Why Would Apple Make The Mac Less Efficient?

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 0 Comments

From Erica Sadun at TUAW regarding App Sandboxing:

Goodbye hotkeys, macro programs, end-user customization, and all the detritus of operating systems that were full of holes to crawl into and dumpsters wherein to dive. The new, clean way of computing is on its way. It may be a lot less fun but it’s gonna sell a hell of a lot of Macs.

I understand making the Mac easier for new users. I understand protecting users from potential security risks. I don’t understand the reason Apple would have for eliminating behaviors that make their computers easier to use.

When I have a new appointment, I use a hotkey to trigger Fantastical. When I have a task, I use one open OmniFocus’ Quick Entry Panel (or their clipper). When I want to do just about anything, I use a hotkey to activate LaunchBar. This happens regardless of where I am on my system and does not require me to touch my mouse or visit a menu of applications.

A decision to remove these hotkeys would reduce the need for these types apps and shrink the market for applications, making Apple less money in the App store. Perhaps Apple is going to change how they types of interactions happen going forward, but I cant see why they would remove them entirely. It adds very little protection to users (especially for apps that go through the Mac App Store review process) and makes using a Mac more difficult (as well as less efficient).

Hopefully this is a case of someone being first rather than right. Then again Apple had no problem ditching its hardcore Final Cut users in hope of a larger audience…

It has now been confirmed to Macworld that this will not be the case and apps using global hotkeys will remain welcome in the Mac App Store. Let’s hope it isn’t. Hat tip to Gabe at Macdrifter for the heads up.

Updated

(Hat tip to Stephen Hackett)

Filed Under: Productivity

17 Productivity Apps Guaranteed To Fix All Of Your Problems

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 0 Comments

Sit down, we need to talk. Chances are if you clicked this link, you click links just like it all the time. There is also a pretty good chance that those posts didn’t help all that much (you did click on another one after all…). And if I were actually about to list “17 apps to turbo charge your universe”, I’m certain they wouldn’t help you very much either.

Now before you run away ranting and raving about false advertising, I am going to offer some tips and tools for improving your productivity. But before I do, I want to make a few things clear…

There is no productivity silver bullet

I wish there were, but there is no suite of apps or productivity solution that is going to solve all of your problems. If, like me you, tend to be a disorganized mess, you are going to have to experiment with many of the tools and tactics. Sadly, finding what works with your own personal breed of chaos takes time and often pain to uncover.

Creating your own workflows is no easy feat

For some, a pad and paper is all that is needed to get things done. If you clicked on this link, you aren’t one of them. You likely needed something more robust, and robust tools come with a learning curve. You also aren’t just looking for a tool for one problem. You need a variety of answers for a range of issues including idea capture, email management, file storage and task management. Each of these are complicated, overlapping challenges which often require powerful solutions. Applying tools and tactics to these overwhelming problems comes from trial, error and experimentation. All of these take time to identify, implement and assess.

What works for me probably won’t work for you

Anyone who tells you they have the solution is selling you a bill of goods. Anyone who offers a solution, now that’s someone you’re probably going to want to hear out. As you spend more time “getting more productive” by following and learning from productive people one thing becomes crystal clear. No two productivity systems are alike. So your time is far better spent finding your own than it is trying to make theirs work for you.

A few ideas for getting started

  1. Stop looking for a quick fix – Start looking for solutions instead. A solution takes longer, but makes a lasting impact. I know you are busy, probably too busy to take a step back and focus on how you approach your work. All I can tell you is that the time I’ve take to do this in my own life is paying dividends.
  2. Go one tool at a time – While you want to think of your personal productivity system as a whole, you need to deal with each aspect individually. You need to find the tools and tactics that work well together, but trying to tackle everything at once is a guarantee that nothing will improve. Building a sound foundation needs to be done slowly and carefully. Especially if you plan to build something big and ambitious on top of it.
  3. Find the people most likely to help you – Things did not start to improve for me until I discovered Merlin Mann. His challenges align with many of my own and his solutions fit my personality. What started with Inbox Zero led me to his Mac Power Users episodes. These made a massive difference in the way I work, but even Merlin’s approach didn’t work perfectly. It’s been a combination of his ideas, the thoughts of others like David Sparks, Gabe Weatherhead, Mike Vardy and Yuvi Zalkow blended together with my own efforts that have led to progress.

