Time is the most valuable resource you have. It’s the only resource you can’t get more of.
Yet, many of us don’t track our time. And the reason is usually simple: it’s cumbersome, and it’s way too easy to forget.
Not anymore! Timing is an app for your Mac that automatically tracks your time, no timers needed. It’s smart, it’s beautiful, and it’s easy to use.
Just download and install Timing and it’ll start recording how much time you spend on each app, document and website you use.
And with the latest update, Timing will now import your iPhone and iPad usage from Screen Time as well! This means you’ll get the full picture of how you spend your time, across all your devices.
I use Timing because of how easy it is to get good data. The app is smart. It learns how to categorize time for you (with a bit of help from you), and the reports are beautiful. I put screenshots of my Timing reports in my weekly/monthly reviews in Day One.
If you’ve tried time-tracking before and gave up on it, give Timing a try. It literally does the work for you.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Drafts, the one text app to rule them all. I’m a fan of Drafts. So much so that we recorded an entire MPU episode about it. But if I had to summarize why I dig this app so much, there are a few points to make:
Fast Capture
I can get into Drafts and start typing or dictating faster than any other app. Sometimes it feels like an idea is a fish I’m trying to land. The sooner I get it in the boat, the less likely it gets off the hook. Drafts helps you land bigger fish.
Text Tools
Once your precious words are in Drafts, you can do just about anything to them. You can send them to others, format them, send them to your favorite app, and add automation. As Drafts has matured, you can even keep them all right there in Drafts.
The Big Picture
Drafts is the only text app I know that constantly evolves and grows. There is polish everywhere. Not surprisingly, I wrote this post in Drafts. If you haven’t tried Drafts, you really should.
That is because Curio combines simplicity with power in a way I’ve never seen in a notebook app before. Your books are easy to organize, and the canvas (Curio calls it an Idea Space) is easily customizable with drag-and-drop tools like text, images, to-do lists, mind maps, and even Kanban stacks. It also holds many file types like images, PDFs, documents, web links, and multimedia files. Make each space your own.
Professionals, creatives, and students use Curio to be more productive and focused. Whether you are finding a cure, writing a novel, or trying to survive the education system, Curio is there for you. I like the way you can jump between notebooks so quickly and context switch from one Idea Space to another.
Curio also plays nicely with others. It has built-in integrations for DEVONthink, Hookmark, Evernote, Calendar, Reminders, iThoughts, and TaskPaper.
Does your email go into your inbox, or is it more like an out-of-control box? Amirite?! With the help of this week’s sponsor at MacSparky, you can turn it into a sanebox.
Take back control of your email with SaneBox. SaneBox’s A.I. will make sure that only important email stays in your inbox by analyzing your email history and learning what’s important to you. Important emails you need to deal with now go to your inbox. Emails you don’t have to deal with immediately are filtered into a separate folder and saved for later when you can switch your focus and headspace and deal with them at a later time. Goodbye, distractions. This allows you to work more efficiently.
It’s a new year gang, and I’m guessing over the holidays you took a few pictures. How’s your Photos library doing? If it’s anything like mine, it’s a mess right now.
PowerPhotos works with the built-in Photos app on your Mac, providing an array of tools to help you get your photo collection in order. Find and eliminate duplicate photos, split up your library into smaller ones, merge libraries together, open libraries in separate windows, export photos/albums, and more.
Best of all, PowerPhotos 2.0 is now available! There are some great new features in version 2.0:
– Convert your old iPhoto or Aperture library to an equivalent Photos library – Advanced export of photos/albums – Full support for iCloud Photos – New visual duplicate detection engineLibrary groups – Global menu bar item – Multiple windows
PowerPhotos adds all the features to Photos that Apple never will. You can download PowerPhotos for free to check it out, and purchasing a license will unlock all the features of the program. MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount with the coupon code MACSPARKY23, and existing iPhoto Library Manager and PowerPhotos 1.0 users can also use their old serial number to receive upgrade pricing, 50% of the normal price.
So make the Photos app work harder for you with PowerPhotos 2.0. You can get it today.
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. This isn’t that new-fangled-kinda-dumb AI. This is search AI that finds shockingly relevant documents. It’s spooky.
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.
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.
And of course the DEVONthink team never stops making improvements. The latest update (3.8.7) improves upon Wikilinks, the Concordance inspector, and more.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Tinderbox, the Tool for Notes. Tinderbox is a workbench for your ideas, projects, and plans. It can help you analyze and understand them today, and it will adapt to your changing needs and growing knowledge.
The thing I dig about Tinderbox is the way the canvas adapts to what you need. You can build text and graphical maps of your ideas and data that grow with your understanding.
Build relationships by arranging notes, organizing them with shape and color, and linking them. Whether you need maps, timelines, charts, or outlines Tinderbox has you covered. It lets you record ideas quickly and keep them where you’ll find them again when you need them.
