I haven't been able to use my iPad Pro 11 (2018) nearly as much as I've wanted these past few months, largely because I'm chewing through a ton of videos and graphics every week during this virus. But last week, I was able to dust off the 'ol iPad and get back to writing. It was a refreshing escape from the endless deluge of videos every week. Could I do videos and graphics on my iPad? Sure. But right now where there are deadlines almost every day, the Mac is more familiar for me and I have established workflows there.

But my iPad has become my writing and research machine, my entertainment device, and my everything else device. It's where I go when I want to check out a website or read an article. It's where I go to watch tutorials on YouTube on how to do something complex in Final Cut Pro.

The apps in the dock are used every day, and most of them at the same time in Split Screen, so we'll focus there, as most other apps are self-explanatory.

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iPad Home Screen, May 2020. Click for larger.

Starting from the dock separator and moving left, I have Drafts. I've recently had a Drafts renaissance - I've replaced several other apps with Drafts and I've found a few new ways to use the app.

Ever since Drafts added Taskpaper support, the ability to handle To-Do lists in plain text on the app has been very valuable. That's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I love Things, but it lets me customize it exactly how I want my task list to look.

Working left, the next app is Ulysses. This app had a big update last week adding mouse support (Magic Trackpad on the iPad is wonderful, by the way) and also something I've needed - external folder support. They've had it for a long time but it didn't work correctly, but now this has changed the game. Being able to store my Library in Markdown text files in Dropbox but also use Ulysses' great writing environment is wonderful.

I've been using the Brave browser almost exclusively for a month now, and I'm happy with the results. I wish that iOS would enable default browsers, email apps, etc. so I could use it more effectively, but alas, it will have to suffice for now. Brave is good at what it needs to do and the interface doesn't get in the way.

My Bible translation of choice for the last 15 years has been the Engish Standard Version, and I've found that the ESV Bible app is very good. It's pretty vanilla but it accomplishes what you want - looking up and reading Bible passages and then copying them into your lesson. It also supports Split Screen.

Fantastical is the best calendar app in the Apple ecosystem, period. It's got a great design, quick sync, and I'm happy to pay a couple of bucks a month to support great devs like those at Flexibits.

Spark is my email app of choice because, well, there's not anything better in my opinion. And that's a low bar. I'm not blown away with Spark, and I guess I shouldn't be. It's a solid app with less bugs that a year or two ago. It's nicer than the stock email app. It has a good dark mode and now allows (with an update last week) for changing fonts and font sizes.

WeatherUp is my favorite weather app, and it's because it's a radar-first weather app. I like seeing the rain coming, and so WeatherUp does that beautifully. They have a great selection of weather icons and app icons too.

Still on Tweetbot. I've tried using the stock Twitter app several times and have wanted to throw my phone in a lake. Tweetbot is just so simple without all the cruft of the stock Twitter app.

1Password - self-explanatory password manager. The best there is. They've also waived their free trial period for the app during Covid-19. Go get it.

Spotify is now my music service of choice. I rage-quit Music after it failed to play half the songs on my playlists for like the tenth time because I didn't have a perfect connection. That's really the only problem I had with it. It was just very unreliable for me on an LTE connection. Your milage may vary, and Spotify seems a lot better at this. Songs seem to play a lot faster. Spotify also seems like music discovery is easier and that it just "knows" me better. Is that weird?

Overcast - also self-explanatory. If you listen to podcasts at all, go get it.

My last two icons on the far left of my dock are shortcuts - Dictate to Drafts and AirPods Connect. One touch and I'm dictating into Drafts, using my voice to transcribe to text. The AirPods Connect shortcut is extremely handy - one tap and it connects my AirPods without having to fumble around with Settings. This is especially nice if you switch between devices frequently as well.

[Note: if you download either of the linked Shortcuts here, you will need to change a few things to make them work on your devices, namely changing the Airpods name in the Airpods Connect Shortcut.]

I won't talk about any of my apps outside my dock other than Reeder - which is a fantastic RSS client, and Apollo - which is a really great Reddit client. Other than that, I tend to use the Fantastical widget on the left side, alone with the Shortcuts widget to quickly do some tasks with one tap.

I really enjoy the iPad. I would like to be able to use it for professional-level video one day, but I don't see that anytime soon. But as far as everything else, the iPad is more than capable and I'm continuing to learn new ways of using it.

That's right, Ministry Bits will be back August 7. We still have the same old feed so you can just search iTunes or your favorite podcatcher and listen or re-listen to some old episodes, some of which have aged incredibly well.

I heard from so many people about how the podcast helped them with technology, so I'm bringing it back. The reason why it left in the first place? Well, in a sense, time. I just didn't have the time to dedicate to it like I wanted. But I miss it, and I want to help as many people as I can make their ministries better with technology.

Chris Bowler over at The Sweet Setup is blowing my everloving mind. What he's done is exactly what I'd like to do - have my own notes and my own database all in one place, locally accessed by my app of choice, in this case - Ulysses.

It would be a lot of work to get all the Biblical text into one app (it's over 800,000 words, but it is just plain text, after all), but I think to have everything in one place would be amazing.

How to use Ulysses for long-term research - The Sweet Setup >

Notebooks I've filled up just this calendar year. 

I used to write everything down. In college 13 years ago, there was no iPhone for me. No App Store with great organization apps, no awesome Getting Things Done pieces of software for my Mac. It was just my 12-inch PowerBook, Microsoft Word 2003 (yuck!), and the web. That was about it.

