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Software Update for 2020

When I started posting, almost two years ago, I was amidst several experiments with my setup. Those experiments have run their course and I’ve settled things some. Here are some comments:

  • I attempted to leverage a more complicated, plain-text strategy using TaskPaper and tags based on reading. This complexity proved to be more than I really needed/wanted and so I’ve eliminated it.
  • I’ve condensed the synch options to include iCloud only. If a tool doesn’t support iCloud synch, I am not interested in using it. I am aware of the drawbacks of iCloud for sharing with others but this is not my use case at all. As long as it is reliable for me, I’m fine with it. And I prefer a service I already pay for and trust the relative security of.
  • I’ve added Timing to the mix for tracking my activities and removed Tyme2. While I still own licenses for all my devices on Tyme2, I found the manual tracking to be cumbersome. I haven’t fully leveraged the features yet in Timing, I’m still getting a feel for it, but I think it can reach my “grail” level by allowing me to see where I’m spending time in applications, files and folders and then munge that information to extract the customer I’m working on based on tags or folder structure. I’ll likely post more on this at some point (I hope).
  • I’ve slowed my usage of DEVONThink. This is because of initial issues getting synch to work to my iPad and the release of Files on iOS that allowed for some visibility into my archives in the traditional folder structure on the Mac. Also, while I don’t really care too much about sharing with others its cleaner, and easer, to leverage drag-and-drop between a Dropbox folder (for work) and my local file system than to push things in and out of DEVONthink. I’m on the fence about upgrading to 3.0 at this point. I haven’t tried to pull what I have out of 2.x yet but it is something looming in the future.
  • I don’t have it below but I’m experimenting with the newer Apple Reminders and Notes apps to handle my to-dos. I also have a RocketBook Mini I’m using for laying out and capturing items that arise from text or phone (which I struggled to capture before). More to come on all that.
  • I really enjoy writing in iA Writer on my iPad but I really don’t like how it handles text once written. I want something better integrated into Files I think. While it supports it and it can work it … feels like effort to edit in iA for me. I’d like that friction to go away. I’ll keep looking for the just-right text editing/composition app on iOS.

The new layout is below:

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