I wish I had 17 tools for you. I wish I had an easy answer. Having spent 32 of my 32 years struggling with disorganization, all I can tell you is that there isn’t one. I’ve tried a lot in my time and taking the slower, harder approach of addressing my problems with real solutions is proving to be far more effective than seeking out a quick fix. Is it fun? No. But little by little, I’m starting to see significant improvements from all of the incremental changes in my life.

What has your experience been? Have you had results with quick-fix lists or have you also had to slowly, painfully overcome your productivity woes?

Filed Under: Productivity

Learning vs. Using Our Applications

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 7 Comments

Michael Loop on Gamification:

This is a critical inflection point where the user is weighing the following: is the amount of investment I’ve made to date worth banging my head against the screen trying to figure out what to do next? [...]
I’m going to compare Portal and Photoshop. Yes, they reside in two entirely different universes with entirely different motivations. This is about how these two universes should collide and that means what I’m really talking about is gamification. There’s a reason I didn’t mention this until paragraph 17 because there are a lot of folks who think gamification means pulling the worst aspects out of games and shoving them into an application. It’s not. Don’t think of gamification as anything other than clever strategies to motivate someone to learn so they can have fun being productive.

When we talk gamification we often think of those stupid reward systems that many applications use to try and keep us “engaged in the app”. Badges in Foursquare are a perfect example. They’re super fun until we realize months later that we’ve given up a tremendous amount of our personal data in exchange for meaningless symbols. Recently, applications like Clear for the iPhone and Photoshop for the iPad have been showing off a second breed of gamification, an experience where the application teaches us to use it in much the same way video games orient new users.

In simple cases such as the iOS to-do app Clear, this orientation happens when a user first starts the application and introduces the functionality all at once. In more complicated examples, learning happens over time as new skills are needed. The interactive tutorials in Photoshop for the iPad are a perfect example of this. While interesting and often helpful, I’m still not sure that this is what developers, especially those of applications that appeal to power users, should be focusing on.

Let’s look at OmniFocus for the Mac, an application that is utterly unintuitive to learn. It has a steep learning curve, but it was exceptionally easy to use once I was over the hump. I don’t suffer when using OmniFocus; I only had to get through the training. Time spent by the developer improving this initial stages might have gotten me oriented earlier and may make the product more appealing to new users. While these are both good things, I worry that this shift has the potential to defocus the developers. I would rather know that the OmniGroup is working on new features that improve everyday use than optimizing the three hours of my life it took me to watch David Sparks training videos.

I don’t always want to learn as I go. I don’t always want to discover. When it comes to the tools that I use, I often want to learn and then go. Over the past two years, I’ve banged my head against the wall of learning several powerful applications. While the learning process wasn’t always thought out (I’m talking to you OmniFocus… no matter how much I love you), the pain of learning was offset by the power and usefulness once I was up and running. Powerful applications will always come with a learning curve. Things can be easier, but not everything is Portal: a cool, but limited world with finite rules and finite lessons to learn.

This really isn’t about gamification, it’s about intuitive interfaces and better user experiences. And to be honest, I think more restrictive interfaces like the iPhone and iPad are doing far more to drive application design than any inspiration drawn from games like Portal (although, I won’t argue, Portal is easy to learn and a lot of fun to play). We’re already starting to see the impact of this with applications like OmniFocus and Photoshop on iOS. The limitations of the iPad, iPhone and iOS are driving innovations that lead to a more intuitive experience. And hopefully, we will continue to more of these innovations working their way into the full blown versions of the applications.

Can developers like the OmniGroup rethink the “on boarding” experience? Absolutely. Would I rather them focus that energy on the interface and features that I will use every day rather than just at the beginning? Certainly.

How about you? Would you prefer a better learning experience, a better user experience or is Michael right and developers are going to have to find a way to balance both?

Filed Under: Productivity

The Mistake We Make About Us and Them

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 16 Comments

I was recently at a friends for dinner and at one point my host pulled out his computer. It wasn’t ten seconds after he put it down that I was questioning the way he was using it (tangental moral: never have me a dinner guest). It looked as if every application on the computer was in his dock and I asked if he ever considered using something like LaunchBar instead. He said he liked it this way and we got on a tangent about how we used our machines.

