2023.09.07.

2023.08.09.

How I get shit done (or at least get started) while having executive dysfunction

I like these ideas, but especially gathering all information.

Let’s say I need to reply to an email. I start by reading the email I’m supposed to reply to. If there’s any more information I need to be able to answer that email, I go and get that information. I then dump all the information I have into an email draft for easy reference, and write my email from there.

I learned this behavior by keeping a Zettelkasten for writing. It is always easier to start with existing content rather than starting from scratch.

These days I even use journaling as a tool for getting started. If I have no idea what’s the next action on something, I begin to write about it in my notebook. Sooner than later, I figure out something by rambling about the problem in my journal.

2023.07.28.

2023.07.06.

So people are running between Facebook and Twitter and vice-versa. And I’m just sitting here relaxed because I give away my last fuck about any social network.

I just want forums, blogs, and RSS.

2023.06.19.

2023.06.15.

2023.06.09.

Saving Siri replies as images

I just discovered that you can drag out complete Siri responses on the Mac and save them as images. It can be useful for saving reference data or images from the web.

Of course, you can also take a screenshot of the Siri window using the ⌘⇧4 keyboard shortcut, then pressing Space and selecting the Siri response.

2023.06.08.

Apollo is shutting down on June 30th.

It means that I officially end up using any social network.

I stopped using Twitter when Tweetbot was killed. I’ll do the same with Reddit too – which I liked better because the community was awesome, but I’m not going to visit a site that kills a superior app like Apollo.

All I need nowadays is a blog and an RSS reader and I’m good.

2023.05.21.

Get A Notebook And Write Stuff Down

Greg Morris writing about notebooks:

You don’t need to start a second brain, or do some weird PKM stuff, you just need to have a place full of things that will help you out. Record things you find interesting, things you need to remember, things that might help you work later on, literally anything you might need later on. You don’t need to start a commonplace book or anything, you just require a notebook around, all the time.

I start to wonder if there is a more straightforward way to manage ideas other than keeping a full PKM or Zettelkasten.

2023.04.13.

2023.04.08.

Twitter Has Stopped Working in NetNewsWire

Looks like Space Karen caught up with NetNewsWire too:

Twitter suspended NetNewsWire today because, according to Twitter, “This App has violated Twitter Rules and policies. As a result, it can no longer be accessed.”

I still have a couple of feeds in Reeder, which are working for now, but I don’t expect them to be around that long.

Honestly, I don’t care about Twitter (or social media in general) anymore. I can do everything I want with this blog regarding publishing my stuff on the web.

I still POSSE my blog posts to Twitter using Micro.blog because some people still follow me there. I may turn that off one day because very few people are coming to this blog from Twitter.

2023.04.07.

Adding Bike Shortcuts integration to my publishing setup

  • Previously…

  • I created two new shortcuts which are helping me to start to write a new post from Bike.

    • The first one called “Open Decoding File”, which opens (and optionally creates) the current month’s file.

      • I have monthly files, because of how my publishing script works.

      • It publishes every post from the currently opened Bike file, so I don’t want to keep the same long outline around for blogging.

        • It regenerates each post every time I’m adding a new one.

        • If there is a breaking change in the system, I can archive old files and just start a new one.

    • The second one just inserts today’s date into the top, with an “DRAFT” block which can be used to start writing a new post.

      • I added a Keyboard Maestro macro to run this one from Bike.

      • I can press ⇧⌥⌘T to add a new date block on the top.

  • These shortcuts are using the Shortcuts integration which is available in the preview version.

  • Here’s a demo video.

2023.04.06.

Fantastical adds broader Shortcuts support

Flexibits just released Fantastical 3.7.9, which adds a bunch of new Shortcuts actions, including the ability to filter events from a given Calendar Set in a given date range, and the ability to generate a simple schedule for a given day.

Nice! I have a shortcut which syncs up calendar events with agenda items in Things. Now, I can automatically do the following in one shortcut:

  1. Get all my meetings for today from Fantastical.
  2. Create or find existing agenda items about them in Things.
  3. Link the Things agenda item and Fantastical event using Hookmark.
  4. Start a new session from Things when the meeting is due.
    • I’ll write about how I manage deep sessions with Things one day.

2023.04.04.

2023.03.31.

2023.03.23.

My Notebook System – ratfactor

This year is going to see my journal/log’s 10th anniversary and 100th notebook.

I read the whole article and took a lot of notes which inspired me to think about how I can consolidate my capture (logging) habit a bit more into one place, but still keep multiple capture tools.

After finishing this essay, it feels like Dave accidentally invented GTD for himself in a different form based on a stream of captured ideas that are moved up in the chain to have projects and next actions.

The part at the end where he writes about weekly, monthly, and yearly recaps feels very GTD-esque.

I actually tracked my time in a notebook like this before. I had a timestamp of when I started and when I ended a session of work. I have a long history of working in sessions, as I used to do a lot of freelance work, which requires time tracking (a session means that I focus on one task for a more extended period of time). My only question is how Dave transcribes his notebook entries into his digital system? I did it by hand, and it was awful.

