of my current state and started the scan when I wasn’t a crying mess. The scan wasn’t conclusive.

The absence of an answer bought me a few night’s stay in the Critical Care Unit. In the transfer to my room, I my pulse stopped one more time; I was at least thankful that I was in the cardiac unit of CCU, and they got me going again quickly. There were blood tests and scans to try and narrow this down.

A few days later at the end of the hospital stay, we only knew that I had low potassium, a vasovagal response, potassium supplements, and 5 daily pills of 3 medications for high blood pressure that was at 170/110 at rest. For now, somehow, this was just going to be normal.

The doctors wanted to figure this out. They run some tests, blood work, a stress test, and a tilt table test. I had a cardiologist and an endochronologist now. You’d figure with a couple of specialists, you’d find out more — and you would think wrong. No answer. Vasovagal response, low potassium, high blood pressure. Deal with it; here’s some pills, and some more pills. That was the answer, and this was something I would have to live with. And for a while, I learned to accept it…

Until I decided to get an elective surgery. I had a painful varicose vane in my lower abdomen. Almost like a hernia, but not the same. I needed to have a simple outpatient procedure, one done at an outpatient surgical center and not at the hospital. And I’m sure that for most people, it would be just fine, no problems, and things would be good for them. But not for me. While the surgery itself was a success and I haven’t had pain since, I had a different yet familiar problem. When they were waking me up with my wife and dad with me, I turned an ashen grey — and my heart stopped. Again.

So, I was rushed back to the hospital for another 3-day stay. One more flatline as I was getting settled in the hospital. More blood work. More tests. A new doctor - an electrophysiologist - would be a new addition to my team. As they said in the hospital, I was “famous”.^[2] However, this hospital stay was different. My wife is a registered nurse and she started putting things together. She talked with my mom about her medical history, and there was a big revelation: my symptoms had happened before - to my mom. Years ago, my mom suffered similar symptoms — high blood pressure, feeling lethargic, anger — and it got even worse with severe fatigue and depression. I was starting to fall into the severe depression. After they finally figured it out, a surgery would cure her. My mom had thought before that this could have been the case, but nothing confirmed the suspicion, even though we checked several times before.

So my new super-specialist ran tests. He ordered a new scan, this time going further down my body than when they did the CT for my accident.^[3] And sure enough, after all the tests, pills, and labs they could possibly do, they found something wrong:

A tumor.

There it was: a benign tumor on my right adrenal gland; my mom had hers on the left. After months and months of tests, no answers, and life continuing to feel miserable, all I would need is a surgery to remove it (not just the tumor, but the whole right adrenal gland). I remember crying when I read the report. As much as I was scared of having my heart stop during the surgery, I was relieved and overjoyed that there was an answer and a solution.

The laparoscopic surgery was scheduled 2 months after the scan. The day before my birthday. Happy birthday to me! I was told that it would be life changing. I was told that after the surgery and the recovery, I would be a new man. This would forever change my outlook on things. I guess I would just have to wait and see. The laparoscopic surgery went off without a hitch, and the surgery was a success. But what would that hold for me?

When I was told just how much life would change for me, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think that a small 2 cm tumor meant anything physical or psychological would happen. I was hopeful that it would fix my health issues, but nothing more would change. I am so glad I was wrong. It changed me forever.

I can only try and give you a picture of what I was like before the surgery. I like to think that I’m generally a nice guy and easy to be around. But after having the surgery, I realized: I was an asshole. I had treated my friends and family like complete shit, especially my wife and son. How many times had I been demeaning or inconsiderate? How many times had my frustration lingered from the morning all the way until the evening, only to make those whom I love feel horrible? How was my exhaustion affecting those around me, especially my wife?

The day after my surgery, my birthday, was spent in the hospital. I attributed my newly-discovered good mood to that, and to the wonderful drugs the nurses would bring for pain. It wasn’t until two days after the surgery that I noticed it. I can only describe it as this:

Picture yourself walking into a dense wooded area, thick with fog and dimly lit. This was my life, from my perspective. Now picture a clear, grassy field with lush green grass and abundant sunshine. The day of my surgery I was in the fog. On my birthday, I was at the edge of the fog, looking at what life was like past the fog into the field with wonder. And the very next day, it was a new life in the field.

