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What two people selling something taught me about generosity and productivity Photo of hands by Mikhail Nilov , photo of background lights by Ave Calvar Martinez — images altered and combined by me I’ve just read two truly useful articles, pointing to products I have no intention of using. I’m nodding my head at the generosity. This is the way to go about hawking what you’re selling! And it…
Forster lists, social etiquette and the root of all text Image of crying tree touching the hills taken by me My friends, you might have noticed I did not post anything last week. It’s been a rough and rocky time . The miracle we were praying for did not come to pass (again), but miracles have surrounded us nonetheless. Feeling truly grateful for the kindness of people who know us and those who…
Record tasks in chronological order, do them when you’re truly ready Another week to match the last one : full of caring for little people, my grandbabies. Oh, the noise and delights and the detritus of young family life! My screen time is way down, in the nicest of ways. The Obsidian queries that run my plugin-free todo.txt system are still working, but they aren’t a good fit for this particular…
But we will, someday, if we ignore him now Photo by Beth Stevenson on Unsplash We were each born with a connection with heaven. Our choices and our focus strengthen or weaken it. A strong connection is a spiritual lifeline, while an unsteady one leaves us open to straying down paths that lead away from happiness. And there are two unseen, opposing forces in this world working to encourage us…
Plain text tasks, pencil notes, digital caveman-ism, and some OBTF love I’m enjoying a bounty of family life at the moment! It truly is a delight. It’s also a time when most of the spare spaces of my calendar and brain are comfortably full. So this week I will share with you a collection of things that I believe to be worth your time and mine. They are things I intend to explore more fully when…
Plus how text based visuals make life harder for the vision impaired This week: Putting money on the table to develop a daily writing habit Text based visuals and the vision impaired Pay yourself to form a writing habit I write words every day. But plenty of days go by where I don’t write write. I’d really like to turn that around. Here are some ideas that might help. All of them pay you to form…
Someone needs your story—choose your timing well and you could change a life Photo by Anthony Metcalfe on Unsplash When I was barely out of my teens and in need of guidance but did not know it, an older and much wiser woman gave me some unsolicited advice. Her name was Leila Edwards. She did it in the best, possibly the only way such advice can be a good thing: she told me about her own life. How…
Because typewriter-style graphics are cool and the algorithmic internet is not Goodie 1 - The Progress Bar Someone kindly gave me a typewriter last month. Playing with it has reminded me of the creative ways we used to use monospaced fonts, because at one time that’s all there were. Progress bars and charts could be represented with nothing other than good old text-based characters. People with a…
…was the day I finally stopped over-optimising everything Moving my tasks away from apps to plain text lists was supposed to simplify everything. To take the pressure off. So why have I spent so many years optimising them? Because I didn’t understand the job they did best. Every task manager does these 3 things Before getting on with the doing, task management requires you to identify three main…
While still knowing just how much He loves me Image by Artem Podrez, on Pexels Someone once said there’s a sure way to know if you are a humble person: If you think you are, you’re not! I’ve pondered the idea of humility a fair bit, over the years. I do not see it as something to strive for. It’s not a box to tick or an “ am I there yet?” quality to keep checking in with. The truth is that we in…
No blame, but still, never again I keep my calendar in the todo.txt format , in Obsidian, using the Todo.txt Mode plugin to move completed events to a done.md file each day. This week I opened that done.md file only to find it completely blank. Gasp! A plain text nightmare!! This was not supposed to even be able to happen. Not in my system! But pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a…
And why are you idolising the stuff that makes you sad? This post represents a change in topic from the bulk of what I write. To help you distinguish the plain text productivity themes at a glance from those that are more overtly Christ-centred, look for the sparkle ✨ emoji in the title. Images from Pexels, combined by me TLDR : Don’t place sad, stupid, or shiny stuff on the path between you and…
Plain Text Slop Soup, Anyone? I was initially excited to discover a new plain text productivity site this week, with sections on open format apps and tips for plain text workflows. Hooray! I thought. Another resource to add to my Blogroll ! But a few seconds in, things began to feel off. It didn’t take long to realise that I was looking at one of the internet’s newest claims to shame, the content…
It’s not really about the app When Stefano Marinelli posted about compromises and tolerance , I knew he was right because I’ve seen this in action. Life is full of compromises. And the more you live, the more you learn (or should learn) to be at least a little tolerant of the choices others make, even when they seem to clash with your own convictions. …Fight your battles. Stand for what you…
And reclaim focus for your distractible brain After years of perfecting a simple plain text productivity system for tracking my tasks and time, I should have been happy. Surely the search was over at last? But something felt wrong; incomplete. The information was all there, but I still had trouble focusing on the next important thing. The system worked beautifully on any device, but my highly…
