There are a plethora of articles promoting and dissecting the tenants and principles proposed by Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work. That's what led me to picking it for an episode of Bookworm. After implementing my takeaways for about a month, I can see a decided difference in my productivity and effectiveness. It's what allowed me to release Working With OmniFocus when I did and to develop the depth of detail in those videos.
Working With OmniFocus has been recreated in video format! It's now available on the new dedicated website: workingwithomnifocus.com.
For the last year I've been running my business from a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. No iPad. No Watch. And no external monitors.
I hear people refer to information overwhelm more often than I would expect. The context varies but the idea is the same: finding information on the internet is so easy that the person has a hard time deciphering what is right and what to question. Some even take it as far as to suggest Google is making us dumb.
One of the most difficult aspects of building websites or doing knowledge work full-time is the lack of motivation and pride that typically comes from physically seeing the work of your hands. Yes, it is possible to achieve this sense of accomplishment when working purely with information and computers, but it's far from natural.
I have been hesitant to adopt the new automation methods in OmniFocus for iOS. The abilities of the new URL Scheme are exciting but there's still quite a bit missing from the structure as it stands.
One of the common threads in the books we've read for Bookworm is the impact of computers on our effectiveness, self-control, and overall happiness in life. Their prevalence and ubiquity in our world coupled with the newness and speed of their adoption has a lot of us wondering and speculating about the positives and negatives of this shift. So I would expect any book written in the last decade to incorporate thoughts on the topic.
When Smile introduced the new "Snippet As A Service" version of TextExpander, there was quite an outcry. To be completely honest, I was confused by and resistant to the change at the onset. However, if I look at the new version without allowing my previous experience to color my opinion, it is striking how similar it is to my other choices for software.
I follow specific websites less and less. I'm more inclined to follow people and services on Twitter and Medium that act as sources of curated articles. This gives me the ability to find sites I normally would have glossed over and still read my favorite writers.
It's been about nine months since I released Working With OmniFocus. A lot has happened in that time and my systems around OmniFocus have morphed quite a bit. Throw in a pile of learning accrued from other projects and I have decided to make some significant changes to the book.
TextExpander and OmniFocus are two of the first tools I install on any new device, so it's no surprise that the two work well together. You may expect some kind of Applescripting or shell magic, but I keep this extremely simple and only use true text expansion with OmniFocus. I run the scripts manually or behind the scenes with Hazel.
When I consolidated a handful of my inboxes into my email it made me rethink my home screen. I had previously kept it slim but this takes it a step further and creates significant resistance to activities better left undone.
I have a lot going on with a number of new projects taking off. But with new doors opening, a few doors need to be closed.
Our ability to come up with ideas is like a muscle. If we work on it and develop the right habits, we get stronger and have more options available to us. But it's difficult to build muscle if you don't understand "how" the muscle works and the mechanics behind its improvement. Getting ideas is challenging until you learn what they are and how they work.
Every time I come across an article that compares applications or declares an app to be the best at something, I cringe. Very few of them explain the scenarios necessary to make their conclusion valid.
I have detailed my writing process quite a bit lately, but that made me realize I have never pulled all the pieces of my podcasting setup together. Let's change that.
In order to read a book every two weeks (and sometimes every week) I have had to make reading a practice that is incorporated throughout my day. Having a single time for reading isn't enough and it has become a ritual I like to incorporate as many places as I can.
If you create content in any form and have dabbled in multiple mediums, you're left with a decision about which method of consumption is best for the topic you want to present.
There are times when you realize a project needs to take a hard turn. Your original intent is good, but it doesn't accomplish your goal as well as it might.
For years I have wanted to read more books. Prolific readers rave about the benefits and world-renowned leaders often attribute their ideas and successes to their habit of reading, but to me the benefits of having read a lot of books was secondary to the innate sense that a realm of knowledge and experience was available to me, but I was missing it.
I'm pushing pen addict status. I don't think I'm there yet, but I do have three fountain pens that I thoroughly enjoy using.
It's a trap so easy to fall for: we find ourselves spending multiple hours fine-tuning, tweaking, and developing the simple structure that will automatically create more time and 3X our daily productivity.
When I made the decision to embrace pen and paper, the need for structure quickly showed its face. I wanted my writing to live in a single notebook, but that meant I needed a method of tracking progress on pieces without thumbing through the whole notebook.
I sometimes listen to books via audio but there are a couple flaws with audiobooks that have me avoiding them when I can.
The purpose of my inbox consolidation project is to cut back on the number of places I go to make decisions about my "open loops". Between feeds, social media, and our always-on expectations, it becomes a habit and struggle to keep up with the mass of apps and information thrown at us. My theory was to create an aggregated inbox via email that combines these potentially overwhelming sources of inputs. The hope was to build a system that helps me scale back on the time and impulse to repeatedly process these inboxes.
One habit that Evernote taught me was that of creating databases, collections of text and pictures that revolve around a specific topic or item. I'm yet to export my Evernote data into my alternative storage system but I have solved my most glaring issue: searching and viewing these databases on iOS.
What you do for your morning and evening rituals doesn't have to match what others do. The top 10 things that highly successful people do in the morning may derail your day entirely.
Keeping different types of information in separate apps or systems is sometimes worth the extra infrastructure. But there is also a lot of value and mental freedom in using an existing process for multiple forms of data.
As part of a new project that will be released in a few weeks, I recently reread Getting Things Done by David Allen. I found it interesting that David hasn't changed his tune when it comes to information overload. Despite a dramatic increase in technology and the volume of inputs as compared to the original writing, he still advocates for the same capture mechanisms and clarification process.
👋 I'm Joe. I strive to build productivity systems that stand the test of time and help me do more than check boxes. I'm here to help you do the same.
🎙 I read a lot of books and talk about it.
🐿 I can't focus on one thing for long, so I write a lot of code for an eclectic grouping of projects.
📓 And I'm a bit obsessed with finding non-proprietary solutions to digital problems. Thus, text files for the win! 🎉
