Category Archives: apps

My iPhone 11 Home Screen

I’ve paired things down a little lately and wanted to share my latest Home Screen, always enjoy these sorts of posts.

The main thing I’ve done is settle into Todoist and removed the calendar widget. I found that in these current times the calendar widget just wasn’t useful and a reminder of where things are. I decided just to have the Todoist one to show me what I had on my plate in a day.

I’m starting to play with Streaks and DayCount for habit (good and bad!) tracking again having fallen off the wagon.

Everything else is pretty standard for me. Reeder for RSS, no social media apps on my Home Screen, podcasts and music and I’m still using Apple Notes.

The wallpaper is great and can be found here.

How to move an item between lists in Microsoft To Do

I’m having a test of Microsoft To Do right now, it’s always good to see what other apps are offering if you’re into productivity apps.

The first thing that I thought was worth sharing was how to move an item between different lists.

If you want to move an item, swipe right on it and tap the red icon. You can then pick the list from the selection screen you see above.

Organising my email

I’m not sure if it’s because my day job now is locked in job seeking so I’m at the Mac a lot more but I decided to clear down my email. I just normally let them come in and delete very rarely. I decided with so many job search emails coming in and appointments or follow ups I needed to organise a bit. Flagging and searching isn’t stellar on iOS or macOS so I decided to create folders like job seeking and reference and moving my emails into the correct place.

They went back to 2010 but I’ve done it. Most were deleted via iOS, which offers a much quicker way via multiselect and bin. I must have removed 3000 emails and now I know where things are in their appropriate place.

I’ll just need to keep on top of what’s coming in and delete as I go.

Hush: Browse the web in a bit more peace

I noticed Daring Fireball linked to this open source Safari extension and after using it a little I have to say that it’s made my browsing of job related sites a lot happier experience without closing about 50 pop ups. This works with Safari on iOS and macOS and blocks pop ups, like newsletter and cookie prompts. Not the ads remember but speeds things up a lot and I’d recommend checking it out if you use Safari as your browser of choice.

You can check out the Hush site here.

Should you put habits in your task manager?

Should you put habits in your task manager is a question I’ve been asking myself for a few weeks now. I’ve both used a task manager and habit tracker in the past and I’m leaning towards two separate apps.

This is why.

Overwhelm

I set up my task manager based on a mind map I created, this includes good and bad habits. Problem is check out the number of items in my list each day! I’ll be at least this number and more on my mind every day.

Streaks

Breaking bad habits for me is based on a streak of times I haven’t done it. What’s worked in the past is building a streak then not wanting to break it. A habit tracker is the only way to really do this.

Use two different apps

So, I’ll be removing some of the overwhelm from Todoist and move them into Streaks.

What do you feel about having two different apps?

Job hunting with Apple Notes

Job hunting with Apple Notes is something that kicked off last year so that I could keep a record of everything I had applied for (believe me, you need to keep track of it all). I looked at other solutions maybe using a third party app or using Apple Numbers but I ended up settling as I thought I would on Apple Notes.

First off I created a new FOLDER called ‘Job Hunting’, which would contain all of the relevant notes like interview notes etc…

I then created my NOTE called ‘Job Hunting Diary’ that contained a simple table containing the following columns

  • Date Applied
  • Company Name
  • Role
  • Any follow up? (links etc)
  • Status (date and update e.g. 09/02/2021, been put through to the second stage process)

This note was then pinned, so that it appeared at the top of my notes on whatever device I was using.

This has been great at tracking the various roles I’ve applied for and I use it multiple times a day. There are some downsides around formatting flexibility and sorting (you can’t) but for I like the simplicity of it’s always in sync without me having to do anything.

Splitting up calendar items and your task manager

I’d been of the mindset that seeing my calendar items within my task manager was a must have but now I’ve switched over to Todoist and this isn’t an option for my iCloud I’ve come to the conclusion it actually clutters things up.

Having a division of these two actually helps with overload to me. I use the Apple Calendar app widget to remind me what I have on but at the moment concentrating just on my task manager helps me get things done without worrying about the structure of the day.

I just work through my list and get to the items when I get to them.

Update on my Todoist setup

I posted last week about coming back to Todoist and I wanted to share with you how it’s been going this week.

As you can see I’ve kept it pretty basic with

  • A project per category I need to manage
  • A sub project if this needs breaking down E.g. Video within the Create project
  • The use of section headers to break down a project, like my learning one you can see in the screenshot

This has been working pretty well this week and between my devices (iPhone and MacBook, using Safari) I’ve been keeping on track ok. I am using the small widget on the home screen that shows me the number of items in the list today and the top few.

I’m adding items by firing up the app first but my next tasks is to look at how Todoist is working with automation and try to use Shortcuts a little more.

If you want to check out Todoist, please use my affiliate link here to help support my writing. (thanks in advance).

My Todoist setup

I’ve been switching apps again (you’re sick of posts like this right?) and with my kind of breaking and being overwhelmed with overdue Reminders UI I’ve gone back to old faithful – Todoist.

I know I’ve written up posts on not being able to justify a subscription but I need to invest in myself and job hunting so paid up for my monthly £3.99.

I just initially used my iPhone and dumped everything into their appropriate projects as you can see above. I don’t use labels and prefer to divide my tasks into logical places. You’ll see my divisions above. It’s a pretty basic setup at the moment and the folder names should show what tasks go where.

Along with the setup I have the small today widget on my main Home Screen. This allows me to see how much I’ve got left to do today at a glance.

I’ll share more as I refine this over time but for now here’s my Todoist setup.