I am a geek and nerd and spend lots of time testing out stuff I find. For every ten things I try – apps for the Mac or iOS device – I find one thing I really like. I like apps and services that simplify my life or make things easier to do. Another criteria is that they must look good, be cool, be intuitive and be regularly updated by the developer.
I am a massive fan of Evernote. It stores everything in my life. It is cross platform (Mac, Windows, iOS and Chrome/Android). It is like my filing cabinet or vault. Everything I want is in there. Best of all, you get an email address that you can use to send things to Evernote. Evernote also has a Mac Menu Bar icon which you can drag files to or quickly make notes in. Take the time to master Evernote. It has a free version and a paid version. I have the annual subscription. http://www.evernote.com/ . Awesome.
The mail app on Mac is brilliant. The search box is the best feature. I have been using Apple Mail (me.com) since 2006 and I can access every email I have sent since then and those that I have archived, simply by typing the name of the person, the back end of their email address and so on. It is brilliant. Take the time to learn how to use the search feature. Another great feature of the Mac for finding files and emails is Spotlight search. Just hit command spacebar and type whatever you are looking for – a file, an email, a contact…. boom! Awesome.
Another great thing on the Mac which has added greatly to my productivity is a nifty little add on called PopClip. It https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/ It adds the cut, copy, paste functionality that you see on iOS to your Mac. What’s even better, it has add ins for apps like Notes, Evernote, and ToDoist so you can quickly add text to these apps. It is such a time saver. Awesome.
My new best friend is ToDoist. Over the years I have tried to find a way to organise my tasks and reminders. I have tried Outlook tasks and the Reminders app on the Mac and iOS devices. Both are OK but just didn’t do it for me. I have found task and reminder Nirvana – it is called ToDoist. It is clean, simple, clever and unbelievably functional. It is like Evernote for tasks and reminders. You can make it is as simple as you like or as complex as you like. You can have projects – like Work, home, etc and labels such as calls, meetings, admin which span across projects so you can see all of your calls, meetings, etc. It also has filters, such as priority. But as I said, it can be as simple or complex as you like across Mac, iOS, Windows, Android and Chrome. Like Evernote, you can also forward emails to ToDoist. It has free and paid versions. I went for the annual subscription. What I really like about it is that you can simply type “Call Bob every Thursday at 8.15 am @call” and it will schedule it every Thursday and categorise it as a call. It also has a Mac menu bar icon for easy adding of tasks and reminders. You can also share project lists and tasks. Check it out: https://support.todoist.com/hc/en-us/articles/205378051-Quick-Guide . Awesome.
Got something I should look at? Message me!
Andrew Woodward 