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.

2. or what you might call Velcro®  ↩

3. Also, that makes my bag grey & yellow. Notice anything?  ↩

4. in the wake of the TextExpander 6 fallout  ↩

5. 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.  ↩

6. There are also Mac apps for Coda and Transmit if you’re interested in those.  ↩

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.

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…

2. 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.  ↩

3. 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  ↩

4. 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.  ↩

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:

Tasks

Workflow Drafts Action

Projects

Workflow Drafts Action

Checklists

Workflow Drafts Action

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.

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.

2. I am a proud member and I highly recommend that you become one also. It has been immensely helpful on many occasions.  ↩

3. 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.  ↩

4. Greg — please don’t ever do this  ↩