The Swiss Army Knife for text

Introduction

Hi all and welcome to another episode from Productivity Matters. 

In this series I've been looking at apps that are designed to help you be more productive; to get things done as efficiently as possible.

I'm Julian, and on this episode I'm going to tell you about Drafts 5 - an app that lets you decide what to do with your text AFTER you've written it down..

Drafts 5

So, what is Drafts 5 and where can you use it?  Well, firstly, it's only available on iOS (via iPhone and iPad).  There is a Mac version coming, but it's not here yet.  It's not available on Android, Windows or the web.  It's a shame it's not everywhere, because, when you get under the bonnet (hood) and take a look, this is a very clever piece of software.

Imagine you are needing to take some notes.  They're not tasks, and they're not something you're going to do anything with immediately.  What do you do?  Fire up ToDoIst?  Open Evernote? Get a notepad?

Drafts 5 is an app that lets you type what you want, and just holds on to it, until you decide what you want to do with it.

Functionality

The application for Drafts 5 is immense.  In fact, at first look, it can do so much, it's scary.   In fact, on their website, they state that Drafts 5 is like the Swiss Army knife of text.

It's possible to create entire fully formatted, documents

When you launch the app, you are presented with an empty page, along with some navigation icons.

• Show existing documents
• Open a new document
• Get the information for the current documents
• Tags
• A character and word count
• Action button

At the bottom of the screen:

• Focus mode
• Navigation between documents
• Arrangement button
• Link
• Appearance
• General settings

Formatting and Dictation

I'll begin with the built in functionality.

• Text formatting
• Bullet points
• Bold/Italics
• Task lists
• Add web links
• Dictation - without the normal Siri limit

This last one is amazing.  You can quite literally speak, and Drafts 5 will capture it all.  You need to use grammatical words to punctuate the text, like, period or comma, but, of course, you can always go back over the text when you've finished, to format it and correct any words that were misheard.

There is also support for Apple Watch, Siri integration, iCloud sync, version history, custom app icons, different themes - yes, dark theme is available.  You can use iOS widgets for quick access to documents and more.

You can set up a text editing experience that's just how you want to use it.  There are tons of adjustments, like custom fonts, control ver spacing, line height and margins.

There are also extended options in a row above the keyboard, giving you easy access to the functionality.

If you write long-form articles, Drafts 5 gives you the ability to re-arrange complete blocks or individual lines - just by drag and dropping.  It's a great, simple, way to edit an article.

There are workspaces, which allows you to keep related documents together, and there is also tagging; helping to keep everything organised.

The power of Drafts 5 comes from the Actions catalogue.  There are so many integrations; too many to list here, that you can use to enhance the Drafts 5 capabilities.

Having said all that, let me give you some real-life examples of how I use Drafts 5.  I'm no power-user, but the way it helps me is fantastic.

Drafts 5 is available on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch

Examples

Basic

First and foremost, I use drafts to capture thoughts.  It's an app in my iPhone dock, and therefore can be reached quickly.  I just type and type and that's it.  Later, I can review and decide what to do.

ToDoIst

I also use Drafts to add to my To Do list, in ToDoIst.  Entering the task details, I then run an action to create a task directly.  I can also enter multiple tasks, one per line, and use a slightly different action to create multiple tasks in ToDoIst - that's a real time-saver.

Fantastical2

There are times when I'll receive and email with lots of different dates for various meetings.  In Drafts, I will enter each one on a separate line, along with the date and time.  I then run an action called Fantastically Good Event Parser. 

This bit is really clever - it will take each line and create a separate event in Fantasical 2, using the natural language ability of the app.  This has saved tons of time.

Automation

Those are a couple of basic applications; but it's possible to take the automation to another level.

I also use Drafts 5 to update a Google Sheet.  When I take a payment from a parent at my Cub group; I have a pre-formatted page, where I enter the date, amount and reason - I then run an action, which in turn calls a Zap from Zapier; and the sheet is updated.

How about creating an invoice?  Again, using a similar page to the one I just mentioned; I enter the date and number of days to be invoiced; and when I run the action, a Zap will enter this onto a new line in Sheets.  Another Zap then picks this up and creates the invoice inside my invoicing software.  Brilliant.

One final example - returning to the Cub pack; if I want to send a group message, I can write it in advance in Drafts, and when it's time, I'll send it directly via WhatsApp, to the group.  It means I can create the message without fear of sending it in error; and if I have a task in ToDoIst to remind me to send it - then, job done!

More

I have only scraped the surface of what Drafts 5 can do once a Draft has been created.  Other functionality includes; saving to online storage services, like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc, or saving locally, to Files.

