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July 24, 2023

The Art of Automation and Productivity with Adam Olson

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Are you prepared to conquer the chaos of daily tasks? Today, we're thrilled to be joined by our old friend and tech aficionado, Adam Olson. Adam brings an arsenal of efficiency-boosting tips and tricks, from using iOS features like the double-tap open command to managing complex automation collections. 

Our conversation takes a detour into the world of app integration and preferences, discussing how we can best streamline our daily tasks using apps and automation. With features such as Siri integration, and apps like OmniFocus and Things, we delve into the GTD method and its benefits. We talk Apple's Calendar app and Outlook for watch integration, and even touch on the contentious topic of subscription models.

The final leg of our journey explores the realm of productivity apps and methods. We talk about apps like SwitchResX, TextExpander, Sessions, and HoudahSpot that can simplify those tedious tasks and boost productivity. Then, we turn the spotlight on Keyboard Maestro, a tool that proves indispensable for automating daily tasks. So, listen in and prepare to revolutionize the way you navigate your digital life.

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Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen


Show transcripts and episode artwork are AI generated and likely contain errors and general silliness.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:13 - Meet Adam Olson

05:20 - Adam’s Hardware

07:02 - Adam’s Software Toolset

43:40 - Getting Started with Automation

50:03 - Keyboard Maestro Usage

01:06:45 - Shortcuts Automations

01:10:51 - Close

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.180 --> 00:00:01.425
It's probably just a stroke.

00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:11.821
All right, welcome in.

00:00:11.821 --> 00:00:14.387
It is another episode of Basic AF.

00:00:14.387 --> 00:00:16.751
I'm Tom, along with Jeff.

00:00:16.751 --> 00:00:17.472
Jeff, how we doing.

00:00:17.972 --> 00:00:26.254
I'm Well, tom, when I just want to point out that, even though we sound nice now, we've completely gone off the rails before we even began this evening.

00:00:26.314 --> 00:00:27.925
So Well, that's what we usually do.

00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:29.362
It's true.

00:00:30.943 --> 00:00:48.213
Yeah, and so we're Another show, want to say welcome if you're new, thanks for checking us out and giving us a shot and hope that we earn a spot on your playlist and, if you're coming back for another episode, thank you for your ongoing support of the show.

00:00:48.213 --> 00:00:50.344
We do very much appreciate it.

00:00:51.006 --> 00:01:00.368
This episode, jeff, we have a guest with us again, tom, you, you just don't want to do things with me alone anymore.

00:01:01.029 --> 00:01:02.313
You kind of weird me out, man.

00:01:09.441 --> 00:01:10.926
Adam's already taking us down a path.

00:01:11.007 --> 00:01:17.686
Great Thank you, he has so joining us on this episode, former colleague of mine, Adam Olson.

00:01:17.686 --> 00:01:18.930
Adam, welcome to the show.

00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:20.983
Thank you, good to be here.

00:01:22.081 --> 00:01:22.262
Yep.

00:01:22.262 --> 00:01:29.643
And so when Adam and I worked together, how long ago did you leave, like how long ago?

00:01:29.722 --> 00:01:32.944
It feels like it's about six years or so, five minutes after you arrived.

00:01:36.802 --> 00:01:38.394
And I'm glad it feels longer to you, Tom.

00:01:38.394 --> 00:01:39.000
I appreciate it.

00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:39.521
It does.

00:01:39.521 --> 00:01:48.549
Yeah, it seems like it's been quite a while, but, like we've said on this show before, like the COVID period, I'm still trying to get like time back from that, like it got really weird.

00:01:50.144 --> 00:02:03.227
But Adam and I used to get together and hang out I don't know every couple of months, I think and we would nerd out on workflows and automation and productivity hacks and things like that.

00:02:03.227 --> 00:02:11.311
And Jeff, you had an idea for a show based, you know, on that topic and I thought, oh, I know the perfect guy to bring in for this.

00:02:11.939 --> 00:02:12.824
I got a nurse.

00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:14.320
Right.

00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:22.271
And that's when I pulled out my collection of automations and then Adam pulled out his collection of automation.

00:02:22.271 --> 00:02:24.336
I was like, okay, I'm gonna go home now.

00:02:24.336 --> 00:02:29.852
I thought I was doing pretty well, but I got nothing, man.

00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.046
Yeah, that's impressive, and we're going to dig into that.

00:02:33.046 --> 00:02:39.622
So the premise for this show will be automations, workflows.

00:02:39.622 --> 00:02:49.264
And before we kind of start down the path, I would encourage you, if you're listening in your ear, don't be intimidated by those words automations and workflows.

00:02:49.264 --> 00:02:55.145
You can have very simple automations that you get benefit from on a daily basis.

00:02:55.145 --> 00:03:05.462
They don't have to be these complex 100 step things although I think Adam's got some of those but you just don't have to have that, and so we're going to dig into that.

00:03:05.462 --> 00:03:12.262
So I encourage you, even if it's something, you're thinking how this is going to go way over your head, it won't completely.

00:03:12.262 --> 00:03:24.007
So you know we may, towards the end of the show, maybe dig into some super nerdy stuff, but we do want to try to make it beneficial for you as well, so that you can maybe take some of these away and apply them in a practical manner.

00:03:24.306 --> 00:03:42.048
Yeah, and to give you an idea of, like, the simplicity of some automations, one of the ones that I use now regularly is a double pat, double, a double tap on the back of my phone to open up the Halide app.

00:03:42.048 --> 00:03:47.336
So it's using a feature that's built into iOS that allows you to tap the back of your phone to.

00:03:47.336 --> 00:04:04.987
You know, typically typically that's an accessibility feature, but I've enabled that so that I can open Halide, which is photo app, because iOS at least presently and probably not in the next version of iOS it doesn't allow you to select a particular camera app.

00:04:04.987 --> 00:04:18.733
So this gives me the ability to do that, and it was a really simple, really simple script that that I created that I can use with a shortcut app and just opens up Halide and I'm ready to go.

00:04:18.892 --> 00:04:21.807
So, as Tom says I got screenshots for that same thing.

00:04:21.807 --> 00:04:25.766
Double tap and a lot of unintended screenshots at that.

00:04:30.487 --> 00:04:32.711
Oh good, great.

00:04:32.711 --> 00:04:39.865
So just want to point out already Adam's not as smart as you be, because he's taken screenshots with a double tap.

00:04:39.865 --> 00:04:42.310
I was embarrassed to be on this show.

00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:44.935
Now I'm feeling like I'm kind of smart.

00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:47.324
We're in our element, Jeff.

00:04:49.502 --> 00:04:50.062
Okay, good call.

00:04:50.062 --> 00:04:55.834
I'm sorry, Adam, I didn't mean to denigrate you within the first five minutes but it's done.

00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:58.266
We're setting the bar low, so that's good.

00:04:58.266 --> 00:04:59.149
I have nowhere to go.

00:05:01.041 --> 00:05:02.125
No, we've gone this show man.

00:05:02.125 --> 00:05:11.608
So, adam, if you don't mind, you want to tell us a little bit, like what Apple products are you using these days?

00:05:11.608 --> 00:05:19.952
I know, like I say, it's been five or six years, so, like in terms of Mac, phone, watch, that kind of stuff, what do you have these days?

00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:23.262
So the gamut.

00:05:23.262 --> 00:05:38.220
I don't have my goggles yet, but I've got a watch phone, ipad, fairly new M1 Mac Pro, so I still got the old trash can, so I'm running that as a desktop as well.

00:05:38.220 --> 00:05:45.132
So, and I just got rid of the 40 Mac minis that I bought off of you, tom.

00:05:45.192 --> 00:05:51.447
So those are the box you sent me.

00:05:51.447 --> 00:05:53.084
Take sure of those boxes.

00:05:53.225 --> 00:06:13.204
No, we used to take our old computers at the office and when they reached the end of life we'd do like a community, if you want to call it that, a CO, for, like the staff and faculty and Adam was always there picking up stuff for who knows what projects- After a while.

00:06:13.464 --> 00:06:14.932
Why do I have so many of these?

00:06:14.932 --> 00:06:16.779
So I just gave them out to people in the office.

00:06:16.779 --> 00:06:20.355
I had probably 10 to 12 of those things.

00:06:20.355 --> 00:06:21.240
So, oh my gosh.

00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:22.904
Oh yeah, I'll use that for a server.

00:06:22.904 --> 00:06:27.557
Yeah, I'll use that for Plex server or like I want anything to do with these.

00:06:28.721 --> 00:06:29.766
You're trying to look at these.

00:06:30.459 --> 00:06:31.802
Exactly so.

00:06:31.802 --> 00:06:33.745
That's pretty much my gamut, though.

00:06:33.745 --> 00:06:35.267
So I haven't got the new watch.

00:06:35.267 --> 00:06:36.290
That does look appealing.

00:06:36.290 --> 00:06:48.785
I hiked the grand last year and I got about a thousand feet from the top and my watch died on me and I thought if I had the new watch I'd make it day and a half.

00:06:48.785 --> 00:06:52.692
So I was pretty mad I didn't get my elevation gain on that one.

00:06:52.692 --> 00:06:54.264
So Right.

00:06:54.264 --> 00:06:55.062
That's been good.

00:06:56.459 --> 00:07:04.293
Very cool, and it looks like you have a pretty hefty list of applications that you use on the regular too.

00:07:04.293 --> 00:07:12.132
So why don't you tell us a little bit about, like, who you are, what you do, how you knew, tom, what you were doing at Shenandoah and what you're?

00:07:12.151 --> 00:07:12.391
doing now?

00:07:12.391 --> 00:07:26.012
Yeah, so I, uh, I'm a guitar player that ended up messing up my hands and got into the other side of the glass with a recording technology which I actually wanted nothing to do with.

00:07:26.012 --> 00:07:32.048
I remember early teachers that were talking about pedals and stuff and I didn't want to do anything.

00:07:32.048 --> 00:07:43.552
Technology and my days are now or about 12 plus hours a day on a computer for the last 25, year, 20 years, something like that.

00:07:43.552 --> 00:07:44.716
So it's been.

00:07:44.716 --> 00:07:45.819
It's been a lot.

00:07:46.281 --> 00:07:52.086
Um, like I mentioned earlier, I had a lot of keynotes and very invested in Apple.

00:07:52.086 --> 00:07:58.886
I finally just left Windows, for the most part about three years ago.

00:07:58.886 --> 00:08:07.612
So, um, I was in Pyramix and some other audio applications that just from companies that I was working in that were on Windows.

00:08:07.612 --> 00:08:15.004
But, um, quicken was my last stretch of just keeping me on Windows and I finally just bagged that on Windows.

00:08:15.004 --> 00:08:17.411
Don't do any more VM boots into that.

00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:18.502
There's a.

00:08:18.502 --> 00:08:35.288
There's a rare handful of times that I'll have to go into some Windows for different things, but I I've been an app junkie probably for about 15 years, so hence Tom and I's conversation.

00:08:35.288 --> 00:08:41.788
So I've I've all those deals that they they throw out on a zillion different sites.

00:08:41.788 --> 00:08:43.475
I generally tend to buy them.

00:08:43.475 --> 00:08:55.431
If they're five, ten bucks, I'll I'll throw money that their way and see if they're useful, and I've got probably thousands of apps that I've just left to be archived and never to use again.

00:08:55.431 --> 00:09:00.807
So, um, but it was tricky when you guys asked me, like what, what are some of the main apps?

00:09:00.807 --> 00:09:03.173
But, um, I trimmed it down to these are.

00:09:03.173 --> 00:09:06.705
These are the apps that I do use regularly.

