The Workflow Opus, or Find Your Hammer.

I'm primarily a carpenter. I make my living by building things. I may build them for television, for stage, or for individual clients. Any way you slice it, I build things to survive. And I'm pretty damn good at it.

One thing is a constant. I always have a hammer. Personally, I prefer an Estwing 20 oz. hammer. I've been using this brand and size of hammer for 15 years and I think it's perfect. Twenty ounces is big enough to drive a framing nail into a deck joist, and small enough to tack up some door casing. It's the perfect size. As an added bonus, they're 16" long, which is the spacing between most floor joists and wall studs, so spacing nails is pretty easy. It's multi-purpose, useful, convenient.  It's there when I need it, it's just hanging around when I don't.  Workflows should be your hammer.

On the other side of the coin of my life, I'm a (occasionally opinionated) writer. Some may call me a blogger, but I've been writing online since before the web was the web, so I think blogger (which stems from "web log") is a little too timely. That term will fade, so I prefer not to use it.

As a "writer", I've used a pretty consistent workflow throughout the years. I'm a big plain-text guy. I like to just type away in a text editor and deal with all the prettification later.  I've worked on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, JoliCloud, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and iOS.  The one thing that always worked was a good ol' plain text file.   If I'm writing a post for my site or some guest-author spot, I write in plain text and then copy/paste into the CMS of the day. This also gives me a backup of all the articles on my site should something go terribly wrong in the cloud.

I was listening to the Mac Power Users workflow podcast last week, and productivity nerd and all around good guy Merlin Mann was on. He was talking about his workflow, and it's remarkably similar to mine. That should make me feel great, or Merlin Mann feel bad. Not sure which. I didn't know people were interested in this sort of thing, but apparently you are. Here's my current workflow for everything I write, post, present, or pitch.

The Workflow

If I were to diagram it, it would be

My head > iPad > Text Expander > Markdown > Elements > Dropbox > Notational Velocity > Squarespace > You.

Seems pretty convoluted, but it is seamless. Let's take these things one step at a time.

iPad

It's no secret I love my iPad. I love my iPhone. They let me do things I never thought possible on the go. My iPad and a bluetooth keyboard replace my laptop for all but the most demanding (read: video editing) tasks.

Text Expander

Do you write? Do you write the same things over and over? Then you need Text Expander. It's not terribly cheap, but if you can give up a few lattés, it is worth every penny. Text Expander on the Mac will take a few letters and do amazing things. It can take something like "ssig" and instantly spit out your 4 line email signature with links and a graphic. It can take "qofnt" and run an AppleScript that creates a new task in OmniFocus with a due date and context set. It is completely customizable and totally awesome. I have over 300 "snippets" that save me hundreds of keystrokes a day. (Those cryptic abbreviations are mine. The built in ones, like "ddate" putting in today's date, are easily remembered.)

The best part is, there is an iOS version. It syncs all your snippets from the Mac to your iPhone and iPad. Due to limitations in iOS, it doesn't work everywhere. But if a developer supports Text Expander, you're golden.

Markdown

Learn it. Use it. John Gruber wrote Markdown to make writing for the web easier. It uses common symbols that relate to HTML syntax. If your CMS software doesn't support Markup, file a bug report. It should. Instead of typing

<h1>Header Goes Here</h1>

to get a header, I type

#This is a Header

If I need an h3, I use

###

Instead of

<h3>header text</h3>

It's that simple. There is also simplified linking, lists, paragraphs, and more.  Gruber points out that Markdown is not a replacement for HTML, but it's intended for easier viewing while writing.  The Markdown is translated into HTML when the post goes live.

Elements

Simply put, Elements is a plain text editor that supports Markdown, saves to Dropbox, and can handle my hundreds of text files. It also supports Text Expander snippets, white-on-black text, and can send what you write to printers and email. But syncing to Dropbox is the magic.

