Automators 14: Automated Journaling

Get out your artistically crafted paper notebook and favorite fountain pen as we talk about journaling in Automators episode 14. Actually, forget that stuff. We are nerds so while the focus of this episode is journalling, it’s really about automating the process so you can get more efficient at your navel-gazing.

We start out talking about the idea of journaling and why automation can help. The first app we recommend is Day One.

Last year I bought a year subscription to Day One, and I’m digging it. We both approve of Day One’s automation tools with things like IFTTT along with several built-in features (like the activity feed) that ease the process of journal entry creation so you can focus on your precious words. Day One can integrate with third-party apps, like Instagram and Swarm.

Much Love for Day One

Day One is also friends with Siri Shortcuts, which opens you up to lots of potential automation, although I would like more. This leads to the discussion of automating Day One entries in a “prompt style” with a new journal entry generated out of Siri Shortcuts and used to create a Day One entry. I created a sample shortcut on a meditation journal. You can watch it in the Automators course at Learn.MacSparky or on YouTube.

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Rosemary goes a step further by using Launch Center Pro to launch her Siri Shortcut to launch her journaling prompts. This lets her present different prompts on different days of the week. Clever. We’ve shared a link to Rose’s shortcut in the show notes.

I also explain audio transcription in Day One, that works much better than you think it would be.

If This Then That (IFTTT) can also create a Day One entry, pulling data from other web services. Think about that one for a moment. Simple things, like a Google Calendar event, can be enough to trigger a new Day One entry. Rose has a cool automation that helps her log and journal television consumption using automation between trakt.tv and Day One.

Another way to automate journal creation is through text automation. You could use tools like Drafts or Text Expander to give you prompts to easily create journal entries.

Other Options

We then talk about journaling solutions outside of Day One. Using third-party applications like Ulysses or even just a plain text file, you can use many of the above referenced prompt-based journal automation to create new entries. There can be some challenges with things like photos and other media, but it can work. I even at one point suggests using Pages, which would work better than you think if you want media in your journal.

Next, we discuss automating public journals with services like micro.blog.

Fancy Pens and Paper

Finally, we break out the pens and paper. Just because you have a fancy pen and paper, doesn’t mean you can’t bring some technology to the table. Use ScanBot or Scanner Pro to grab an image for a digital backup. If you like the idea of us a pen but not paper, there are some great iPad-based digital alternatives like GoodNotes and Notability.

It’s January and a great time to develop a journaling habit. Why don’t you use some automation to make it easier?

Apple’s Reduced Earnings in Perspective

Today Apple announced they didn’t expect to hit their earning expectations, apparently largely due decreased Chinese sales. I expect the tech-related Internet to lose its collective mind over the next few weeks. Apple has already taken a beating on Wall Street. I don’t own Apple Stock and prefer to write about using Apple technology (as opposed to the business of Apple) with my little corner of the Internet. However, as the “Apple is Doomed” machine is getting warmed up, I would advise you to keep in the back of your mind that Apple’s reduced expectations doesn’t mean it’s losing money. It just means that instead of selling $89 billion in gizmos, they expect to sell $84 billion in gizmos.

Of course this isn’t good news for Apple. The company is worth less money this evening than it was this morning. Among other things, that makes it harder to hold on to top engineering talent. Still, I’m not going to lose any sleep over this and you probably shouldn’t either.

MPU 463: All Good Things…

After nine and a half years of getting on the microphone once a week with Katie Floyd, Katie is on for her last episode. Katie’s been a friend and partner for a long time and I’m sure going to miss her. In this episode we cover feedback on subscriptions, iOS tips, and more. We also look back on the last 463 episodes and discuss the origins of Mac Power Users. Katie discusses her journey, favorite workflows, and answers a few listener questions. By the end, I was a wreck.

This episode is sponsored by:

1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Save up to 20% using this link.
The Omni Group We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
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Luna Display: The only hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac. Use promo code POWER at checkout for 10% off.

