Mike Vardy has been speaking about productivity for a long time, and he’s got a lot of great ideas. He’s always one of my favorite guests when he comes on our podcast and has something insightful to share. I can’t wait to read his new book, The Productivity Diet, which you can help fund right now on Kickstarter.
Mike is finally a free agent. In this episode of Focused, he talks through the process and shares some tips for those considering making revolutionary change.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
As you get better at making automated tools for your Mac, you’ll realize how scarce unique key combinations become as your number of keyboard-triggered automations increases…
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Focus modes can be such a game changer when it comes to protecting your time and attention. However, it can be easy to forget to trigger them.… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Level 3 (Early Access) and Level 2 (Backstage) Members only. <a href=”https://www.macsparky.com/join/”>Care to join?</a> Or perhaps <a href=”https://www.macsparky.com/?memberful_endpoint=auth”>do you need to sign in?</a>
Mark Bramhill’s name will be familiar to many, as he produced Welcome to Macintosh. On this week’s episode of Mac Power Users, Bramhill chats Stephen and me about his podcasting career, using a Mac mini as a home server, the power of Descript, and what it was like to create an emoji.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
As WWDC approaches, I’ve been thinking about Apple Goggles (Video).
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Some of our favorite apps are upping their automation game. Join Rosemary and me on this episode of Automators as we talk about updates to Airtable, Drafts, and iOS.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
Bill Evans is one of the best pianists ever to play jazz. He was the moving force behind Miles Davis’ outstanding Kind of Blue album. I once heard that Miles would sometimes call Bill and ask him to lay the telephone receiver on the piano and just play.
Bill was famous in his day and, as a result, got plenty of gigs. As a result, we’ve been getting plenty of previously-unreleased Bill Evans recordings, but a recent one, Bill Evans Treasures, is fantastic. It’s a series of recordings made in Denmark over four years (1965–1969).
There is a bunch of trio work and some features he did with the Royal Danish Symphony Orchestra and the Danish Radio Big Band. It is those recordings that I can’t stop listening to. Arranged by Palle Mikkelborg, the orchestrations are a fascinating showcase for Bill’s piano. You also can’t help but note how his playing changes with the bigger ensembles. It makes me wish more of the greats of that era had the opportunity to play in bigger groups like this and how they would have sounded. This album is a new favorite for me and can be a great start or addition to your Bill Evans collection.
There are a lot of great apps in the Apple ecosystem, but when it comes to doing research, the clear leader is this week’s sponsor, 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. The search is extensive, 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, if you love those apps, is to keep using them, but put all files and documents into 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. The most recent version (3.9) give you the ability to embed deep links into text and PDF annotations.
I find DEVONthink’s combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? The code MACSPARKY2023 gets you 20% off any version of DEVONthink (Standard, Pro, or even Server). You can also click this link.
It’s time for the latest Lab Report from MacSparky, covering this week’s Apple news and updates… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?