00:09:06.705 --> 00:09:08.671
We can, we can get into OmniFocus.

00:09:08.671 --> 00:09:11.080
I mean, there's a handful of apps that I use all the time.

00:09:11.321 --> 00:09:14.671
Yeah, so why don't you tell us what those are and in the why behind, why you use them?

00:09:15.620 --> 00:09:18.725
Sure, um, just, I guess, fly, fly through these.

00:09:18.725 --> 00:09:26.826
So OmniFocus, it's a GTD method of getting things done and it's, um, it's the the best one that I've found.

00:09:26.826 --> 00:09:29.051
Tom, are you still using things you had mentioned?

00:09:29.051 --> 00:09:30.614
You were on one of your shows.

00:09:30.614 --> 00:09:32.442
Did you bag that?

00:09:34.802 --> 00:09:37.049
I've been doing an experiment with reminders.

00:09:38.299 --> 00:09:38.642
Okay.

00:09:39.083 --> 00:09:43.424
Um, but, and part of it's just because of the.

00:09:43.424 --> 00:09:59.958
It's got like the position one for Siri stuff, which I do a lot of stuff with the watch in particular um, with Siri to say, hey, remind me blah, blah, blah, blah, or in the car with car playing stuff, and you can set up that kind of link between things and reminders and stuff.

00:09:59.958 --> 00:10:04.792
But I thought, well, let me give reminders a shot because it has the benefit of being the Apple app.

00:10:04.792 --> 00:10:11.106
But I gotta tell you I opened things yesterday and I was like, oh, how pretty it is.

00:10:13.780 --> 00:10:27.461
And it was like and I hadn't looked at it in a while, uh so on the edge of going back yeah, I'm thinking maybe I'll go back or at least try that uh again, try that uh uh.

00:10:27.461 --> 00:10:35.500
Integration between the two, where you can set up like a designated reminders list and reminders that things will just pick it up from and drop it in your things list.

00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:36.623
So I do that.

00:10:36.623 --> 00:10:39.590
Yeah, I wish there was something that was a little bit better integrated.

00:10:39.590 --> 00:10:44.634
So so there's been a lot of amens as I've been listening to your show on different things.

00:10:44.634 --> 00:10:47.485
You're talking about Siri and how, how things integrate.

00:10:47.485 --> 00:10:49.350
You're that's one that drives me nuts.

00:10:49.350 --> 00:10:56.510
I wish I could just do a hey Siri easily and and have things jump into the, into OmniFocus.

00:10:56.510 --> 00:10:59.239
Well, but it seems so hit and miss, even though they've added those features.

00:10:59.239 --> 00:11:03.205
So, um, anyway, so that's OmniFocus.

00:11:03.205 --> 00:11:04.126
That's what I use for that.

00:11:04.126 --> 00:11:06.791
I absolutely love the GTD method.

00:11:06.791 --> 00:11:13.335
Um, won't go into that too much, but um I I think that it's fantastic that it's super simple.

00:11:13.335 --> 00:11:21.126
Or you can make it really complicated based on areas that you're at and projects and everything else, but both of those are basically similar apps.

00:11:21.126 --> 00:11:33.946
Um I I just gravitated towards OmniFocus because it seemed a little bit more powerful and I use Apple Scripts all the time on it and it seemed a lot better to use Apple Scripts with it than than things.

00:11:33.946 --> 00:11:35.489
So that's why I went that route.

00:11:36.009 --> 00:11:39.975
Um, pro Tools, cubase, new Window I'm an audio engineer, so I do.

00:11:39.975 --> 00:11:44.408
I'm in and out of Pro Tools all day long, so that's uh app.

00:11:44.408 --> 00:11:46.119
I live and die by Logic's been great.

00:11:46.119 --> 00:11:52.134
I'm a um, certified Logic, um advanced instructor, but I I don't find myself in Logic as much as I, um, as much as these other two apps.

00:11:52.134 --> 00:11:58.049
So there's just things that bother me a little bit with Logic and the way they edit and it.

00:11:58.049 --> 00:12:02.320
It does certain things, but fantastic app as well, um, uh, you, I want me to just keep flowing.

00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:07.326
Yeah, tell us, tell us what you're using and why.

00:12:07.326 --> 00:12:07.706
Yep, yep.

00:12:07.706 --> 00:12:09.828
So, um, as far as just straight up, apple, a, a given is calendar, so I use that.

00:12:09.849 --> 00:12:20.543
Um with the app sessions, we can get into that with some um, some flow workflow things with Keyword, maestro and some other stuff, but basically, um, the, the thing that I really like with that is again the integration with some Apple scripting things.

00:12:20.543 --> 00:12:23.746
That, um that I throw basically keeps track of what I'm doing for my day.

00:12:23.746 --> 00:12:27.932
I used my calendar more to track histories than I do of upcoming events for Apple calendar.

00:12:27.932 --> 00:12:34.984
And, um, tom, you had mentioned in the in an earlier show, just, I, you know, I I used my calendar more to track things that I throw.

00:12:34.984 --> 00:12:38.211
That basically keeps track of what I'm doing for my day.

00:12:38.211 --> 00:12:44.312
I use my calendar more to track histories than I do of upcoming events for Apple Calendar.

00:12:44.312 --> 00:12:51.605
And, tom, you had mentioned in an earlier show just trying to find a nice integration with the watch and everything.

00:12:51.605 --> 00:13:03.501
And man, I went through so many apps for the calendar like dozens of apps I downloaded and paid probably hundreds of dollars trying to find something that integrated really well.

00:13:05.179 --> 00:13:08.931
I use Fantastic Cal forever and I'm not a fan anymore.

00:13:08.931 --> 00:13:10.966
I love the groups in Fantastic Cal.

00:13:10.966 --> 00:13:15.932
There's things that it does well, but there's just too many issues and subscription and everything else.

00:13:15.932 --> 00:13:25.389
So the thing that I actually surprisingly settled on was for the watch at least integration between everything to keep track of what's up is Outlook.

00:13:25.389 --> 00:13:38.547
Outlook actually syncs fairly fast and it syncs between Apple Calendar, which I throw out on Apple Calendar, and then it goes to the watch app really well and shows me what I'm doing and what's coming up next.

00:13:38.547 --> 00:13:47.990
We can talk about Pomodoro in a second, but when I'm doing a Pomodoro or whatever task I'm in, it tells me when I'm done really well, and it has a nice integration there.

00:13:47.990 --> 00:13:52.788
So that's what I settled on, which was kind of surprising, since I don't know if it's Microsoft.

00:13:52.807 --> 00:13:53.369
Check that out.

00:13:53.369 --> 00:13:55.312
Yeah, I'll go back and look.

00:13:55.312 --> 00:13:58.046
Jeff, you use Outlook on iOS, right?

00:13:58.046 --> 00:13:59.203
Do you still do that?

00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:01.445
More very specific things.

00:14:01.445 --> 00:14:08.412
I use it for some of the people I consult with because their calendars are in Microsoft Office.

00:14:08.412 --> 00:14:22.188
I use FantasticOwl that's my go-to but it sounds like the things that I'm using it for, which is really just to keep track of what's coming up, as opposed to historical information.

00:14:22.188 --> 00:14:35.618
So that may be why Everybody has a subscription I mean even Apple now with their iPad apps for final cut.

00:14:35.618 --> 00:14:37.966
And what was the other one?

00:14:37.966 --> 00:14:39.309
Logic, Logic, yeah.

00:14:39.841 --> 00:14:44.489
Logic yeah, so a little annoyed.

00:14:44.489 --> 00:14:50.207
That annoyance goes a long ways, by the way, for every single.

00:14:50.207 --> 00:14:57.988
If you're using the sub stack or something like that anybody that you're reading on sub stack in order to see the details, you have to subscribe.

00:14:57.988 --> 00:14:59.344
It's like damn it.

00:14:59.344 --> 00:15:00.106
I just want to.

00:15:00.106 --> 00:15:09.083
You know Where's a magazine where I can subscribe once and read 50 articles, as opposed to subscribe to 50 people and read it one time.

00:15:09.083 --> 00:15:10.523
But you know it's a.

00:15:10.523 --> 00:15:19.062
You know I'm a little subscribed out and I probably, when I get a few minutes, want to think about that.

00:15:19.062 --> 00:15:24.027
But I do love Fantastic Hell, so Fantastic Hell for me integrates really well with that look.

00:15:24.849 --> 00:15:26.552
So I haven't found anything else.

00:15:26.552 --> 00:15:27.543
Maybe you guys have.

00:15:27.543 --> 00:15:37.831
That actually does the grouping like Fantastic Hell does, cause I have so many different calendars for things that just be able to click and turn all of a certain group off at once.

00:15:37.831 --> 00:15:49.187
That was, and there's key commands you can assign, so that I loved about Fantastic Hell for sure, so it's really good for that, not that I use that but and they raised that subscription too- last year.

00:15:49.467 --> 00:15:59.306
Yeah, they did Right and it was fairly considerable amount, and I was on the fence but I've kind of, you know, I've hit the crack and so I'm stuck with it.

00:15:59.306 --> 00:15:59.707
So, so, so.

00:15:59.707 --> 00:16:15.570
I'll just automate these check boxes with keyboard by stress over there, right, yeah, so I mean, it's probably honestly, it's probably at its limit for what I'm like if they were to say, next year, bump it again.

00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:17.607
I'd probably be like hmm, I think I'm good.

00:16:17.607 --> 00:16:20.019
Yeah, I might be the same, but we'll see.

00:16:20.019 --> 00:16:21.565
So anyway, all right Adam Cool.

00:16:22.327 --> 00:16:25.008
Yeah, so Pathfinder is a huge one.

00:16:25.008 --> 00:16:28.264
And this, again, this is one of those things that I have looked everywhere.

00:16:28.264 --> 00:16:41.000
I worked with this company for a while, about probably five years ago I have not found anything in the Finder that actually allows you to drag and drop and just merge the folders really well.

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:46.779
I mean, I know there's a zillion little tiny apps that you can do and, but just something that's smooth like that.

00:16:46.779 --> 00:16:51.984
Windows has been doing that since at least Windows 98 and that will tell you this one's newer, which one do you want to keep?

00:16:51.984 --> 00:16:58.860
So, yeah, again, tons of little utility apps, but they do not do it as well as Pathfinder.

00:16:58.961 --> 00:17:01.159
That's the main reason I've been using it.

00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:14.940
I've been in it for hours and hours at a time At this point just merging a bunch of old junk and things that needed to be put together that I didn't want to go all the way down to the sub level or if they had shared names.

00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:17.048
So that app has been fantastic.

00:17:17.048 --> 00:17:18.125
I loved it.

00:17:18.125 --> 00:17:24.404
So, pathfinder, I'm still using Quicksilver, if you remember that app from way back in the day.

00:17:25.729 --> 00:17:28.805
So Quicksilver, I remember the name, I can't even remember what it.

00:17:30.182 --> 00:17:32.704
It's basically Alfred, so it's like it's a launcher.

00:17:32.704 --> 00:17:39.469
Yeah, as far as I know, I think it was probably one of the first ones that were ever there.

00:17:39.469 --> 00:17:46.569
I mean, it'd be Taskbar, and now what's the one I just spent time with?

00:17:46.569 --> 00:17:49.403
I can't even think of what's called.

00:17:49.403 --> 00:17:50.066
It's with the queue.

00:17:52.342 --> 00:17:54.469
Yeah, I had that on my Mac for a while too.

00:17:54.469 --> 00:18:04.027
I think I know what one you're talking about, which is it's kind of a freeware app or was yeah, yeah, yeah, can't remember what it is, but I know exactly what you're talking about.