Within a few months, I was off all my medications. No more high blood pressure. Good potassium levels. No more anti-depressants. I felt happy. I didn’t know that this is what normal felt like. And a few weeks later, we found out we were pregnant with our youngest son. All of the waiting, the traumatic events, the car accident — all of it seemed worth it.

So now that it’s been more than 4 years later, I need to remind myself of where I’ve been. There’s been a lot that has happened since that time, and getting through this allowed me to help with everything after. I need to remember how close things came, how I might not have seen my loved ones again. I need to see that life has changed for the better. How thankful I am to be lucky enough to find the right doctor that would listen to my wife and mom, and order the scan that confirmed it.

I want to make sure that I’m living the fullest life that I can, for my wife and kids, so that I can be here to support them as long as I possibly can. I need to keep my health in check so that I can see both of my sons grow up.^[4] Life is so unbelievably short. You may wake up on a seemingly benign day, and just go off to work like you normally do. And most of the time, you’ll come home. But remember that you also might not. If you love someone, let them know - and let them know often. Be thankful and appreciative of the little moments that you get with them — they are all important.

illegally, I will add ↩︎
When speaking in these terms, this is far from a good thing ↩︎
If they would have scanned 6" more, they would have found the problem 9 months sooner. Thanks, insurance… ↩︎
Likely faster thank I would like them to… ↩︎

Be Yourself

2015-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

As I’m creating this new space, I often think of what I can do to make it better for everyone reading. I want to create something successful, something that people will read, recommend, and eventually turn into some side income.^[1] Finding success is why I set out to do this.

Except that it’s not.

I really set out on this journey to find my niche in this world, sharing my thoughts through my own voice, and embracing who I am, as feeble an attempt as it may be. I’m not sure how long it will take to get there. There isn’t a set timeline for when I will fully be able to share, with any confidence, who I am and what I want to say. But that is ok. I’m not failing at it, I’m not upset about it, I’m just allowing it to happen. I always try to remember:

Life is a journey, not a destination.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I often look to people that have found success to see what they have done to get there. Aaron Mahnke had some great words on Twitter this week in the wake of a successful book launch and his podcast (emphasis mine):

I see one decision at the root of the incredible ride I’ve had since April: I stopped trying to be like everyone else and embraced “me”. Scoff if you want. Make fun of the “Hallmark-ness” of that revelation. That’s cool. But maybe stop and ask yourself why you’re scoffing. I thought I had to be an Apple-blogger-tech-opinionator-profound-thinker-productivity-guy. But that’s not me. I suck at that. The world needs more people who make decisions based on who they are, not who they think the world wants them to be. In what world is it “normal” to love [what I love]? Mine.
— Aaron Mahnke (@amahnke) July 29, 2015

I love Aaron’s sentiment here, and it couldn’t be more true. It seems that anyone that I can look up to for inspiration, regardless of their craft, has done so by sharing their passion. Sure, there could be acclaim and financial success, but they find success by being themselves by sharing what they love with the world. You don’t have to be the next big thing. You don’t have to be like other people. You just need to be you.

I think for most, being yourself is one of the hardest things to do as a human. It takes a lot to get out of your own way, remove the internal barriers, and open up your world to others. We allow ourselves to be defined rather than define ourselves.

That’s the toughest part for me: how do I define myself? I don’t yet know the answer. It won’t be quick, and it certainly won’t be easy — but I know that being myself and sharing it with others will be the biggest payoff in my success.

You can find out how to order Aaron’s books on his website. Lore can be found in iTunes or on the website.

with native ads, not the crazy insane banner adds that are everywhere ↩︎

Cleaning Up, Clearing Out

2015-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Podcasts are becoming increasingly validated as a medium. They were before, in smaller circles, but the broad success of podcasts like Serial have pushed the medium to new listeners, new listener numbers, and therefore new boundaries. High-profile individuals have started reaching out to appear on podcasts. Phil Schiller of Apple went on The Talk Show with John Gruber where he knew he could be asked some tough questions, but wanted to show that he was one of us. Even the POTUS (or his team) thinks that being on a podcast is worthwhile.

When I first started getting into podcasts, I listened to topics I enjoyed; but the playlist was heavily dominated with tech podcasts. I had somewhere between 10-15 of them [footnote]I wish I was joking[/footnote] a week that I would listen to. I would use Overcast and use its Smart Speed® functionality in addition to playing them at 1.5x-2x the normal speed to increase my intake [footnote]playing catch-up, really[/footnote]; but after a while, they became dull and boring. They didn't move and excite my brain like they used to.

