Anthony Ongaro joins us on the latest episode of Focused to talk about practical minimalism, designing an intentional life, and his multipotentialite resume, which covers everything from musician to log roller.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
FreshBooks: Online invoicing made easy.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Daylite: Learn more about Daylite and start a free 30-day trial.
Last week, Apple issued an apology for their practice of having their contractors review Siri audio for quality control. I’m glad that they are making changes, and I appreciate the plain language in the apology. I can only imagine how much pressure there was to “lawyer” it up. I like that Apple takes privacy seriously, and if I had to bet a nickel, I would say they will learn from this experience.
That said, I hope they still figure a way out to get good feedback on Siri, including its failures. Privacy is important. Siri getting better is also important.
On this week’s episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I chat with Jake Wilson, an elementary school principal (and a student himself), about using technology in and beyond the classroom, ranging from smart boards and shortcuts to Google Docs and waffles.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Linode: High performance SSD Linux servers for all of your infrastructure needs. Get a $20 credit.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
With the latest round of iOS 13 beta updates, Apple released iOS beta 13.1 before iOS version 13.0 was released to the general public. So right now I’m running a beta of the first update to an operating system that’s not out yet. Now that Apple will be announcing new phones on September 10, I’m sure they are under a deadline to have an operating system in those new devices. Put simply, they had to cut off iOS 13.0 development and move some of the promised features to the 13.1 update.
One take on this development is that Apple blew it. I disagree. These yearly updates to the various Apple operating system are necessary to keep Apple on the cutting edge. I do not want them approaching this task from a conservative mindset. I believe it’s just such a fear of missing shipping dates that, at least partly, explains why the iPad stagnated for so long.
If anything, I feel like the fact that Apple missed some of the features with the .0 release but are going to get them in the .1 release means Apple got this year about right.
Years (or even months) from now nobody’s going to remember when exactly the new automation triggers for Shortcuts arrived. They will, however, be very happy that those automation tools exist.
I hope Apple doesn’t take their inability to get all the features in the initial release as a sign that they need to scale back next year. Keeps pushing, Apple.
On the latest episode of Automators, Rosemary and I get to talk to J. -F. Brissette, who really loves to automate. From automating Screenflow with Keyboard Maestro, to using the Terminal as a launcher, as well as regular expressions and looking into combining Dropbox and Chronosync, this episode will definitely teach you something—even if it’s only about finding opportunities for automation!
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get 3 months free with a 1-year package.
Pushcut: Automation your way. Trigger iOS Shortcuts from anywhere. Try it free.
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Lately, I’ve been trying a new time tracking gizmo, a Timeular device. It’s a polygon-shaped piece of plastic and electronics that connects to my iPhone. I can assign a different task to each side, and when I switch modes, say going from screencasting to legal clients, I just flip the gizmo to put the briefcase icon (legal) sunny side up, and the iPhone app starts tracking time toward the new task.
It’s simple, easy to set up, and an excellent way to track time, particularly, if you find yourself doing a lot of work away from your computer, where a software solution (like Timing) can track time for you. Indeed, I find it a nice compliment to Timing and use the Timeular primarily to track moving the needle time.
I’m only a week in, but I haven’t thrown it out the window yet. The Timeular gizmo works great and is entirely accurate, provided I remember to spin it to the next task before switching gears. Of course, it is in that human-based step that things usually fall off the rails. I haven’t turned it into a habit yet, but I can see the benefit of this device and its simplicity. For me, the trick is keeping it in sight. I need to move it between my two desks and always have it just within sight at least, until a habit kicks in.
Regardless, I think I like the Timeular device, and I want to keep at it to see how much it can help me keep track of that ever-elusive moving the needle time. I bought mine on sale from Timeular directly. Mine is the basic package with no monthly subscription. They have a summer sale going on right now so if you’re interested …
Today Apple announced a September 10 event where we’ll find out, at least, about new iPhones. That’s all exciting, but even more important was the invite image.
