I think listening to productivity podcasts and courses is genuinely bad for my mental health. There’s no “right way” just the way that works best for your brain and if you’re using software as a second brain there’s no perfect app or solution. I think that’s where I’ve fallen down. I’m on pen and paper now and not tracking much stuff in terms of habits, activity etc and feel better for it. This isn’t long term but just a break from listening to others who seem to have their life in order when I don’t. I’m constantly looking over at others who seem to be achieving when I’m not and it brings me down, all my fault BTW. Maybe this is an early morning ramble but I’m slowly backing away from too much technology and noise in my life.

A week in testing iOS 14 and I’m loving the new App Library feature. My setup now involves one home screen and then the App Library, no more other pages of apps. This feature allows you to let iOS manage your app organisation and for me at least has encouraged me to install more apps.

When I swipe over I get all of my apps organised by category.

To do this I simply turned off all of my home screens in the edit home screen setting.

Now I just need Apple to bring it over to the iPad.

I’ve been using OmniFocus on and off for years but after reading this article on MacStories and revisiting how I was using tags it’s finally clicked.

I was using a project for almost everything, I had one for my creative projects and others for Home or Family etc. Taking a step back things like home and family aren’t really projects but categories. This is where tags come in.

I’m now using tags for everything that goes into my system. What I’ve changed is to use projects for actual projects like my podcast or my blog. Basically where I have a goal and need to break it down into tasks.

What in finding since switching over to this method is I’m using the tags section of the app to view all of my tasks.

So far so good and I haven’t even thought about switching apps in the last couple of weeks whilst playing around with OmniFocus again.

Since using the series 5 somethings happened I wasn’t expecting - a much better experience with third party apps.

I’d tried to use third party apps on and off in the past but sync or performance always turned me off. Using the series 5 has me excited to use them on my wrist again as they perform really well. As you can see above my watch face (Meridian) is pretty simple and I’m using

• Activity
• Date
• Things
• Streaks

As I build a new system for myself I’m trying to keep a few apps core to the way I manage my goals and tasks.

I’m only at the beginning and I’ll be posting how I’m using them all soon once I’ve created a framework and it’s settled down.

I won’t go into my iCloud issues but needless to say I’ve switched back to my trusty OmniFocus. On setting up from scratch I’ve changed the way that I use the app and perspectives this time around.

As you can see above I’m using 5 main views

• Inbox
• Home
• Money
• Family
• Wellbeing

Most items in my system sit in the Inbox as you can see from the item count but I use tags. Whereas before I’d have a load of projects this time I’ve used tags to categorise.

I then have a perspective showing me everything that has a particular tag. So the wellbeing tag simply shows me everything with a tag of wellbeing.

For my forecast view I’ve implemented a tag called ‘Today’ that I can add to any items I’d like to get done today but don’t want to add a deadline.

You can do this by tapping on the little eye icon.

This seems to hang together for me and in the last few days I’ve enjoyed coming back to OmniFocus. This seems to work with my brain and I’m not wondering if my iCloud data is going to be there or not as the OmniFocus sync is rock solid and never let me down.

Are you using OmniFocus? What’s your setup?

Switching back to the MAC also had me thinking about the core apps I’m using to manage my day, I’ve now settled into a little routine using Apple Reminders. The iCloud sync seems solid now and using across iOS and macOS I’m starting to find the benefits of using Apple’s own apps. I keep it fairly simple in terms of creating lists and haven’t overwhelmed myself by dumping everything into it.

I have

• INBOX, everything goes in here to start with if it’s an idea when I’m out or if it doesn’t belong to a list it also goes here
• HOME, anything related to home (like putting out the bins) goes in here
• WELLBEING, anything health related goes in here
• FINANCES, money stuff goes in here
• CREATIVE (as a group)
• Podcast, anything related to podcasting
• Writing, anything related to blog post ideas or admin on the site
• Ambient Album, a little project to get me back into writing music
• Travel, anything holiday related

I then have the widget on iOS Today view to show me what’s due, I don’t bother with this on my MAC.

Keeping it simple has really helped me just focus on a few things and not be overwhelmed by a complicated TO DO app.

I’ve been struggling with my workflow and in particular the devices that I am going to use in my day to day and might have hit a really nice writing workflow that will work out for me when I’m on macOS. When I switched back to the Mac I didn’t have a clue what apps to use outside of the core apps that come with macOS but I decided to find the right episode of Mac Power Users and get to customising my MacBook that I am going to use as my daily machine for now.

On listening I decided to install Setapp and wow it’s already proving to be a cost saver. I installed iStatMenu (to keep an eye on battery and to have a nice view of the time and weather in the menu bar), CleanMyMac (to let it take a look at how I can get the most out of this laptop in terms of managing space) and most importantly MarsEdit.

I’ve got it installed and connected to my Wordpress blog, which I can publish to directly from this one app. The layout lets me write, add tags, categories and images all within one app that can be customised to my liking. 

