Drafts

This is part two of a three-part series on the productivity method called Getting Things Done developed by David Allen. I explained GTD in the first post. In this post I’ll share my personal GTD workflow, and the final post explains the critical GTD component called the weekly review. I’ve used nearly every type of tool to organize my workflow and manage my tasks. I’ve used Moleskine journals of every size, Clear, Reminders, Evernote, my email inbox–you name it. But I’ve landed on the big daddy of Apple GTD systems to get things done–Omnifocus. ...

There’s a new most-used app on my iPhone. Upon first inspection it seems to be a simple note-taking app. But underneath the hood it’s the equivalent of a hybrid electric car getting over 200 miles per gallon. I came across Drafts for iOS thanks to David Sparks of MacSparky. I’ve mentioned the app before, but I thought I’d share more in-depth about how I’ve come to use and love it and how it’s made it’s way into the illustrious iPhone dock. First, here’s a sampling of what I use it for. I’ll get into the specifics a bit further down: Writing reminders for myself Taking down notes and quotes from (library) books I’m reading Writing tweets and sending them to Buffer Sending emails to myself Sending a text to Niki (or a saved group) Copying down people’s contact information Saving my workout plans Adding new notes to Evernote Adding to my reading list Adding to my wish list Creating calendar events Saving documents to Dropbox Writing short notes in Markdown Searching my blog Looking for products on Amazon Finding a saved password in 1Password Jotting down a quick idea and saving it to my ideas list In just the list above, it takes the place of using at least 11 different apps. And that’s just scratching the surface. Here’s why Drafts is awesome. ...

I recently discovered MacSparky, David Sparks’ website. He often highlights the home screens of his friends’ iPhones, and since I don’t have any friends, I decided to write about my own home screen. My home screen is in constant flux. I’ve moved the icons around a dozen times in the last week since being back in the States (au revoir, MagicJack and Ljubljana Bus app). It was time to get all efficient. I normally sell you on why I love apps, but this is more on how I use them and my general iOS workflow instead of just great apps. I’ve been thinking a lot about workflow lately thanks to the Mac Power Users podcast (by David Sparks and Katie Floyd) and my incessant urge to be ever more productive and efficient. ...

Sometimes I do stupid things that waste time out of habit. Most of the time I do that because it’s more convenient to keep doing things the way I know how instead of investing the time into figuring out the best way to do them. Here’s a recent example. This is my normal workflow for creating a blog post. ...