00:18:04.027 --> 00:18:04.669
Great little app.

00:18:04.669 --> 00:18:05.261
I liked it.

00:18:05.261 --> 00:18:09.426
Yeah, so the one that we can't give a name to.

00:18:09.426 --> 00:18:12.412
It's Raycast, so Raycast, there we go.

00:18:12.471 --> 00:18:13.374
Yeah, it's not a queue.

00:18:13.374 --> 00:18:14.905
So that's Quicksilver.

00:18:14.905 --> 00:18:18.063
So Raycast, that one's good.

00:18:18.063 --> 00:18:26.207
There was just multiple limitations on how it managed screens and different things I did and it wasn't enough to jump over.

00:18:26.207 --> 00:18:30.526
If it was going to combine a few other apps that I used, then I would have stuck with it.

00:18:30.526 --> 00:18:36.510
But, tom, you guys gripe about window management on Mac.

00:18:36.510 --> 00:18:47.126
That was actually one that got me into starting the program in the first place, because I had spent 100 plus hours trying to find apps to be able to manage windows.

00:18:47.126 --> 00:18:48.484
I now use size up.

00:18:48.559 --> 00:19:00.768
I actually wrote my own app back 10 years ago that I integrated with Quicksilver SP Resize, because I was constantly moving windows around and grabbing the sides.

00:19:00.768 --> 00:19:08.346
It was a nightmare and still it's a horrendous mess managing windows, especially if you have things vertically stacked.

00:19:08.346 --> 00:19:14.108
No windows, any app that I've ever seen, ever remembers that.

00:19:14.108 --> 00:19:18.188
Even within apps that manage windows, they don't ever remember the right locations.

00:19:18.188 --> 00:19:20.648
They don't pull them down lengthwise.

00:19:20.648 --> 00:19:24.969
It seems to do OK sideways, but we've got anyway where I work.

00:19:24.969 --> 00:19:29.046
I've got things vertically stacked and then off to the side and it's just a mess.

00:19:29.046 --> 00:19:30.224
I can't stand it.

00:19:30.224 --> 00:19:35.347
Windows has had that figured out forever now, so that one I love.

00:19:35.347 --> 00:19:42.769
There's certain things that Apple does, so two apps that I use for that again is size up.

00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:54.869
And then the other app that is definitely worth mentioning is Switch Res X, and that's allowed me if you mess with that, that's allowed me to be able to turn off certain monitors.

00:19:54.869 --> 00:19:56.385
So I have four monitors that I work with.

00:19:56.385 --> 00:20:00.605
There's times where I need to just turn off one of them and you can just use a key command.

00:20:00.605 --> 00:20:02.884
I use that at work all the time.

00:20:02.884 --> 00:20:11.087
Tom, when I was with you In the studio, all four of us that were in there constantly we had vertically stacked, which I hate.

00:20:11.421 --> 00:20:12.967
I hate the vertical stacked, the way it works.

00:20:12.967 --> 00:20:19.107
So I would always lay the, even though they're vertically, I'd lay them out sideways, and the guys other guys would hate that.

00:20:19.107 --> 00:20:21.667
Switch Res X handled all that stuff.

00:20:21.667 --> 00:20:24.209
So it's just, everybody had their own key command assigned.

00:20:24.209 --> 00:20:40.988
It also allowed me to throw Apple scripts in, so it would change the desktop background and resize the screen as well, and so as soon as they came up, they would see oh, it's not my desktop, I can see we're on Adams or somebody else, as they would run a key command and then it would move all the monitors.

00:20:41.079 --> 00:20:43.127
So fantastic app for that.

00:20:43.127 --> 00:20:44.023
Yeah, that's nice.

00:20:44.619 --> 00:20:45.483
And it still works great.

00:20:45.483 --> 00:20:48.027
So in Ventura we're using it.

00:20:48.027 --> 00:20:52.883
I've been using that, I don't know, for at least eight years, so that one's been great.

00:20:52.883 --> 00:20:58.528
So you guys had TextExpander.

00:20:58.528 --> 00:21:03.569
I use TextExpander still.

00:21:03.569 --> 00:21:06.208
I still don't do the subscription.

00:21:06.208 --> 00:21:09.403
I stopped when I went to subscription and it still works.

00:21:09.403 --> 00:21:24.727
Thankfully I've got so many TextExpansions and that that I've attempted to switch over into other apps, but it would be too long and cumbersome to do that, so maybe something Keyboard, nice and Maestro needs an import feature.

00:21:25.669 --> 00:21:33.971
I know, and I've actually tried to do Keyboard Maestro for all that, and I felt like that's worthy enough to keep separate.

00:21:33.971 --> 00:21:39.749
I do have several of them that's in Keyboard Maestro, but it's just been easier to manage those separately.

00:21:39.749 --> 00:21:43.807
So I probably would, though if they did have a nice quick import.

00:21:43.807 --> 00:21:47.351
So anyway, there's a ton of apps.

00:21:47.351 --> 00:21:53.228
So Sessions, superduper Sessions is an app that I use.

00:21:53.228 --> 00:21:55.625
I do Pomodoro, so I'll talk about that real quick.

00:21:55.720 --> 00:22:08.871
Pomodoro is basically for me, a complete lifesaver I found about 15 years ago, which basically says do 25 minutes of something and then you get a five minute break.

00:22:08.871 --> 00:22:23.207
So you're totally on, game on as hard as you can for 25 minutes and then you can veg out, watch YouTube, go for a walk, whatever you want to do, and then back on again, and then every four times you do that, you take a 20 minute break.

00:22:23.207 --> 00:22:29.268
If you're being true to Pomodoro, as it comes from, I guess, an Italian timer some guy came up with, I think in the 80s.

00:22:29.268 --> 00:22:30.804
Are you guys familiar with that?

00:22:30.804 --> 00:22:31.526
Have you used that at all?

00:22:31.526 --> 00:22:32.689
Yeah, very much.

00:22:32.689 --> 00:22:41.964
Yeah, ok, so that with GTD, which those two don't even overlap with each other, it's just so good, at least for me, for keeping my brain on track.

00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:45.770
So, sessions, I use an old app called Pomodoro.

00:22:45.770 --> 00:22:48.789
It would go out and it would set a thing for Twitter for me.

00:22:48.789 --> 00:22:52.971
It would actually Golder would probably laugh be listened to this.

00:22:52.971 --> 00:22:57.632
But I set up an app for him that would run on his computer.

00:22:57.632 --> 00:23:00.809
That would let him know when I was done with my Pomodoro.

00:23:00.809 --> 00:23:03.288
So he came to my hand.

00:23:03.619 --> 00:23:04.625
Sorry, Golder, bless you.

00:23:07.980 --> 00:23:08.965
Stay out of my office.

00:23:09.682 --> 00:23:10.203
Pretty much.

00:23:11.520 --> 00:23:19.980
I'm a butt, I know, but staying focused is so hard at work, especially in the summers when you're trying to do stuff Anyway.

00:23:19.980 --> 00:23:25.366
So I set that up and that app there was no app that I could find that really did that well.

00:23:25.366 --> 00:23:29.931
And the guy that's been working Sessions, he phenomenal.

00:23:29.931 --> 00:23:31.906
He's taken all of those features.

00:23:31.906 --> 00:23:37.231
It throws it into Outlook and tells me what tasks I've done.

00:23:37.231 --> 00:23:40.750
It throws it into Calendar.

00:23:40.750 --> 00:23:42.727
Anyway, it does a ton of things.

00:23:42.727 --> 00:23:44.626
So we could nerd out for a long time and that one.

00:23:44.626 --> 00:23:52.044
But that's basically the idea behind that app and I have not seen any app that's even close to as good as what Sessions does.

00:23:52.044 --> 00:24:05.670
They're working on a watch app, but right now my integration for that is what I already mentioned with Outlook, so it throws it into my Apple Calendar and then Outlook actually syncs it and it shows on my watch what I do, what I'm working on.

00:24:05.670 --> 00:24:07.144
So that's been helpful.

00:24:07.144 --> 00:24:08.682
Who to Spot?

00:24:08.682 --> 00:24:10.647
I don't know how I missed this app.

00:24:10.647 --> 00:24:11.170
I've heard that.

00:24:11.170 --> 00:24:12.565
Have you guys used who to Spot at all?

00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:13.983
Heard of it, never used it.

00:24:15.923 --> 00:24:23.682
So I heard of that for years and finally I just bit the bullet and really dived into it.

00:24:23.682 --> 00:24:29.074
It basically is built on Spotlight, but it is a thousand times better than Spotlight.

00:24:29.074 --> 00:24:30.791
It's so much faster.

00:24:30.791 --> 00:24:34.310
It uses Spotlight's database, so Spotlight gets messed up.

00:24:34.310 --> 00:24:37.769
It won't work so you have to rebuild things.

00:24:37.769 --> 00:24:39.250
But it finds everything.

00:24:39.250 --> 00:24:41.111
It saves your last search.

00:24:41.111 --> 00:24:51.492
You can save your own searches, the filters rather than trying to click that silly little plus icon and then save them off to the side and the finder for your Spotlight searches.

00:24:51.765 --> 00:25:05.835
Just all of that, so many features, and it shows you all the different things, ways here that you can actually find Like I needed to find 64 bit applications that weren't 64 bit and the developer spends super helpful.

00:25:05.835 --> 00:25:08.413
Just it's showing me exactly this is what you look for.

00:25:08.413 --> 00:25:11.031
This is what will tell you all that information.

00:25:11.031 --> 00:25:13.771
I come back to that all the time.

00:25:13.771 --> 00:25:17.251
It's so much faster than Spotlight at finding a bunch of things.

00:25:17.251 --> 00:25:17.988
So who to spot?

00:25:17.988 --> 00:25:18.810
Well worth the money.

00:25:18.810 --> 00:25:23.768
I think it's like 20 bucks and it's not a subscription for whatever that's worth, hey.

00:25:24.805 --> 00:25:26.310
Yeah, I'm just thinking about that.

00:25:27.369 --> 00:25:28.804
Shout out for that.

00:25:28.804 --> 00:25:30.509
So anyway, those are.

00:25:30.509 --> 00:25:35.711
There's a zillion others, but those are probably some good starters.

00:25:35.711 --> 00:25:40.170
Bar Tender is one that I use for menu lets, so just menu items.

00:25:40.170 --> 00:25:52.469
I have a zillion items in my menu bar, so that one has been fantastic for just being able to shrink things down and show what I need to up in the menu bar, so it's probably a good start.

00:25:53.551 --> 00:26:08.914
Great, nice list of apps, a bunch of these that I've definitely used, and it's interesting, I don't use the Pomodoro method directly, but I use a personal derivative of it, which is basically set a timer and shut everything else off.

00:26:08.914 --> 00:26:09.605
You know, I haven't.

00:26:09.605 --> 00:26:14.597
I've used Vitaminar, which is a really good app.

00:26:15.006 --> 00:26:17.028
Yeah, I did time Really really like that.

00:26:18.664 --> 00:26:23.813
And actually the writing app that I use, which I've mentioned about a billion times on the show.

00:26:23.813 --> 00:26:34.950
But Highland Pro has a built-in writing timer that I use constantly just to kind of make myself actually write for 20 minutes.

00:26:34.950 --> 00:26:39.593
Often find myself banging it out to an hour or something like that once I kind of get into it.

00:26:39.593 --> 00:26:54.932
But that method if you do nothing else, setting a timer and paying no attention to anything else at the same time is an excellent way of being able to kind of get stuff taken care of.

00:26:56.545 --> 00:27:03.528
Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but like if I get so easily distracted, like Tom, there's a dog.