It’s much nicer to use than the Wordpress app on iOS and having the flexibility of being able to create short posts from my iPhone on the Wordpress app and also this powerful app in MarsEdit is leaving me enthusiastic about sticking with this MacBook and adapting to it rather than jumping back in and replacing my iPad Pro.

I’ll update as I get more stuff done on macOS, I thought it might be interesting hearing about workflows from someone coming to the Mac from iPad.

Let me know some of your favourite Setapp apps.

I’m going through some testing of to do apps (I know, not again!) and as I’m doing this I thought I’d share some thoughts on several of them, including Reminders.

When you pick up Reminders for the first time I’d recommend deleting any preloaded lists and starting with just one called INBOX. This will be where you brain dump everything. As you can see above I’ve also split out a couple of new projects as I thought of tasks, so a couple of creative projects. You can move more tasks later but my advice is when you pick up Reminders for the first time don’t worry too much about structure, just get everything off your mind and into the Inbox.

I’ve found the barrier to getting things done for me was worrying too much about creating a framework at the beginning instead of just keeping it simple.

Once you have everything in one place it’s really up to you if you want to organise them by categories such as home or work etc.

If you follow me you’ll know I struggle with Things 3, mainly because of it’s lack of accessibility options but the Calendar integration is superb.

I’ve installed it just to use the ‘upcoming’ view so I can clearly see what’s on my plate for the next week.

I can’t read it clearly and need to really focus given it doesn’t adhere to my system font size but it’s helpful on the iPad to get a general view of important events over the coming week.

I can’t manipulate anything on the calendar but like I’ve said gives me a clear view of the week ahead.

I’m really hoping Cultured Code are working on bringing accessibility to their app so that I can more easily see what’s on screen.

I’m starting fresh and clearing down my OmniFocus setup and when looking at removing perspectives it wasn’t that intuitive on how, here’s how to do it.

First off you need to SHOW all of your perspectives, tap on the SHOW icon.

Select the perspective you want to delete by tapping on it and then hit the icon marked in the image above.

Scrolling to the bottom you will see a DELETE PERSPECTIVE option.

I’m getting more into using OF now as my main productivity app and some elements are not as intuitive as I’d like so I’ll be sharing hints and tips I’m picking up. First up is moving an existing project into a newly created folder.

Navigate to your projects and tap Edit.

Now tap the project to select it and tap the ‘i’ at the top.

Tap the icon in the lower left and then tap the project name you want to move it to.

I bet you’re sick of hearing me write about productivity apps, especially Reminders but fear not I’m done.

I’ve been trying a few different apps but still not settled but that’s a post for another day, back to Reminders.

I reinstalled the app on my iPhone and it was immediately broken.

Here’s my app badge telling me I have 6 reminders overdue.

Here’s the app.

As you can see it’s completely empty, this knocks your confidence in trusting the app, especially when it only gets updated maybe once a year if we’re lucky.

I’m back with a blank slate again on my productivity system and fallen back to my old favourite OmniFocus. I thought I’d share how I’m using it over a series of posts and how I’m initially setting it up.

First off it might look intimidating but OmniFocus really can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be.

The first step is to do a bit of a brain dump. I find that even if I’m coming from another app I don’t duplicate I start fresh. I’ll go into the Inbox and start to drop in everything on my mind.

Once I’ve “dumped” everything out of my mind I’ll start to work through each one by tapping on it and picking a tag to categorise (such as errand or chores) or add it it’s own project if it’s something bigger like a trip.

To be honest you don’t need to worry about tags or projects if you’re just starting out with OmniFocus you can just drop stuff in and get it scheduled so you don’t forget.

For now step 1 is just to install, use their sync service and get whatever is in your head into the inbox and add due dates where they are needed.

I’ll be creating more posts in the coming weeks on next steps.

It occurred to me the other day that I’d had a podcast on for an hour and not taken in a single bit of information or followed the conversation - listening to podcasts has become a habit. I’ve lost the ability to just have some peace and quiet and time to shut myself off from having a constant stream of conversation in my ears.

I’m trying to be more intentional with my technology and breaking this habit has gone to the top of my list.

I’ve deleted overcast from my devices and going to take a month away from listening to podcasts.

It’ll be interesting to see how long I last and how much more music I enjoy again.

Where I’ll struggle is on walks and long drives but let’s at least give it a try.

I’d love to be able to use Things 3 as my daily task manager. I love the Calendar integration and ease of task entry but two things stop me from using it.

Accessibility

Things is really poor from an accessibility point of view unfortunately. I bump up the font on my iPhone these days thanks to my ageing eye balls and there is no support in Things to inherit the system setting. In fact there’s no setting to up the font in Things at all. All of the other to do apps I’m testing (Reminders/OmniFocus/Todoist) all support this and I can’t believe in 2020 there’s no accessibility support. It’s pretty tough on the eyes to go from a font I can’t comfortably to one I have to take my glasses off to see properly.

