2025.01.20.

2025.01.15.

2025.01.04.

Advanced Topics in Reminders and To Do Lists

Interesting use-cases for the Reminders app.

Even so, there are some neat features of Apple’s Reminders that can make your life a lot easier.

I haven’t found anything new about Reminders in this article, but it can be useful to others.

On the other hand, the use case of birthdays just doesn’t make sense.

A couple of years ago I quit Facebook. One of its last remaining utilities was helping me remember friend’s birthdays and I meant to transition everyone to a Reminders list, but only got a handful done. Even so, it’s been nice to have a short list of birthdays to check out every time I worry I forgot someone’s birthday.

For birthdays, use the Contacts app in conjunction with the Birthdays calendar in the Calendar app.

You can also create a smart list in Contacts for upcoming birthdays in the next N days.

Update: by the way, I forgot that I also wrote a lengthy article on how to use Apple Reminders for GTD.

Shell History Is Your Best Productivity Tool

If you work in shell/terminal often enough, then over time the history will become your personal knowledge vault, documentation and command reference. Being able to use this personal documentation efficiently can hugely boost your productivity. So, here are a couple of tips on how to optimize your shell history configuration and usage to get the most out of it.

Well, I’m not sure how effective the shell history of being a “personal knowledge vault, documentation, and command reference,” but optimizing its use doesn’t hurt.

I also looked into ShellHistory, which can create notebooks from the command history. Actually, this can be a pretty cool way to document processes, like installing a Rails app and its dependencies or starting a full stack of software.

With the ShellHistory you can easily keep years of shell history, search history using Full Text Search, back it up to iCloud, create Notebooks.

On the other hand, I could just keep the history synced between my Macs.

2024.11.21.

Read “Pluralistic: Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers (26 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links “

GTD is a collection of relatively simple tactics for coping with, prioritizing, and organizing the things you want to do. Many of the methods relate to organizing your own projects, using a handful of context-based to-do lists (e.g. a list of things to do at the office, at home, while waiting in line, etc). These lists consist of simple tasks. Those tasks are, in turn, derived from another list, of “projects” – things that require more than one task, which can be anything from planning dinner to writing a novel to helping your kid apply to university.

I have never seen next actions mentioned like this: tasks that are derived from another list, a list called projects. The thing I like about OmniFocus (and TaskPaper) is that projects are outline headings, and next actions are simple rows. It naturally blends the two together.

Read “Pluralistic: Tabs give me superpowers (25 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”

Most of the internet is still on the web, which means it can be bookmarked, which means that it takes me one second to add it to the group of things I’m staying on top of, and one second to remove from that group. I get up in the morning, middle-click the “unfucked rota” item in my bookmarks pane, make a cup of coffee, and then sit down and race through those tabs, close-close-close.

It takes less than a second to scan a tab to see if it’s changed (and if I close a tab too quickly, the ctrl-shift-T “unclose” shortcut is there in muscle-memory, another habit). The whole process takes between one and 15 minutes (depending on whether there’s anything useful and new in one of those tabs).

I like the idea of using tabs as a list for next actions; however, my main concern with this approach is that it doesn’t clarify why I need to open a specific tab. It feels like a variation of the “Waiting for” list, which can serve a similar purpose. I can access this list daily, quickly scan it, open links from the task notes, and even update it with new information.

It’s interesting that Cory discusses how he utilizes the “Waiting for” list in another article.

2024.09.13.

Read “Brett McKay of Art of Manliness says “Just Use Email” – Just Use Email”

Their poor information management skills force them to rely on constant notifications from whatever apps they install and to which they nearly-instantly read or reply, never batch-processing anything in their life.

And they are perfectly fine with it. Oh, they might complain the way some people complain about the weather: “It’s colder than I thought it would be today”, but still not returning home to get a sweater.

And the systems which these types are involved in (jobs, school, groups, clubs) are kowtowing to them more each year. In fact, often those very same systems are run by the same types. It is, to them, unthinkable that anyone would “go rogue” and not have a smartphone lighting up their face 200+ times a day. They see well-managed, calm, distraction-free people (or those trying to be) as cabin-dwelling off-grid and out-of-touch people who are “missing out” on how “easy” life is if you just let everyone and everything ping you with every update.

My all time favorite is the text message about the “email I just sent you”. I know my darling, I keep my shit together.

2024.09.03.

Trying out Strflow for project-related status updates

I used Strflow today with OmniFocus, which is pretty good for an interstitial journal. I can quickly bring it up and leave a status update about projects. It is handy when making a phone call and logging what we discussed.

I made two shortcuts, which work on the selected action’s project:

  1. Journal About Selected OmniFocus Project: ask for a quick status update, then it automatically tags the note with the project name converted to a hashtag.
  2. Open Selected OmniFocus Project Timeline: opens the timeline based on the project name.

I created a journaling shortcut for OmniFocus a couple of months ago, but it is built on top of DEVONthink. It doesn’t automatically get the project, and storing these entries in DEVONthink will make my status updates get mixed with project-related assets, which I don’t like.