Dropbox

Get Dropbox. They want you to get it so bad, the website is getDropbox.com. You get 2 GB of free online storage (you can buy more), and the Dropbox desktop application mirrors that online folder wherever you install it. So, I can edit a file on my MacBookPro when I'm offline. When I go online, the Dropbox folder is synced. If I open that same file on my iMac, it's the newest version. Save it, and the newest version is now available to my iPad. See where I'm going with this? If I edit the same file in 2 different places and there's a sync conflict, Dropbox just saves both versions so I don't lose any work. It's magic. Sync is hard, and Dropbox gets it right. Apple - buy Dropbox and make it the new MobileMe iDisk. Because iDisk is damn near unusable.

Notational Velocity

Notational Velocity is simple. It does one thing - monitors a folder for text files, and lets you create, edit, and save text files in that folder. I, naturally have mine set up to monitor the Elements folder on Dropbox. Anything I type in Elements on the iPad shows up in Notational Velocity on my Macs. The beauty of NV is you don't need a mouse or other pointing device. When you open it, there is a list of docs at the top, and a search box. Start typing in the incremental search box, and the list gets shorter and shorter until your file is found. If the file is not found, just hit enter, and a new text file is created with whatever you typed as the title, which you can change. And I usually do. I have a cryptic naming scheme that works for me. We'll get to that in a bit.

Squarespace

Squarespace is my site host and CMS. There are a ton of awesome features that you can read about on your own. The reason I love it is that posting is so easy. They have iPad and iPhone apps, and a great web interface. I can take whatever I've typed in a text file in Elements or Notational Velocity, copy the (Markdown-Formatted) text into the text field, and hit "post". That's it. It parses the Markdown and I get a fully-formatted blog post with no HTML coding or drag-and-drop editing (which Squarespace fully supports, should I choose to do it).

File Names

The issue I used to have with my text-file process was finding what I needed. How many "email draft" or "draft post for blog" files can one guy have? I came up with a cryptic naming system that I understand.

I use abbreviations, underscores, and dates. For example, the file name of this post is cj_qdraft_033011_workflowOpus. Here's the breakdown: "cj_qdraft" means channelJimmy, draft. I use the term qdraft because it's easy to search for.

• Sidebar>>>>>Did I mention I don't organize things into folders? That's a waste of time when everything in my workflow has a big search bar at the top. It's faster to type "qdraft" into the search bar than navigate through the Finder to Documents > channelJimmy > Drafts > 2011 > March > WorkflowOpus.txt. That's the old way to do things.

Back to the point... When I type cjqdraft into the search bar, I get a list of all the drafts for channelJimmy. Then the next part, "033011" is the date I created the document. Then there's a camelCase description. I use camelCase to, again, aid in search. If I type in "workflow", I'll get 30 or 40 text files, because these things search titles and content. By keeping workflowOpus one word, it's easier to find. On that note, I also add a "q" to the front of most parts of my file names. Searching for "draft" could come up with dozens of results because of the content. Searching for "qdraft" gives me just file names.

I have a ton of these. "cj_qdraft" is a draft, "cj_qnews" is a news update, qem_qdraft is an email draft, and on and on. I also use the letter "y" to notate importance. If I just wrote a line of brilliance, The file name would be "cjq_draft_033011_workflowOpus_yyyy" Think of the "y" like a star. That's a 4 star post. Again, easy to search for. There are no words in the English language that have a double-"y", so it never makes a word. I am a GTD-er, so I also used to have a ton more to remind me of things to buy (qshop_) or do (qdo_) but all that list-based stuff has been replaced on all my devices with OmniFocus. OmniFocus is a whole other post...

This is the way I work. It works for me, but it may not work for you. I suggest you come up with your own system, because that's the only way you can remember it. But don't spend so much time doing the system that you don't do the work. So many people try so hard to stay organized that they never get anything done, but their desks are tidy.

I follow the "organized enough" philosophy. My silverware drawer has 3 compartments. Forks, spoons, knives. I don't need to separate my soup spoons from my tablespoons. That's spending more time putting dishes away than enjoying the food. That's not what a workflow system should accomplish. Find a system that works for you and use it like a rented mule.

Find your hammer.  Get your work done, and go outside and play.

Amazon's Trojan Horse

Amazon will build an Android tablet or Android tablet OS this year.  

