One of the nice things about being a small, independent publisher is that I get to be picky about who I allow to sponsor MacSparky.com. This week’s sponsor, Hoban Cards, is one of my favorites. I first met the folks at Hoban Press years ago, when I was tired of handing cheapo business cards out to legal clients. The gang at Hoban helped me make an excellent calling card with their 1902 letterpress machine that every client, upon receiving one, made favorable comments on. (Watch the Hoban letterpress process in action.) First impressions count. My Hoban Cards are excellent ambassadors.

Over the years I bought more legal business cards, then MacSparky cards, and now I have them print my personal stationery. I just love giving quality paper products to other people. Hoban Cards makes the process easy. Just go to Hoban Cards and push a few buttons and then they arrive in the mail.

Evan and the gang at Hoban Cards are entirely dedicated to making the best possible calling cards. They have some beautiful templates to choose from, or you can roll your own.

Put simply, Hoban Cards is where you go for the unique and classy alternative to conventional, mass-produced, soulless business cards. Best of all, use ‘MacSparky’ to get $10 off any order. I’ve been carrying Hoban cards for years and I intend to keep carrying them for the duration. You should too.

How much time are you spending on emails? How much time are you wasting on emails? You know by now that you don’t get time back, but you can at least spend it wisely. Thanks to SaneBox, this week’s sponsor at MacSparky, you can do just that. You don’t have to use your time digging through countless emails in your inbox to figure out what is high priority, what can wait, and what can be deleted. 

So, how is SaneBox going to help you? This is where SaneBox’s AI comes in. SaneBox’s AI pays attention to how you interact with new email in your inbox. You’ll train SaneBox and it will learn how to handle your new emails automatically and filter unimportant emails out of your inbox. It’s not just time you’re freeing up. In terms of productivity, think about the mental space you’re freeing up that allows you to focus on the important things, and not get distracted by unimportant or low-priority emails that you can deal with later.  

Get through your inbox quickly. Get more productive. Get SaneBox. Sign up for your free trial, and you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription.

I’m often asked about the distinction between task lists and calendars. Some folks track tasks in an app. Others do so in a calendar. I get asked where I fall, and my answer is always both. I track tasks in an app, but I block time in my calendar to make sure the most critical tasks on that list get done. It is at that intersection between your task list and the calendar blocks that progress is made.

If you have an overflowing task list but a sense of dread about making any progress on your most important project, this technique can help you. Find one project that is important to you and block some time this week to make some progress on it. This isn’t rocket science, but does take some discipline. Nevertheless, that practice of calendaring time for the big things actually moves the needle.

And on the subject of moving the needle, you should check out this week’s sponsor, Daylite. For small businesses, it can be challenging to stay on top of clients, leads, and projects that are evolving every day. Here’s how Daylite can help supercharge your team to shine brighter, handle more clients, close more deals, and execute more projects. Designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad exclusively. 

Daylite empowers small businesses by improving team efficiency and making collaboration easy—everything is organized, searchable, and accessible (even offline). You can easily access information and segment data tailored to your specific client’s history. You can manage and share everyone’s schedules, project status, and next steps.

Not only does Daylite make the best Mac CRM software, but they also let me use this sponsored post to write about being more productive. If you live by the Mac, you’ll love Daylite. Start your free 30-day Daylite trial today!

This week MacSparky is sponsored by DEVONthink. There are a lot of ways to manage a database on your mac, but in my opinion, there is no better tool than DEVONthink. Just a few of the things I use DEVONthink for include:

• A reliable repository of research documents. DEVONthink will hold as many documents as you can throw at it. In addition, it makes import (and export) easy, so you can have all that power without feeling trapped.
• A research assistant. DEVONthink uses artificial intelligence to analyze and connect your documents in ways that may not otherwise occur to you.
• An OCR Tool. Everything you store in your DEVONthink Pro library gets OCR’d. It just happens.
• An Automation Tool. DEVONthink lets you build powerful automation subroutines into your library to help tag, move, and organize documents.

As a lawyer, DEVONthink was my legal research assistant. I dumped legal cases, statutes, regulations, and law review articles in DEVONthink and whenever I worked on a thorny problem I let DEVONthink grind on the documents before I did. It is spooky what DEVONthink could find for me. You could also do the same with all of your personal records. Dump them into a DEVONthink database and let DEVONthink sort it for you.

DEVONthink supports multiple sync methods and lets you even use your own sync password, so everything is encrypted. If you’ve got an iPad or an iPhone, you can access your DEVONthink data there, too, with DEVONthink to Go.

It is this combination of power and security that makes DEVONthink the clear winner. You can think of DEVONthink as your paperless office. You can automate your workflow from capture to filing, editing to publishing. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.

Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink. This is a limited-time offer, so check it out now.

My thanks to MacSparky’s sponsor this week, SaneBox. One of SaneBox’s nifty features is that it can keep your email attachments in the cloud. If you’ve got Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Evernote, or IBM Smart Cloud, any attachments that come through your email account can be automatically uploaded to your favorite cloud service with SaneBox’s SaneAttachments feature.