00:27:03.528 --> 00:27:04.145
Where.

00:27:06.825 --> 00:27:08.270
Just saw a shirt today that said ADHD.

00:27:10.671 --> 00:27:11.272
It was ACDC logo.

00:27:12.025 --> 00:27:13.009
Hey, there's a squirrel.

00:27:13.925 --> 00:27:15.511
Yeah right, exactly that's good.

00:27:16.005 --> 00:27:16.185
Group.

00:27:17.105 --> 00:27:21.056
So, like I've done, like Jeff mentioned in the time, I'll do it on the watch.

00:27:21.056 --> 00:27:24.007
Like I'll do 20 minutes on the watch and turn on.

00:27:24.007 --> 00:27:26.871
You know I'll turn on Do Not Disturb or Focus Mode or something like that.

00:27:26.871 --> 00:27:50.268
But I think the benefit of the apps, though and, Adam, if you want to talk a little bit about this is that with the apps, you can set it up to like, restrict access to certain things, block out certain websites, certain apps, and kind of chain all of those things together, so you kind of set up your ideal distraction-free work environment, right.

00:27:51.029 --> 00:27:51.712
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:51.712 --> 00:28:00.848
So that app for me, because I'm a nerd, just like it's inspiring to me to look back and see OK, this is what I did.

00:28:00.848 --> 00:28:11.872
So what I love with that app is that it's got different levels of categories and I've Apple scripted all of those so, depending on the category, you can have certain, like you just said, certain things shut off.

00:28:11.872 --> 00:28:21.251
I actually forgot that I had it shutting off messages and I kept thinking that messages was crashing on me, I was not being faithful.

00:28:21.405 --> 00:28:24.309
I'm like start my Pomodoro and they're like, oh crap, I got to send a message.

00:28:24.309 --> 00:28:25.453
Why did it just crash?

00:28:25.453 --> 00:28:31.017
But it was the app doing what it's supposed to do.

00:28:31.017 --> 00:28:38.755
And there's dozens I'm sure you guys have seen dozens of apps like that that are specifically shut stuff off and focused.

00:28:38.755 --> 00:28:46.332
But if you can put all those things into one app that's why I was trying Raycast for a while it does all of those things.

00:28:46.332 --> 00:28:54.586
The developer is phenomenally so good with feedback and that's half the time what breaks apps of me wanting to use them.

00:28:54.586 --> 00:28:57.912
If there's not really supporting them, they're not doing things.

00:28:57.984 --> 00:29:03.391
So it is a subscription and it's probably one of my more expensive subscriptions I think it's like $40 a year.

00:29:03.391 --> 00:29:18.460
But there's a smaller version that doesn't give you all the features but for what I needed, with the notifications and everything else, the app is amazing and it syncs with your phone really well.

00:29:18.460 --> 00:29:21.890
So if you're in the middle of something you walk somewhere else, it will tell you on the phone.

00:29:21.890 --> 00:29:28.471
You can make different screens that actually have one button pressed on the phone and you can go straight into a specific thing.

00:29:28.471 --> 00:29:30.492
So I have stuff I do every day.

00:29:30.492 --> 00:29:31.830
Like I'll program every day.

00:29:31.830 --> 00:29:37.730
I'll do keyboard shortcuts every day and I'll do learning of a new software application or a software application.

00:29:37.730 --> 00:29:39.029
So I just have those on my phone.

00:29:39.029 --> 00:29:41.592
I press a button, it automatically runs all that stuff.

00:29:41.592 --> 00:29:44.294
So it's super, super nice.

00:29:44.726 --> 00:29:54.185
And one thing I noticed in the session that I did last night was that you get that input at the end of the session, like there's a little feedback box there, like what were?

00:29:54.185 --> 00:29:55.392
You working on how to go.

00:29:55.392 --> 00:29:56.067
There's a.

00:29:56.067 --> 00:29:57.633
I think there are emojis there.

00:29:57.633 --> 00:30:02.555
You can say how would you rate that session, and so I kind of like that part of it.

00:30:02.555 --> 00:30:14.229
I'm assuming once you build that up it does something with it, because I saw there's like some there's like a dashboard analytic type thing in there somewhere too, which is right up Nerd Alley for me, I know oh good.

00:30:15.644 --> 00:30:30.634
I actually lost to SU when I was there Because they cut my email off right away and I had I didn't transfer this over, I had thousands of Pomodoro's that actually did that in Google through, because you guys are using the Gmail suite, right?

00:30:30.634 --> 00:30:34.289
I had that all in the back end and it would go to a spreadsheet.

00:30:34.289 --> 00:30:35.073
It was a Google form.

00:30:35.073 --> 00:30:39.472
It would auto fill things out at the end and I would say was I inflow?

00:30:39.472 --> 00:30:40.670
Did I get distracted?

00:30:40.670 --> 00:30:42.510
Did Goldor not listen?

00:30:42.510 --> 00:30:49.073
Sorry, I was just kidding, totally kidding, but did something happen in that?

00:30:49.073 --> 00:30:49.855
And then I put notes.

00:30:49.855 --> 00:30:56.151
So I had just tons of notes to try to help me know when the best times are for things.

00:30:56.151 --> 00:30:57.691
And yeah, that app has it all built in.

00:30:57.691 --> 00:31:03.472
So I don't use that a ton, surprisingly, but it's nice to have there for sure.

00:31:03.945 --> 00:31:06.828
I think we're going to have to get this Goldor guy in here to defend himself.

00:31:08.246 --> 00:31:10.432
I did want to mention you had talked about for writing.

00:31:10.432 --> 00:31:16.875
I don't know why I didn't mention this up front, but Scrivener has been amazing.

00:31:16.875 --> 00:31:19.493
I use that every day, all the time.

00:31:19.493 --> 00:31:20.851
Do you mess with that?

00:31:20.851 --> 00:31:21.847
I?

00:31:21.928 --> 00:31:22.750
have Scrivener.

00:31:22.750 --> 00:31:30.377
It's for my purposes little too much.

00:31:30.377 --> 00:31:31.388
I know a lot of people.

00:31:31.388 --> 00:31:33.214
There are a bunch of people I write with.

00:31:33.214 --> 00:31:54.430
I don't write with them, but that are friends of mine who write and we kind of all encourage each other and a whole slew of them have Scrivener and use it to do every single thing, and I had it for a long time, set up novels in it or things of that nature.

00:31:54.430 --> 00:32:01.637
But for me and the way my brain works, it just didn't work.

00:32:01.637 --> 00:32:23.913
When I started using Highland, it was originally Highland app and then became Highland Pro For my purposes, which is occasionally writing scripts, writing for once we're magazines, they're now online outlets and then writing, working on novels and things of that nature, short stories, that kind of stuff.

00:32:26.946 --> 00:32:35.316
It is exactly what I need Not a lot of buttons, not a lot of stuff to worry about, set goals on particular pages and be done with it.

00:32:35.316 --> 00:32:48.790
And then the organization is all finder-based organization, so you put your chapters in folders in somewhere in the finder or wherever it is now in iCloud for most of this stuff.

00:32:48.790 --> 00:32:59.644
You can just drag that in and it will not only let you see what all the different pieces are that you're working with, but it'll compile all those together simply by having stuff in the finder.

00:32:59.644 --> 00:33:01.592
So that has become my go-to.

00:33:01.592 --> 00:33:04.170
But I do.

00:33:04.170 --> 00:33:05.694
I did like Scrivener.

00:33:05.694 --> 00:33:08.614
It was just the same thing happened with Word.

00:33:08.614 --> 00:33:13.797
Word is too much junk, even pages too much stuff to keep track of.

00:33:13.964 --> 00:33:14.869
I can change my font.

00:33:15.026 --> 00:33:15.953
I can let me.

00:33:15.953 --> 00:33:17.164
No, I'm gonna up it to 12.

00:33:17.164 --> 00:33:18.510
Nah, 13 looks better.

00:33:18.510 --> 00:33:20.223
You know you end up screwing around with crap.

00:33:20.346 --> 00:33:20.711
13.5,.

00:33:20.711 --> 00:33:21.422
What are you talking about?

00:33:21.664 --> 00:33:34.233
Yeah, you know you end up screwing around with stuff and I, you know I that's just too much for me, you know, so I just get in it's straight text.

00:33:34.233 --> 00:33:34.645
It's a.

00:33:34.645 --> 00:33:38.596
It's a markdown based text application.

00:33:38.596 --> 00:33:40.912
It responds to command.

00:33:40.912 --> 00:33:44.674
So you know, command B for bulk, command I for italicize.

00:33:44.674 --> 00:33:47.191
It puts the markdown in there and is.

00:33:48.184 --> 00:33:50.170
Does it hide the markdown or do you see it in line?

00:33:51.313 --> 00:33:51.934
It hides the markdown.

00:33:52.115 --> 00:33:52.496
All right good.

00:33:52.737 --> 00:33:56.971
Yeah, but in the actual text is text, and that's the other beautiful thing as well.

00:33:56.971 --> 00:34:07.971
I went away from Scrivener and had a children's book I was working on in there and it disappeared on me because you couldn't use text anymore and that was not a, not a good thing.

00:34:07.971 --> 00:34:15.210
So the beauty of of of Highland Pro is that it is a Just goes to text files.

00:34:15.210 --> 00:34:21.027
It's it's in a package file, but you can go into the package file, pull them out, straight up text.

00:34:21.844 --> 00:34:24.288
That was my, my thing too, and I was searching.

00:34:24.288 --> 00:34:34.469
I didn't want to be in some app, but I think I've been since the start, probably less than a year after they, they, they started and it was, it was all text files.

00:34:34.469 --> 00:34:39.250
If I, if I couldn't pull it out of the package and it was all gone, that would be devastating.

00:34:39.250 --> 00:34:40.594
So yeah, Absolutely true.

00:34:40.945 --> 00:34:42.990
Well, I mean you look at for script editing software.

00:34:42.990 --> 00:34:54.313
Final draft was King of the Hills, you know, and and you had to pay and it was proprietary file format you can actually save to in Highland Pro.

00:34:54.313 --> 00:34:56.648
You can save the final cut, final draft, final cut.

00:34:58.429 --> 00:34:58.851
Close enough.

00:34:59.867 --> 00:35:03.472
Final something I looked up that app you were talking about.

00:35:03.472 --> 00:35:04.791
I don't see why you would write things.

00:35:06.610 --> 00:35:09.952
It's really weird, but it does really.

00:35:09.952 --> 00:35:10.900
It has pictures.

00:35:11.141 --> 00:35:16.382
that means it says it's worth a thousand words.

00:35:16.382 --> 00:35:16.786
So many.

00:35:19.425 --> 00:35:23.356
So I I plug it in and hope that a thousand words get generated by the AI.

00:35:23.356 --> 00:35:24.592
Is that how it works?

00:35:25.385 --> 00:35:27.333
So so, adam, I have a question for you.

00:35:27.333 --> 00:35:29.791
You're doing comedy bit, tom, come on.

00:35:29.791 --> 00:35:34.275
Well, you know, we got a, we got other more important comedy to get to in a minute, but the.

00:35:34.766 --> 00:35:35.670
Hey, he calls my name.

00:35:35.670 --> 00:35:36.427
I appreciate that.

00:35:37.724 --> 00:35:39.445
We go way back old and it's okay.

00:35:39.445 --> 00:35:46.454
Have you messed around at all with the obsidian?

00:35:46.976 --> 00:35:47.599
No, okay.

00:35:50.170 --> 00:35:55.568
I haven't either, like I hear all the Apple nerds talk about it and I've looked at it.