Repeating Reminders

The creation of a repeating task is a bit broken for my workflow

• It takes too many taps to create a task that repeats on a schedule
• Reminders in my testing don't stick. So I create a task on Monday that repeats each day. I noticed on the Tuesday the reminder (at 2pm) hasn't moved into the next days task. I update the Tuesday task to have a 2pm reminder. On the Wednesday the task forgets I've done this and I forget to do it

These two combined are deal breakers for me, a pretty UI isn’t going to win me over if the functionality I need isn’t there.

I’ve been trying my best at changing a few things and bundled everything into my current To Do app of choice - Todoist.

But what I’ve found is that having a Reminder for something like ‘Write in your journal’ isn’t keeping me honest. I’m sometimes ignoring the Reminder, it’s not holding me accountable for not doing it. It also clutters up my view of what you need to do with all of these good habits you’re trying to accomplish.

What I’ve found is moving these into a dedicated Habit Tracking app seems to work better. It keeps my Todoist looking a lot cleaner and with streaks it keeps me more motivated to do it.

I haven’t settled on an app yet but am testing both Productive and Streaks.

Waking up and being faced with this red 22 to remind me how much I have on my plate makes things worse. It adds stress to an already stressful time, it’s got me thinking again about simplification. In this case Todoist is showing everything due today rather than stuff that’s gone over.

OmniFocus and Reminders can show me a badge count for when things go over due instead.

My current thought is just to turn off badges completely on everything apart from Messages.

Anyone else find it’s better just to turn them off?

It’s strange, they’ve been around forever but I’ve only really started using them properly over the last year.

Here are the 6 that I have pinned and use daily.

• Weather: I use the weather app that comes with iOS. I do occasionally try third party ones but find the way they don't update all the time annoys me. Working at home I only really look at the weather a few times a week and the standard app gives me what I want.
• Fantastical: I've made the switch really due to frustrations switching views with the Apple app. I like to have a list view and Fantastical is the quickest way to view this, the up next widget view and quick monthly calendar view makes it a winner for me
• OmniFocus: It shows me all of my items due today, it's amazing the amount of to do apps that don't do this and just show the first few.
• Shortcuts: I have a few shortcuts I run multiple times a day, this is for quick access.
• Favourites: I like to have quick access to make phone calls to certain contacts. This works great but it doesn't remember favourites in iCloud so new iPhone and you have to set it up again.
• Batteries: Handy for keeping an eye on AirPods and Apple Watch battery.

What are some of your favourite widgets.

I’m back using OmniFocus and one of the features I’m glad I have back is the Forecast view. I check this a few times a day.

I check it in the morning, around midday and then in the evening. I look at the count at the top to see if I have any items left today and I can also have a look at my calendar items.

If I see an item that I need to reschedule I simply long press and then pick an option to move it tomorrow.

Using this as I’m moving through my day is helping me keep on top of things.

Source: Birchtree

As someone else who is trying to track stuff I’ve dabbled with Notion but in the end I couldn’t get on with the iOS apps but reading this post has me wanting to kick it back up again.

Matt, I might be in touch.

I’ve needed to simplify a bit over the break and made the switch back to Todoist.

Todoist has been my fall back app for a while but I’m determined to make it stick. It’s the fastest way to get things out of my head and the natural language passing really helps to track repeating items. I’ll share more as I move through my experience of getting to know the app really well.

Any tips?

On a side note I’ve really tried to use Reminders but I have no confidence it’ll see any updates until September and it’s got UX issues in my use.

My first to do app of choice and still one of my favourites, Wunderlist is finally being shut down May 6th 2020.

Link

I’m playing around with to do apps again so I’m going to install and test out its replacement, Microsoft To Do. I’m my experience of testing it previously I didn’t like the way it handled due items but I’m going to give it another shot.

I get lots of random thoughts and ideas throughout the day (I both love and hate this!) that either get written down or forgotten but I’ve been finding it difficult over the years focussing on one side project. Going forward I’m going to do a bit of a mind map brain dump on all of these and figure out what to put time and energy in. At the moment it’ll be the blog, newsletter and something musical as I see it. I’ve toyed with YouTube but I went down that path 10 years ago and didn’t end up enjoying it so that’s definitely out, an easy one to drop. Podcasting is something I’ve enjoyed but I’m not good at or have enough to say weekly so pretty sure that’ll drop.

But I’m rambling, step 1 will be a brain dump onto paper then I’ll work through it.

How do you decide what to focus on?

I’m a couple of weeks in with using OmniFocus exclusively and it’s actually starting to stick. I wanted to write a series of posts on how I’m using it in my daily life.

First up each morning I’m looking at what I have on my plate and adjusting the day to suit my availability and energy.