Plain text capture, a Bauhaus obsession, and the keyboard that finally fits my EDC Screenshots are from each company’s official website Today I’ll be sharing a new app for getting text into Obsidian the iOS version of the Bauhaus Clock the Nillkin Cube Pocket Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard with Trackpad No affiliates, just good stuff. Capture - for Obsidian, macOS ✅ One-off lifetime purchase Capture…
With Obsidian instructions for seeing today’s schedule in your daily note I can still scarcely believe that what was supposed to be a 2-week experiment turned into a sustainable, calm-inducing way to keep up with all the time-specific events that make up my life. My aim in writing about it is not to have you do the same — unless, of course, you really want to — but to see that because this is…
How a phantom currency keeps bank account reports clean Illustration made by putting emojis together in Affinity Plain text accounting not for you? Next week 🤞 I’ll be explaining how to use the todo.txt format to create a functional plain text calendar. Envelope budgeting Envelope budgeting is the practice of planning ahead for known expenses by regularly putting money into pre-determined…
A casual roundup of productivity tools, tips, and rabbit holes No deep dives today, just a list of worthwhile productivity related things I’ve come across lately. Some universal, most Apple flavoured. Clever (but unnecessary?) Apple Shortcut for lost iPhones Create an automation in Apple Shortcuts that fires when you get someone to text the word “ Lost” to your number. Have it take your phone off…
Nesting queries inside collapsible callouts, plus custom colours and icons It’s true that plain text can be beautiful when it is boring in all the right ways , but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun. Let’s take a look at an unashamedly Obsidian-only tweak I’ve been playing around with for the task lists that live in my plain text planner. Super niche, I know, but you can use the same…
For writing more, without worrying about losing or lending your pen Photo by the Author, taken with a still going strong iPhone 14 Pro I love writing lists and making plans using simple, practical tools. Tools like locally stored plain text, fountain pens, and mechanical pencils. As much as I love the feel and space efficiency of the Pilot Dr Grip 4 + 1 ballpoint pen, fountain pens tick other…
It was a nice surprise to discover that Shottr can replace two apps! I’m slowly working my way through the list of the (Mac-only) Setapp apps I’ve used for years, looking for free or one-time purchase alternatives. Three apps I’ve started testing are Maccy (clipboard manager), Textshot ( OCR ), and Shottr (screenshots). Paste → Raycast My journey to a Paste substitute began with Maccy . It’s a…
On cautious, informed renting, and the lie of personal ownership Mum on the gas box at the house she and Meema lived in before moving to the cottage Lately I’ve been looking at the subscription software I use, trying to decide what should stay and what needs to go. The evaluation process is not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be. So I’m looking into the concept of ownership. What…
A quest for simpler, more independent tools Recently I talked about the importance of owning your work, not just the app you used to create it. Another side of that idea is nicely put in this advice from Trevor Flowers — The best advice I have for new nerds: Refuse to pay rent. Don’t subscribe. Don’t lease. Don’t use their cloud. Don’t slip down the freemium slope. Don’t create accounts on their…
Hand written text by the Author, 1988 Today I discovered I Write Like, a browser-based Markdown text editor from Koding Robots doo. Apparently, I write like …Corey Doctorow. This is obviously not a comment on my use of expletives! I Write Like is free to use in your browser, with a one-time payment for premium features. Thank you, Koding Robots, for not using the subscription model. Here is a bit…
On confidence and slop, and the words that still fit There’s no getting around it; Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) has ruined some phrases that used to work just fine. I can’t help caring about that, though I wish I didn’t! And so I am working on gaining the confidence to write whatever I want, when I want — the same way I have no problem wearing my Crocs to the supermarket, no matter how many side…
How to keep your work accessible no matter what happens to the software you used to create it Could you complete your work today if your usual apps were inaccessible? Consider this your wake up call is to store your work in open formats, even if (actually, especially if) you are required to use closed format apps to do your daily work. Open vs. Closed: it really does matter What’s a closed format…
Never lose a hard-won process again This week a potential customer asked me for an evaluation preview of one of my educational PDF ebooks . “ No problem!” I said, “ I’ll get that to you today.” Right! Time to watermark a lower resolution copy of the PDF and upload it to the files section of my website. This is a process I have done many times in the past — but not for about two years. It took a…
Recently I mentioned that all my to-dos get thrown into one text file, in the todo.txt format . It’s incredibly quick to add new tasks. And once you know some simple formatting rules, it’s also easy to see just the tasks you want to see, when you want to see them. By the end of this article you will understand how to create, adjust, and reuse saved searches in Obsidian to filter a todo.txt file…
Tools and inspiration to enhance your plain text practice Last week I promised to talk about filtering information with the built-in Search plugin in Obsidian. While that is busy cooking, here are two links and one idea to brighten up your plain text workflow. Link 1: Thymer Notes for techies (not me; might be you) “ The IDE for tasks, notes, and planning” Thymer is a new way to take notes that…
Just how minimalist should a to-do list be? Image by the Author. To-list text reads: Cut up veggies for salad Lego; Update PTA transactions I’ve been fascinated by time and task management for decades. This post is another in the series of how my approach is evolving. In 2023, Steph Ango ( CEO of Obsidian) wrote about his extraordinarily simple approach to writing to-do lists. This isn’t an…