Some attachments, especially larger ones, can be trouble. They can fill up your storage or be hard to find. Some take too long to download and forward, especially if you’re using a mobile device. SaneAttachments solves these problems by automatically moving your file attachments from incoming emails and organizing your attachments, making it easy to find. And you can still forward these emails as you normally would, or you can send someone the link to the attachment. This way, you can keep your inbox fit and trim and make sure that only important email stays, and you can still find and get your files when you need them.

You can try SaneBox out for yourself. Use this link to sign up for a free trial and get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription.

For small businesses, it can be difficult to stay on top of clients, leads, and projects that are evolving every day. Here’s how Daylite can help supercharge your team to shine brighter, handle more clients, close more deals, and execute more projects. Designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad exclusively. 

Daylite empowers small businesses by improving team efficiency and making collaboration easy—everything is organized, searchable, and accessible (even offline). You can easily access information and segment data tailored to your specific client’s history. You can manage and share everyone’s schedules, project status, and next steps. 

Seamless Apple Integration 

Daylite is the only Mac CRM and productivity app that integrates with Apple devices and most of the built-in Apple apps and features, like direct Apple Mail integration. You and your team can capture all email communication in one place and create opportunities, appointments, and tasks right from Apple Mail. 

Linking 

Its linking capability is what makes Daylite shine. You can link emails, notes, tasks, projects, appointments, and other records to existing contacts in Daylite. This enables teams to quickly and clearly view an organization’s structure and access the information they need in a unique way. 

CRM + Project Management 

Daylite’s productivity-focused design helps you and your team get more done throughout the full customer lifecycle. From meeting prospects and winning business to managing the moving pieces on projects, all the way through to following up on referrals and repeat business, it’s all done in Daylite.
If you live by the mac, you’ll love Daylite. Start your free 30-day Daylite trial today!

I often hear from listeners/readers looking for a research solution in the Mac ecosystem. My favorite app for this, without a doubt, is DEVONthink. DEVONthink is the most professional document and information management application for the Mac. It’s the one place for storing all your documents, snippets, or bookmarks, and working with them.

The Integrated A.I. assists you with filing and searching, while the extensive search language with advanced Boolean operators.

DEVONthink features a Flexible sync system that supports many cloud services – or lets you synchronize over the local network too – with everything securely encrypted. This gives you the choice for however syncing works best for you!

It has Smart rules and flexible reminders that let you automate all parts of your workflow and delegate boring, repeating tasks. Let DEVONthink automatically organize your data with rules you define!

DEVONthink’s AppleScript dictionary is one of the largest on the Mac. There’s no part of DEVONthink that can’t be automated. Extend DEVONthink’s functionality with your own commands by adding them to its Scripts menu.

Even templates can have scripts inside and you can set up new documents with data from placeholders, or inserted by your own AppleScript code.

And, of course, there’s so much more, from an iOS companion app, email archiving, scanning, or even an embedded web server for sharing your data securely with your team.

I use DEVONthink for document storage and organization. I also use it for research both as MacSparky and a lawyer. I love the way the DEVONthink developers have thought through all the little details from syncing to using the built-in artificial intelligence.

I find the combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink..

My thanks to TextSniper for sponsoring MacSparky.com this week. I’m a fan of this app.

TextSniper is a Mac OCR app that can extract text anywhere on your Mac’s screen and automatically save it to your clipboard so that you can paste it anywhere you need it. It can even read the text to you. The whole thing works a lot like the built-in screen capture on the Mac, just way more powerful.

Also, TextSniper doesn’t collect your data. The text recognition is processed on your Mac and does not require an internet connection. 

With TextSniper, you can:

• Quickly get a text from PDFs, Zoom calls, Presentations, and Videos. 
• Copy text from anywhere, even images and websites that don’t let you select text.
• Quickly grab data like email addresses, phone numbers, and links.
• Read QR codes and barcodes.
• Get text out of just about any image format, including JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP.

I find myself using TextSniper constantly in my daily work. As an example, my wife sent me a picture of a letter she received. I needed to grab some data from the letter (account number, etc…) TextSniper came to the rescue.

TextSniper works with macOS Catalina and later and also works with Parallels Desktop

Get TextSniper now and enjoy the fastest way to copy uncopyable text, wherever it may be. Use promo code TS2022 to get an additional 25% off. 

Do you ever feel like you forgot to do something, but you can’t remember what? Oh, yeah, that email you meant to respond to but just didn’t because … life. SaneBox, this week’s sponsor at MacSparky, has got you covered. 

SaneNoReplies tracks emails that you haven’t responded to yet. With SaneNoReplies, you can monitor who you haven’t replied to yet and follow up with them. “What’s this magic,” you’re asking. All of the emails you haven’t responded to end up in one place with SaneBox: the SaneNoReplies folder. Emails that haven’t received a reply go in here, allowing you to keep track of whom you’re supposed to get back to. Now no one will slip through the cracks. It’s a round up of the emails you need to follow up, all in one place.

Interested? SaneNoReplies is included with all SaneBox plans. Click here to sign up for your free trial, and you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Give it a whirl.