This week MacSparky is sponsored by DEVONthink. There are a lot of ways to manage a database on your mac, but in my opinion, there is no better tool than DEVONthink. Just a few of the things I use DEVONthink for include:

• A reliable repository of research documents. DEVONthink will hold as many documents as you can throw at it. In addition, it makes import (and export) easy, so you can have all that power without feeling trapped.

• A research assistant. DEVONthink uses artificial intelligence to analyze and connect your documents in ways that may not otherwise occur to you.

• An OCR Tool. Everything you store in your DEVONthink Pro library gets OCR’d. It just happens.

• An Automation Tool. DEVONthink lets you build powerful automation subroutines into your library to help tag, move, and organize documents.

One of my uses for DEVONthink is legal research. I dump legal cases, statutes, regulations, and law review articles in DEVONthink whenever I’m working on a thorny problem and let DEVONthink grind on the documents before I do. It is spooky what DEVONthink finds when I start searching my legal database. It’s like having my own research assistant. You could also do the same with all of your personal records. Dump them into a DEVONthink database and let DEVONthink sort it for you.

DEVONthink supports multiple sync methods and lets you even use your own sync password, so everything is encrypted. If you’ve got an iPad or an iPhone, you can access your DEVONthink data there, too, with DEVONthink to Go.

It is this combination of power and security that makes DEVONthink the clear winner. You can think of DEVONthink as your paperless office. You can automate your workflow from capture to filing, editing to publishing. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.

Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink. Use the code MACSPARKY2021 at checkout. This is a limited-time offer, so check it out now.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite. For small businesses, it can be difficult to stay on top of clients, leads, and projects that are evolving every day. Stressful situations like these are where Daylite comes in clutch.

Daylite is a CRM built for Apple fans like us, made specifically for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. This native app helps you and your team execute more projects, take on more clients, and close more deals. It is fully compatible with Big Sur and M1-powered Macs, and is designed to work in tandem with go-to Apple features. For example, you can share contacts between Apple Contacts and your Daylite database, and use features like Siri and Caller ID on your iPhone. Daylite is able to create contracts and other documents in no time, by pulling data from Daylite into apps like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Additionally, Daylite includes full support for features like FaceID and TouchID.

Daylite takes you through the full customer lifecycle, making it easy for you to perform seamless handoffs between teams and departments without anything slipping through the cracks. Never miss a follow-up or worry about forgetting an important step in the project — Daylite keeps track of all the details for you and your team, so you can focus on growing your business.

Whether you’re in the legal, design, consulting, or other service-based industries, thousands of businesses trust Daylite to build stronger client relationships and grow their business! Daylite offers complimentary onboarding support to help new customers get started.

Ready to start scaling your business? Start your free 30-day Daylite trial today!

Things are getting better. You’re going to start seeing people. What are you doing about your calling cards? There are many lousy calling cards and just a few good ones. Do you remember the last time someone gave you a classy calling card, and you couldn’t help but think just a little bit more of them. That’s why you need to give this some thought.

Your calling card represents you. Why not bring some intentionality to your game? This week, MacSparky is sponsored by Hoban Cards, where they use a 1902 letterpress machine to make cards that your colleagues, clients, and customers will never forget. I sure love mine.

Evan and the gang at Hoban Cards are masters at the craft of designing and making letterpress calling cards. They have some beautiful templates to choose from, or you can roll your own.

I love handing out letterpress cards. It is always a conversation starter. Hoban Cards is where I go to buy them, and it is where you should too. Throw out those ugly, conventional, mass-produced, soulless business cards and reach out to Hoban Cards. Best of all, use ‘MacSparky’ to get $10 off any order. Get yours today.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite. For small companies, staying on top of clients, leads, and projects can feel chaotic. Daylite helps you streamline your workflow so you can win more business and get more done.

Daylite is a CRM that helps businesses manage more clients, close more deals, and finish more projects. Daylight integrates with Apple Mail, and you can share it with your team to keep everyone in the loop. It also is fully compatible with Big Sur and M1-powered Macs.

Because Daylite is a native app, it can work seamlessly with many of Apple’s built-in features. You can share contacts between Apple Contacts and your Daylite database. You can use features like Siri and Caller ID on your iPhone. Daylite also includes full support for FaceID and TouchID. One of my favorite integration tricks with Daylite is the ability to create contracts and other documents by pulling data from Daylite into Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

I’ve heard from readers in real estate, sales, design, and the legal industry, all using Daylite to run their business. No matter what your business is, Daylite can help you track leads, stay on top of clients, and deliver projects on time.

If you sign up for an account, the complimentary onboarding support will help you get started. Want to harness all the power of your Apple hardware for your business? Start your free 30-day Daylite trial today!

I like having one less thing to deal with. SaneBox, MacSparky’s sponsor this week, helps me tremendously with this. People aren’t going to send you less emails, but with SaneBox, you can see your more important emails while the less important ones are moved out of your inbox. SaneBox’s AI and machine learning will filter into a separate folder and then summarize them in a digest so you don’t get overwhelmed but the number of emails and can focus on the things that really need your attention.