By the way, I can also add pictures to Strflow entries, which is kind of hard to do in DEVONthink.

I used to do interstitial journaling in TaskPaper, and I’m not sure yet if Strflow is better or worse than TaskPaper, but at least it is available on iOS, too.

These days, I’m using TaskPaper for “brainstorming,” not journaling. TaskPaper is a pretty cool outliner, so I can quickly create session notes related to the selected OmniFocus action. But these are just fleeting notes… I’m using TaskPaper as a temporary thinking tool.

I can also share Strflow notes with other apps, like Day One, or add them to Drafts, where I can process and export them to other places, transforming Drafts into a tool that migrates text-based information between apps.

Also, I like how the Strflow timeline was made to look like a chat app. In a way, it feels like the old Twitter feed, where we posted random thoughts to get them out of our heads. It is a private version of that.

2024.08.28.

2024.05.11.

Read “Bookending | everything changes”

Mandy Brown on ending your day:

Here’s a small trick that worked for me over the dozen years I led remote teams: at the end of your working day, shut down every app on your machine. Yes, all of them. Stash your tabs somewhere if you must, but close them all down. The only exception that may be made is for a simple note-taking app—the kind that lacks any kind of notifications. Then, spend ten or perhaps fifteen minutes reflecting on your day, whether in said note-taking app or, even better, on paper. This needn’t be anything formal or structured, just jot a few things down—maybe short phrases, maybe just some key words. The only hard rule is to do your best to keep any sense of judgement out. Then, in the morning, when you open up your machine, there should be nothing yelling at you—no unread badges, no cluster of notifications calling for your attention.

This is the best shutdown routine you can do.

2024.01.06.

2023.12.26.

2023.12.21.

2023.12.09.

2023.12.08.

Read “Jack Wellborn: “I just recently discovered tha…” – Mastodon”

I just recently discovered that you can select and drag multiple Safari tabs by holding shift or command, just as you would to select and drag multiple items in Finder.

I’m sure it has been added recently or was hidden in the system for like 15 years.

Sadly it’s Safari only, so it doesn’t work on other system tabs like Finder or iA Writer.

Gordon Smith:

My use case is to select those tabs I want to save as a group, right click one of those tabs to add them all to a new Tab Group (to keep things neat and tidy).

2023.12.06.

2023.12.02.

2023.11.29.

Follow-up on Liked “MailMate”:

I just bought MailMate a couple of minutes ago. It turns out I love to use plain-text email for writing and reading. It’s just way easier to edit my emails in MacVim than to fuck around with the Mail.app compose window.

The Things integration is also pretty cool. I can get the complete plain-text email in the to-do note, which is way more excellent than the jumbled text-fest I had previously parsed by the Things mail service forwarded from Mail.

I’m still developing my workflow around the rule-based smart mailboxes, which are pretty powerful.

I’ll write more about this app in the future.

2023.11.23.

Read “Ben’s Journal: Cutting the electronic cord: Setting up a fully paper TODO list tracking strategy”

While git + emacs + org-mode was certainly functional, I never had cause to do anything particular sexy with the setup. In fact, I was hoping this experience would convert me from a fan of subversion to a fan of git, but alas, it only reinforced my appreciation for the simplicity of subversion.

The index cards, on the other hand, were a joy to use. I love that each project is represented by a single card, and that spreading out the cards gives me an overview of all possible tasks to work on:[…]

2023.10.31.

TaskPaper as an interstitial journal

I mentioned that I want to find a use case for TaskPaper, because I adore the app. Turns out™ it’s actually pretty good at being a journal and an outliner app. I created a new file and started logging today’s stuff. This is what it looks like.

Screenshot 2023 10 31 at 16 32 41

It is a mix between a capture tool, a journaling tool, and a temporary task management tool. Basically the digital replica of my Field Notes notebook.

2023.10.27.

2023.10.19.

Avoiding Distractions in Modern Computing

Notes from Avoiding Distractions in Modern Computing:

Most of the upcoming generation will never experience “slow computing”.

Slow computing can be done in a “distraction” heavy environment like email. It all depends on how we set up our tools and what we let our computers do. I can still control a lot of aspects of macOS and iOS and I don’t feel them distractions, but simple tools.

It baffles me that people buy pricey phones and have no idea what these devices are capable of. All they do with them is browse TikTok and Instagram.

It is like a blank canvas with no outputs, just waiting for a command about what I would like to do next. At this point I might navigate to a blog directory and open a document with my text editor of choice: emacs. When done writing this post I will add it to git, my text versioning system. After this I do whatever I please with the text file. I might push it to my central blog repository where a static HTML file generates on a public area or I may pipe it to some other program. This is the Unix philosophy.

The terminal-based environment can feel like an island of peace. Not because apps are distracting but because it is a limited interface that is very easy to control.

Some people, like me, feel at home with a customized Unix prompt.

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.

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.

2023.03.23.

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.

2023.03.16.

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.