Focused on Timing

As I’ve been rethinking where the iPad fits in my life, I’ve been using a laptop a lot more for remote work lately. That sometimes surfaces new opportunities for me and one of those is improved time tracking with Timing. I’ve always run Timing in the background, but because I was doing so much work on iPad before, it wasn’t as useful to me. With the new order of things, Timing is now giving me incredibly accurate time tracking data without requiring me to push a button every time I context shift. I like that. I also really like Timing’s reporting functions.

Timing is out with some updates. To better reflects time entries, as opposed to tasks, “tasks” have been renamed to “time entries”, as that what is what this concept actually represents. They’ve cautioned that if you are using Timing’s AppleScript functionality, you might need to replace “task” with “time entry” and/or “timer” in your scripts.

The other update is a web app update. Now you can include app usage in the Timing web app’s reports if you’re a Timing subscriber on the “Expert” or “Teams” plan. With this update, you can use the “App Usage” switch to include or exclude app usage from your reports.

If you spend a lot of time working behind a Mac and want zero-effort time tracking data, check out Timing.

Mac Power Users 603: Workin’ with iWork

Starting with a pet project for Steve Jobs, all the way to a modern, web-infused set of applications across multiple platforms, iWork has expanded into a suite of tools more than capable of meeting almost anyone’s needs. This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I talk through Keynote, Pages and Numbers, giving tips and comparing them to office suites offered by other companies.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

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Electric: Stop stressing over scattered devices. Get a free pair of Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones when you schedule a meeting.

Automators 83: Home Automation 2.0

In this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I dive into Rosemary’s updates to her home automation, smart locks, Home Assistant, and even a cute little robot mop.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

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GarageBand Updates and Utility

I’m late with this news, but Chance Miller from 9to5mac shared how GarageBand for iOS and iPadOS has been updated with all-new Sound Packs, Producer Packs, and Remix Sessions to include some of today’s top artists and producers. There aren’t just new sounds to play with but because you get to hear and play with isolated vocals, loops, beats, individual instruments, and samples, you can get as creative as you want to make your own music in GarageBand. I’m excited to play around in GarageBand and just hear what some of the fun and weird stuff I can come up with.

I continue to think that GarageBand is one of the most underrated Apple applications. It brings real powerful audio production tools to everyone presented in an understandable way. We used to produce Mac Power Users with GarageBand. I’d have killed for this software when I was a kid.

Club MacStories Premier

My congrats to Federico, John, and the rest of the Club MacStories team on their big release today of Club MacStories Premier and other news. I know they’ve been working so hard on this. MacStories has really risen to the top in this post-computer magazine world into a trusted source for news and reviews.

My Free Apple Mail Seminar

I’m going to start doing free monthly webinars here at MacSparky and the next one is all about how I’m using Apple mail with a combination of AppleScript and other automation tools to make the application dance. I’ve got a lot of good ideas to help you make Apple Mail dance, so why don’t you join me?

Make Mail Dance, September 2, 2021, 9:00 AM

If the date/time are inconvenient to you, go ahead and sign up anyway. Afterward, I’ll be sending out time-limited access to a recording.

Mac Power Users 602: Was That a Rabbit Hole?

In this feedback episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I discuss website redesigns, quote applications, encryption, virtualizing Windows, and a whole lot more.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

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Acorn 7

Acorn is a quality image editor for MacOS that won’t break your patience or your bank. They’ve got you covered on the basics like touching up your images, removing backgrounds, color correcting, resizing, and cropping, but they can help you do so much more.

Acorn gives you choices. They’ve got a ton of photo effects to choose from, and they’re easy to use. You can really play around with filters. Not only can you combine filters together for endless combinations, but you don’t have to commit and can change your mind if you don’t like the filter you chose.

Gus Mueller, the gent behind Flying Meat Software, just keeps improving Acorn. Their last update gave us a new export workflow, a super accurate color picker, a tool to help fix perspective distortions, and altering or even creating your own animated GIF. Acorn on sale at only $19.99, which is 50% off the regular price but that is ending next week.

Ikigai — Book Notes

I read a lot of books and spend some time after the fact digesting them. I’ve decided to start sharing some of my book notes here. I hope you enjoy this first one.

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life is a worthy read. Written by Héctor García and Frances Miralles, the book looks closely at the people of Okinawa, who live longer than anyone else, and the Japanese concept of ikigai. Ikigai, or at least my understanding of it, is the Japanese notion of one’s purpose in life. It’s a mixture of vocation, passion, and abilities, which I came to think of as the reason to jump out of bed in the morning.

Moreover, you don’t just necessarily have one ikigai or keep the same ikigai throughout your life. It can evolve as you do. The book explains that having a purpose in life is so important in Japanese culture that the western concept of retirement doesn’t exist there.

The authors spent a lot of time talking to very old Okinawans, looking for commonalities and the thing that stood out most was the concept of ikigai. They all had it and embraced it.

The book goes into depth associating the ikigai concept with Japanese culture, exercise, meditation, and mental health. But the book is definitely written for westerners, attempting to translate these concepts and ideas for the western mindset, and it largely succeeds.

The authors explain ten rules of ikigai:

Stay active; don’t retire.
Take it slow.
Don’t fill your stomach.
Surround yourself with good friends.
Get in shape for your next birthday.
Smile.
Reconnect with nature.
Give thanks.
Live in the moment.
Follow your ikigai.

Read as this summarized list, it can feel pretty shallow, but the book adds more depth. At 208 pages, it is a fairly quick read, and I got a lot from it. I particularly enjoyed reading the advice from Japanese centenarians. This book got me thinking about many of my own habits and how well I’m tending to my own ikigai. It also led to some changes in the ways I handle stress. If you’d like to dig deeper on this topic, check out Ikigai.