I tap on the relevant day in the forecast view to drill into the day itself.

This shows me my agenda and the to do items I have set for the day.

If there is something on there I’m not going to be able to achieve I’ll long press and move to tomorrow.

My forecast view also shows me any items I’d like to get done today but haven’t set a due date or time. I tag these items with ‘today’ and change the view settings to show me them in my forecast view.

These show at the bottom of the list in the forecast view.

That gives me a view of the day within the app. To supplement this I also use the widget and the Apple Watch complication to have a quick reference of how I’m getting on.

So far the data sync has been good but if I’m updating on my iPad and don’t open the app on my iPhone to sync then app notifications do get a bit out of sync.

Sticking with a fairly basic home screen this month. Loved snapseed to the main page now I’m using it more and more. Reeder is how I’m catching on any news and my favourite blogs. Omnifocus is my productivity app of choice. Notes is syncing again so I’m testing it out. Finally I’m getting more into shortcuts so I’ve moved that onto my front page.

My second page is a bit of a dumping ground so not that well organised more reference apps as and when I need them.

I go away but have found I always come back to OmniFocus (OF). OF still remains one of the quickest ways for me to enter new items to my inbox (I have SIRI disabled) using text entry and using a combination of due times and flagging I’ve been using it well this week and kept on top of things.

I’m still in the process of sorting myself out and setting some personal goals but I’ve settled on OF. I was going to go all in with Reminders but a few things put me off using Apple apps

1. Sync has been unreliable across devices for me, especially macOS
2. I don't have any confidence in the Apple development team to keep the app updated. It'll always be a small part of iOS for Apple and I don't want to wait a year between updates for bug fixes
3. If you need support, good luck. I'm almost a month in on my second attempt to get my iCloud sync sorted and Apple keep breaking their promises of calling me back with updates or even looking like they care about my data. I'm paying for iCloud storage and Apple aren't taking me as a customer seriously, I don't want to put my life into Reminders then hit a problem and be stuck trying to sort it out on my own

Ok, rant over.

So how am I’m setting up OF?

I’m starting pretty simple and mostly chucking items into the inbox via the app or Shortcuts. Anything that I think is urgent or want to get done today ideally I’ll put a flag against. I can quickly view everything flagged as almost a wish I could get this done today list or a reminder of items that are going to cause me some pain if I don’t get done.

Project wise I’m using folders to divide my projects into areas of focus. It’s pretty simple for now but I have one for my writing and another for personal, which includes any goals. I’ll share more on this one I’ve got my project structure sorted. I’m expecting it’ll be financial, work etc.

Everything else in OF I’m pretty much ignoring. The beauty is that it can be as simple or complicated as you need it.

I used Wunderlist quite happily as soon as it came out until it was picked up by Microsoft but in a bid to try to simplify I have installed it and to my surprise it still works as I like it. There’s no overly complicated UX to deal with or loads of options just the basics and a solid backend sync.

I’ve got a lot going on and after having iCloud issues with Reminders, getting overwhelmed using OmniFocus and not liking the look and feel of Todoist or Things 3 I have gone back to where it started for me - Wunderlist.

Yes you might think this strange given that it’s no longer really being heavily worked on but I’ve installed it on my MacBook and iOS devices, completed an initial brain dump and feeling the better for it.

My data is laid out in a logical way to me with a clean UI showing me what’s due today and each of my lists. In the today view the list is organised by the list the item is in so I can see the various areas of importance, I can set repeating items and have reminders that work.

Aside from being reminded that Microsoft TO DO exists (which pales in comparison to Wunderlist in my opinion) it’s the perfect TO DO app for me right now.

I’ve been using the Cortex Theme System as my journal for a week or so now and the one part that’s starting to stick is tracking habits. I keep track of several habits including things like making sure I’m eating better and exercising daily then marking them off each evening when I sit down to journal. I’ve tried apps to do this in the past but there’s something about writing it down that makes it more real for me and so far so good.

As you’ll know if you read my blog I’m struggling somewhat with iCloud. I’m now at the point I’ve moved completely away from Notes and Reminders as I’ve lost trust in Apple to both store my data and commit resource to working on the app and support the infrastructure, I’ve still not heard anything back from senior support on my iCloud sync issues despite several promises.

The two I’m testing my workflow with is Google Keep and Notability.

Over the last week I’ve used both and can see me using both but for different scenarios.

I’m using Notability almost just for reference information like flight details or for keeping extended warranty information. An archive of information I need to reference at a later date.

I’m using Google Keep for quick notes and checklists. I don’t like the UX for Notability for adding quick notes with bullets etc. I can’t seem to quickly get in and out. Google keep is simple and intuitive. It also has a widget that speeds up entry.

Main downside of using Google apps on iOS for me is their lack of adoption of core iOS features so no dark mode but I can live with that in a notes app.