I really miss that delightful rainbow apple that I first fell in love with on the Apple II. I would love for the rainbow apple to come back … somewhere.
Apple, I understand you had to grow up and get rid of the whimsy. But now you are now old enough to realize that you can (and probably should) bring the whimsy back. Please?
This week MacSparky sponsor is sponsored by SaneBox, the email tool that everybody can (and should) use. You may have heard about some of the innovative new email features like inbox auto-sorting, deferred email, and reply tracking. The trouble is that early implementations of those features were all app-specific. You had to switch to a different email client that you didn’t necessarily like to get those features.
SaneBox fixes that. SaneBox has all of those cool new email tools (plus many more), and it works with just about any email client. Over the last few years, I have been jumping between iOS email clients trying to find the right app for me. Throughout this process, my one constant has been SaneBox because no matter which email client I’m using, I can still get auto inbox sorting, deferred email, reply tracking, and a pile of additional email tools via SaneBox. The service gives me the freedom to try and use any email client that tickles my fancy.
There is a lot more to SaneBox, but in addition to all of that, SaneBox gives you email client freedom. Just yesterday I hear from a reader that finally got around to trying out SaneBox and now he’s a believer. As he explained it to me, his biggest regret was not trying it sooner. To learn more head over to SaneBox and sign up today. Using the links in this post, you’ll even get a sweet discount.
If you’ve got an iPad and want to get better at using the GoodNotes application, the Sweet Setup has a new course just for you produced, largely, by my pal Mike Schmitz. The course goes soup to nuts on GoodNotes. My favorite parts are those toward the end covering how to create and use custom templates.
One of the oldest (and best) pieces of productivity advice is to always plan on a recovery day after a trip. It is such an obvious idea that I hesitate to even post about it. Nevertheless, it is advice that I seldom followed … until now.
The problem for me wasn’t that I didn’t acknowledge the importance of having time after a trip to catch up. Indeed, I so often crash in terms of my workload after trips that it seems like a running bit on the Focused podcast.
The problem is that I never thought about recovery day early enough. It always seemed to slip my mind right up until the night I’d return home from a conference or vacation and realize that my calendar for the next day was an impossible concoction of items that cropped up in my absence mixed in with a full schedule of meetings and other deadlines I’d scheduled before I left. Past Sparky screwed over present Sparky … yet again.
The hallelujah moment for me came with this most recent trip where I, for the first time in my life, scheduled an honest to goodness recovery day. Indeed, I spent all day yesterday with no appointments and no scheduled meetings or calls. Instead, I just caught up with the backlog and brush fires that cropped up over the last few days as I have been traveling and making a little time to spend with my wife.
The trick, for me, was to schedule the recovery day months ago. I have a checklist when I’m planning a trip. It has lots of things like” buy airplane tickets” and” reserve a hotel room”. After my most recent post-trip scheduling debacle, I added a new entry, “schedule recovery day”.
So several months ago when I was making my initial pass at the list for the Relay 5th anniversary trip, I scheduled August 26, 2019, as my recovery day following that trip. It was a full-day event, and with it sitting there, squatting on my precious calendar real estate, I was constantly reminded of it in the weeks leading up to the trip. When folks would ask me to schedule some time for a meeting or take on a new commitment, past Sparky actually started looking out for future Sparky. Unlike virtually every other trip in my life, I treated yesterday, the day after, as untouchable. Of course, it worked. Without any commitments or unnecessary deadlines, I was able to catch up with those items that generally plague me for days (and sometimes weeks) after a trip.
Today normal programming resumes and I’m back to deadlines and meetings, but I’m doing it without the emotional baggage of feeling behind from the trip. My little experiment about the recovery day worked exactly as well as anybody who’s ever tried a recovery day could (and did) tell me it would… brilliantly.
If all goes according to plan, I have only one trip left this year, which is, thankfully, vacation. Nevertheless, I have already scheduled my recovery day for when I return.
