The Trouble With To-Dos

Written on February 22, 2012 by in Productivity

A while back I shared my three types of tasks: Appointments, Reminders and To-Dos. I think I may have gotten this wrong and something tells me that the new iPhone application Clear may have as well (although that doesn’t seem to be hurting sales one bit).

I Was Wrong1

“To Do” is too broad of a term. Essentially anything you undertake is a to-do. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps I was mistaken when I called my previous post “Three Types of Tasks.” The terms task and to-do should likely have been reversed (more on this in a second).

Not only do I think I got the name wrong, I missed a big one: lists. This is really where apps like Clear and Listary shine. So while it’s accurate to call Clear a to-do app, I can’t help but think it would have been better branded as a list manager.

It’s obviously doing well in the app store, but I can’t help but think that for the moment this is more a matter of the look, the feel and the price than it is a clarity of use. We’re already seeing some confusion as to where it fits from those reviewing it and I have to imagine that this spreads to the end user. So many reviews (even the raves) are having to compare and give context to apps like OmniFocus, but these apps are complementary, not competitive.

With this in mind, let me do a little reframing…

The Four Types of To-dos

The Reminder

Reminders are the easiest to handle and often the easiest to forget. Almost daily, there will be something small and inconsequential that I need to remember to bring in the morning or take home at night. These to-dos are rarely essential and my brain has an uncanny knack for forgetting them altogether.

The Appointment

Appointments are anything that needs to happen at a specific time. These live on your calendar and are the least flexible type of to-do.

The Task

The most common type of to-do, this is anything that you hope to accomplish that isn’t minor, like a reminder, or time specific, like an appointment. This includes anything from needing to write an email to all of the elements required to accomplish a major project.

The List

Lists are a subsect of tasks. Where they differ is that they are usually untethered to projects and have no start or due date. This could include lists of books, movies and shows you’d like to get around to at some point. Conversely, lists can also be for short-term things like groceries. More often than not, they represent things you need or want to get more than they will be things you need to do.

Check back tomorrow or subscribe for free by RSS or email. I’m going to be following up with a list of the tools I use for all four types of to-dos.

  1. And those of you who know me, know just how bad I am at saying that… [↩]
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Apple Is Getting Ready For The Next Wave Of Mac Users

Written on February 21, 2012 by in Technology

Note: This is going to be my last bit of Apple pseudo-punditry for a while. I promise.

A Tale Of Three Apple Customers

My move to the Mac is a familiar tale. In 2002 I got the first Windows compatible iPod and moved my music over to iTunes. I was blown away by just how much better both the device and the software that complemented it were compared to anything I had used. Two years after purchasing that device, I needed to buy a new computer. It was then that I bought my first Mac. I never looked back.

Here’s another familiar story. A friend got the first iPhone in 2007. They had the iPod and used iTunes, but the light bulb didn’t come on for them until they experienced the iPhone and got a deeper glimpse into Apple’s approach to hardware and software. When they needed to buy a new computer, they purchased a Mac. They never looked back.

Here’s the story we’re about to see. There’s a fairly large group of people who probably owned an iPod, but they didn’t purchase an iPhone because of AT&T or work or stubbornness. When the iPad came around they gave it a shot and fell in love. They are doing more than they ever would have imagined on the device.

Even though OS X lags significantly behind iOS adoption, sales for the various Mac models have been steadily on the rise since Windows users got their first taste of Apple products in 2002. While not surprising, there was nothing about an iPod made switching from the Mac easier. There was little about the iPhone that made the shift easier. The iPad however fills, if not replaces, many (but not all) of the roles of a traditional PC and is exposing an entirely new customer base to the Apple approach to computing.

What’s The Meaning Of Mountain Lion

There’s been a lot of argument over the past week regarding the future of OS X. Some feel that the upcoming Mountain Lion release makes OS X more like iOS and others feel that this is “shit.” This debate, while interesting, is irrelevant as one thing is clear: Both of these platforms are getting closer together because of clear steps that Apple is taking to align the two. By bridging this gap with the upcoming release of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is looking to accommodate an upcoming wave of Mac users1. They want to make a transition tempting by helping the Mac look and feel far more familiar to these customer’s beloved iPads. Both operating systems remain optimized for the capabilities of different devices, but overall the experience is now and will continue to be far more unified.

There are many first time Apple customers who are loving their iPad right now. Soon they will look to purchase their next full-fledged computer. With the latest changes Apple is just making sure that those who switch never look back.

  1. While making life a bit more consistent for existing users. [↩]
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Getting Lazy With OmniFocus, Keyboard Maestro and TextExpander

Written on February 20, 2012 by in Productivity

The Techie Scheky series offers tips and tactics for being more productive and creative through technology (especially with a Mac).

Like most of my techie ideas, this one has essentially been ripped off by work that was already done by Sven Fechner of Simplicity is Bliss (amazing blog for OmniFocus users) and David Sparks of MacSparky.