I started discussing with several of my friends, and we all seem to agree: the tech podcast space has become repetitive, too filled with the same things being regurgitated across multiple places. What's being said on one podcast is being said on another; often times, there would be a discussion by the same person on different podcasts. This isn't to say that they aren't good: there are a lot of amazing technology focused podcasts out there. For myself and others, it was simply becoming overwhelming to keep up on a regular basis, and too repetitive show-to-show.

Out of those discussions, I started to develop some questions to gauge how I to listen to podcasts:

Am I learning anything new?
Do I always enjoy listening to the topics, hosts, and guests?
Do I enjoy listening at 1x? Or, maybe better said: Do I feel like I need to speed up the podcast?
How do I feel when I am done listening to the podcast? Happy? Sad? Meh?

If the podcast doesn't give me the positive answers to those questions, it gets deleted. This may seem harsh, but it really makes a difference in de-cluttering my headspace. If I feel “meh” after a podcast, it likely isn't worth listening to. I would be better off playing music or checking out something new.

What I really want from podcasts - and tech podcasts in particular - is a fresh take on topics, saying things others aren't and looking for new angles; I also want interesting ideas and subjects to keep me engaged. I still listen to a few tech podcasts, but only subscribe to a couple; the rest are selected based on guests and/or topics.

I've had a lot of recommendations in the past few months that have been providing me with just the thing I want to hear, even if I didn't know I wanted to hear it. Here are some of the podcasts I've been enjoying as of late:

99% Invisible by Roman Mars is a great show about the history of design, and all the little things you tend to miss or overlook.
You cannot go wrong with the absolutely terrifying Lore by Aaron Mahnke. The episode entitled “The Castle” was horrifying, sick, and extremely twisted, but a great episode that was very well produced. [footnote]Lore is one of the few podcasts for which I have a notification set - it's great.[/footnote]
Front to Back is about 3 dads raising their daughters, but having a daughter of your own is hardly a prerequisite. They have many great insights to parenting that I have found useful.
Criminal contains fascinating stories of people that are or have been viewed as criminals; some of them have been unbelievable and heart-wrenching. The exit guide episode is a good place to start.
The Mystery Show is a wonderful podcast about mysteries that can't be solved by looking online. Beat reporter-style investigation and interviews tackling small mysteries. The Belt Buckle was quite possibly the single greatest podcast episode I've ever heard.
Undisclosed is a follow-on to (but not associated with) Serial, which highlights more and more errors in the case. If you were a fan of Serial, this is a must-listen podcast.[footnote]Fair warning - I get upset every week at this case. It's a disaster that I cannot believe was this poorly handled – the prosecution handle this whole trial wrong, and the initial defense was ineffective. I'm hoping there is a new trial opened.[/footnote]

I'm always in search of other quality podcasts: if you have some other suggestions, let me know what you think I should be listening to. I will give them a chance, but I will be applying the rules to those as well — so make them good!

Cleaning up and clearing out my podcast playlist has lead me to a more fulfilling experience; I highly suggest you take a look at doing the same. It's time to give your podcast listening a more personal human touch.

Human Reach

2015-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Image Credit: NASA/APL/SwRI

This week, we have hit the mark on the nine-year journey to research and photograph the last main celestial body in our solar system, Pluto.^[1] We have discovered particles that have only existed in theory. We are extending our human reach from the infinitesimal to the extent of our multiverse as a species, even if we don’t know yet where we are heading or for what we are searching. We truly live in wonderful times.

And yet, with all of our advancements, we on Earth often times are still horrible as a species; we are flawed beings that are capable of doing many great, wonderful, terrible things. Over the course of the last six years alone, there have been countless stories around the world of brutal violence, hate crimes, and heinous acts. Racial divides, human inequality, religious ideals, and the need to survive push people to their worst. And although we have made some advancements in recent months to right those wrongs, we still have a long way to go.

Being our best and worst was really well encapsulated within Interstellar, which I happened to watch this week. The basic premise of the movie: the planet is dying, we are dying due to lack of food and climate changes, and there is a fight for our survival. In an effort to save the human race, a team is sent on a long journey to go find another home; the initial team was selected to represent us on this journey.^[2] Not much is heard from the team, and a second team is sent in the same direction. In one of the many of the many climactic scenes of the movie, there is a conflict where one astronaut attacks another in an effort to save himself. Even in the vastness of space with the fate of the human race on the line, we were shown to be horrible to each other; we would choose ourselves and our own ideals rather than working together to survive.