Imagine, instead of checking and managing work-related emails, and having to recover your productivity from an email interruption, or not having to ask yourself, “What was I doing?”, you could just get stuff done. With our SaneBox robot friends, you can:

• Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant. 

• Defer email for hours, days, or weeks, so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time. They’ve even added a new feature that can optionally auto-reply to snoozed email with something like, “I’m sorry, but I’m underwater right now. I’ll get back to you in a few days.” SaneBox can even auto-reply when you defer an email.

• Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email, SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.

• Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).

• Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.

• Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

I love SaneBox and other MacSparky readers have let me know that they do too. Get your time back and try SaneBox today.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by TextExpander from Smile. In our fast-paced world, things change constantly — and errors in messaging often have significant consequences.

TextExpander lets you make new approved messaging available to every team member instantly with just a few keystrokes, ensuring your team remains consistent, current, and accurate.

Get your message right every time: expand the content that corrects your spelling and keeps your language consistent with just a few keystrokes.

Your team members will consistently know the right message for the right person at the right time, without relying on memory or copy and paste.

I pay for a team account with TextExpander for my assistant and me. We both make changes to the critical snippets as needed, and we both benefit from that work. The more people you’ve got writing on your team, the more useful this gets.

You can get 20% off your first year. Just head over to TextExpander from Smile and sign up.

Daylite is MacSparky’s sponsor this week. It’s the Mac CRM that takes your business further. Daylite helps you nurture relationships, complete your projects, close more deals, and grow your business—all in one place, even when you are working offline.

Unlike other Web-based CRMs that focus on customer relationships and sales, Daylite takes you through the full customer lifecycle. From meeting a new prospect and following up until you close the deal all the way, through executing the project plans and maintaining customer relationships for repeat business—it’s all organized in one place and shared with your team.

Daylite is built exclusively for Mac, iPhone, and iPad so not only is it compatible with Big Sur and M1-powered Macs, it’s designed to work seamlessly with all of the Apple features you love:

• Integrate with Apple Mail on Mac

• Share your Apple Contacts and iCal

• Leverage features like Siri and Caller ID on your iPhone

• FaceID and TouchID support

• Support its own light/dark mode

Daylite offers complimentary onboarding support to help new customers with the set-up process and guide you through the best onboarding path that is focused on your business needs. Ready to take your business further? Start your free 30-day Daylite trial today!

A lot of folks know that DEVONthink, this week’s MacSparky sponsor, excels at bringing artificial intelligence to your documents and research, but did you also know DEVONthink has a killer set of automation tools? Over the last few years, DEVONthink has added some powerful features that make automating your DEVONthink library a snap.

• The app can install scripts in Apple Mail to save email messages to your DEVONthink library with link backs to Apple Mail.

• You can build smart folders that automatically collect documents around parameters you (or the DEVONthink A. I.) sets.

• There is now built-in document automation called Smart Rules that lets you move, sort, rename, tag, index, and perform just about any other action in the DEVONthink arsenal automatically. The below screenshot shows a list of available triggers to give you an idea. This is a relatively new feature that a lot of experienced DEVONthink users don’t even realize exists.

• You can build template documents and generate them right out of DEVONthink.

• The mobile version, DEVONthink To Go, supports Shortcuts and mobile automation.

I always appreciate it when developers spend time trying to take the tedium out of their apps, and the DEVONthink developers have delivered on this over the past few years in a big way. If you haven’t checked out DEVONthink yet (or looked at it lately), you should.

You can think of DEVONthink as your paperless office. You can automate your workflow from capture to filing, editing to publishing. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.

Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink. Use the code MACSPARKY2021 at checkout. This offer has been extended and now ends on December 31, 2021.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Timing. Timing is an automatic time- tracking app. It lets you see where your time spent without having to lift a finger.

So why should you track your time? One reason may be for your job. Maybe you charge clients by your time or need to report to your boss where you spend your time. But there are a lot more reasons to track your time. Tracking your time gives you a realistic picture of where you are spending (and wasting) your time. With good time-tracking data, you can make better decisions about where to make commitments, where to delegate, and realistically see how you’re doing.

Timing scratches all of these itches. With Timing, you instantly see how you are spending your time. It helps you work more productively and make smarter decisions about how to spend your time in the future.

We all know that tracking your time is key to being productive, but it’s hard to track your time if you’re doing a bunch of different things at once or don’t have the right tools.

The Timing app makes recording and reviewing your time easy with automatic tracking and a simple interface for adding details about what you did each day, so you can see how much time was spent on each task. Timing also now has a useful teams feature, letting you share project and time entries in a privacy-friendly fashion. This gives you valuable team data without being creepy.

I run Timing on my Mac every day, and you should too. I even made some screencasts on how I use Timing. Download the free 14-day trial today and get 10% off for the first year!