After watching a video about iterative thinking, it made me feel less bummed about trying ways to organize projects in my to-do system. The video reminded me to enjoy a failure because you get to try the next idea. Each attempt is a chance to level-up the skills.
I am currently working on a website that has a couple hundred music releases. Each release has a list of songs. Unfortunately the song lists aren't formated correctly. They all have a number at the beginning and a time at the end and they aren't in a proper html ol list element.
ex: 1. song name 2:34
I need the "1." gone and the "2:34" wrapped in parenthesis for each song in each release. Shortcuts has an Ask ChatGPT action that is perfect for this scenario.
There is a few extra find/replace actions I didn't include because they are project specific. I just need to copy the list and run the shortcut and I get a nice, tidy ol list of all song names formated like this...
song name (2:34)
If you have to do a thing more than 3-4 times, there is an automation. The beauty of Shortcuts is you can make one quick, use it, and then delete it. I don't save them because creating them is great practice. Over time you start to level up your building skills.
Sidenote: I did hit a limit with ChatGPT after a while..."You've reached our limit of messages per hour. Please try again later."
Finally got the Things 3 app set up for GTD using the setup guide the David Allen GTD website provides. The setup was easy and intuitive but I ran into one tiny snag for my tasks.
I get a task from work that has multiple steps to it. According to the GTD philosophy, the title of the task would be the project. All the steps are next actions that go in the various contexts separately.
Project: Add the image to the website
Next Actions: 1. Get the image from server 2. Upload the image to the site
So that part is easy. The project goes on the Projects list and those next actions go on the Computer list. All three get tagged with the Work tag as well as the acronym of the client.
The snag I was running into is when I click on the client’s tag in Things to get into Focus mode for the client, I got every Project and Next Action for the client.
That was unacceptable because it switched me from Focus mode to Sky Falling mode. I needed to find a simple way to focus on just the current task.
If SKU numbers work for record labels around the world, they should work in a to-do app. I tried giving a Project and its Next Actions a SKU number with the client acronym and a number like mpls–001.
It totally worked. I went into the Anytime section, clicked the tag for mpls–001, and I got just the Project and Next Actions for that tag. Totally blissful.
While rethinking how to dictate things into Drafts, I had an a-ha moment. I really just need to get a noun into the system quickly while I am out doing stuff. The nouns are the things that change the most in my tasks. The verbs are more or less kinda constant.
I set up a quick capture system using Drafts on the watch (dictation or typing), an Apple Shortcut to add a verb to the captured noun, and then the "sentence" gets sent to my to-do list inbox.
It isn't hard to type a verb for sure but this makes it so I don't have to type out hundreds and hundreds of verbs.
Very cool. ( ^ . ^ ) \m/
Shift-option-command-V is the shortcut for pasting text as Plain Text. If I was less lazy, I'd go change the keyboard shortcuts so that Command-V would paste as Plain Text.
Mac OS should have a game mode for Trash. The way trash is now, you get the pleasing sound but you don't get the thrill of making a basket. If there was a game mode for Trash, you could have random mini-games popup from time-to-time when you trash a file.
It would be set up so the game would only pop-up for files older than a certain date to prevent people from making new files and trashing them just to play the game. Gaming the Trash might also encourage people to clear out digital clutter too.
By the way, I have done zero searches to see if this already exists. ( ^ . ^ ) \m/
The activities app that comes with the Apple Watch was recording when I play drums as an Outdoor Run. That was good enough for me to get some credit for the effort and didn't think any more of it.
I noticed the other day that a fitness tracker app I started using had "drumming" as a workout choice. That blew my mind because it was the first time I have ever seen that in any fitness related app.
Last night at rehearsal I hit the Drumming button for the first time. Today when I look back at yesterday's info, it's very cool to see the drummer icon.
When I receive an answer from AI, I respond with some sort of “thanks” cause it’s kinda fun. It responds with a pleasant "you're welcome".
Is all that extra politeness band for the environment in the end? If I don't do it each time then the server doesn't have to use extra energy.
Dunno.
When the brain is foggy (due to medications fighting off a virus that has me stuck in a room quarentining for a stretch), small, repetitive projects are a life-saver. Getting to feel like I am getting stuff done and slowly get back into reality is part of healing from both the virus and the quarantine.
When I woke up, I wanted to dive into whatever was announced at the 2024 Keynote. Then I found myself wanting to go on Mastodon and reading all the knee-jerk complaints about said announcements. Instead, I grabbed some coffee, iPad with pencil, and a spot on the couch looking out at the Skytree. Giving myself some points for fading into the day today.