00:35:55.568 --> 00:35:56.088
I just can't.

00:35:56.329 --> 00:35:57.170
I don't know.

00:35:57.170 --> 00:35:58.992
Obsidian, yeah, what is it?

00:35:58.992 --> 00:36:00.335
So it's a, it's a writing app.

00:36:00.355 --> 00:36:02.338
The name I don't know, you're old.

00:36:02.338 --> 00:36:19.646
But no, it's one of those, that was my thought too, writing apps, but more for notes and thinking, and it links the stuff together Like they've got extensions you can put into it, but it's all markdown files too, so it's all in text I actually have.

00:36:19.746 --> 00:36:21.992
I have messed with that just just briefly.

00:36:21.992 --> 00:36:26.315
That came out way later than than where I was.

00:36:26.315 --> 00:36:27.949
That was yeah, exactly.

00:36:27.949 --> 00:36:35.391
And, like I mentioned at the beginning, I'm always down for if something's actually gonna work better, like I've switched.

00:36:35.391 --> 00:36:43.644
I just switched over my journal to to Scrivener after all these years, just this year, and I'd been in Word forever.

00:36:43.644 --> 00:36:45.251
I'm like why was I not in that?

00:36:45.251 --> 00:36:49.757
And then I switched over to to day one for.

00:36:49.757 --> 00:36:52.144
And now Apple's got their journal app.

00:36:52.144 --> 00:36:53.851
That's coming out that you guys have talked about.

00:36:54.125 --> 00:36:55.268
But only on iOS.

00:36:55.989 --> 00:36:58.824
Yeah, yeah, exactly so.

00:36:58.824 --> 00:37:05.826
So I didn't see enough compelling reason to to switch over the stuff.

00:37:05.826 --> 00:37:11.157
That, for me, that I've loved with Scrivener is that I can save all my searches.

00:37:11.157 --> 00:37:18.918
I have thousands of notes in in in it that I've automated a ton of things.

00:37:18.918 --> 00:37:23.896
I love the focus writing mode that you can be in that you can get rid of all the extra stuff.

00:37:24.664 --> 00:37:30.949
It's just the, the searches and being able to set up on the side, and I use this all the time.

00:37:30.949 --> 00:37:39.007
I'm sure 99% of people probably never use this, but I set up on each page Depending on what I'm in.

00:37:39.007 --> 00:37:47.346
I'll have rankings for for how important certain things are, and so I can go back and my my searches will say, okay, this is something I need to study again.

00:37:47.346 --> 00:37:48.626
Or for my journal, this is how.

00:37:48.626 --> 00:37:51.293
This is an audio related thing or this.

00:37:51.293 --> 00:37:54.048
It's basically like tags, but you can do that as well.

00:37:54.048 --> 00:37:56.110
You can tag inside of it as well.

00:37:56.110 --> 00:38:24.438
So it's a little a little confusing to explain verbally rather than something that you probably want to see on a screen, but there's multiple levels of tagging would probably be the easiest way to to say, to search for stuff so that so you could combine all those and search just within a page or show the whole folder or show a whole group of folders and that stuff I've, I've loved and it's it's hard to find those, anything that really matches that kind of.

00:38:24.905 --> 00:38:27.172
Those are really interesting uses for Scrivener.

00:38:27.172 --> 00:38:29.889
Though that's you're saying, you're doing that in Scrivener.

00:38:30.731 --> 00:38:31.875
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

00:38:33.304 --> 00:38:33.907
Those are that.

00:38:33.907 --> 00:38:43.014
That that feels feels to me like you're taking it well beyond what the you know what normies like me might use an application for.

00:38:43.014 --> 00:38:44.657
Yeah yeah.

00:38:44.657 --> 00:38:48.856
So that's pretty, that's pretty thoughtful usage of that particular application.

00:38:48.856 --> 00:38:50.297
But I could see the benefit of that.

00:38:51.726 --> 00:39:02.108
And that when I, when I first started it that was actually I just laid out all my criteria of what what it was that I needed and I went $200 subscriptions was.

00:39:02.108 --> 00:39:08.728
I can't even remember some of these apps, tom, you're in academia, you probably use some of them, but, um, it's been.

00:39:08.728 --> 00:39:11.764
It's probably it's probably been eight years since I've used some of them.

00:39:11.764 --> 00:39:29.177
But basically it would pull in, they'd be their own finder and they would go out and pull out certain different databases and things, and I Looked at a ton of different things that were out there and used them, paid for them, and in the end it was really Scrivener just was simple enough and it and it did all those filter searches of what I needed.

00:39:29.177 --> 00:39:33.235
It's not something that you really need to have a ton of images in.

00:39:33.235 --> 00:39:38.817
I use images in it, but those other apps just got way too bloated for that kind of stuff that I did.

00:39:40.126 --> 00:39:41.070
List of stuff you tried.

00:39:41.291 --> 00:39:45.025
Yes, devon think, thank you, yes, devon, thing Okay, yeah, I remember that.

00:39:45.025 --> 00:39:55.003
Yeah, I use that for a while too that has like pillar column, pillars, it's for academia stuff, that searches all all your notes and pull stuff from all.

00:39:55.003 --> 00:40:01.775
Anyway, there's there's several that are out there, but Scrivener just Crushed those for for what I needed, for that that type of stuff.

00:40:01.775 --> 00:40:09.824
And I'm not, I'm, I don't, I'm not really a heavy writer, I just take tons of notes for things and and it's nice to have those all broken out.

00:40:10.085 --> 00:40:14.621
So yeah, that's really interesting, really interesting use case for that application yeah that is.

00:40:14.661 --> 00:40:16.146
I'm curious for Highlander Does that?

00:40:16.146 --> 00:40:18.110
Does that sync super well with the phone?

00:40:18.110 --> 00:40:18.711
Do you?

00:40:18.711 --> 00:40:19.092
Does that?

00:40:19.172 --> 00:40:26.112
Is that same for so Highland Pro, both iOS and iPad OS.

00:40:26.112 --> 00:40:29.659
They have beta versions of the application that I'm testing.

00:40:29.659 --> 00:40:36.811
It feels a little bit like they're Not paying tons of attention to.

00:40:36.811 --> 00:40:39.436
They keep on renewing the beta without adding any features.

00:40:39.436 --> 00:40:40.780
I'm a little.

00:40:40.780 --> 00:40:53.630
The nice thing about it is is it does sync in iCloud, so all of those sync across iCloud and they're they're both.

00:40:53.851 --> 00:41:08.451
Both the iPad OS and the iOS applications are decent, but I will say that I, in a moment of stupidity, instead of using notes, a couple weeks back, you know you know how.

00:41:08.451 --> 00:41:11.465
You're standing in line at the grocery store and you go, oh, this is genius.

00:41:11.465 --> 00:41:24.414
And you know you whip out your phone and I start started typing, typing some text into it, and and then I open up my Mac and was editing something else and go, oh, where's that?

00:41:24.414 --> 00:41:25.664
Where's the stuff that I put in there?

00:41:25.664 --> 00:41:32.239
And then I opened the app again on my phone and it did sync and overwrote all the edits that I just.

00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:35.711
Yeah, that was not a happy moment.

00:41:35.711 --> 00:41:39.170
So you know, stupid me for using a beta.

00:41:39.170 --> 00:41:42.438
You know, to play with real work.

00:41:44.925 --> 00:41:46.728
Miss with that for Scrivener.

00:41:46.728 --> 00:41:49.764
I mean they lock it out and they'll tell you that it's open somewhere else.

00:41:49.764 --> 00:41:51.972
So that's kind of their way of doing it.

00:41:51.972 --> 00:41:57.213
If it didn't, if you didn't close it, they didn't get rid of that locked file then.

00:41:57.213 --> 00:42:03.811
But I've tried so hard and there's so many Up, what do you?

00:42:03.811 --> 00:42:12.081
What do you call them Apologists I'm spacing the word that Apologize for Scrivener of like oh, they're doing the best they can and you're asking for too much.

00:42:12.081 --> 00:42:17.561
Like okay, I mean, there's other apps that just sync really well, day one being one of them.

00:42:17.561 --> 00:42:20.315
I think it has been awesome.

00:42:20.315 --> 00:42:22.585
So it's not, it's not great for that.

00:42:22.585 --> 00:42:33.909
So I pretty much, after giving it another go at it over the years, like I heavily put time into it this this last month and it just For me, it's not, it's not worth it.

00:42:33.909 --> 00:42:37.398
So I need to just basically stay on my computer and not try it on the phone.

00:42:37.398 --> 00:42:38.487
Yeah, that's.

00:42:38.768 --> 00:42:40.233
And that's I mean.

00:42:40.233 --> 00:42:43.793
Ipad would be a place that I would write my phone.

00:42:43.793 --> 00:42:49.876
It's only if I have, you know, flashes of brilliance, which are fewer every day, by the way.

00:42:50.246 --> 00:42:51.467
Standing in the grocery line.

00:42:52.010 --> 00:42:57.367
Yeah right, that's the place, you know, that's the place where, where the genius comes shower.

00:42:58.346 --> 00:43:00.715
Keep nibbling on those kale chips while you're in line.

00:43:02.445 --> 00:43:03.992
It's peanut M&Ms, but yeah.

00:43:06.106 --> 00:43:07.250
Mommy, I want this.

00:43:07.250 --> 00:43:09.215
I've become, having a stroke of genius.

00:43:11.226 --> 00:43:12.452
It's probably just a stroke.

00:43:12.452 --> 00:43:22.829
I typically now all that stuff just goes into into the notes app and then I you know that's the easiest, the easiest way to go.

00:43:22.969 --> 00:43:32.076
So in terms of like workflows and automations, kind of Go back back to that like what the show?

00:43:36.608 --> 00:43:36.889
Nothing.

00:43:38.067 --> 00:43:40.786
Yeah, the Seinfeld podcast, they, they.

00:43:40.786 --> 00:43:49.273
If someone was new Then and wanted, like you know, they've listened to the cool stuff Adam's doing.

00:43:49.273 --> 00:43:54.894
They've heard some of the things that we've done, jeff, like your double tap to open the app and stuff like that.

00:43:54.894 --> 00:44:02.572
Like for someone it's just looking maybe to jump into this stuff new, where would, where would you guys recommend they start?

00:44:03.925 --> 00:44:05.813
Yeah, and I would say and I'll point this to you, adam, we can.

00:44:05.813 --> 00:44:16.699
We can definitely have me say something, but I would say what are some basic starting points or basic value adds to doing some automation?

00:44:18.146 --> 00:44:20.905
sure what.

00:44:20.905 --> 00:44:23.172
What angle do you want to take?

00:44:23.251 --> 00:44:25.336
so, no, you're not supposed to ask that question.

00:44:25.336 --> 00:44:27.592
You're supposed to be really smart about it and give me an answer.

00:44:30.365 --> 00:44:32.742
Because there's a million different directions obviously with this.

00:44:32.742 --> 00:44:38.364
So it Apple has tried to bring this to the lay person for a long time.

00:44:38.364 --> 00:44:43.168
I mean, initially Apple scripts was there Wow, this is really readable.

00:44:43.168 --> 00:44:55.690
And then it ended up being like this actually really stinks, because Everybody's got their own Syndication and even though you can read it, it's completely confusing and it's not not intuitive, even though it was trying to be.

00:44:55.690 --> 00:44:58.324
And then we got automator and automator was drag-and-drop.

00:44:58.324 --> 00:45:12.635
But how many people ever used automator like that was, I mean, south, so going and I thought you say his name Fantastic, I think the dude's genius and Love, love his work and the things that he's that he's come up with.