To say that we both have drastically different approaches to using what is essentially the same computer is an understatement. To say that I wanted to help him, to show him how he was doing it wrong, to show him the “right way,” also an understatement. I started down this misguided course, but quickly realized the futility of the act. He was comfortable doing things the “wrong way”. In fact, he couldn’t even seem to imagine a world where things could be better. He had his trusted system, no matter how wrong it may have felt to me.

Despite the fact that I still think he uses the computer like a silly little man, it got me thinking. He’s not wrong. It’s not that “they” are doing it wrong, it’s that they don’t need to do it. They either don’t care or more likely don’t need to put nearly as much thought as I do into their usage. Their brains are better at organizing or the tools don’t make nearly as much of a difference. The time spent learning “the right way” or even just finding “their own way” wouldn’t be worth the bump in productivity.

It’s easy to forget that the average user doesn’t think about their tech tools the way we do. They don’t think in terms of workflows. Their thoughts never turn to data portability, interoperability, services, macros, snippets. Why do you think Apple is going out of their way to make things like iCloud feel invisible instead of innovative? It’s not a product geared towards “us”; it’s tailor made for “them”. We’re talking about an audience who often struggles to understand what an application like Dropbox does, never mind how it could help (in this case that “audience” is my wife, but I digress).

The problem with us Markdown-loving, Plain Text using, TextExpanding, Keyboard Maestroing, OmniFocusers: we’ve found so many of ourselves that we forget we’re a minority. We care (and care deeply) about things that only a small percentage of overall users care about. We need or want things that others just don’t care about or have a use for. They may become curious, but chances are we will quickly overwhelm the hell out of them when they finally come looking. Let’s face it: there’s little doubt that they are doing it wrong, but we’re not going to get that point across if we keep telling them that…

Filed Under: Productivity, Self-Improvement

Structuring Your Ideas With Scrivener and iThoughts HD

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 4 Comments

Oftentimes small ideas become bigger. A project that we may have thought would only be a few hundred words turns out to require a few thousand. Our small and big ideas tend to need very different kinds of nurturing. While a small idea might flow freely, our bigger plans require better planning.

When it comes to my writing, I have two distinct workflows. A freeform process for exploring smaller ideas and a more structured approach to larger projects (I go into both of these at length in my Writer Workflow post over on Gabe Weatherhead’s Macdrifter site). Smaller projects always start the same way. An idea occurs to me and I just start writing (or I revisit a previously captured idea). Larger projects, start in iThoughts HD. I think about what I want to say and use this excellent mind-mapping application for the iPad to flesh it out. Once I’m happy with the outline, I import it into Scrivener and have at it. Most of the time, I’m able to discern the best possible path for an idea. Occasionally, I guess wrong and need to adjust accordingly.

What To Do When A Small Idea Suddenly Gets Bigger?

I recently had a project that ballooned on me. I was expecting something small, perhaps 500-750 words. When I looked up, several hours later, there were a few thousand. I did my best to keep going, but inevitably I found myself getting lost. Byword, the app I usually write smaller posts in, suddenly became the wrong tool for the job. I wanted to map things out, but I also didn’t want to start over. So what to do? Well, much of the workflow on my larger projects is stolen from David Sparks “Dancing with OPML” post. This is how I’ve taken my mind maps in the past and gotten them into Scrivener. I wanted to see if I could reverse the process and take an unwieldy document, break it up in Scrivener and then export it as an OPML (along with all of the text that I’ve written) in order to create a mind map.

Thankfully it proved to be possible. Here’s how…

From Document to Mind Map and Back Again

  1. Copy your text.
  2. Create a new Scrivener Project (or folder within an existing project).
  3. Split your project into paragraphs or sections.
  4. Export as an OPML file to Dropbox (NOTE: You must select Titles and Text when exporting).
  5. Import your mind map into iThoughts HD.
  6. If you selected your entire “Draft” folder in Scrivener, you will need to remove the “Drafts” node from the mind map.
  7. Add whatever structure is needed and export an new OPML to Dropbox.
  8. Import your work into a new Scrivener Project or folder.
  9. Get back to writing.