You can even integrate Drafts 5 into a Shortcut workflow, so you can retrieve a Draft document, do something with it and continue.

Cost

Almost every developer offers a free version of the app, that gives you the chance to try it before you buy.  Others have free use forever, but without the full feature set available.  Drafts 5 falls into this second category.  

You get one week of the full application, to try everything, then either pay £1.79 per month, or sign up for the annual subscription for £17.49 to get all the features.

Drafts Pro gives you the ability to edit Actions, different themes, Workspaces and more.  

Do you NEED all this?  

Many users can get by with the basic version, and quite rightly, the developer hasn't held back on the necessities; but if you feel you'll want workspaces to better organise your texts, you want the dark theme, or you'll be making use of Actions and need to edit them, then it's definitely worth the investment.

Thank You

You may have gathered that I enjoy using Drafts and I hope you’ve found this episode interesting.

Find out more about Drafts 5 at their website

If you have any questions about Drafts 5 or anything else, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to your podcasts and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

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Feedly and Pocket

Introduction

Hello and welcome to another episode from Productivity Matters; a series about the apps and methods that help you get things done. 

How do you normally consume your news? Traditional newspaper? Online newspaper? Do you get it from lots of sources?

I’m Julian, your host for this episode and I’m going to take a look at two services that will help you to aggregate your news.

Coming right up.

Busy Lives

We’re all busy; and some would say busier than a generation ago. We travel a lot further for work and our attention is being drawn by a multitude of things happening in our lives.. 

Where we once used to consume a daily newspaper along with our breakfast; nowadays we no longer restrict our news reading to a single publication. 

The internet has brought world news into our own homes, not forgetting all the other areas of interest; entertainment, technology, science, business and specialist publications too. 

News Aggregation

One way to keep on top of the subjects we want to read about is to use an aggregator. A service that will pull in stories from a variety of sources. 

In the Good Ole Days, the biggest service was provided by Google, called Google Reader; but they pulled the plug on that back in 2013; apparently due to lack of use! At the time it caused upset amongst its fans. 

Whilst this was happening, another service, called Feedly, was working quietly in the background. 

When Google announced their intention to close Reader, the number of users to Feedly jumped to half a million in 48 hours!

Within a couple of months they had over 12 million users. 

Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android, also available as a cloud-based service. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others.

Feedly

Throughout the day, Feedly is “listening” to the topics and news-feeds I have selected and then pulls in the up-to-date stories ready for me to read. 

You can select sources from a variety of choices, or, if you know the RSS feed, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, you can add that manually. 

Over the intervening years, Feedly has grown and developed a number of features; such as the ability to read later, create boards to store stories from a particular subject, sharing the article with other people and teams and also with other apps. 

As is usually the way, Feedly is free to download and use, but, of course, they do have a Pro version that offers more granular control and more sharing options, such as integrations with Buffer, Zapier, Hootsuite, Evernote etc 

You can also filter out noise with mute filters, add notes and highlights, have unlimited feeds and get news articles faster amongst other functionality.

It’s my number one app for reading the headlines. 

Pocket

From these headlines, I save the article into Pocket.

Pocket was founded in 2007 to help people save interesting articles, videos and more from the web for later enjoyment. It’s like  your Sky+ box. Save for later. 

In fact, the original name was Read It Later and was designed to be used on a desktop browser. 

Not only can you save items for reading later, but Pocket also curates and provides links directly to articles, some old and some new. I’ve found some quite interesting long-form articles here. 

Over the years, development has continued to the latest version of the app and once saved to Pocket, your content is visible on any device — phone, tablet or computer. It can be viewed while standing in a queue, on the couch, during commutes or travel — even, especially, offline. 

Pocket is great.

In the latest version, they’ve improved the access to listen to an AI voice reading the articles to you. I was dubious about this and it’s not perfect, but it’s not a bad way to consume the articles if you can’t read them. 

Using Pocket

You can add articles to Pocket in a variety of ways. 

I’ve already mentioned that I add Feedly for my news. But you can add anything in here. 

You can use the share extension or the browser extension.  It’s also possible to email items directly from your inbox.

If you copy the URL from your browser, Pocket will ask you if you want to add it. 

You can also use tags, so that you can effectively create ‘folders’ of related articles. 

Pocket is also free to download and use, and there is also a premium version.  

This includes the Permanent Library which automatically creates copies of the articles and webpages you’ve saved to your account. That way, even if an item changes or is taken offline, you will be able to open the version that you have saved in Pocket.

Full-Text Search provides fast and powerful search functionality. Pocket will search through the entire content of every item you’ve saved, making it extremely easy to find what you’re looking for.