00:45:12.635 --> 00:45:14.179
But it didn't quite make it.

00:45:14.179 --> 00:45:23.545
And then now we've got shortcuts Right so that that made its way finally to the Mac and the short little starting stint on the IO, on iOS.

00:45:24.295 --> 00:45:33.713
I use those a lot, I like the simple button presses, but there's still there's so many things that Don't, for me, don't seem to work super well or break.

00:45:33.713 --> 00:45:46.117
Like share this with somebody, like I'll share an app that Says when I'll be at somebody's place works great on my phone and they go through all the steps and I'm walking through the steps with them and it doesn't work, like, why does it not share properly?

00:45:46.117 --> 00:45:52.353
There's just stuff that's supposed to be nice and easy that just I don't.

00:45:52.353 --> 00:45:53.536
I don't know what's missing.

00:45:53.536 --> 00:45:56.945
Everything's entered exactly the way it should be, but then it just doesn't work and you sit there.

00:45:56.945 --> 00:46:03.083
So, as far as simple goes, I don't know that there really is a simple for anything.

00:46:03.083 --> 00:46:08.025
Automation it's just a matter of is do you do anything over and over every day?

00:46:08.025 --> 00:46:11.476
And would you like that to be a little simpler?

00:46:11.476 --> 00:46:16.644
And and the question I get all the time from people, gold would ask me this.

00:46:16.644 --> 00:46:17.791
I Think was fun, I guess.

00:46:17.791 --> 00:46:18.880
What's that for shout-outs?

00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:19.342
The golden now?

00:46:19.342 --> 00:46:21.695
Yeah right.

00:46:21.735 --> 00:46:23.181
He'll be famous before you.

00:46:24.331 --> 00:46:25.139
Who is this golden?

00:46:27.717 --> 00:46:28.684
This is now his show.

00:46:30.610 --> 00:46:40.625
But he would ask me that I was like dude, how long did that take to program that I could automate uploading my grades and things for stuff I'm I don't know two, three hours, like how long, without of taking you to do five minutes.

00:46:40.625 --> 00:46:51.958
But for me it was the difference between doing it or not doing it At the end of the day, like it's all there, I can press a button and I've tested it a zillion times, I know it works.

00:46:51.958 --> 00:46:53.427
So.

00:46:53.427 --> 00:47:00.597
So that's the part that I think is important, like is there anything that you do over and over that you just like to simplify?

00:47:00.597 --> 00:47:06.300
So Keyboard, maestro, I think, is a fantastic place to start and just add it's basic signal.

00:47:06.300 --> 00:47:07.684
It can go totally deep.

00:47:07.684 --> 00:47:21.259
But at just Simulating keystrokes, I think we could talk about Pretty quickly and fairly straightforward for people some things that would just speed up workflows instantly that they could do so.

00:47:21.259 --> 00:47:24.045
Anyway, that was a long, long answer.

00:47:24.565 --> 00:47:27.050
Yeah, and well, let's let's speak a little more to that.

00:47:27.050 --> 00:47:32.760
In keyboard, my store, keyboard maestro is pretty much my go-to for for any kind of automations, and I use it.

00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:37.650
For example, I when I do consulting.

00:47:37.650 --> 00:48:08.193
I'm often working for a multitude of companies, you know, it can be several companies that have several different signatures every day, and so I have a Probably Half a dozen keyboard maestro signatures where I put in a particular signature for a particular event, whether it's theater that I'm doing work for, whether it's, you know, the Court system software that that I had been working with for for a while.

00:48:08.614 --> 00:48:19.264
Each one of these has a different logo, has a different piece of Information, a specific way in some cases, that they want those signatures Formatted, and I could do all of that with a simple keystroke.

00:48:19.264 --> 00:48:21.650
Those were really simple things for me to be able to do.

00:48:21.650 --> 00:48:37.534
I want to point out too We'll just make this aside the, the Command tab switcher that's in keyboard maestro beats the living daylights out of the one that's built into the Mac and that's, you know, a Free built-in, and that's as far as I'm concerned.

00:48:37.534 --> 00:48:43.297
That was the original reason that I got keyboard maestro way, way back in the day, when that's all, it was.

00:48:43.297 --> 00:48:46.490
Okay, it was, it was so.

00:48:46.530 --> 00:48:51.373
That'll tell you how long I've been around, and then did you start out with version one, where you were you?

00:48:51.393 --> 00:48:52.376
that was pretty early.

00:48:52.376 --> 00:48:54.510
I couldn't say version one, but it was, it was.

00:48:54.510 --> 00:48:55.211
I didn't.

00:48:55.211 --> 00:48:59.751
You know a on the Mac OS it's command tab, command shift, to have to go backward.

00:48:59.751 --> 00:49:01.978
You know, like it it works.

00:49:01.978 --> 00:49:08.577
It's goofy, I don't know why they they do it that way, but keyboard maestro has that built in really simple, really simple feature.

00:49:09.605 --> 00:49:13.657
Another one those windows thing that took forever to finally come to Mac, and we got it.

00:49:17.567 --> 00:49:22.291
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with keyboard maestro's organization.

00:49:22.291 --> 00:49:28.507
Your ability to resize it, make it work the way you want to is is definitely Definitely much better.

00:49:28.507 --> 00:49:46.536
But those kind of kinds of repetitive tasks when you're typing something similar but not exactly the same in every single time, that's a perfect reason to To use something like keyboard my, my stroke, keyboard, my sir, is very complicated.

00:49:46.536 --> 00:49:48.851
You can kick off Apple scripts with it.

00:49:48.851 --> 00:49:59.128
You can do a whole bunch of things, but Just as a matter of basics, being able to do something like that, for me it's, it's Kind of a killer.

00:49:59.128 --> 00:50:01.175
I want to point something out, though.

00:50:01.175 --> 00:50:07.932
You know Tom asked me Before we we, you know started recording this actually a couple days ago.

00:50:07.932 --> 00:50:08.793
It's how many?

00:50:08.793 --> 00:50:13.050
How many keyboard maestro Shortcuts do you have?

00:50:13.050 --> 00:50:16.057
And I went in and checked and I got like 75.

00:50:16.057 --> 00:50:25.336
Why don't you, why don't you tell us, as of 7, 15, 2023?

00:50:25.336 --> 00:50:26.949
It's a couple days.

00:50:26.949 --> 00:50:28.393
Beyond that, you might have more.

00:50:28.393 --> 00:50:33.135
How many key keyboard maestro workflows do you have?

00:50:34.967 --> 00:50:38.771
It says 1435, so I don't.

00:50:38.771 --> 00:50:40.215
I haven't one prolific.

00:50:51.606 --> 00:50:52.909
How do you even keep track of those?

00:50:52.909 --> 00:50:56.277
It just knocked my microphone you're welcome.

00:50:56.686 --> 00:51:05.590
That's a good question actually, so that that is another one of those I I reveal nerdiness.

00:51:05.590 --> 00:51:14.900
I I have dedicated hundreds of hours to like how to keep track of these when I used Q-Base.

00:51:14.900 --> 00:51:16.967
Same thing when I assigned key commands.

00:51:16.967 --> 00:51:20.945
So I've got spreadsheets that will help me keep track of that stuff.

00:51:20.945 --> 00:51:22.760
I was in Quick Keys.

00:51:22.760 --> 00:51:23.724
Are you familiar with that?

00:51:23.724 --> 00:51:25.021
These are you guys use Quick Keys.

00:51:25.255 --> 00:51:25.757
Absolutely.

00:51:25.757 --> 00:51:26.820
I used it for a while.

00:51:27.375 --> 00:51:30.284
Yeah, so that's actually what made me jump ship.

00:51:30.284 --> 00:51:40.802
I had probably a thousand plus Quick Keys shortcuts, and they kept saying, oh, we're gonna develop, we're gonna develop, and then anything in the forum that would mention Keyboard Maestro, they would delete it.

00:51:40.802 --> 00:51:44.806
They never, never updated it.

00:51:44.806 --> 00:51:59.181
And so I finally just jumped ship from that, and I'm so glad I did, just because Keyboard Maestro, at its foundation, it feels a little bit more like you can add tricks to your bag.

00:51:59.181 --> 00:52:03.699
So, as you, there's something more that you wanna do, you can go deeper with it.

00:52:03.699 --> 00:52:14.264
Where Quick Keys rather did not wasn't so much that, it was just basically pre-baked things that were not anywhere near as manipulatable.

00:52:14.264 --> 00:52:26.797
So as far as how I got that many again, I spend at least a Pomodoro a day, for it's been decade plus in Keyboard Maestro now doing that.

00:52:26.797 --> 00:52:29.063
So it adds up, I guess.

00:52:29.063 --> 00:52:31.681
So, and keeping track of it.

00:52:31.681 --> 00:52:34.802
The key sorry, I got a little off, that's okay.

00:52:35.516 --> 00:52:36.177
I loved.

00:52:36.177 --> 00:52:41.262
What I love that's easier to track in Keyboard Maestro is the conflict palette.

00:52:41.262 --> 00:52:53.242
It sounds like it's some bad thing, but in Keyboard Maestro if you assign 15 key commands to the same shortcut, you don't have to go and throw this in a palette like you did in Quick Keys.

00:52:53.242 --> 00:53:01.983
It just pops it all up and says here's the list, and if you wanna alphabetize it you can alphabetize it, or you can put secret numbers behind the scenes to it.

00:53:01.983 --> 00:53:04.476
There's just tons of little tricks in there, that is.

00:53:04.476 --> 00:53:12.385
I don't really need to worry much about that, even though I do have a spreadsheet and I've got it very methodical to keep track of that stuff.

00:53:12.594 --> 00:53:13.699
So do I use all?

00:53:13.719 --> 00:53:14.240
4,000?

00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:14.702
Of course not.

00:53:16.074 --> 00:53:17.822
Okay, that's good to know.

00:53:18.235 --> 00:53:18.838
That's what you wanted.

00:53:20.739 --> 00:53:21.722
That's more the question.

00:53:21.722 --> 00:53:24.061
I mean I have to go back in with 75.

00:53:24.061 --> 00:53:37.739
I have a lot of theater-related ones that I use for when I stage manage that allow me to send out production reports and rehearsal reports to the cast and to the crew and everybody that's a part of a show.

00:53:37.739 --> 00:53:57.181
I have a lot of things that help me automate those kinds of things where it makes things easier for me to do something that honestly, if I sit down and do it every night, it takes me an hour every night to do a rehearsal report or something like that, to have notes and those kinds of things.

00:53:57.181 --> 00:54:04.996
But I mean 4,435, what are you like?

00:54:06.420 --> 00:54:12.722
What is one of the things you make it sound like you're going in and doing or making it as part of your daily?

00:54:12.722 --> 00:54:17.744
You're just creating shortcuts or that's part of what your deal is.

00:54:17.744 --> 00:54:27.456
But what's something that you've created and you can go super deep if you want to tell us something that's really complicated that you've done.

00:54:27.456 --> 00:54:40.664
But what is something that you're doing with this Sure that this automation has justified creating a particular keyboard maestro workflow with it?

00:54:41.554 --> 00:54:44.684
Yeah, and maybe we can just back up briefly.

00:54:44.684 --> 00:54:56.844
So, keyboard maestro, maybe you want to talk a little bit about what it does, so some of the features that you do, and then we can kind of dive into how these integrate.

00:54:56.844 --> 00:55:00.525
Because we mentioned so far, it does shortcuts.

00:55:00.525 --> 00:55:02.862
So if we were to start off, that's what I would say.