Anyway, this is an excellent write-up of a fantastic system that I’m going to use as inspiration.

2023.03.22.

Ultra-mobile writing environments

So one thing I consider a compelling use case for a big iPhone and a small iPad mini is using them as a mobile writing environment. I could easily publish an essay from my iPhone or iPad mini just by thumb-typing. I want to explore this use case in more detail in the future.

We have had people doing this for years now, watch and read the following stuff from Patrick Rhone or Yuvi Zalkow.

I have a MacBook Pro and iPad Pro to write, so why am I interested in this phenomenon? I like when people think outside the box regarding their device usage.

The iPhone and the iPad mini are considered content consumption devices by almost everyone, which I’m afraid I have to disagree with. I create all kinds of things using these devices. I take photos, write notes and blogposts, sometimes create/edit Shortcuts, and SSH into remote servers to fix issues. Heck, I even edited an entire podcast episode on my iPhone using Ferrite while I was sitting on the train. It was actually quite fun to do. Being an owner of a big phone like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, I’m even expecting myself to use it more to create rather than consume.

Thumb-typing lengthy notes and blog posts on these devices maybe seems to be an ineffective way to write. Still, there is a focused environment to be found here—especially if you set up iOS to send only essential notifications—so even a smartphone can be a device that makes you focused.

I’m not going into details on notifications here, but let me just tell you, it’s not your smartphone that makes you distracted. It’s your laziness to set up notifications properly that makes you distracted.

2023.03.21.

2023.03.19.

I’m actually re-reading/browsing the archives of minimalmac.com, so there will be a couple of posts linking to old, but still usable Mac tips and workflows.

Sometimes we forget that there is gold hidden in these old blog archives.

Notational Velocity and Twitter as Birdhouse for Mac

This is an old post about how we can select text in any app and send it to places:

Here’s an nice solution to something I’ve been wanting. I love Birdhouse for iPhone, which stores tweets until they’re ready for publication. There’s no Mac alternative, so I’ve been putting potential tweets into Notational Velocity, and then copy-and-pasting them into Twitter when ready.

Today, MacStories points out that Twitter for Mac adds a contextual menu item that lets you tweet nearly any text you’ve selected in Mac OS X. You see where this is going: I can call up Notational Velocity with a keystroke, right-click on a tweet and send it off via the contextual menu. Awesome!

Translating this into the blogging world: we can publish micro posts directly from The Archive – which is the modern version of Notational Velocity – (or any other Cocoa app) using MarsEdit’s new Micropost feature.

2023.03.18.

2023.03.16.

Of course, we need to merge the Mac and the iPad…

We’re entering the spring, and the Mac and iPad Pro are on a collision course.

How about, no?

Because Federico doesn’t like Stage Manager and iPadOS doesn’t have multi-channel audio capabilities currently, I don’t want my iPad to become a Mac, and I don’t want my Mac to have a touchscreen (and become an iPad). And I especially don’t want them to be merged into one device (buy a Surface Pro if you want to have everything in one device, that will surely be fun).

I fear that I’m going to have to wait a couple of years for the Apple computer I want to exist, and I’m not sure anymore that iPadOS can evolve in meaningful ways in the meantime.

And I fear we will end up with an OS that is just copying macOS because we must repeat the same “Apple can’t evolve iPadOS” narrative on MacStories every two years.

While discussing iPadOS, I’m also tired of hearing about the “there are no pro apps for the iPad” argument. Let me tell you something: there are many pro apps available for the iPad, only they feel different since the device these apps are running on is very different.

Where are the pro app reviews of Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, or DaVinci Resolve on MacStories?

And what about Ulysses, Craft, Things, MindNode, Pixelmator Photo, or Keynote, which are fantastic on the iPad? Are those pro apps enough? I use these apps every day for “serious work” on the iPad, but I also have other pro apps on my Mac for development because it is just better for that task.

Or should we have Final Cut Pro and Xcode for the iPad? That’s what Apple pundits mean? Are you seriously expecting Apple will port FCP with all its features available in the 1.0 release, and it will be usable on an 11-inch iPad Pro?

I’m sure Apple will release more of their pro apps for iPadOS down the road, but don’t expect it will work like the desktop version. Apple pundits, of course, will complain about it not being like the desktop version, like they do with Photoshop being simpler on the iPad.

Let me remind you that Photoshop and Final Cut Pro (or Logic Pro, for that matter) are apps with decades of development history. Nobody will bring the same level of functionality to the iPad on day one. If you want to use the desktop version of Final Cut Pro, then use the damn desktop version of Final Cut Pro.

Let’s not forget that iPad Pros, which are at the top of the food chain for iPadOS, have the same CPUs as Macs at the bottom of the food chain. If we consider a MacBook Air mainly made for everyday tasks (maybe with a bit of “pro-work” here and there), what performance are you expecting from an iPad Pro with the same CPU?

There are many low-hanging fruits to be fixed on iPadOS, but let the damn thing shine on its own. If Apple merges these two platforms, like how pundits want them to, we will end up with a freak-show.