Category: "Productivity"

Markdown Notes App with Outline

Markdown Notes App with Outline

If you search on the Mac App Store, you will find dozens of Markdown note taking apps with a markdown pane on the left and a preview / reading pane on the right.

Many of them also feature a sidebar on the left where you can "conveniently" browse your files. Yay!

Yet, none, and I really mean none of them, offers an option to see an outline of your document in the sidebar!!

Why?

I have notes that are 30 pages long. They are living documents, with a structure. They make full use of 4 or 5 levels of headings. And scrolling up and down to find the relevant part just isn't practical. Having an outline would allow to click and quickly scroll to the relevant part of the document.

I so wish someone would implement this.

Do one thing today!

Do one thing today!

Ok, this is one of the most powerful productivity tips ever: decide on the one thing you are going to do today, and make that decision quickly after waking up!

More specifically, try to think of the 3 to 5 things that annoy you the most / that you have been putting off / that seem difficult to start. There is generally a high correlation between the aforementioned attributes and the importance of the task!

Once this is done, pick one, and only one of these and decide that you will do it today. This will focus your mind on that single task and you will actually find both the energy and clarity of mind needed to get that task started. And as always, once you take the first step, the next one will light up... Only the first 5 minutes are really really tough! (Downright psychological torture in some cases... but the rewards after the first 5 minutes will be enormous too...)

Things to finally offer cloud based sync

Things to finally offer cloud based sync

Things on the Mac is my favorite GTD style to-do list manager. Their major drawback though, was lack of decent sync between multiple devices.

Well, they finally acknowledged the issue and promise cloud based sync to be available in a few months.

In the meantime, I move the Things DB to dropbox (launch the app while holding down the ALT key to do this). This at least lets me open the DB from different computers. But it can’t handle concurrent edits, so be careful what you do! :p

Regarding iPhone & iPad, you gotta manually launch the app over & over again while on the same WiFi network for your stuff to sync… can’t wait for this to end!!

Making Time (is like Making Money)

Making Time (is like Making Money)

How many times have you heard "Time is Money"? It’s getting pretty old and boring, isn’t it?

Well here’s a new thought: Time is just like Money! Especially: you can’t just wait until you find it… if you want some, you have to make it! And in both cases: you have to develop skills to do that!

Think! ;)

The Dip: knowing when to quit and when to stick

I just finished reading "the dip" by Seth Godin. I actually didn't really know what the book was about and I basically picked it up just because it was less than $10 and because I loved previous books by Seth Godin (no doubt he's one of the greatest marketers of our generation!)

Well I'm glad I did. This is a small 76 page book, so it was pretty easy and fast to read! Actually, it could probably be even shorter and still make its point! But wow! More than making a point this book will actually pep you up and motivate you to hang in with your projects... or to quit before wasting any more time. Basically it tells you that the worst thing is to stay on a dead end track...

But for me, the most interesting part was the motivational part about how the dip before success is a normal thing to experience. If a project didn't have that painful phase where nothing seems easy and where you feel like you want to quit, then that project probably wouldn't be worth pursuing anyway... since just anyone else could do the same.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to read right now, with the down economy and everyone around loosing their energy.

Of course, the book also made me realize that a couple of my projects were sort of dead ends and that I should quit them right away. But that's part of the process! Reading this book over the last 2 days made me feel better about prioritizing my projects and cutting dead branches!

Minimum cash & time investment. High motivational return. Check it out! :)

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) — Buy it now at Amazon.com