With Pocket Premium, you’ll see a list of Suggested Tags whenever you tag an item. It's very well designed, as the tags that are suggested are inspired by the item’s topics as well as the tags you already use.

Cost

So, both Feedly and Pocket are free to download and use. And there is no need to pay if you don’t require the advanced functionality on offer. 

But, if you do want to have the full experience, then both the Feedly Pro version and the Pocket Premium version are $45 each per year.

I did try and use Feedly on it's own, using their Read Later function; but in many cases, only the headline is saved, or just the first part of the article, so I ended up having to use a different app to read them in full.  That app is Pocket.

I love Pocket. It’s variety of options to download articles automatically, link to your accounts on various publications, different reading modes to make it easier on your eyes really make this an excellent app to keep up-to-date with your interests.

Fun fact: at the end of last year, I received an email from Pocket, telling me that I was in the top 1% of readers for the year. 

I might not mean a whole lot; but it’s fun to know. Also shows that my reading is being tracked!! 

Thank You

I hope you’ve found this episode interesting.

Links to both of them are in the show notes. 

If you have any questions about Feedly or Pocket, or you have comments about other aggregator services that you use, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

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Google Docs and Microsoft Word

Intro

Hi.  Welcome to episode 12 of this Productivity Matters podcast.

Do you write a lot of documents? Have you thought there maybe an alternative to the tools you use?

I’m Julian, your host for this episode, and I’m going to take a look at online document creation, and two of the main tools available, Google Docs and Microsoft Word.

Coming up right after this...

In the beginning..

35 years ago Microsoft began introducing the world to their software suite of office products - starting with Word (for word processing), followed up with Excel (for spreadsheets) and Powerpoint (for creating presentations).

Suddenly, it became possible to write and save documents, do calculations and present all of it relatively quickly and simply - if you had a computer of course.

Over the years, Word became the defacto application for creating all things related to the written word.  It has grown in functionality and has never, quite, been beaten for what it can do.  Apple created their own version, called Pages, but it's not that intuitive; in my opinion.

Welcome Google

All of that changed in September 2007 (yes, just over 10 years ago) when Google launched their own, online, versions; called Doc, Sheets and Slides.  I’m sure you can guess their equivalents. 

It was quite basic, but the gauntlet had quite clearly been thrown down.  Let's face it; Google shook up the browsing world, with Chrome, and now they were set to do the same for office productivity.

Word

Microsoft Word is a fully-featured word processing application that allows you to write and write and write; and format your text into various fonts (and there are a multitude to choose from), not forgetting setting paragraphs, columns, styles, borders and colours to bring a document to life.  Once created, you can save your work to continue later, or, if ready, it can be printed out or shared via email.

Google Docs, on the other hand, has had 30 years to catch-up on.  After a rudimentary offering, they have built on the functionality each year, and they now offer a very advanced application.

Don't be misled by the bare-bones look and feel.  You won't find it lagging too far behind Microsoft.

One of their biggest selling points was in collaboration.  Whilst Microsoft offered all the bells and whistles to create a beautiful looking document, Google used their cloud presence as a huge advantage.  Share your document, in real-time, with colleagues, and make changes live.  

Suddenly, the Google offering, whilst not as fully-featured, offered something not previously available.  The ability to share and work together, and be able to see the history of all the changes - just in case!  Having said that, the need to be online was also a negative; as you had to be connected to the internet to use it.  That has now changed, with Google having now enabled the ability to create and edit offline.

Integration with Google Drive soon followed, and now any documents (or spreadsheet or presentation) created in Google Drive will not count towards the storage space.

This is a huge advantage for those with buckets of documents.  

Using Google Docs

I use Google Docs and the others, quite extensively.  They're easy to use and easy to export to various formats; whether that be PDF or even to the native Microsoft Word format, so that anyone with Word can open the document.

Google even created a business offering, called G-Suite; giving companies an enterprise version, with the controls they need. Of course, this isn’t free, but it is a fraction of the cost that Microsoft charge for their suite of products. 

Cost

We also need to look at the cost.  It may come as no surprise that Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are free to use.  Totally.  No gotchas.

Although, as we know with free YOU are the product and should expect Google (in this instance) to use your data to further enhance its marketing capabilities.

Microsoft Word is not free - in fact, you will usually buy it as part of a bundle together with their Office suite of software (which allows up to 6 users) 

This is £80 per year.  

If you use all 6 licences, that works out at just over £13 per person, per year. 

That gives you access to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, the email manager, Outlook, OneNote (their alternative to Evernote), Publisher and Access (both of which are only available on PC - and I don't know who uses them anymore, anyway!)