Humans been this way for a long time. We’ve had thousands of years of hate, bigotry, and inequality. We kill in the name of our deities or ideals. We persecute those that are not the same as us with hatred and without due process. We hold back people from having basic human rights and needs because we fail to empathize with them. We make strides to overcome the wrongs in our past, but then in mere moments it can be taken away with cowardly acts of a select few. People dissent or raise up symbols of injustice against ideals that differ from our own because of what they personally think is right, and not what is right for the sake of all humanity. Being different makes us human: but living despite those differences makes us humane.

In Interstellar, there was discussion of a “more evolved being” that lived in the fifth dimension that is trying to help us. It was later revealed that the beings were our decedents reaching backward to help us find the right path.^[3] We are all looking for something more than ourselves, whether that be a higher power or something greater than ourselves, even if we don’t know it; it is part of our human nature. Often times we just want to communicate with others and feel like we belong in this world. We seek out others to journey with us, to help us along our way, to stand with us as one people.

Whilst we are looking ever towards the heavens for the answers of our universe, my mind can’t help but wonder and hope that maybe some day we can look back at our past atrocities here on Earth, evolve, and help each other become better humans.

It will always be a planet to me. ↩︎
There is a common theme in the space exploration genre that sends the “best of us” as representation. ↩︎
I know future me would love to go back and smack past or current me for some of the mistakes I’ve made. ↩︎

Not Yet Fully Set

2015-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

My friend Seth Clifford has written an articulate piece on how we become defined over time as humans.

On becoming the person we were always meant to be. Broken Bones: http://t.co/chMw1pU6yH
— Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) July 8, 2015

We all have our own issues that we are facing that cause massive amounts of stress. Not all of us share them publicly. Some of us choose to eschew the issues instead of facing them.^[1] Anticipating issues, enduring the stress, and returning to a state of stability make us who we are. The analogy Seth used in his post is perfect:

“It’s like breaking a bone: it’ll set, it’ll heal, and you’ll go back to the way things were, but it won’t ever be exactly the same. … but there are small variations and flaws that weren’t there before.”

The notion that we as human beings are flawed & broken is something that we as a society struggle with often. Both conventional and social media can paint pictures of the perfect life, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth: life can be rough and smooth, amazing and cruel, and/or any other set of dichotomies that come to mind. What causes you to struggle may cause others to thrive. Perseverance in the face of adversity can define you just as much as a life full of stress fractures. Once we have been broken, we work on healing; but - for better or worse - we aren’t the same.

I personally have at least some level of stress on a daily basis in my life. I constantly have people and projects to juggle, at both work and home. At times, I feel very broken, ill-equipped to handle the stress; I just want it to go away. I feel like I am a huge letdown to those around me, and feel like giving up. But I’m an adult^[2], and I don’t have an option to give up. I have to remain confident and steadfast in the wake of the emotional collapse that stares me in the face. An important point:

“At times like this, I try to remember that all those bones I’ve broken have made me the person I am today, and I’m (mostly) pretty satisfied with how I’ve “set”.”

We must endure getting “broken bones” from time-to-time along the journey and hope that in the end, we’ll end up ok. We will heal, and that we can endure the next challenge. Perhaps now that we’ve broken a bone once, we know how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.^[3] We might not be able to protect ourselves from other breaks, but we will be better equipped to handle the recognizable stresses in our lives.

I’m really thankful that Seth shared what he did; I’ve been thinking about the same thing for a bit now myself, but hadn’t yet shared how I felt. Sharing anything personal can be unnerving, but can also be immensely helpful to others; judging from the responses to his post, he’s not alone, which means neither am I. Having these conversations allows us all to grow, help ourselves, and help others.

Personally, I am slowly getting more self-aware, happier with where I’m headed and can look back at what I’ve endured with both humility and pride. I’m not yet fully set, but I can see the cast coming off soon; I look forward to when I can start down the path of rehabilitation towards the goal of healing. This is all just part of my journey in becoming more human.