Everyone’s excited about the infinite canvas app, but Tinderbox has been doing it for decades. The Tinderbox team calls it information gardening and it’s brilliant.
And that is just the beginning. Tinderbox agents scan your notes continuously, searching for notes that meet your criteria. Tinderbox’s timeline view creates wonderful, interactive diagrams to reconstruct events and plan projects.
Best of all, with Tinderbox, your data is yours. Tinderbox files are XML, and Tinderbox can create HTML, XML, RSS, OPML, and more. Tinderbox shares notes with Simplenote, Notes, Evernote and DEVONthink.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite, which just added its new Daylite Opportunities Board.
We are humans, not robots. We think and understand things visually and this week’s sponsor, Daylite, has figured out a way to use that so your team can communicate better. That is why they added the new Opportunities Board.
Unlock your sales potential with the new Daylite Opportunities Board
For small businesses, acquiring new business often means juggling multiple priorities at the same time, as each deal has its own time frame and different client requirements. That’s why you need a tool that will help better manage your sales pipeline, so you’re making the most of every sales opportunity that comes your way.
Meet the Daylite Opportunities Board
The DayliteOpportunities Board lets you visually track your deals’ progress at every stage and helps you prioritize sales opportunities. This powerful feature gives you a holistic view of your sales pipelines, allowing you to track where each Opportunity is in the process, so you and your team can focus on the most valuable ones. The drag-and-drop functionality allows you to move opportunities from one stage to the next, and you can easily classify deals as “won” or “lost” by dragging them to the respective status categories. Learn more about how this powerful Daylite feature has become a game-changer for Apple-savvy small businesses.
I really like this new feature. Something visual like this is the best way to keep all of your team on the same page. Because it is so easy to access and adjust, it means your team will get invested and use the tool. There is a reason why boards like this are so popular.
About Daylite
The Daylite team understands the Mac and they’ve been great native Mac software for a long time. Daylite is an award-winning CRM and productivity business app that empowers small businesses to get more done throughout the full customer lifecycle. Daylite is a native app built exclusively for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. From meeting prospects and taking control of your sales to managing the moving pieces on projects, all the way through to winning more repeat business, it’s all done in Daylite.
And now, with the Daylite Opportunities Board, you can finally better manage your sales process and unlock your sales potential.
I often hear from listeners/readers looking for a research solution in the Mac ecosystem. My favorite app for this, without a doubt, is DEVONthink. DEVONthink is the most professional document and information management application for the Mac. It’s the one place for storing all your documents, snippets, or bookmarks, and working with them.
The Integrated A.I. assists you with filing and searching, while the extensive search language with advanced Boolean operators.
DEVONthink features a Flexible sync system that supports many cloud services – or lets you synchronize over the local network too – with everything securely encrypted. This gives you the choice for however syncing works best for you!
It has Smart rules and flexible reminders that let you automate all parts of your workflow and delegate boring, repeating tasks. Let DEVONthink automatically organize your data with rules you define!
DEVONthink’s AppleScript dictionary is one of the largest on the Mac. There’s no part of DEVONthink that can’t be automated. Extend DEVONthink’s functionality with your own commands by adding them to its Scripts menu.
Even templates can have scripts inside and you can set up new documents with data from placeholders, or inserted by your own AppleScript code.
And, of course, there’s so much more, from an iOS companion app, email archiving, scanning, or even an embedded web server for sharing your data securely with your team.
I often get email from folks who are using apps like Obsidian or Craft and trying to figure out document management in those apps. My answer is to put all that stuff in DEVONthink. While these emerging PKM apps are pretty great, they can’t hold a candle to DEVONthink when it comes to working with actual files.
On top of all of that, the DEVONthink team just keeps iterating. Just a few days ago they released the latest version 3.8.7 thet displays highlights in HTML-based documents in the Annotations inspector and lets you summarize them. A submenu of the Reveal contextual menu command gives you easy access to the location of replicated or duplicated items, and a new menu item lets you open the Info popover for a tag directly from any tagging field, e.g., the Tags bar.
For WikiLinks, aliases can now be separated by a delimiter you define. And if you are a user of the Pro or Server edition you can export a PDF of the Concordance inspector’s related words graph or word cloud. DEVONthink 3.8.7also adds support for clipping from the Orion web browser. DEVONthink just keeps getting better.
I find DEVONthink’s combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink..
A flood of emails is coming. Black Friday this. Cyber Monday that. A coupon here. A sale there. Your inbox will be flooded with deals, and while saving money this holiday season would be great, you still have work to do. You can ward off these distractions with this week’s MacSparky sponsor, SaneBox.
With SaneBox, you don’t have to wade through these messages to find the really important ones — the work or personal emails you have to deal with *now*. SaneBox sorts the email sent to your inbox. The important ones will stay in your inbox, and the less important ones, the distractions you don’t have to deal with right now, are moved to your SaneLater folder. SaneBox allows you to focus on actual work. Work now. Shop later.