It’s not an unreasonable cost for a family. 

Conclusion

So, how do we summarise this. 

There is no need to buy Microsoft Office if all you need is available from Google.  Their Docs application has everything you need to do what you want; it's less cluttered than it's counterpart (which can seem quite bloated at first) and it’s fairly intuitive to use.  You will need to have a play with it to see how it works for you.

Whilst there are others on the market, but for the purposes of this podcast, to get the familiar looking experience with all the functions you would ever want, then you have no choice but to pay up and get Office.  It's not cheap; but you will never want for anything again, when it comes to writing documents, creating spreadsheets or presentations.

Thank You

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.

If you have any questions about Google Doc, Microsoft Word, or anything else related to office applications, then please get in touch via Twitter @prodmatters

Don’t forget to subscribe where you normally listen to podcasts.

Thank you very much for listening and until next time, remember, Productivity Matters.

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
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Pop Filter - https://amzn.to/2OVMbQP
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If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.

Online Security

Intro

In this post from Productivity Matters, never has online security been more important, as we constantly hear about systems being hacked and our private information being stolen.
All it takes are a few simple steps to prevent this from happening to you.
I’ll explain more about online security.

Phishing

How seriously do you think about your online security? Regularly? Once a month? Never? More and more we're being reminded about the need to keep our personal information safe and secure, and never to divulge anything that could identity us to would-be hackers or thieves.

There are many ways in which your information can be obtained by nefarious players.
Phishing is one of the most common. Ever more intricate and daring, the conmen and women find ways to get you to divulge your credit or debit card information, giving them access to your money.
So often we are reminded to not give out ANY information without being absolutely certain that the person we are talking to is genuine.

The newest type of scam is where an email is intercepted, and scammers use the information to request payment for some work. You're expecting this email, and when they give you the bank details, you don't think twice. BUT - is this the real person? It's important not to interact with these people and make the checks yourself, before paying.

Hackers

The more technical will attempt to get your details direct from the databases that contain them. Through finding loopholes and breaches in security, they can steal card information, from which they can then go forth and spend.
Stealing passwords is also a major problem - access to your account is immediately available.

Play Safe

There are many steps you can take to protect your identity, some of which are really basic, and others are more involved - but all of them, when used in conjunction with each other will help secure your data.

Password Protection

First and foremost; keep ALL your passwords safe. When was the last time you changed your password? Do you use more than one password for your accounts? How strong is your password?

One of the most common mistakes is using the same password; usually made up of a family name or date of birth, across multiple online accounts.

If one account is compromised; it won't take long for the hackers to try your password against other accounts, and 'hey presto', your data is gone!

You have passwords for banking, online shopping, cinema, travel - you name it, there will be a whole host of accounts.

I'll come on to ways to save passwords shortly.

Two Factor Authentication

Another, relatively easy way to stay safe is to use two factor authentication. Also known as multi factor authentication, this requires a secondary device to login to an account.

The simplest and most convenient device is your mobile phone.

When this is set up, the next time you login, you'll be prompted to enter a code from your phone, into the account login page. Without this code, access will be denied.
So, even if someone does steal your password, without your phone, they can't access your account.

Codes can be received via a text message from the provider, or via an app installed on your phone. It adds an extra step to the process; but this far outweighs the problems if someone pretends to be you.

Password Manager

Earlier, I mentioned how you probably have the same password for multiple accounts; and the dangers this can pose to your personal data.

In recent years, there has been an increase in Password Managers, designed to help you create and manage your passwords.

I use LastPass; and at last count, it is storing over 200 passwords (as well as other useful information). With it all safely encrypted and stored, I can rest assured that my details are secure.

When I login to an account, using the browser plugin, LastPass automatically identifies the site I'm on and pre-populates my username and password. Simple. I don't even know what the password is, in some cases.
Because I don't have to remember each one, they can be as strong as possible; making guessing them virtually impossible.

If I create a new online account, I use LastPass to generate the password for me; creating a random, unique string of letters and numbers that mean nothing.

Of course, I do need to remember the password of my actual LastPass account - but this is something I created since I only need to remember that one.

Changing Passwords

It's also a good idea to regularly change passwords. And, if you're made aware of a breach of security at one of the sites you use, then definitely change it as soon as possible.
Again, LastPass can manage this for you; in some cases with just one click; making it as simple as possible to keep your information safe.

Cost

So, what about cost? What price security and peace of mind.
It costs a very reasonable $24 per year (which at the time of this podcast is about £18).

For the equivalent of $48, you can have a family plan, for up to 6 people.