It’s a beginning so I’ll update how I’m getting on in a month or so.

I’ve been playing with a lot of third party productivity apps and you know what I’ve discovered - it’s best to stick with the defaults, at least in terms of data storage. I’ve been missing things because I haven’t been seeing them, I forgot which app I’d put it in (I appreciate this is my problem).

On sitting back and thinking about what I have to manage going on and how I want my data to be stored, here are the apps I’m using with iCloud:

• For my Calendar I remain stuck in the default app camp, whilst it isn’t the prettiest I like being able to see the date on my home screen with it’s app icon and it does the basics fine. I don’t micro manage everything on my personal Calendar so fits the bill quite nicely
• For my Reminders I’ve switched over to GoodTask, it’s a much better interface to iCloud and I like both the Today widget and Apple Watch complications
• For my Notes I use Apple Notes for everything. I write posts like this one in there, store images or receipts etc.. and food recipes. I like the simplicity of it and the fact I can do both handwritten and typed notes
• For my Photos I use iCloud Photo Library
• For my journal I back up DayOne to iCloud rather than sync with their service

These are the areas that are most important to me.

The only data in the cloud outside of iCloud that I rely on is Gmail and Blog posts.

For the first time in a while I’m content with this setup and for me even though the apps are pretty basic I find all the extra functionality in apps like OmniFocus adds unnecessary complication (for me) and I spend more time messing with my systems (and tags I don’t need) rather than actually doing stuff.

I’ve made a slight tweak to my morning routine that seems to be having an overall positive effect on my day. I’ve been journaling for a while but only in the evening. After listening to an episode of The Automators on the subject I added a new Reminder that simply asks me to write down something I’m grateful for each morning at 7:30am.

Instead of picking up my iPhone and digesting news of social media I think of something that I’m happy about of grateful for in my life. I get on with day afterwards but starting off with something positive is a nice way to kick things off.

I’m trying out Todoist again and when messing around I discovered vacation mode.

I don’t know how new this feature is but it’s potentially very useful. Being away from work allowed me to do a bit of a brain dump but I didn’t want to be reminded of chores when away. This vacation mode puts everything on hold until you’re ready to get back to it.

If you’ll remember last week I wrote down how to move from DayOne into Apple Notes, well I’m back with DayOne. I have to say it’s nice too, Apple Notes just wasn’t built to hold massive notes full of images and text. I’m talking 800MB single notes here, the performance just isn’t workable.

If the large Journal note is the last thing open I found Notes would either crash out or hang on reload. If I left it long enough it would load but it’s just not a workable solution unfortunately. Basically if I did load I needed to move away from it as soon as possible so I could actually use the app.

Viewing images wasn’t ideal if you wanted to check on events and even though I thought Photos could give me this it also fell a bit short.

Anyone else tried and succeeded?

I’ve used Fantastical on and off for years but with it’s ability to display calendars and reminders all in one view I thought I’d give it a go. The beauty of using this is that you stay in the iCloud bubble and not having to manage data elsewhere.

Things I like about it

• The widget displays a full calendar if you expand it out. It's great to be able to quickly see the entire month and each days events if you click on a particular day
• Natural language, just like Todoist you can type things like "put bins out every Thursday at 2pm"
• Dark mode (because...)

Things I don't like

• No ability to create a Reminders list
• No ability to reorder Reminders lists
• Apple Watch app doesn't show Reminders due today

Did it stick?

For me, no. As a calendar app it’s second to none, it’s pretty great. But, if like me you are trying to use Reminders too then it’s going to be a frustrating experience if you value the same items in my ‘things I don’t like’ list above.

I’m feeling like I have a bit more headspace now I’m less active on social media and to my surprise it’s allowed me to focus on trying one productivity app at a time. This might sound strange but when I was on Twitter daily I’d look at others and their apps and get FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). This would inevitably lead me to trying other apps.

Well since last week I committed to using iCloud (for privacy reasons mainly) and when I saw Reminders wasn’t up to scratch I started using GoodTask. I think my problem in the past was I didn’t stick with one app long enough but now I’m not seeing others feeds I’m not tempted to switch apps.

I’m keeping it simple so far and still in the process of moving everything in from OmniFocus. As you can see I’ve split up by Reminders lists so far, I’ll be sharing more as I go but this is stage 1.

I’ll share more on creating smart lists at a later point once I get my head around them.

Are you using GoodTask? Any tips?

I’ve been an on and off user of Todoist for years but the latest update might make me stick around. The main thing I’ve always liked about the app was it’s straightforward UI and flexibility. I can do a fee form ‘today’ or have specific time reminders. That’s the best of both worlds for me.

The latest update introduces a few things that really improve its use (for me).

First up is a checkbox next to each item. Sounds simple but improves both the use and look of the app. If you want to go back to swipe to complete you can (it’s in the general settings) but this is now the default behaviour.

