We are trying out a new segment on the Mikes on Mics podcast. It’s full of all kinds of Mac geekery. If you’re into that kind of thing, join us as we dig through my applications folder and discover just “How Packed Is My Mac”.

Long story:

I tend to have stupid ideas. I also tend to act on them, especially when nudged. One such stupid idea was to take a segment from one of my favorite podcast, Enough and turn it on its head.

The hosts, Patrick Rhone of Enough and Myke Hurley have this one recurring series, “How Bare Is Your Air,” that is essentially geek porn (the good kind). They invite really knowledgeable Mac users on the show and ask them to determine how they could accomplish their goals if restricted to a 64 GB 11″ MacBook Air. It forces the user to make hard choices and to truly think about the tools they use and how they would react to the limitations. I learn a lot from the thought processes and workflows of various users. If you’re remotely into this kind of thing, I recommend it highly.

Now on the other hand, I also know the truth. Most of us live our lives with far more hard drive space and far more applications than is needed. We have a lot of work on our plates and have collected an array of tools to help us do it over the years. We’re also all creatures of habit and have trouble letting go.

With that in mind, I joked with my fellow podcast host, Mike Vardy, that we host our own “How Packed Is Your Mac?” episodes to prove just “How Bare Isn’t Our Air”. That we encourage people to open their applications folder and show as close to a full picture as possible (within a reasonable timeframe).

I was kidding, but Vardy decided to get permission from the guys at Enough to pay homage. They gave their blessing and now, we’re testing the idea out on ourselves.

Today, I’m in the hot seat. I’m fighting through shame and am sharing all of the crap that is on my Mac. So if you’re interested in how you might go about packing your own Mac or if you just enjoy encouraging those who make stupid ideas a reality, give the episode a listen or better yet, subscribe in iTunes or use this link in Instacast as we will have far smarter people joining us for future “How Packed Is Your Mac?” episodes.

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

Ayn Rand

(via)

True knowl­edge comes slowly and labo­ri­ously. It has noth­ing to do with mak­ing your­self avail­able to vast amounts of infor­ma­tion. It has every­thing to do with dis­cern­ing the best infor­ma­tion and reflect­ing deeply upon it, putting it into prac­tice if applic­a­ble and refin­ing it through expe­ri­ence.

J. D. Bentley <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.

Salvador Dali

(via)

It is pos­si­ble to store the mind with a mil­lion facts and still be entirely uneducated.

Aleck Bourne (Hat tip to J. D. Bentley) <— Click To Read More Smart Stuff!

To be outstanding – get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Alrik Koudenburg

(via)

If you like what you see, be sure to visit and subscribe to my Tumblr blog, Smarter Than I Am!  Need more inspiration?  Click here to see a random quote, it is just like a fortune cookie, only smarter!

Note: This post may seem familiar to those who have been reading the site for a while. I decided to update a previous post for two reasons: 1) Because some of the tools I’m using have changed or have been update and 2) Because I’ve changed a bit of my thinking.

Yesterday I shared the four types of to-dos. Today I want to follow up by sharing the tools I use to accomplish them. I’m going to start by letting you know my priority for each, my app of choice and the best possible alternatives.

The Reminder

I’ve tried a variety of solutions, from post-it notes to iPhone alarms and nothing worked until I was recently turned on to Due. This iPhone app is nothing short of a stalker. It takes seconds to set up a reminder and upon the due date, your phone will start sending you an iPhone Notification every minute (you can also set it to every hour). This sounds horrible, but it is a fantastic way to never forget the little things again. I’ve gotten my $5 and more from this app.

Due

The Pros: Super fast to set up, easy to use, simple to share and almost impossible to ignore.

The Cons: Lacks the location features of Apple’s own Reminders app.

The Flat-Out Bad: iOS limitations mean you can only get a reminder every minute or every hour when 5 minutes would be ideal.

Alternatives: If location support is essential and persistent reminders are not, go with the Reminders App.