There, I said it.  And you know what?  They are the only ones who have a chance against the iPad.  Suck on that, Motorola.  Amazon has been slipping features to its customers on the sly lately, and it all adds up to one thing:  A full-fledged OS that can compete with iOS.

Think about it...  The one thing Apple has going for them (other than near-perfect, if underpowered, hardware) is an ecosystem.  You can buy an iPad, and never ever do anything but plug in your Apple ID.  You can buy anything you want with one password, and one login.

Apple has iTunes.  Amazon has the mp3Store.  Apple has iBooks.  Amazon has Kindle Books.  Amazon recently allowed Amazon Prime members to access thousands of streaming movies in addition to rentals and purchases.  And now, Amazon is opening an Android App Market.

If Amazon takes Android Honeycomb and skins it to their liking, they can actually compete with the two year head start Apple has with the iPad.  Plug in your amazon login and buy music (for less money), movies, stream thousands of Prime titles (goodbye Netflix?), rent TV shows, download Kindle books (with more options to read them than iBooks) and now have a curated App Marketplace with exclusive titles like Angry Birds Rio.

I think this is already in the works.  If it's not it should be.  There is no tablet out there that gets user experience, interface, and ecosystem like the iPad. iPad has nearly 85% of the market right now.  The other 15% is shared by over 80 tablets from a dozen manufacturers.  

Amazon:  just do it.  You have the money and the manpower.  Try to save Android from itself by giving devlopers and consumers a viable alternative to iOS and Apple's enormous ecosystem.   

Autotuning a Dog

Two of my favorite things...  iPads and Dogs.

EMBED-Auto Tune My Dog - Watch more free videos

My iPad Makes Me Hate My Apple TV

I (used to) love my Apple TV.  It streams music and video from my iTunes. It allows me to listen to podcast and Internet radio. It lets me view YouTube and Flickr. It was pretty amazing, and it just worked. 

Then I spent a month with my iPad. It does all of those things. And Netflix. And SmugMug. And non-iTunes video. And Pandora. And a gajillion other things. Now my Apple TV seems so... quaint. 

C'mon Apple. Lose the Front Row interface on the Apple TV and put the iPhone OS on that thing. Let all the current owners upgrade to the iPhone OS for ten bucks. Sell a new Apple TV that has no storage, just a wifi card and an HDMI port. Allow any iPad app to work on the Apple TV. Make my iPhone or iPad work as an actual remote for it, not just a glorified 4 way navigation button.  

Think of an Apple TV that would play iTunes, Netflix, Pandora, any video format through third party apps. Imagine Twitter or Facebook on your TV. Weather apps. News readers. All on the big screen in the morning while you're having your coffee.   

Imagine 200,000 apps available for the Apple TV. Then sell it for $99.

Apple TV is a self-proclaimed hobby by Steve Jobs. It's been out since 2007 and has only had one revision in hardware and a couple of middling software upgrades. It's time to bring it into the iPhone ecosystem or just kill it and convince people to use a Mac Mini. 

Apple already sells the Apple TV as an iPod. It's an iPod for your TV. It should graduate to at least iPod touch status, and get it out of the lazy, boring past.    The iPad can do so much, and there's no reason the Apple TV shouldn't have the same features. 

At the same time, Apple TV could easily eclipse the Google TV initiative that was announced last week.  Apple already sells thousands of Apps that can stream media to the iPhone and iPad. Google can't touch that for a long, long time.  Apple has an opportunity to stay in the lead on the phone, tablet, and set-top box fronts, but Google's Android is catching up fast.  Adding a set-top box to the iPhone ecosystem would secure the lead for quite a while.

OmniFocus for iPad, Sort Of...

Are you a GTDer?  I am. Big time. I don't follow all the procedures, because i don't like the SYSTEM to get in the way of the ACTIONS. But i really find the Project/Context thing to be invaluable to my workflow.  

I have been using my iPad religiously since the day it was born.  I'm writing this post in the Ft. Lauderdale airport, on a layover from a trip to Puerto Rico for a wedding.  I was gone 5 days, took hundreds of photos with my DSLR, and didn't miss my MacBook Pro once.  More on that in a future post.