I don't think this is expensive. I've been using it for a number of years, and it amazes me the number of people who continue to use the same password everywhere.

Alternatives

Whilst I use LastPass and have been extremely happy; there are other alternatives, such as Dashlane and 1Password. If you have an Apple iCloud account, you can store passwords in the keychain; and Google is soon to be launching their own equivalent of a password manager, for use in Chrome.

Finally...

Staying safe online doesn't have to be hard, and almost certainly must be continuously thought about.
There are simple steps:

• Don't write passwords down where they can be easily found
• Don't write PIN numbers down
• Never give out your credit or debit card PIN
• Change passwords frequently and
• Use different passwords everywhere
• Don't succumb to pressure of 'this offer ends really soon'.
• If in doubt - say nothing. Make checks first before you continue with the transaction.  If the company or person is legitimate then they'll understand.

I hope you’ve found this post interesting.
If you have any questions about online security or LastPass, then please get in touch via the comments below.

Online Storage

Intro

In this post I'm looking at online storage.
With the majority of our lives now in 'the cloud', what options do you have for storing your data. And what are the associated costs?

Choices

When it comes to online storage, there are a vast array of choices, depending on your personal preference, and even what you want to do with it.
You might have a lifetimes worth of photos that need to be backed up.
You might have a whole host of documents that you've accumulated over the years.
There is something out there to suit you.
This post takes a quick look at 3 of the most popular services, each of which offers an app on iOS and
Android, making access to your files quick and easy.

Google Drive

For basic, online storage, that won't cost an arm and a leg, then you can't go wrong with Google Drive.
Most people have a Google account. I said 'most' people!
Google Drive is your online storage for all types of document. Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos, as well as audio and video.
Google offer a minimum of 15Gb of storage completely free. For many, this is more than enough.
For just £1.59 per month, you can increase this to 100Gb.
Bear in mind that Google Photos, the standalone storage for your pictures, is free for High quality photos, but full resolution photos will count against your quota.
Within Drive, you can create folders and sub-folders and add files as necessary. You can also create files using Googles own Docs, Sheets and Slides software. These documents don't count towards your storage limit.
If you need to share documents, this is as easy as sending an email.
Google Drive is really the first port of call for online space.

Apple iCloud

If you are invested in the Apple ecosystem, you're probably using iCloud. Here you get 5Gb of storage included; with a charge of 79p per month to raise this to 50Gb.
Documents created in native Apple apps are still counted, so this isn't as beneficial as Google.
However, it provides easy access, and items stored on your Mac desktop are automatically sync'd to iCloud, so you can retrieve them on other Apple products.
Do you use the iCloud Photo Library? This also uses your quota of storage.
Your iCloud storage will also be used for backups, both for your device and the apps you have installed, which means you're likely to use up the free space much more quickly.
It might be worth changing some settings, to save the apps backing up, to preserve space.
Having said that, 79p per month won't break the bank, for another 50Gb.
I should mention that iCloud is only available via Apple products, and therefore not available on Android devices.

Microsoft OneDrive

The final one to be included here is Microsoft OneDrive.
There are a couple of flavours here. If you have Office 365 Home or Personal, the OneDrive is bundled into the package and you get a whopping 1Tb of storage (on the Home version you get 1Tb each for up to 5 people!)
Should you not have access to Office 365, then there is a free storage plan offering 5Gb of space.
If you need more space, then this costs £1.99 per month, for 50Gb of space.
As with the others, it's easy to access and share documents from anywhere you can login to the service. There's also the obligatory app for iOS and Android.

Cost

Looking at a base of 50Gb per year; the costs would stack up like this:

• Google Drive. You get 15Gb free, and the minimum additional payment is £19.08 per year. For that you get 100Gb
• Apple iCloud. They include 2Gb free, with an annual cost of £9.48 - you get 50Gb. The next plan is 200Gb!
• Microsoft OneDrive gives you 5Gb for free then a cost of £1.99 per month - £23.88

Conclusion

On the face of it, iCloud represents the best value; but this is really only suitable for those with an Apple ID. Otherwise, Google is the winner.
I have had my Google account for a number of years, and so far, I've only used about 20% of the space, which equates to just under 9Gb.
You get the 15Gb included free when you sign up, and it's only £1.59 per month IF you need more.

Do you use an online storage provider? If so, which service do you use? Is there a better value alternative, in your opinion, to the three mentioned here?

I hope you’ve found this post interesting.

If you have any questions about online storage, or have any suggestions about a subject you'd like me to discuss, then please let me know in the comments below.

Equipment I use to make my podcasts:
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If you purchase from these links then I may receive a commission.  This does not affect the price you will pay.  Thank you.