Next up (I think I’m right on this one) there’s a little more space around elements. Hitting the create task icon seems like there’s a bit more room in this latest update.

Lastly the text seems a little larger or bolder to my eyes, a nice visual improvement.

I’m only just getting into the latest update but as you can tell I’m happy with the little tweaks and I’ll be giving it another go.

Personally I really like the addition of checkboxes in the latest Todoist update but not everyone does so the good news is whilst you can’t remove them you can go back to swiping to complete.

I thought I know I’ll finally get around to testing Things 3 dark mode - now I’m rethinking my productivity workflow!

It’s just such a pretty looking app. Maybe not as efficient for quickly entering and marking repeating reminders but it’s one of the best looking apps out there.

I’m going to do a little experiment and use it alongside my main to do app (OmniFocus) and see where it takes me.

I’ve started to use OmniFocus folders as my areas of focus, such as career and financial. Within these I have projects such as podcast and blog. They are building up and seem to stay in the same order they are created in. Well the good news is that you can reorder these.

To do this simply tap on one and hold. You’ll then be able to order them by moving around.

I’d like to see a sort order added to the app, if anyone knows a better way please let me know.

Whilst listening to an episode of Mac Power Users there was a really great tip shared by David when using OmniFocus.

I wanted to post this to help me remember more than anything but hopefully you will find this useful too.

If you are deep down in a project and want to quickly get back to the home you can simply long press the ‘back’ button. This may not say back but it will labelled with whatever the sub division you are in. This doesn’t matter as its always the button in the top left.

This has already saved me a tonne of taps.

Looks great on first look, I’ll have a dig into it later on.

I do a lot of repeating tasks and found creating them in OmniFocus a little time consuming. For each task I had to tap ‘show more’ in the inspector and before I could do anything with it.

Thankfully I’ve found a quicker way.

Tap on any task you’ve already created (this won’t work on a new task you’re creating). Tap ‘show more’ then tap ‘customize inspector’. This then let’s you drag and drop the fields you use the most when creating a new task.

I’ve used a few different apps over the years to try to build good habits but in the end they all fall by the wayside. The main reason for this is I’m not seeing or being reminded of them. When switching over to OmniFocus I thought I’d use their tagging system to help me with this.

On discovering I could add a tag to my forecast view I had an idea. If I want to build up habits why don’t I make sure I’m seeing them everyday.

So to this end I created new tasks such as ‘complete exercise rings’ and marked them with my ‘urgent ’ tag. This means that when I see my forecast I’ll always see them. The only downside is that these don’t appear on the Apple Watch app, unless I’ve missed something of course - please let me know if I have.

The task itself is never actually marked as complete so I don’t have it repeating or anything. It’s just a visual reminder to be better.

A useful feature in OmniFocus 3 is the ability to add tags to your tasks. Whilst looking at the forecast view I realised I could customise and show 1 tag along with my calendar and scheduled tasks.

I find this useful when I have something I’d like to get done but don’t necessarily want to add a hard due date and time. I created an urgent tag that I use for this.

So the image above shows what tasks have been flagged as urgent for me, basically anything I want to be reminded of daily.

To do this simply go to the forecast view, tap on the eye symbol.

You’ll then see an option for tag, simply tap this and chose your tag.

I’ve had an on/off relationship with OmniFocus over the years but with a period of overwhelm I’ve decided to stick with it and learn how to actually use it effectively.

When plotting out my overwhelm I used a mind map and split everything into areas of focus. I did this is an earlier post but redid it as my mind has changed on a few passion projects.

When looking at the whole folder vs projects debate it hit me. Folders can be a way to group my projects into these areas of focus.

I then created a folder per area of focus.

My next step is to create my projects, such as my blog and DIY projects into their relevant folders.

Seems very formal to me but I need to create my buddy brain to keep me in check.

I was feeling overwhelmed and my TO DO apps weren’t serving me well so I did a brain dump to get everything out of my head and into a system to bring some calm and planning into my life, something I really need right now.

1. I took my iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil and created a grided note within Apple notes to give me something to line up my text
2. I then wrote down areas of focus (health, family, social, recreation, money, house)
3. Next I created an ‘inbox’ line and proceeded to write everything down that I had in my head
4. Then I went through the list and put an * next to all of the important ones
5. Once I had read them all I then had all of my thoughts on ‘paper’

I’ve been playing around with a few apps but settled on TickTick as an app to try out this month, who knows it might stick.

I created tags for my areas of focus and then proceeded to copy my list I made above and  get it all in order. I only have 2 projects (blog and podcasting), everything else is categorised using the tags.

I then went back through and set reminders and repeats E.g. put bins out every Thursday at 3pm.

I also created a smart list to show me anything that I ‘Must do!’ that I mark as High Priority in the app.

That’s everything out of my head, now to get on and do it!