Here’s a quick screencast showing you how:

Taking A Step Back Before Moving Forward

It’s easy to get lost in large writing projects, especially when what you thought was a small idea suddenly proves to be bigger than you expected. Taking a step back to add structure and rethink your approach might take a little while longer in the short run, but can save you time and missteps as you move forward.

How about you? What do you do when you find that something you thought was easy suddenly feels a lot more complex? What’s your best secret for adding a little or to your chaos, regardless is it is a writing project or not?

Filed Under: Productivity

The One Thing | Paperless by David Sparks

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 4 Comments

The One Thing, simply put, features one thing on the internet that captured my attention and that I believe is worthy of yours.

The thought of going paperless is as tempting as it is terrifying. Thankfully David Sparks (a.k.a. MacSparky) offers up a roadmap that even the tech terrified can follow to help eliminate as much paper as possible from their lives.

Long time readers of the site know that I have a contentious relationship with paper. No only did I start reading the book immediately, I finished all 27,000 words in a single sitting. It’s a useful, logical and thorough look at every aspect of going from paper laden to paper free. I’ve made great strides in my own paperless workflow, but I still picked up a ton of tips and tactics.

Aside from being well written and helpful, it’s also a beautiful experience that sets the standard for the new iBooks platform. With 32 screencasts and a slew of photo galleries and interactive images, it feels more like an interactive learning experience than a book.

If you’re even remotely curious about reducing paper or want to eliminate it entirely, Paperless is for you. And it’s just $5 in the iBookstore.

Be sure to subscribe for free by Email or RSS to automatically receive future additions to The One Thing series and more from A Better Mess.

Filed Under: Productivity

Actually Make Something

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Michael Schechter • 13 Comments

I come from a world of physical products, a world of wholesale and retail, and people offering up their hard earned money in exchange for a physical product. It’s a very different world from this one. It’s different from a world where our ideas, our words and our time might be all that’s needed to make a living.

There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding the realities of making a living solely from online advertising and how it’s creating a race to the bottom. Gabe over at Macdrifter made an excellent counterpoint, talking about how it’s truly a race to the top. I agree with his take and if you’re looking to make a living online, I strongly suggest that you read it. There are a ton of websites that are going to contradict me, but let me be blunt: there are very few people who will be able to sustain making a living solely by sharing their opinions on the internet and putting them next to ads. It’s going to be difficult no matter how they seek to make that living, no matter how important they, or even their audience, think those opinions are.

It often seems large, but those who make a full-time living writing for the web are the tiniest visible tip of the iceberg that is people writing on the web. And those who sustain that living for a lifetime… well, let’s just say that we should probably start a hall-of-fame for achieving that feat. It’s also rare that web-based writing alone will generate enough income regardless of how you “monetize”1. There are speaking gigs, book deals, consulting jobs, book tours, side projects, paid products. It’s a lot like a musician’s life. Seemingly awesome, these jobs are actually ton of hard, occasionally soul-crushing work.

I probably have no business talking about this considering I’m not looking to make my living from these words. This is a passion project and a regular attempt to sharpen my own pencil (while occasionally, hopefully helping others). All you really get here are opinions, experiences and occasionally a little bit of fact. No matter how good I get at serving those up, it’s unlikely that this will ever feed my family (although it may help keep the lights on and might even put some beer in the fridge).

Unless you are that rare anomaly, you’re going to have to do more. If you want to make a living doing this, you’re going to have to go one step farther. You’re going to have to make more than words, you’re actually going to have to make something. Actually, scratch that, you’re probably going to have to make a lot of things. Things that we want. Things that make it easy for us to help support you living and that enable you to sustain it.

The reality is, if you’re looking to make a living by typing words and posting them on a website, you’re going to be cobbling that living together for a while… you know, just like every other early-stage business owner out there. Encourage your readers to help, give them a reason to help support you, but if you really want this to be your livelihood you’re going to have to make something more than just your words alone. No matter how valuable they actually might be.

  1. Yes, I hate that word as much as the rest of you. [↩]
Filed Under: Creativity