Here's the issue:  I noticed that I'm using OmniFocus for the iPhone on my iPad.  It looks terrible.  It's all blown up and pixelated.  There has to be a way, right?  Stand by, dear reader.  There is!

After a little Googling, I found there's a switch in the iPhone OS code that tells the app what it's running on.   To put it most simply, a 1 is an iPhone or iPod touch, and a 2 is an iPad.  By simply editing a .plist file, you can enable the app (even certified App Store iPhone apps) to re-jigger the interface to fit the iPad and lose that whole pixel-doubling thing.  As an added bonus, you jettison the blown up iPhone keyboard and get a real life iPad keyboard.

The iPhone OS that runs the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch has certain interface elements.  The toolbars, icons, and forward/back arrows are all OS level things, not built into the app.  So, by telling the app that it's running on an iPad, it will use a larger interface, native navigation elements, and actual size text with more rows per screen.  It doesn't always work, but it does work on OmniFocus.  For the record, it also works on PasteBot, Facebook, Bump, Boxcar, iTrans NYC, and Trip It.  It does not work with MobileMe Gallery, Apple's own picture viewing app, which inexplicably has not been updated for the iPad.

Now, to the good stuff.  Here's what OF looks like on an iPad in pixel doubled mode:

 And after typing in exactly one line of code, you can make it look like this:  

You can now see all the info at once, and you have a much prettier UI.  All for typing one line of code.

The new OmniFocus should be out in a month or so, so this is a temporary fix to get you through.  You don't get all the fancy iPad interface elements, like popovers and split views, but it certainly is worth the effort.

First thing you need to do is jailbreak the iPad.  Just do it.  It's easy and reversible.  Use the Spirit jailbreak, and enjoy all the extras you get, like backgrounding and tethering.  Jailbreak your iPhone while you're at it.  Spirit will take care of it all.  I'm not going to link to Spirit from here, but you can Google it.  Or Bing it.  Or Yahoo it.  I could go on for hours.  I'll just Cuil it.  (That's search engine humor, don't actually use Cuil, it is terrible.)

You download Spirit, plug in your iPad, and hit the one and only button.  15 seconds later, your iPad reboots and you're done.  

  Now, run to the Cydia app store and install iFile.  It's nagware, so if you use it a lot, pay for it.  Otherwise you'll keep getting pop-ups.  You should pay for it anyway.  It's only $10.  iFile will allow you to browse all the files on your iPad, including the hidden files.  It will also allow you to copy any file off an SD card to the iPad using the camera connection kit.  More on that in the future.  For now, let's get into OF.

  Open iFile and tap settings (the little gear).  Make sure the "Application Names" switch is on, otherwise the app folders will just be a string of gibberish.  Navigate to the Applications>OmniFocus>OmniFocus.app folder.  Then, open the info.plist file.  The beauty of iFile is it has a built in plist editor.  Scroll down towards the bottom and find:

     

<key>UIDeviceFamily</key>

  <array>

    <integer>1</integer>

  </array>

Then, tap the EDIT button, and add one line of code so it says this:

 <key>UIDeviceFamily</key>

  <array>

    <integer>1</integer>

    <integer>2</integer>

  </array>

While you're in there, get your landscape on...  Find the line that says:

 <key>EnableLandscapeMode</key>

        <false/>

And change it to 

<key>EnableLandscapeMode</key>

        <true/>

Save the file, press the home button (this writes all changes in iFile to memory) and restart.  (You should install SB Settings from Cydia as well.  It makes restarting, brightness control, and wireless connection switches available from the status bar.). Next time you open OmniFocus, it should look more iPad-ish and not all pixely. As an added bonus, you get landscape support and a real iPad keyboard.

If you have other apps you'd like to try this with, just do it.  Some apps don't have a control scheme that works.  MobileMe Gallery, for example, looks good with this hack, but you can't actually tap or scroll, so it's useless.  But, if it doesn't work, it's as simple as re-editing the plist file and removing one line of code.     

Im sure the OmniGroup is doing a bang up job on the iPad version of OmniFocus, with the steering wheel interface, popover lists for contexts and dates, and all the iPad bells and whistles.  Until then, this should hold you over.