Now I’m firmly in the using iCloud camp both Calendar and Reminders have become very important to me. Whilst Calendar is fine Reminders hasn’t seen an update in years. I’ve been raising radars to Apple for years and all my suggestions for improvements have been ignored. I think Reminders is now only updated for compatibility rather than giving us an overhaul.

This series of Tweets has me looking back at GoodTask.

I’ve created lists based on my areas of focus and thanks to GoodTask I can see everything that I’ve flagged as high priority with their smart list feature.

Creating tasks is pretty straight forward and I’ve started to brain dump into the app.

I’ll post a review in the coming weeks.

I’ve started to only use Apple apps these days, maybe I’m getting old or maybe I restore too many devices. I just can’t be bothered to remember all the log in information for the many to do apps I’ve tried or don’t trust them with my data.

Here’s how I’ve organised into Apple Reminders.

You’ll notice I have a today/urgent list, which satisfies my need to be able to add a to do with just a date and no time. I use this in conjunction with the Scheduled view to plan my day.

Do you use Reminders?

Now I’ve given Things a good crack I’m dipping back into Omnifocus. I’ll report back on my thoughts in a month.

Things 3 is a great looking app that had lots of potential for me but after trying multiple times I’ve stopped trying to fit it in with my workflow.

The bad

• I experienced missing notifications. I'd set a reminder and it wouldn't show so I'd forget to do my task, my number one show stopper
• It annoyed me that the task name would be cut off with '...' if it was too long
• Setting repeating and reminders is too many taps
• No dark mode
• Slow to load the app (for me on an XS)

The good

• One of the best watch apps available. Quick sync and looks great.
• Integrated Calendar view
• Relaxed formatting on project view

When dark mode comes along with iOS 13 I’ll take another look but for now my quest continues. I’m going into Omnifocus next and I’ll report back.

Do you use Things?

I’m getting back on plan, left things slide a bit and tried to use iCloud to get things done. I’ve failed miserably and need to get back to using a third party app to keep me on task.

I’ve always come back to Todoist or Omnifocus but Todoist gets my vote just now. I like that I can create a free form ‘today’ but also add reminders where needed such as get Milk at 2pm when I’m at the supermarket or call dentist etc.

I’m only just getting started but here’s my setup.

I’m using labels to classify tasks as you can see above and only using projects where they are needed such as my passion ones. In the past I’d have created a project called Home and put all my family tasks in the there but labels makes more sense to me these days.

I’m also enjoying the new dark mode 😎.

The only downside of using Todoist coming from something like Reminders is that their Apple Watch app just isn’t very good. Sync to the app seems slow and there is no support for Series 4 complications in the info watch faces. I’m hoping these are being worked on.

Here goes, wish me luck.

I’ve tried to use a combination of reminders and calendar on iOS to manage my life over the last week. I’ve tried using both apps separately and Fantastical as the interface.

Both haven’t stuck with me.

Fantastical has become more stressful having calendar and reminders in one view and switching to using the poor Reminders app left me even more stressed out.

I’ll update once I figure this out.

I’m done with third party to do apps (famous last words), I’m feeling overwhelmed. I was in the car and used CarPlay to add a few things I needed to do via Siri. I also gave the Siri watch face a go and surprisingly liked it. Both of these combined gave me some clarity in what I wanted in a to do system. Be easy to enter and easy to remember.

Here’s my initial Reminders setup.

I’ll share more as I get through my setup. All I’ve done so far is to create these areas of focus.

New apps: Dark Sky, Todoist, Fantastical and Calm.

I’m trying to use Apple Reminders for about the millionth time to see if it can fit the way my brain works.

I’ve switched to do apps so many times I’m declaring app bankruptcy and trying the default. The main draw is no fiddling with other accounts and knowing where my data is. I trust iCloud and Apple, that means a lot to me.

After looking at what I wanted in a to do app the main two were as follows.

Being able to create a free ‘today’ view. No time assignment just a list of things I’d like to get done today. I’ve achieved this by having a ‘today’ list that I can maintain.

Next up are reminders. As the app name suggests it’s good at reminding me to do stuff when I need to do it.

Another bonus of using Reminders is being able to call on Siri. I’m in the car for work quite a bit and being able to use CarPlay to set reminders and add ideas to my lists has been invaluable.

Lastly the Siri watch face integrates with Reminders so I’m not missing what I need to do when I need to do it.

Let’s see if it sticks this time.

I know this is old news but the handwriting recognition in Apple Notes appears to have gotten better in iOS 12. I pretty much write all the time with the pencil in notes so I’ve picked up a habit of writing my title for the page in capitals, nice and clear. You can see in the image that it’s correctly picked up my handwriting and converted.

Go on, give it a go.

You might have seen my tweet, it was the last one I did yesterday. I’ve decided to take a proper break from social media. I use Twitter, Instagram and Slack. I stopped using Facebook in Jan 2018. In a bid to get some more quality time back in my life it’s a decision that was actually quite easy with how toxic most of them are. I do get a lot of value from interacting with others but the negatives of both ‘the feed’ and companies attitudes towards its users has finally become too much for me.