An important aside: you will occasionally find yourself needing some outside help. Talking about your stresses is a wonderful thing, whether it be with a close individual in your life or a professional. We aren’t in this life alone, and you shouldn’t endure it without having a support structure. There is zero shame in needing support to heal. If you feel like you cannot handle the stress, I urge you to reach out to someone you trust and get the appropriate help you need. ↩︎
really a big kid ↩︎
at least not the same way ↩︎

Lesson Learned

2015-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Earlier this year, I set out with a goal in mind to have a new domain to call my own. And last weekend, I did just that, and updated my blog. I had wanted to try a few things, so I started looking around and asking others questions about how to do things.

That’s when I realized that I spent last weekend wasting my time and this wasn’t going to work the way I wanted it to. Lesson learned. Time for plan B.

The previous version of this site was on WP.com. And while it’s good for most people, I really wanted to tweak a few key things to have it fit the personality of my writing. I wanted the formatting of the site to come from my voice, as if you could hear me writing it.

In my daily conversations, I have small asides that are relevant^[1] and add to the conversation. They don’t take away from the conversation when talking^[2], but that is hard to convey in written form. Using footnotes is a great way of doing them, but for how I speak, they generally aren’t good for my own use.

Enter Bigfoot. No, not the mysterious creature pictured in hundreds of blurry images around the world^[3], but the popular footnote format used most famously in Instapaper.

This is exactly what I wanted to use to convey how I speak. And that is simply not available on WP.com; I checked with a Happiness Engineer (seriously, this is what they are called) and he confirmed that was indeed the case. So it looked like I was giving up on that convention on my site.

I’ve been told a number of times that if I’m going to write, I need to write for myself and write in my own voice. I need to have that as part of of my style with my blog. Sure, I could get by with the footnotes, or changing my writing style. But that wouldn’t be me. That wouldn’t be my voice. That wouldn’t make me happy.

So that’s when it hit me: I wasted my time last weekend setting this up all wrong. Is a WP.com site easier to manage? Yes. But does it do/look/feel like what I want? No.

So after some research — and admittedly not enough of it — I decided to try to a self-hosted install of Wordpress. The install was smooth,and installing the necessary plugins was a breeze. I chose a new theme and published.

I decided to stick to this for a bit until I started reading up on installing the footnotes I want. Reading code is like reading another language for me.^[4] I couldn’t find a helpful post to save my life: everything was verbose in the language of CSS, PHP, JS, jQuery, etc. But thanks to this plugin, it was a breeze.^[5]

And so now that the site has been revamped again, I’ve learned my lesson. Hopefully now I can settle into the rhythm of writing.

The upkeep of the site will be different, and there’s sure to be a learning curve^[6], but at the end of the day, this is what is good for me. And while you don’t have to live with me on a daily basis, it’s going to be better for all of us going forward.^[7] This writing style is better suited to sharing my voice, and makes me feel just a bit more human.

Debatable ↩︎
Oh look, a bird!!! ↩︎
Seriously, why the hell are they always blurry? ↩︎
And I suck at English enough. ↩︎
Do you know how long it took me to find this? So out of my league here… ↩︎
I still have to figure out removing the footnotes from the bottom of the page]If you know how, get in touch. (Update: I figured it out.) ↩︎
Kudos to my family and friends for putting up with my shit. I don’t know how they do it, because I can’t stand it. ↩︎

Fresh Coat of Paint

2015-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

For a long time, I have wanted a site to call mine. Sure, I’ve had my blog a little while. But I really wanted to have my own domain.

This past week, I had an epiphany: it was something that made me feel more alive than I have in a long time. The notes that I took for my idea was a bit crazy, very ambitious, but yet calming and attainable.^[1]

I ended up buying two: one with future intentions, and one that I wanted to use here. So, I went to the place that everyone (and the mother of any podcaster out there) will tell you to use: Hover. And every single top-level domain (TLD) for “nahumck” was available. This should shock exactly no one.

Now that I had nahumck.me^[2], I needed to link it to my site. I’ve had a WP.com site for a long time, but it was their web address. I wanted it to be fully mine (did you notice the address bar at the top?). Again, I ultimately wanted simple, so I kept my site at Wordpress after some back and forth with other options. And aside from the theme I chose that spruced up the joint, the rest should be transparent to you.^[3]

Now that the site is set up and done, I can finish a few more workflows, and then get to what I’ve always intended this to be - a place for me to share my thoughts. I can get to writing to help me. And if I get lucky, perhaps I will help someone else along the way.

Welcome to the new site!