The Appointment

While I use Google Apps to store my calendar, the native iCal on my Mac sucks. I’ve tried a few things, including the popular BusyCal, but nothing was ever really sufficient. That is until Flexbits introduced Fantastical. This menu-bar based application drops down to provide you with a look at your week and makes it fast and easy to enter new appointments (which has always been painful for me.). Now, I simply use one keyboard command and start typing in natural language (e.g. Lunch with Dad at McDonalds at noon tomorrow) and Fantastical takes care of the rest. It also works with Outlook and Exchange, so those of you Mac folk who still have some remnants of your Windows life can still take advantage of this kick-ass way to quickly get a look at your week or to swiftly add something to any of your calendars.

Fantastical

The Pros: It could not be easier to use and is almost impossible to screw up creating an appointment. The latest version also added the ability to edit and delete items which has eliminated the need for any other calendar app on my Mac.

The Cons: The app will occasionally put information in the wrong field, but fixing this has always been preferable to using any other option.

The Flat-Out Bad: There is nothing I hate about this app.

Alternatives: If you need a full fledged calendar try iCal, BusyCal or, if you hate yourself, Outlook. If you’d like another option, give QuickCal a try.

The Task

OmniFocus is the leading choice amongst nerds everywhere. While I resisted this for a long time in favor of the more straightforward Things, I have now converted and am blissfully happy with that decision. OmniFocus gives me an environment that’s extremely powerful, yet can be customized to feel simple. It also has excellent iOS apps and a great syncing solution that ensures I’m always up to date and always able to capture new tasks.

OmniFocus

The Pros: A robust app with an amazing team behind it. Once you understand the app it’s exceptionally fast, to add and classify tasks. The Quick Entry Box and Clipper alone make my life sane.

The Cons: It’s expensive and the learning curve can be a bit steep. Thankfully David Sparks helps by offering a comprehensive series of videos.

The Flat-Out Bad: The communication from Cultured Code leaves a lot to be desired and OTA Syncing has been “imminent” for far too long. There are also some key features like collaboration and pre-set projects that are missing or could use serious improvement.

Alternatives: Asana, Things, Hit List or Wunderkit.

The List

Lists need to offer quick entry, quick completion and most important of all, quick reorganization of tasks. While the new iPhone app Clear has brought this tier of to-do to the forefront, I’m sticking with Listary. What it lacks in looks, it makes up for in features. So much of my list making (especially for short term things like grocery lists) come from my wife via text or email. Listary seems custom made for these kinds type of situations.

Listary

The Pros: The team has put their time and energy into making it as fast and easy as possible to add tasks. It’s especially helpful for taking lists from text messages and turning them into multiple items that are just waiting to be checked off. The shared list features are also great. As is the ability to sync your lists with Simplenote.

The Cons: Once you look at Clear, you realize just how much Listary is lacking in the looks department.

The Flat-Out Bad: More than the looks, once you play with Clear it becomes, well clear, that it’s a little harder than it should be to edit things. Thankfully, the team at Listary seem excited by the prospect of improving the app in light of the competition.

Alternatives: Some of you will just double up and use the Reminders App to manage your lists. The more discerning will clearly want to go with Clear¹.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Dear god, Michael is a crazy person who uses too many apps” and you’re probably right. If you’re one of those naturally organized people, you won’t likely need more than one of these tools. If, like me, you have trouble keeping everything straight, try breaking them apart one at a time and see if taking a separate approach to some or all of these types of to-dos helps. It may seem like a lot more at first, but over time this approach has come to feel like a lot less.

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1. At some point I will stop with the clear puns, clearly that day is not today…

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…

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.

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:

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.

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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.

The Messages App on an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air

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

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.

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:

@MSchechter Thanks a lot for writing your thoughts. In fact, @useclear is making us think that we could improve a lot.

— Listary (@listaryapp) February 15, 2012

@MSchechter They’ve built something really special. As with all great apps, we will take lessons from @useclear to make Listary better.

— Listary (@listaryapp) February 15, 2012

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…

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.