stephen.nyc

Category: Productivity

  • The Best Daily Note iOS Shortcuts

    I am not interested in shelling out money to use productivity apps. This is for two reasons:

    1. Most productivity software has moved to a subscription model. No thanks.
    2. Apple provides these out-of-the-box on iOS and macOS. Seems good!

    If those two items resonate with you, you’ve come to the right place. There’s of course problems with staying with the Apple ecosystem. For example features and bugfixes typically only ship once a year. Sometimes, you get no features at all in a given release cycle! A small trade-off for inexpensive productivity apps.

    I love Obsidian. Especially because you get a lot for free. But, I keep coming back to the Notes App. It is simply too easy to use and frankly more available when I just need a place to jot something down. It also seems that Apple is making incremental steps to improve Notes, especially in the context of Apple Intelligence making its way to iOS users very soon:

    https://www.threads.net/@ipedro/post/C7kVjYeuloz

    That being said, the true power of the Notes app lies hidden within another another app altogether… Shortcuts! iOS Shortcuts are the key to unlocking more effective productivity across the Apple ecosystem.

    I’m shamelessly re-posting Volkov’s iOS Shortcuts from his piece titled, The Digital Minimalist’s Complete Guide to Information Management in Apple Ecosystem:

    Basic with No Tasks:https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/9f26253a78a7462b87eb29a374e88fe4

    Daily Plan based on Reminders:https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/d980745a1468406cbc11f63df7cbb271

    Daily Plan based on Things 3 (latest version):https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b28b3936596d44fea7311cc92e59e6d9

    Daily Plan for TickTick (a bit different logic):https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/47d10b291c9747c2b744059289c6ed33

    I recommend taking Volkov’s Shortcuts and editing them to your liking! For example, I like the ‘Basic’ shortcut as a base template. I edited the shortcut to always save a note in a Daily Notes folder and to always default to ISO 8601 date format (e.g. 2024-06-29).

    Probably anecdotal at this point, but I keep my Shortcut on my homescreen over the actual Notes app, so I can always tap right into my Daily Note:

    If you want my fork of Volkov’s daily note shortcut, you’re welcome to have it. Link here.

  • An incredible website with an ever-growing collection of cautionary tales, stinging questions and questionable co-workers. Take a coffee break and browse the archives. Especially this post about a horrible boss causing a mouse problem because of hoarding tendencies.

    askamanager.org

  • How to Write according to David Ogilvy

    In September of 1982, David Ogilvy shared the following:

    1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing.* Read it three times.
    2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
    3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
    4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
    5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
    6. Check your quotations.
    7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning —and then edit it.
    8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
    9. Before you send your letter or memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
    10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

    *Writing That Works., HARPER & ROW,

  • Two Modes of Effective Work

    According to The Origins of Herman Miller’s Modes of Work there’s two classes of work available to us. I believe these still apply even as most of us work in distributed teams these days. They may seem obvious:

    1. Alone
      • Chat
      • Converse
      • Co-Create
      • Divide & Conquer
      • Huddle
      • Show & Tell
      • Warm Up, Cool Down
    2. Together
      • Process & Respond
      • Contemplate
      • Create

    I think we’re really getting somewhere here. Reading that list made me very nostalgic for in-office coffee breaks at the water cooler 🙁 Going beyond these classes of work, we can go deeper — there’s really only two modes of work:

    • Just Get it Done (JGID)
    • Planned Work

    The Just Get it Done mode is tackling tasks that are probably collated in a list. Maybe you have a 20 clients you need to email before the end of the day. Maybe there’s a submission deadline you need to hit. Or maybe, it’s just shit that needs to get done today or this week. These tasks are often rewarding in the short term, because they unblock you field of vision. I find that clearing of these sorts of tasks early in the day unblock me later in the afternoon to contemplate longtail projects. Or heck, it clears my head for office hours too. If you find yourself with a mountain of unfinished JGID tasks every day, congratulations. You’ve just discovered that your organization is suffering a staffing or project management problem. Big yikes.

    The Planned Work mode is less rewarding in the short-term. But, is vastly more rewarding in the long-term. If you’ve ever wrapped a 6-month long project or released a new product — you know exactly what I’m talking about. This mode of work often produces JGID tasks. That’s the point. You take a big idea, and chunk it. Making a wholly impossible task, possible via piecemeal.

  • 13 Months, 28 days

    Calendars and time-keeping, is what makes or breaks civilizations. It’s no mistake that the Julian and Gregorian calendar varieties carry their Caesarian namespace. Managing how we catalog time is a pretty political, financially-motivated and generally sensitive topic. We don’t like change. It’s human nature to resist change. It takes serious inertia to introduce new (let alone change) calendar or time formats.

    There once was a time when each local town kept their own time individually. Which was frankly, insane. Train and locomotives carried a lot of sway back then, and then on November 18th, 1863 it become the gold standard. However, it didn’t become law until Congress passed the Standard Time Act in 1918.

    Does it ever piss you off that you can’t calculate what day of the week it will be a month from now? Or schedule an appointment off the top of your head on a day of the week that’s a weekend? Or a weekday? Why do some months have 30 days and others have 31? What’s up with February? The hell is a leap year? The Gregorian calendar is a mess.

    This could all be so much easier. Eastman Kodak did their homework. They realized a more efficient calendar would yield more productive appointments and scheduling. I mean, wouldn’t be amazing if every month was the same format? 13 months, 28 days:

    Image from Bloomberg

    It’s also known as the International Fixed Calendar. There would be 13 months (the 13th month would be called Sol, sandwiched between June and July), and no month would contain a “5th week,” because each month would be comprised of 4 weeks. Incredible. The entire calendar can sit in a beautiful matrix (see above). New Year’s Day would simply be an “magic” day, added as a sort of holiday at the end of the year. Also called “Year Day” or “Double Sunday” as the calendar resets for the new year, it would fall on a Sunday it ends and begins on. The next day would be Jan 1, a Sunday.

    Do you like this concept? Because I sure do. If you like it as much as I do, contact your representatives here! Make your voice heard.