I have a blog I want to put effort into, a podcast to plan and music to record. Spending too much time lost on Social isn’t helping me succeed in any of this.

What I’ve noticed

• I'm picking up my phone less
• I'm less distracted thinking about the news or thinking about purchases
• I'm spending more time in apps that give me some value, such as sketching out ideas in Notes for example

Yesterday happened to be the day when another iOS beta dropped but I stayed strong and didn’t install any social apps to catch up on what happened. Not sure how long I’ll last but I’m going to give it a good go.

I don’t often talk about my day job on here but I thought it would be useful to share how I’m using my iPad to assist me in my 9-5 as a Technical Consultant.

I’m home based but work closely with clients all over the UK building out technical requirements for our projects. I won’t name names but I work for a large US company with offices all over the world.

We use Windows, so I’m on a Dell something or other and cannot integrate my iPad into my work email etc. So I use it to help speed up my workflow in other ways.

First off is note taking. I do use pen and paper but often take my iPad to meetings. It is often a conversation starter with clients, which helps break the ice but comes in really handy when they want a copy of something. I also have to make diagrams, sketching and sending is so much quicker than using Visio just to get an idea across.

For this I use Noteability. It’s hands down the best note taking app I’ve found.

Next up is mind mapping. This is more for my knowledge. I’ll create mind maps to remember how to do certain tasks and get things done. Believe me working in a company of over 25,000 people who seem to constantly change roles it’s important to remember who to go to for information or process.

For this I use MindNode.

For a to do given I need to be multi platform so I use Todoist. I have an Android phone and Windows so it’s important I can access it from anywhere.

Lastly for email I stick to outlook on my work machine, no iPad use here unfortunately.

How do you use your iPad to support your day job?

After watching a few videos and a recent BBC documentary on smartphone addiction, especially social media I’ve decided to make some changes. This may or may not last but I want to give it a go. I don’t spend a lot of time of Instagram, haven’t used Facebook since January 2018 but still use Twitter and YouTube heavily. I find that as soon as I unlock my iPhone I’m instinctively reaching for the app icons of these two apps. The BBC documentary really highlighted for me the mind games employed by social media app makers and the lack of respect that they have for their user base. There is good and bad to everything but in recent times social media has been awash with the bad. Thankfully I don’t see a lot of it targeted at me but when I have it’s unsettling and reminds me to take a step back. Certain fandoms are toxic right now and changing your mind on a device or subject also gets you some flak. Having an opinion is important but I’ve decided not to air it all in public on social media so much. I’ll still be sharing my thoughts on my passions here on my blog but I may be quieter on Twitter for a while. I also have a few new passion projects I want to get into and limiting my time on social media will give me some time back. Wish me luck and I hope a few of you will join along and take a step back for a minute.

It’s a big day for the Omnigroup, today sees the launch of OmniFocus 3. I’ve been a user of OmniFocus for a while, well on and off. I switch a lot but always seem to come back eventually. I like their privacy and encryption stance and trust them above any other productivity app to look after my data.

I’m starting to test and will let you know how I get on.

Omnigroup

Here’s an update on my home screen, specifically the iPad Pro 10.5” that has become my main device.

Here’s the apps I use the most.

• OmniFocus: I bounce between to do apps almost monthly but I'm trying to get myself settled on OmniFocus
• Wordpress: The app I use to manage my blog and add new posts
• Music: I'm an Apple Music subscriber and aside from a few UI issues I've come to like it a lot
• Tweetbot: My Twitter app of choice, I cannot stand the official app so I'm hoping that we continue to see updates to third party apps
• Notes: My note taking app of choice, reliable sync and being able to use the Apple Pencil means that I can use it for both work and play
• IA Writer: I use iA Writer to sketch out ideas and start the bulk of the writing on my posts
• DuckDuckGo browser: Pretty much replaced Safari for me these days, puts privacy first and gets frequent updates
• Marvel Unlimited: I've recently got back into comic books having read them growing up, Marvel Unlimited gives me everything I need, although I wish that you could download more than 12 issues when on the go

What are some of your favourite apps?

I’ve been using a mixture of Todoist and Reminders but now I’m into 2018 I’ve decided to make a switch back to OmniFocus.

Todoist was fine but it’s update to include little illustrations didn’t sit well with me. Reminders is ok for basics but not to plan a lot of projects.

So, I made the decision to go all in on OmniFocus.

The most important decision when choosing a to do app is trust. Do you trust that when you get something off your mind it’ll stay safe somewhere until you need to see it?

With OmniFocus and more importantly the Omnigroup I trust them as I do Apple with my data. I can’t say the same for most others.

I’ll keep you updated on my configuration and how I’m getting on.