I wanted to say a very special thanks to Seth Clifford. He has helped with a lot of guidance this week. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate his help and his friendship.💙

More on this at a later date. ↩︎
Yes, Rob — I know that nahumck.plumbing was available. And although I considered it, the .me is better. So sorry. ↩︎
If I’m being honest, it’s probably transparent to me also. I’m not a whiz at this stuff. ↩︎

Father's Day 2015

2015-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

This morning, as with many weekend mornings, I was awoken by my youngest son. “Hi Daddy! Boo!” It was 6:30am, and although it is a perfectly reasonable time for me to be awake, I was hoping to get at least a little bit of extra sleep.

He noticed that I didn’t have a shirt on. “Daddy, shirt!” (I’m not sure if it was because I normally sleep with one on, or if he is making a passive-aggressive attempt at calling me fat, but I digress…) He then proceeded to go over to the dresser, and open up my t-shirt drawer. He grabbed the first shirt he could, and brought it over to me. “Here Daddy! Come on! Downstairs!”

Although he woke me up early, I couldn’t be more proud of him. He’s learning so much, and he is such a polite boy. He always says thank you, and most times says please.

I’m sure I did similar things when I was a kid with my dad (probably not as gracious, however). Perhaps it was even worse for my dad. One thing is for sure — he’s proud of his grandson in two ways: 1) for being a polite, sweet, smart boy and 2) for waking his daddy up because it’s payback for the times that I did it to him!

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, and most of all to the wonderful example that I have in my life. Love you, Dad!

New Things Coming

2015-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

As of late, I have had a lot of things on my plate. Life has had its series of challenges for myself and my family, which has lead to neglect of several things in my life. I am the single biggest thing I neglect. As a part of that, I like writing. I’m not particularly great at it. But I don’t have to be. And that’s the point — I just need to do it. It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be good. It just needs to be. So hopefully with the implementation of a few key things based on the suggestion of friends and family, I will be writing more about things I love, things I hate, and everything in between.(And if I can figure it all out, it will be on a new website - because it's 2015 and I need something better than what I have.)

More to come…

Tim Nahumck

Vibe Coding My Way Out of Markdown Tedium

Perfect Travel Charging

FrameShot

Homemade iPad Pro Magnetic VESA Mount

Fool Me Once…

Capture on Repeat

Function by a Thousand 'Cuts

Travel Charging Setup

App Defaults 2023

ActionCut

Action Health – A Shortcut for the Ultra

*Backs Away Slowly*

A Decade of Drafts

Simple Reminders Improvements Which Should Be in iOS/iPadOS 16

Close Your Rings Differently

Flexible Packing List in Drafts

Drafts 29: Autocomplete

Cycle Through Workspaces

Drafts 28

On This Date

An Apt Analogy

On Difficult Decisions

Some Drafts Theme Updates

Appearance: Automators Episode 73

Theme Switching with Workspaces

Automated Journaling

Drafts 26: The Customization Update

Custom Themes

Custom Syntaxes

Other Improvements

Extending the Modularity

This Is 40

Fully Broken

Clear Spaces for a Clear Mind

New Normal

Clean Install

Keeping the Lion Away

The Payoff of Developing Foundational Journaling

The New Site Design

Return to Form

This Is Not for Me

My Home Office Studio

My Upgraded Charging Setup

Drafts 15

Brydge Pro Keyboard

Letting Go

The iOS-Only Podcasting Kit

GoodTask 4.5: Checking All the Boxes

Tag Sorting

Completing Tasks

Drafts for Mac

#ShotOniPhone Shortcut

Drafts 5.6

Adding Shortcuts

Workspace Changes

Post and File Management Improvements

Tactical Bag

A Little More on Critic Markup

Drafts 5.5 - The Markdown Update

Drafts 5.4: Siri Shortcuts, WordPress, and More

PCalc 3.8 With Siri Shortcuts

Piques of the Week: Volume 15

iPad Case with Pencil

Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Microphone

Newer Boom Arm

Taking Time With Todoist

Short Hiatus

First Time Tooter, Long Time Tweeter

Arrange Mode in Drafts

Fantastically Good Parsers for Drafts

Homescreen Update (July 2018)

The iPad Dock

The iPhone Dock

Drafts 5.2 – The Navigation Update

Draft Navigation

Loading Modules

Other Improvements

Drafts 5.1 Update

Tag Filter Improvements

Backs Away Slowly