Apple

The mouse was a beautiful invention for the personal computer. But it’s mostly unnecessary. I still use it quite often, but I’m trying to move more swiftly through the digital world, rocking the keyboard instead of the mouse. It’s faster because you don’t have to move your hands and waste time repositioning (wow, I’m a nerd). (Confession: I just used the mouse and now I’m kicking myself. I definitely haven’t mastered this yet.) If you’re ready to be so fast and so furious, so you can get back to the things that matter, check out my favorite shortcuts below. I haven’t included every keyboard shortcut, but only the ones that I find the most helpful. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite shortcuts are in the comments. ...

I love books and I don’t care who knows it. “The books you read and the people you meet will determine where you are in five years.” __ Charlie ‘Tremendous’ Jones. Books are second only to relationships when it comes to the trajectory of our lives. I set out with a goal of reading 52 books this year. In case you’re wondering, an 8.5 hour plane ride across the Atlantic last week helped me get back on track, and I’ve officially completed 28 books, putting me on pace to hit 52 for the year. [Full disclosure: A couple books are pretty short, around 100 pages, so that’s lame, but I’ll work on getting my page count up, ok, you guys?] So, I thought it was time for some musings on books.  ...

If you’ve ever wrestled with Microsoft Word for an hour trying to line up a few blocks of text and a couple of pictures to just create a one-page document, I feel your pain. At some point, everyone needs to make a PDF with pictures, lots of different text boxes and other vital information. We do this every month for our newsletter we send out to our ministry partners. It looks like this. Our monthly letters contain only two rounded rectangles (one at the top and bottom with our information), three main text boxes (for our main story, a box for prayer requests, and a caption for our photos) and two to three photos. It’s really that easy. Here’s how you can make a slick 1-page PDF in 20 minutes flat. ...

I can’t help but tell everyone I know about things I love. It makes being a missionary easier, to be sure. There are also some great, relatively inexpensive things I own that I want the world to know about. These items are so well designed they can’t help but bring a smile to your face when they actually do what they’re supposed to do. Contigo Water Bottle – ~$11 I’ve gone through a plethora of different water bottles (mostly because I lose them). I drink a ton of water, I’d guess nearly 100 oz a day (so yes, I pee constantly). So since I go to the well so often, I want to have a good canister. ...