Sven kicked things off by showing how he uses TextExpander within OmniFocus to track the status of projects he delegates to others. This encouraged David to share several of his own TextExpander shortcuts for speeding up new entries in OmniFocus. Driven by my innate laziness, I decided to see if I could push things one step further. Since they both “threw down with a video,” as David so eloquently put it, I decided to create one of my own to show you how to use Keyboard Maestro to significantly speed up repetitive email clipping.

Getting Even Lazier Keyboard Maestro

I wanted to see if I could clip text from an email, fill in my information and archive the message as quickly as possible. The macros are setup for users of Mailplane, but you could easily adapt it to work with Mail.app. This time there are two versions, the first is for follow up that has the same context, project and due date in OmniFocus. Rather than going through the motions to process the email, this macro will only prompt me for the task name. The second version gives me the added ability to set a single start and due date for deferring these email responses with greater control.

You can download the macros here and customize them to fit your needs. You can even create multiple versions to fit different contexts, projects or start and due dates.

Bonus For You TextExpander Fans

Note: This isn’t working in the current version of TextExpander in Lion, but it is going to be fixed shortly with the introduction of version 3.41.

I initially started this project in TextExpander. While it wasn’t able to do everything I wanted, it’s still pretty darn useful. Especially when doing multiple entries through the quick entry box. Here’s the snippet:

%key:tab%Customer Follow%key:tab%Work%key:tab%%key:tab%tom%key:tab%Follow up on

Once I trigger the OmniFocus clipper for email, I evoke this snippet and get the following:

Using text expander snippets in OmniFocus

From there, all you need to do is finish the subject for a task and hit enter to add it into OmniFocus.

You can take the snippet above and change the information between the %key:tab% symbols and adjust this as many ways as you might need.

If, like me, you find yourself consistently creating the same deferred email responses, give these Keyboard Maestro macros and TextExpander snippets a shot. I think you’ll agree that this speeds things up quite nicely.

To learn more, subscribe for free by Email or RSS to automatically receive future Techie Scheky posts from A Better Mess.

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Responsive App Design

Written on February 17, 2012 by in Technology

With the introduction of OS X Mountain Lion it is obvious that Apple is aligning the Mac with iOS devices, but it also feels like more.

The approach is akin to responsive web design: the need for sites to adjust and adapt to best leverage the device on which they are displayed. This is something that is becoming a standard when designing for the web and after this summer’s release I can’t help but wonder if it will become the standard for our applications. One look at this image from the Macworld article announcing Mountain Lion and another from The Theme Foundry’s Duet theme for WordPress and you see how one informs the other.

OS X Mountain Lion Messages App on an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air

The Messages App on an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air

The Duet WordPress theme from The Theme Foundry

The Duet WordPress theme from The Theme Foundry

Much like responsive web design, both the form and functionality of any given app are culled as real estate and processing power are reduced. Compromises are made to ensure the best possible experience on any given device. Eventually, you wouldn’t seek out an application on your Mac and then find one that can sync with it on your iPhone (e.g. nvALT and Simplenote). The expectation would be one unified application that has been seamlessly thought through at all levels, making the distinction between mobile and desktop that much more irrelevant. This could inevitably lead to a unified App Store with truly universal apps that span both OS X and iOS.

More than an alignment of two operating systems, you can’t help but wonder if this will continue to bring the best practices used in development for the web, for our apps and for our operating systems one step closer together.

Note: Updated with an additional thought on the future of the App Store and Mac App Store

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The Four Laws Of Better Blogging

Written on February 16, 2012 by in Creativity

From Iain Broome:

Write from experience.

Tell the truth.

Be helpful.

Enjoy it.

We often look for advice on how to be better bloggers and better writers. We often find long-winded, convoluted suggestions on how to achieve this. We seek out advice on blogs like this one. For a moment, take a step back from the tactical and assume that all we really need to do our best work are these four simple truths. They may be all we need to improve.

Speaking of improving, if you could use a bit more help than these four words provide, I suggest checking out Write For Your Life, Iain’s new podcast along with Myke Hurly on the 70Decibels network. In just two episodes, it offered suggestions that have me striving to be both a better blogger and writer.

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Clear vs. Listary: Is There A Clear Winner?

Written on February 15, 2012 by in Productivity

One of the rules I often try and fail to stick to is to not look for a slightly better tool once I’ve found something that works. For creating and editing lists, that tool has always been Listary. I’ve been with the app for a while now and despite a “nothing special” user interface, Listary has been developed to the point where it does just about everything I want (except work with Launch Center, but apparently they are working on that). Since I’m weak-willed and want to know what all the other geeks are talking about, I decided to give the new kid on the block Clear a shot and now I’m torn… Before I get into the benefits of one application vs. the other, let me explain where Listary fits.

What About OmniFocus?