Alongside that, though, I had a steady stream of notebooks. Mostly Moleskines, and I would write nearly everything down. Even if it didn't matter, I would write it down. I wasn't too particular about pens or pencils or even the notebooks I chose to write in. And it worked.

Somewhere along the way, I abandoned pen and paper. In an effort to become more streamlined and paperless, I put my notebooks in storage and started to use apps like Things and Simplenote to keep track of all my tasks, and later Elements and Editorial to organize all my text files. It was good (and still is), but keeping track of everything was difficult. Long-form writing and classes and sermons was ideal; small notes and bits of text was not. And as a minister, I live in small notes and bits of text.

This past year I've fallen back in love with Field Notes. In case you're not familiar with them, Field Notes are little notebooks, just a little bit bigger than a standard index card, with durable covers and high-quality paper. They're perfect for your pocket and durable enough to carry around with you anywhere.

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Current Field Notes collection. Yes I have a problem. 

Just in the last 6 months alone, I've filled up 10 notebooks. With what, you ask? Everything. It has greatly helped me be a more productive father and minster when I just write everything down. It may seem silly to you, but writing everything down in an analog way has helped me in a way digital never did. It just seems easier to forget anything that was typed out on a tiny keyboard. The more I find myself using my iPhone and its apps as a communication and organization tool and not the by-all end-all, I find I'm more productive in my day-to-day work and relationships.

Sample of my Daily Log. 

For example, I've started keeping a daily log. It has been extremely valauable for me to look back at my workdays and see exactly what I did at any given time. It's not as cumbersome as I would have thought, it helps me with accountability and gives me a reference and record on the many different things I do throughout the day. Plus if anyone ever says, "What do you do all day?" I can just say, "Here."

I've also found my retention better when taking analog notes, especially during sermons or classes. There's science behind this. I sometimes try to sketchnote, which is just a fancy way of saying that I draw out pictures and doodles as I take notes. For example, when Andrew is preaching he might mention a verse that has the word "gift"in it, and I'd draw a small package with a bow. Sketchnoting helps break up the layout of just text in your notes and it's also good fun.

I highly recommend Field Notes, but there's some bigger formats that might interest you like the Panobook from Studio Neat or even the Dime Novel Field Notes special edition.

As everything moves more and more digital, I find myself going back to analog to keep track of things. If you're not locked into a system where you work and are able to go back to analog note taking, I'd say give it a try for 30 days and see how much more productive you are. You might be surprised, like I was, on how much better you remember things by writing them down with good 'ol pen and paper.

Video courtesy of Cultured Code

For a while now, you may have noticed that I’ve been radio silent on Omnifocus. I love Omnifocus and all that the Omnigroup do for apps and productivity, but about 6 months ago I decided to try something simpler. I thought a power user like myself needed something like Omnifocus - that the myriad of great features and settings was a nerd’s playground for me. But I got to where I was more frustrated by Omnifocus rather than happy with it, which, turns out, was more of a reflection upon myself rather than the app. I was getting bogged down in the structure and features rather than actually getting anything done. 

Things by Cultured Code has a long iOS history - they were one of the first Task Manager apps I remember on the iPhone. They were an app on the App Store before iOS was called iOS, circa 2008, in the first round of application on the release of the App Store. And while years passed and I had forgotten about it, Things version 3 had me taking another look. I had given popular apps like Todoist a try and get didn’t feel them. Things 3 clicked almost immediately for me and my needs. 

Every To Do List app has a philosophy, and Things 3 uses a concept called Areas to manage your different lists. You can, of course, choose not to break your tasks down into Areas, but I find it extremely helpful to do so, since I’m involved with so many different organizations and projects. But if you’re not always everywhere like me (most times I wish I wasn’t), you can break down your Areas into different areas of responsibility, such as Preaching, Teaching, Housekeeping, etc. 

Areas help you organize your different Project lists, and you can be as specific or as broad as you like. For example, in my Graymere Area, I have a number of different Project lists - one for this week and next week, one for different initiatives I’m working on, and so on. If I need to move one of these, it’s a simple as dragging and dropping on macOS, or simply tapping and hitting Move on iOS. 

Some of my favorites are in the details. For example, every task has a couple of options: Set a Due Date, set a Deadline, Tag a task, or make a Sub-List. I love the Sub-List feature because if I have a relatively low-priority set of tasks like say, a shopping list, I can make those checklists under one task and not clog up the works. 

Another dead simple feature is the Notes section - not just under Project headings but also each individual task as well. This is helpful for say a speaking engagement where I want to put the topic and scripture, but also for simple things like links to check out. 

There’s also a number of categorization features that help you in organization as well. The Inbox is simply any task you thrown into Things 3 without being assigned to a specific project. You can use this how you wish, but I use it as a holding area to move those tasks to the appropriate Projects. Today is, well, self-explanatory. This is anything in any list that you specify needs to be done today. Upcoming is a helpful list view with a calendar that shows you tasks that you have put Due Dates on and when they are due. 

The best part is that Things 3 looks seamless and fluid with the same user interface across all three platforms: iOS, iPad, and macOS. Unfortunately for Windows and Android users, Cultured Code has no plans to come to those platforms. 

If you're looking for a clean, simple task manager with a few features but not a hundreds options, Things 3 may be for you. It doesn't break the mold and offer tons of new stuff, but it gets the job done cleanly and easily. Check out all the features at the Cultured Code website.