00:55:02.862 --> 00:55:19.382
If somebody just wants something simple, like Tom's original question, I would say if there's a series of keyboard shortcuts that can do a task that you may want to do, like putting an email signature, like you said, you may always start out a certain way.

00:55:19.382 --> 00:55:22.784
You can automate that with keyboard shortcuts.

00:55:22.784 --> 00:55:29.300
The other stuff that you can add, maybe you can talk to that a little bit, jeff, stuff that you're doing, and then I can go into something longer.

00:55:30.394 --> 00:55:30.615
Yeah.

00:55:30.615 --> 00:55:34.358
So I think the things that I do, like I said, are signatures.

00:55:34.358 --> 00:55:44.961
I will use it to read text from a file that has all the email addresses for, say, the cast of a particular show.

00:55:44.961 --> 00:55:53.219
Put that information into the BCC field because I don't want everybody to know what the actor's email addresses are.

00:55:53.219 --> 00:56:10.900
So it puts it into the BCC field, puts production information in the top of it, dates the production report, puts the date in for the production report in the subject line and will say what production report or what rehearsal report it is.

00:56:11.014 --> 00:56:30.681
So it's looking at counters and a number of other things, so relatively complicated things, where it's keeping track in the background of what yesterday's rehearsal or production report was, what today's rehearsal report should be, stores those in variables and then spits that information out.

00:56:30.956 --> 00:56:50.460
So for me it's doing things that manually typing would take time to do, and I've built a number of automations that I use and in a lot of cases actually, I use, rather than keyboard shortcuts to kick those things off, I am using a palette to enter the BCC information and so on and so forth.

00:56:50.460 --> 00:57:03.161
So it lets me, for example, if we get a new cast member or we lose a cast member, all I have to do is go, update that text file, make that change to one text file and then going forward, it's making the adjustment.

00:57:03.161 --> 00:57:15.820
Plus, I don't have to put all of those email addresses in my contacts app, so I don't have to put you know, create a group for the show, put all those actors' email addresses in that group and then use that.

00:57:15.820 --> 00:57:19.304
I don't have to cock up my contacts app in order to do it.

00:57:19.934 --> 00:57:21.842
So those are the kinds of things that I'm using.

00:57:21.842 --> 00:57:22.260
What's that?

00:57:23.255 --> 00:57:27.755
Technical terms for basic AF I like it yeah, cock up, yeah, cock up, cock up.

00:57:29.197 --> 00:57:30.302
So you mentioned a palette.

00:57:30.302 --> 00:57:34.237
So a palette's just a thing that shows up on the screen that you can click buttons.

00:57:34.237 --> 00:57:41.643
Basically Correct, You're pushing icons that you probably threw in there and then it's doing whatever you need.

00:57:41.643 --> 00:57:43.001
So that way you don't have to remember.

00:57:43.001 --> 00:57:45.643
Okay, what is this keyboard shortcut for XYZ?

00:57:45.643 --> 00:57:46.856
So yeah.

00:57:48.034 --> 00:57:51.143
For me some of the things that and how I got so many is.

00:57:51.143 --> 00:57:53.101
We talked about sessions already.

00:57:53.101 --> 00:58:02.322
I've got, just for sessions alone, I've probably got 100, 100 different shortcuts that I actually only launch with one.

00:58:02.322 --> 00:58:06.847
So I go in and I'll names for all these things.

00:58:06.847 --> 00:58:17.900
So Ultra Claw, which would be Command Option, Control Shift, that goes out to an old Pro Tools instructor, and I've got shortcuts that all use, that are dedicated.

00:58:17.900 --> 00:58:27.159
So all the keys on the keyboard those are dedicated to keyboard maestro shortcuts, and that's in an Excel spreadsheet as well, just so I keep track of them.

00:58:27.159 --> 00:58:33.103
Right, and for sessions I don't have to remember 50 or 100 different shortcuts.

00:58:33.103 --> 00:58:42.143
I just hit Ultra Claw and then Return and it pops up this, what they call a conflict palette, a whole list of these 100 shortcuts.

00:58:42.143 --> 00:58:48.822
And then the next thing I do is, if I'm gonna automate, I next hit A and it gives me a list of automation.

00:58:48.822 --> 00:58:56.800
It gives me that narrowed down task of automation and then I say, am I gonna do it at home, some other place, or am I gonna do it at work?

00:58:56.800 --> 00:59:14.619
Cause I'm a nerd and I like to keep track of that stuff, and so I'll just, I'll hit H or I'll hit one, because that's the first one I can choose either or it's alphabetical or numerical, and then it runs a series of scripts that run in the background and go down a little bit of a rabbit hole.

00:59:15.094 --> 00:59:22.746
One of the things that I absolutely love love with with Keyword Meistro is that it references other scripts super well.

00:59:22.746 --> 00:59:25.764
So I originally was kind of messing things up.

00:59:25.764 --> 00:59:34.182
I learned this the hard way really fast that I would find an image or I'd run a certain code and I would put it in every single script like this.

00:59:34.182 --> 00:59:40.800
And so if I have a hundred that do basic variations of the same thing, then I'd have to go back and I'd have to update all of those.

00:59:40.800 --> 00:59:45.443
Or if a software would update and they would change something, I'd have to change it every single one of those.

00:59:45.443 --> 00:59:47.583
So I no longer do that.

00:59:47.583 --> 00:59:50.585
I'm super methodical on how I keep track of it.

00:59:50.585 --> 01:00:07.882
I write in every single shortcut or macro that I make I write, I type RM and I use TextExpander RM in any time that Keyword Meistro is in the front types out reference macro on a bracket and then I can just update that one thing and all those scripts are rolling again.

01:00:07.882 --> 01:00:09.338
So that's how I can get.

01:00:09.478 --> 01:00:20.688
I got up to so many thousands because there's just a ton of little things like that that reference that are broken apart for other macros.

01:00:20.688 --> 01:00:38.277
So if I'm using Pro Tools tab to trans and I may be editing out a beat and I wanna find the first beat, I wanna find the second beat, third beat, fourth beat and I wanna find eighth notes, I'll have 20 shortcuts for that specific thing and they're all built specifically when I'm in Pro Tools.

01:00:38.277 --> 01:00:45.264
So another thing that's fantastic is I have all of these broken out into specific apps.

01:00:45.264 --> 01:00:46.992
So I have a group for all my apps.

01:00:46.992 --> 01:00:50.864
I have a group that's specific to Pro Tools and dozens of apps.

01:00:50.864 --> 01:01:01.456
So when I'm in Pro Tools I have tons of overlapping keyboard shortcuts for different apps that don't conflict with each other, because keyboard maestro is aware of what's in the front.

01:01:01.456 --> 01:01:12.844
So that stair step, command option, shift and number pad one will be something specific to Pro Tools and something specific to NUENDO or notes or a zillion other apps.

01:01:12.965 --> 01:01:22.938
So that goes out up super quick and as far as I'm not just looking to make shortcuts, I'm looking at okay, what am I doing every day and is there something that I can refine?

01:01:22.938 --> 01:01:24.385
That could be a little smoother.

01:01:24.385 --> 01:01:25.465
I send an email every day.

01:01:25.465 --> 01:01:29.284
Is there to a certain person, or I send something out constantly.

01:01:29.284 --> 01:01:29.885
Is there a way?

01:01:29.885 --> 01:01:44.226
When I was sending emails to my ex-wife for finances, I had a shortcut when I was an Apple mail that would basically put finance in the subject line automatically and then it would do a three-day follow-up.

01:01:44.226 --> 01:01:50.679
There's another automation thing that it would three-day and then it would check up like this was important.

01:01:50.679 --> 01:01:52.833
Did that get followed through on?

01:01:52.833 --> 01:02:02.199
So those kind of key commands again, they just add up super fast, but that's how I've gotten so many of them are fairly easy to remember, just because I use them all the time.

01:02:02.800 --> 01:02:03.625
Interesting.

01:02:03.625 --> 01:02:13.085
So what you just said that you do with Pro Tools, that's the kind of stuff that I think is what makes automation kind of amazing.

01:02:13.085 --> 01:02:37.445
I mean, that's a very, very specific thing that you've set up keyboard maestro to do, which is to locate information, sound, essentially in your Pro Tools setup and be able to pick those things out and allow you to do whatever it is that you need to do within Pro Tools to get rid of them or do whatever it is.

01:02:37.445 --> 01:03:00.780
So that, to me, is pretty slick, and the beauty of, as you said, of keyboard maestro is you can create a bunch of little bits that are able to be pulled together and essentially be pulled in by keyboard maestro with one key click or one keyboard command to be able to kick off a number of other items, which is pretty cool.

01:03:01.786 --> 01:03:05.456
Have you spent much time using Apple shortcuts?

01:03:05.456 --> 01:03:06.824
I know you said it's kind of a hassle.

01:03:06.824 --> 01:03:15.878
I've only used it for a couple of things, and one of the things I'll tell you that annoys me is I'd love to be able to edit the things that I do on my phone or my iPad on my Mac.

01:03:15.878 --> 01:03:27.434
But, for example, one of the things that I do, I play soccer, and in actual games you're not allowed to wear Apple Watch, so you can't wear jewelry while you're playing.

01:03:27.434 --> 01:03:37.460
So I want to be able to say I played in you know, 50 minutes, 60 minutes of that game.

01:03:37.460 --> 01:03:40.375
I want to be able to put that in as a workout.

01:03:40.375 --> 01:03:42.994
So put in the calories, put in all that kind of stuff.

01:03:42.994 --> 01:03:51.518
There's no way to edit that thing on the Mac, to play with it and goof it around with it on the phone to set it up.

01:03:51.518 --> 01:03:54.592
I end up creating seven workouts in one day.

01:03:54.592 --> 01:03:55.255
I troubleshooting.

01:03:55.255 --> 01:03:58.914
It was a great workout day, though.

01:04:00.086 --> 01:04:04.074
I played soccer for six and a half straight hours.

01:04:04.074 --> 01:04:05.257
It was amazing Wow.

01:04:06.266 --> 01:04:08.434
I've had someone that screw up that same thing.

01:04:08.434 --> 01:04:14.889
I'm still trying to figure out how to delete eight hour workout that I got Like, come on, let's throw in my stats off.

01:04:15.411 --> 01:04:20.954
Yeah, and those are kind of hassles that are built in and helped out, that hopefully get fixed.

01:04:20.954 --> 01:04:29.184
But those are the kinds of things I mean it's a relatively simple task, but I'd like to be able to have it do math rather than me, you know, putting in.

01:04:29.184 --> 01:04:38.353
I want to put in 45 minutes burning you know 13 calories a minute or whatever it is that you're doing when you're playing soccer, and have that, you know, kick into it.

01:04:38.353 --> 01:04:56.217
Apple does have, if you really just want to start out and play with this a little bit, for shortcuts, apple does have a pretty decent library of, you know, pre done shortcuts that you can use.

01:04:56.217 --> 01:04:57.699
For example, you want to walk to coffee.

01:04:57.699 --> 01:05:02.476
It shows you a couple of coffee stores that are near you to have the one that you want.

01:05:02.476 --> 01:05:06.135
It'll open up maps and give you walking directions to whatever the coffee place is.

01:05:06.135 --> 01:05:08.510
I mean, there are a number of items like that that work.

01:05:09.653 --> 01:05:10.376
What's this guy's name?

01:05:10.376 --> 01:05:12.088
Alexander Alessio is that?

01:05:12.088 --> 01:05:13.753
No, what's his name?

01:05:13.753 --> 01:05:14.896
Shoot V.

01:05:14.896 --> 01:05:16.385
Last name is V.

01:05:16.385 --> 01:05:18.548
We're doing letters here and getting them all wrong.

