Thanks Peter


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We got the news today that Peter Mayhew, the actor behind Chewbacca, passed away. Peter’s passing really touched me. I’m enough of a Star Wars nerd that I’ve attended the Celebration Expo several times and, of all the original cast, Peter always seemed one of the happiest guys in the room. When he got the Chewbacca gig, he was a hospital orderly and I think he never lost sight of how fortunate he was to play such a big role. That being said, it wasn’t all luck. Putting a guy in a six foot dog costume and asking him to follow Harrison Ford around in a potentially campy 70’s sci-fi film could have gone horribly wrong. Peter brought something to the table though. He gave Chewie heart and a lot of us, myself included, certainly connected. Chewbacca never would have become what he is without Peter. As Mark Hamill tweeted, “I’m a better man for just having known him.” There was a lot of sadness from fans of the original trilogy that we never got that scene in the new movies with Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie together. Having now lost both Peter Mayhew and Carrie Fischer, that’s even more true.

When I visit Disneyland (frequently), I have the option to get my picture taken with a variety of characters from Star Wars. The thing is, I always go for Chewbacca. There are probably 100 pictures of me and Chewbacca in my Apple Photos library. There is nothing quite like hugging a Wookiee to set you right. Thanks Peter.

Getting More from DuckDuckGo



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It’s been several years since I last wrote about DuckDuckGo and how I use it as my primary search engine. At this point, it is my default search engine everywhere for some pretty good privacy-related reasons.

I do not consider myself a tinfoil-hat-wearing privacy nut, but personal tracking on the web is out of hand. DuckDuckGo provides me some measure protection. Moreover, since using DuckDuckGo, I haven’t noticed much of a decline in search results over what I used to get with Google.

Another feature that I like about DuckDuckGo is its power-user features. There are a lot of them. It usually starts with an exclamation point and then some sort of code. DuckDuckGo calls them “bangs”. As an example, “!g MacSparky” performs an anonymous Google search through the DuckDuckGo system. There are, however, a lot more, and recently Brett Terpstra indexed the best ones on his website with the post appropriately called “The Ultimate Guide to DuckDuckGo”.

How I Defer Email with SaneBox (Sponsor)



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This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email management service I’ve now used for years. For this post, I’d like to focus on one SaneBox feature, deferring email.

Deferring email is the process of taking something in your inbox and snoozing it for a set period of time. This gets the email out of your life and lets you focus on other things until some time in the future when you’re in a better place to process that mail.

When I first heard of the idea of deferring email, I mocked it. It seemed like a waste of time. However, I was wrong. I’ve now been using the defer tool for years and I find it useful. I get a lot of email that doesn’t merit getting sorted into my task system but also isn’t appropriate for right now. Deferring that email just takes a second and there is something to be said for getting that mail out of the way while you continue doing the hard work.

With SaneBox, you have nearly unlimited options for deferring email. You can defer it to tomorrow, or next week, or Saturday morning, or a specific time. For today, I thought it’d be fun to share my deferred email boxes on my MacSparky email account.

AFTERNOON

This is the nutty one that will make a lot of people angry. I do a thorough sweep through my MacSparky account every morning and afternoon. I try to stay out of that email account in between but inevitably find myself in there for one reason or another. Pushing email away until the afternoon review by deferring it is a great way to keep myself from getting sidetracked by non-critical email. I’ve thought about getting rid of this deferred email box several times but I don’t. It is just too useful.

TOMORROW, 2 DAYS, 5 DAYS

I only give a certain amount of time to email every day, primarily in the morning. I always deal with the most critical email first either answering it directly or turning its response into an OmniFocus project. If there is still email left and time’s up, I defer the email out into the future.

Deferring non-critical email is a great solution, and it’s just one of the many features available to you with a SaneBox subscription. Best of all, use the links in this post to get a discount.

Next Month

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with an even longer defer, next month. I’m not sure that one will stick around but I’m guessing you can see why I’d create it.

CardioBot 4.0



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While not everyone is sold on the Apple Watch, its health benefits and data-gathering capabilities are beyond question. Apple has made a lot of progress toward heart health with the inclusion of an electrocardiogram (ECG) function, but people forget there are other ways to use your pulse data.


CardioBot, which released a new version today, gives you better metrics on your heart data as collected by Apple Watch. One of the new features analyzes your heart rate under walking, sedentary, and meditation sessions. I think the increased granularity only improves the app. If you are interested in what is going on with your ticker and you wear an Apple Watch, CardioBot is worth checking out.

Focused 72: Heart-Centered Productivity, with Jocelyn K. Glei



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Jocelyn K. Glei, host of the podcast Hurry Slowly, joins Mike and me on this week’s episode of Focused to talk about avoiding burnout, percolating ideas, intentionality for introverts, and what it means to do truly productive work.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • ExpressVPN: High-speed, secure and anonymous VPN service. Get 3 months free with a 1-year package.

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

  • Timing: The automatic time tracking app for macOS. Use this link to save 10% on your purchase.

CalZones – A New Take on Time Zones


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David Smith released a new app, CalZones, which addresses the pesky problem of time zones with way more panache than I’ve seen from any other time zone app. I particularly like/use the Today Widget. 

It is always kind of amazing for me when an app developer can redefine an app genre and CalZones makes all prior time zone-related apps look pedestrian. If you work with folks in other time zones (like podcasting with someone in Vienna), get this app.

Mac Power Users 480: Catching Up with Michael Hyatt



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Michael Hyatt joins Stephen and me on the latest episode of Mac Power Users to talk about how to get your life together and find a little focus to nerdy Keyboard Maestro scripts. 

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • MOO: Custom business printing and design. Use promo code PRINT15 for 15% off.

  • SaneBox: Stop drowning in email!

  • TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Automators 22: Text Expansion




The latest episode of the Automator’s podcasts is now available for download. In this episode, we go back to basics and talk about text expansion. I joke in the episode that text expansion is a gateway drug or automation, but that’s really kind of true. Just about anybody can do text expansion and as you start to get your mind around some of the more powerful text expansion tools, you’re going to find a lot of ways to use it.

The thing I like about this episode is that we not only talk about the basics, but we move into the advanced. No matter what level of usage you are at with text expansion (or if you’ve never used it at all), I think this is a great episode to help you move the ball little further down the road toward getting your work done faster and more accurately.

MindNode 6 Released with Focus Mode and Additional New Features

MindNode, my mind mapping app of choice, continues to iterate and improve with the recent release of version 6. This new version features a “Focus Mode” that lets you focus on one section of your map while removing the rest. It’s an excellent way to minimize distractions when you are drilling in on a small part of your map.

For iOS, they have added the ability to select multiple objects. Anytime you can add more power to the iPad version, I’m happy. (I do most of my mind mapping on the iPad.) Another nice addition on iOS is external screen support. A helpful refinement with this external support is the ability to lock that view, which can make a lot of sense when sharing a map with a group of people.

There are additional features such as sticker search, customizable panels on IOS, Chinese localization, and better keyboard shortcuts, but, in all honesty, they had me with Focus Mode.

This new version is a free update to MindNode 5 customers.