As anyone who has read this blog for more than a week likely knows, I’m a big OmniFocus fan. So why the hell would I need anything even slightly resembling a to-do list? Great question. The answer: as much as I try to keep as much of my life in OmniFocus as possible, there are certain things it just isn’t best or even meant for. It isn’t ideal for maintaining lists of book’s you’d like to read, movies you’d like to see or receiving disordered grocery lists that one’s wife may tend to text to him1. Don’t get me wrong, you could do all of this in OmniFocus, but it isn’t the best possible tool for the job.

Lots To Like About Listary!

Listary is tailor-made for exactly this kind of list making. It’s easy to add, check off and reorganize items. It syncs with Simplenote and nvALT, so I can seamlessly add items to any list through my Mac. Best of all, when my wife sends me a list of thirty completely disordered items from the supermarket, I can copy the text, paste it in one box and as long as she hit enter on her phone between ever item it parses every line as a unique entry. Within seconds of receiving her text, I can add and completely reorder the list based on where things are in the store (something she has deemed irrelevant). In the cases where she just sends me everything as one long paragraph, I can jump into Simplenote and add the line breaks myself. Either way, it’s far and away the fastest method I’ve found for turning text messages into task lists.

Clear Looks And Feels Great!

Now Clear has no syncing capability to speak of, no options for adding tasks on your other devices, no ability to share lists, yet I’m not going to lie, it’s a tempting application. The user interface is a pleasure, both to look at and to use. The team at Realmac Software, the makers of Clear, have focused on the features most of us would want to use… well, all except two: one that I consider to be essential and one that would-be nice. While it is far easier to add, remove and reorder single items on Clear than it is on Listary, it’s a pain to add the kind of large lists I’ve described above. For the moment, you have to go one at a time and a long grocery list would require me jumping back and forth between my text and the app. I would also love to see Launch Center integration so I can quickly add a line item into a specific list, but this is more a luxury than a necessity.

Update: While not list specific, it does appear that you can use Launch Center with Clear.

What’s The Bottom Line?

In truth, as much as I love the features of Listary, I rarely use all that many of them. My wife doesn’t want to use the app, so shared lists don’t matter to me. My phone is always with me, so adding things through Simplenote, while nice, isn’t necessary (except for turning paragraphs into tasks as I mentioned above). Clear, on the other hand, lacks such a basic feature in bulk entry that I’m not sure I can take it seriously, no matter how much of a pleasure it is to use. While there is no clear winner (sorry for the pun), the lack of bulk entry on Clear’s part is going to keep me steering clear (I can’t help myself) of an application that I’m really tempted to use.

Update: About 30 seconds after this post went live, I received the following tweets from the team at Listary:

Not only was it refreshing to see an acknowledgement of what Clear has created, it left me excited to see how the team at Listary will respond to the competition.

  1. Hypothetically speaking… [↩]
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Code-Free Geekery

Written on February 14, 2012 by in Creativity, Productivity, Technology

From Gabe Weatherhead of Macdrifter:

It doesn’t take an engineer to suggest a solution. If a person can use TextExpander, then they have the skills to make technical solutions to interesting problems.

Shameful geek confession: I don’t know how to code. Not one bit. I’ve thought about learning over the years, but I’ve never committed the time to learning how to make a computer do exactly what I want it to do. When I see the things that people like Brett Terpstra, Dr. Drang and Gabe create, I get envious. When I hear Merlin talk about getting closer to the metal, I get tempted. So when Codeacademy offered Code Year, a year-long plan to learn how to code, I signed up along with 384,000 other eager students.

After a month, I’ve come to a conclusion that learning to code isn’t in the cards for 2012. When I look at my priorities and my goals for the year, it isn’t essential. As Gabe points out, the apps that are now available make it possible for someone like myself who has no coding abilities whatsoever to accomplish just about everything I need to. While I’ve had to stretch my own skills, I’m yet to find a problem that Google1 and an existing solution hasn’t been able to solve2. Oftentimes I need to combine a few things together, but I’m yet to find anything that would warrant the time required to learn these skills at this point in my life.

As someone with a full time job, a family with two young children, a blog and a podcast, learning to code just wasn’t going to be a reality. Instead, I’ve come to realize that what I really want to focus on is what I’ve already started sharing here: code-free geekery… showing people just what’s possible with the tools that are already at our disposal. Tools that are simple to use and don’t require a year-long program. I want to show those who have always used excuses like, “I’m just not all that good at computers” what they can accomplish if they are just willing to get past their excuses and over their fear of technology.

Perhaps I’ll come back to coding when time allows, but the reality is, you can make an amazing amount of things for others with your computer without ever actually learning how to make something for your computer.

If you’re yet to subscribe, feel free to signup for free delivery of future posts by RSS or email. There’s lots more code-free geekery to come.

  1. or DuckDuckGo if you’re Mike Vardy. [↩]
  2. Or that I haven’t be willing to live without. [↩]
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