01:05:18.548 --> 01:05:21.672
Gary Vitter, gary, gary.

01:05:22.032 --> 01:05:22.173
V.

01:05:22.173 --> 01:05:25.518
He's coming back.

01:05:25.518 --> 01:05:27.721
Okay, the only thing is no.

01:05:27.740 --> 01:05:29.762
Vitici, vitici, oh Federico.

01:05:29.824 --> 01:05:30.905
Federico Vitici yes.

01:05:30.965 --> 01:05:32.824
He has scabs.

01:05:33.530 --> 01:05:34.541
Gary was close.

01:05:35.045 --> 01:05:36.088
Gary was right there.

01:05:36.650 --> 01:05:55.356
Yeah, he has tons of those things that you can and we can put links to him, to his stuff, in the notes, but he has a number of workflows that he's using no one of my favorite shortcuts that he has is called Apple Frames.

01:05:56.186 --> 01:05:56.989
Have you played with that one?

01:05:56.989 --> 01:05:57.751
No, what is it?

01:05:57.751 --> 01:06:03.115
You take a screenshot on your Mac or your iPad or your phone or your watch.

01:06:03.115 --> 01:06:08.635
It goes to your photos library, I think in the Mac you can choose to put it in the photos.

01:06:08.635 --> 01:06:14.532
I don't do it on the Mac a whole lot, but so you take a screenshot and then you go into shortcuts, you open Apple Frames.

01:06:14.532 --> 01:06:22.190
It says select the picture that you want to use and then it drops it into like a frame of the Apple device.

01:06:22.190 --> 01:06:26.487
So if it's like an iPhone screenshot, it'll put it onto an iPhone, so you get a nice image.

01:06:26.487 --> 01:06:28.713
That's the iPhone there, with the screenshot.

01:06:28.733 --> 01:06:29.876
Oh, that's cool, that's really slick.

01:06:29.876 --> 01:06:35.032
I use that all the time and he updates it every time some new devices come out.

01:06:35.032 --> 01:06:43.215
So, yeah, that was pretty good, and I would say too, take a look in the shortcuts app.

01:06:43.215 --> 01:06:52.353
Jeff mentioned the gallery that they have, but if you've got any home kit stuff, you can set up automations around that.

01:06:52.353 --> 01:06:54.568
I don't do a ton of that.

01:06:54.568 --> 01:06:57.885
I don't have a lot of home kit stuff because I'm kind of waiting for that.

01:06:57.885 --> 01:07:04.572
I've been doing so much of my life on home automation, yeah, and I'm like letting the dust set him on that Right, because it sucks.

01:07:04.572 --> 01:07:06.556
Still unsettled, but yeah.

01:07:07.945 --> 01:07:38.367
My crowning achievement with that was I bought one of those little WiIMO smart plugs and I set it up near the Christmas tree, so I have the lights plugged into it, you know, and I set up a shortcut so then when you invoke Siri, it would turn the lights on and start playing like a Christmas playlist, and so my kids could come in and be like you know, hey, bubble lights, Christmas time or something, and it would like kick the lights on and turn on all this music and they thought it was the coolest thing.

01:07:40.264 --> 01:07:43.751
They're too old to be impressed by that now Most of the time yeah.

01:07:43.751 --> 01:07:45.416
Okay, yeah, I was surprised too.

01:07:45.416 --> 01:07:52.706
But I've bought dozens of different brands of lights and like, hey, siri, make the lights purple.

01:07:52.706 --> 01:07:56.016
Or I've tried different hubs of try.

01:07:56.016 --> 01:08:01.572
I've tried to do it through Alexa and one light would come on purple and one would be bright orange and the other would be white.

01:08:01.572 --> 01:08:03.853
I'm like, oh, my goodness, you're the same big brand.

01:08:03.853 --> 01:08:07.262
I've set these scenes up a thousand times.

01:08:07.262 --> 01:08:09.329
I'm done, I'm not doing this, yeah.

01:08:10.804 --> 01:08:25.735
And in terms of other fairly simple automations that are in the shortcuts app, they have some stuff for the watch so you can set up location based watch faces, so like if you've got, a particular work face that you like during the day it's.

01:08:25.735 --> 01:08:28.854
You know you can set it up so that when you arrive at work that face kicks in.

01:08:29.125 --> 01:08:31.832
I could see your work face right now, that's my stopwatch.

01:08:31.912 --> 01:08:33.015
I know I'm looking at the one.

01:08:34.185 --> 01:08:36.971
I'm looking at the one that I've seen on the camera.

01:08:37.332 --> 01:08:38.175
So I'm less than this.

01:08:38.175 --> 01:08:39.296
When did you get that watch?

01:08:39.296 --> 01:08:40.426
I was noticing that, tom.

01:08:42.773 --> 01:08:43.435
When did it come?

01:08:43.435 --> 01:08:46.912
I didn't get it right when it came out, so it was probably month or two after that.

01:08:46.912 --> 01:08:48.992
And then I sweet talk, jeff, and he got one too.

01:08:50.869 --> 01:08:53.728
That's my recording watch face, not that anybody can see it.

01:08:53.728 --> 01:09:00.622
Speaking of watch faces, we frigging burned through another hour plus.

01:09:00.622 --> 01:09:04.773
Yeah, we can probably go for two more, but shouldn't.

01:09:05.494 --> 01:09:05.755
Yeah.

01:09:07.667 --> 01:09:16.137
Well, I noticed in the first I'm looking at the gallery, by the way the first one is Start Pomodoro, so there you go there you go.

01:09:17.287 --> 01:09:18.490
See you're a podcast pro.

01:09:18.490 --> 01:09:21.532
You brought it tight at right in at the close, beautiful, excellent.

01:09:23.284 --> 01:09:24.046
Looped back, tied it up.

01:09:25.810 --> 01:09:26.650
Basic AF.

01:09:27.453 --> 01:09:28.354
Yeah, well, that's us.

01:09:29.015 --> 01:09:32.733
Yeah, yeah, basic, and you can choose what it is.

01:09:32.792 --> 01:09:39.027
You know what would make it better, adam is, if your last initial was F, basic, adam something, what's your middle?

01:09:39.067 --> 01:09:40.774
initial.

01:09:40.774 --> 01:09:44.292
Well, I grew up in American Fork so I thought it was a shout out to my hometown.

01:09:44.292 --> 01:09:46.237
So thank you.

01:09:46.256 --> 01:09:50.506
Yeah, it's your show, exactly, alrighty, we have.

01:09:52.029 --> 01:09:54.895
We burned another hour as we do, and more.

01:09:55.436 --> 01:09:56.625
It has been Adam.

01:09:56.625 --> 01:10:00.496
Thanks so much for coming on, and really appreciate it.

01:10:00.496 --> 01:10:03.073
It's nice to meet you in person-ish.

01:10:04.297 --> 01:10:04.904
Face to face.

01:10:07.329 --> 01:10:11.458
And I still say I'm impressed 4,435.

01:10:11.458 --> 01:10:13.503
Yeah, keyboard Maestro, I just hit.

01:10:13.663 --> 01:10:13.845
Command D.

01:10:13.864 --> 01:10:16.923
Command D Duplicate Duplicate.

01:10:18.632 --> 01:10:20.119
All the same thing Just sounds good.

01:10:20.119 --> 01:10:25.234
Look at that, so as a reminder.

01:10:25.275 --> 01:10:25.997
I'm sorry, go ahead.

01:10:25.997 --> 01:10:36.483
No, just because of Adam, I feel like we should probably throw some kind of like a quarterly zoom together or something just to do like the old days and just keep in touch.

01:10:37.546 --> 01:10:38.307
It's been a lot of fun.

01:10:38.347 --> 01:10:39.409
Yeah, I missed these discussions.

01:10:39.430 --> 01:10:40.051
A little bit deeper.

01:10:40.051 --> 01:10:43.609
So for sure, yeah, I think we're always good time.

01:10:44.765 --> 01:10:50.413
So, like Jeff said, thanks for coming on with us and Know it's a Friday Night and we are party animals.

01:10:50.434 --> 01:10:51.355
We are, we are.

01:10:52.457 --> 01:10:53.158
It's been a party.

01:10:53.639 --> 01:10:57.631
It's been great, and if you stuck around to this one.

01:10:57.860 --> 01:11:04.110
be sure to email us at feedback at Basic AF show and we'll we'll send you two stickers for that, yeah.

01:11:04.934 --> 01:11:12.934
Right, they'll look the same, but you'll have two, you guys actually send us the gift after peaceful we don't have friends.

01:11:12.934 --> 01:11:14.337
That's why we're here on a Friday evening.

01:11:15.185 --> 01:11:20.033
Yep, If you don't mind, if somebody, if somebody.

01:11:20.113 --> 01:11:24.233
Yeah, if you listened and If somebody listens to this podcast.

01:11:24.233 --> 01:11:26.850
If you're on a deserted island.

01:11:29.364 --> 01:11:32.054
If you want to hang out with us wild guys on a Friday night, just let us know.

01:11:32.054 --> 01:11:42.069
No one was going to say if, if you don't mind going into Apple podcast and giving us a rating and or review, that would be very much appreciated.

01:11:42.069 --> 01:11:42.992
Please and thank you.

01:11:42.992 --> 01:11:43.672
Help surface.

01:11:43.672 --> 01:11:44.975
Yes, please and thank you.

01:11:44.975 --> 01:11:48.045
It would help maybe get us a little bump there.

01:11:48.045 --> 01:11:51.770
We do have 12 ratings, so we are grateful for those 14 shoes.

01:11:51.770 --> 01:11:52.773
Yeah, not bad.

01:11:52.773 --> 01:11:54.887
And Jeff, what else?

01:11:54.887 --> 01:11:56.694
We got Almost 1000 downloads.

01:11:57.085 --> 01:12:03.649
Please show art by our good friend Randall Martin at Randall Martin Design, really, really again pleased with that.

01:12:03.649 --> 01:12:10.328
So I want to encourage you all if you need any kind of artwork done that's a guided check out for sure.

01:12:10.328 --> 01:12:15.055
Show music by Celsius seven and Psychokinetics.

01:12:15.055 --> 01:12:17.420
That's our lead in and lead out music.

01:12:17.420 --> 01:12:17.864
Again.

01:12:17.864 --> 01:12:19.356
Celsius seven is new album out.

01:12:19.356 --> 01:12:25.020
If you want to check them out Good stuff you can find him on iTunes and other places.

01:12:25.743 --> 01:12:27.329
All right, that's it, man.

01:12:27.784 --> 01:12:29.960
Email us at feedback at basicafshowcom.

01:12:29.960 --> 01:12:30.744
All right.

01:12:31.265 --> 01:12:31.806
Again, adam.

01:12:31.806 --> 01:12:33.168
Thank you, sir, it's been a pleasure.

01:12:33.630 --> 01:12:34.390
Yes thank you.

01:12:34.390 --> 01:12:36.095
Thank you, I appreciate it.

01:12:36.095 --> 01:12:36.836
All right, take care.

01:12:37.036 --> 01:12:41.230
All right, hang on there for us too, so that silly upload will finish before we disconnect.

01:12:41.251 --> 01:12:43.237
But yeah, don't, don't, yeah we did that before.

01:12:43.237 --> 01:12:46.284
Don't quit on us, don't quit on us, don't quit now.

01:12:47.807 --> 01:12:51.957
But thank you for listening, for being here for this episode.

01:12:51.957 --> 01:12:55.051
Enjoy the rest of your day, rest of your night and we will talk to you next time.

01:12:55.051 --> 01:13:13.731
See ya, Bye.

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