Free Agents 63: Lessons Learned

Mike and I wrap up the Free Agents run with a discussion of depression and free agency, and I have some overall thoughts on free agency as we transition the show to “Focused”.

This episode of Free Agents is sponsored by:

Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FREEAGENTS at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
FreshBooks: Online invoicing made easy.

Mac Power Users 462: Return to the Snell Zone

Jason Snell returns on this week’s episode of Mac Power Users to tell us about his iMac Pro, how he uses his Mac mini, his move towards iOS, being an avid reader, making time for it all, and a few of his favorite picks.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

PDFpen from Smile: With powerful PDF editing tools, available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, PDFpen from Smile makes you a Mac Power User.
1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Save up to 20% using this link.
The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Luna Display: The only hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac. Use promo code POWER at checkout for 10% off.

Timing Gets Calendar Support

Today Timing, the app that automatically tracks your time on the Mac got a nice update. The headline new feature is calendar integration. If you block schedule time, like me, this is really helpful since it shows all of your time across the bottom of the Timing data, making it even easier to categorize and make adjustments. There’s more, like weekend mode, that you can learn about from the developer.

Launch Center Pro 3.0

After something that felt a lot like a hiatus, Launch Center Pro came roaring back into the iOS automation space this week. You may recall Launch Center Pro as one of the original iOS automation tools.

The idea behind Launch Center Pro, which hasn’t changed since its initial launch, is to give you an app to launch other applications and other automation friendly tasks with just a few taps. Open the app and you can immediately initiate a telephone call to your spouse or prepare an email to those key people at work or do any other type of URL scheme-based iOS automation (which these days means quite a lot). With version 3 you can also launch Siri Shortcuts and other automation tools making the app even more useful.

Not only does this new version expand the dictionary of available automation actions, but it also lets you trigger automation with things other than a tap in the application. These include NFC and time-based triggers.

NFC Triggers are little NFC stickers you can purchase from the developer. Once you program them (it’s easy), putting your phone in the proximity of the sticker is enough to trigger the automation. (This only works with iPhone X or later iPhones). As an example, I have a phone stand on my writing desk. I’ve been trying to get better at journaling so now when I set my phone into that stand, it scans the NFC sticker and runs a simple Siri Shortcut to open and create a new entry in Day One. I put another sticker next to the shelf where I put my workout shoes. When I tap it with my phone, it sets an exercise timer and kicks off a podcast on my phone. People are using these stickers at their desks, in their cars, and anywhere else they want to make automation easier.

There are also significant improvements to the ability to have scheduled automation, something we don’t currently get with Siri Shortcuts.

I have been using this new version of Launch Center Pro throughout the beta. It’s stable and it’s much faster than version 2. While Launch Center Pro isn’t more powerful than Siri automation, it still has a place. It’s wicked fast not only in launching your URL-based automation but also Siri Shortcuts themselves. Moreover, the addition of NFC and time-based automation gives you some pretty cool automation triggers that don’t exist otherwise on iOS. There are a variety of ways to support the app from subscription to a la carte feature purchases.

We’ve got David Barnard, Launch Center Pro‘s developer coming on Automators later this week to talk about how the app fits in the world of Siri Shortcuts. I expect with the new app and the new business model, we’ll see more great things from Launch Center Pro in the future.

What Happened to the iPad Split Keyboard?

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Today Stephen Hackett wrote about that clever feature that started in iOS 5 and let you split and move the keyboard on your iPad. For some strange reason, however, this feature never made it to the 11 and 12.9 inch iPads Pro. This seems particularly silly to me with respect to the 12.9 iPad Pro, where typing in portrait view is very awkward unless you have hands big enough to palm a basketball. I actually had this on my list of gripes for this week’s iOS tips Mac Power Users episode but I never got around to it. I’d love to know why this feature got pulled from the most expensive iPads.