Formerly Integromat
One thing I like to do in December is review my expenses, switch things from yearly to monthly, and see what I can change.
This year I decided to switch Zapier from yearly to monthly and learned they charge an obnoxious 33% more because of it.
Combine that with a recent episode of the Automators podcast that covers Make, and I’ve decided to try switching completely to Make from Zapier.
I like to tell people that my 3 brothers and I all got one thing each from my parents. From our dad, we get an affinity for pocket knives. From our mom, we got a love of stationary. We all love a good notebook and pen, but of the 4 of us I’ve taken it to the most extreme.
While I’m squarely in tech, I still love doing most of my productivity stuff (planning, writing, etc.) with analog1 tools. I feel like I really got the system dialed in through 2021 — so much so that I’m not making any major changes to it in 2022. That makes now the perfect time to tell you all about my analog toolkit. All the links are at the end of the article.
Do you feel like you got way too many emails over the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend? I know lots of people who do. I also know lots of business owners who held back sending their own sequence of emails because they hate getting emails. And while that’s a different conversation1, you can draw a similar conclusion: when people get a lot of email, they feel it’s overwhelming.
It doesn’t have to be. Way back in 2010, I wrote about how you can easily manage subscriptions with GMail. Well, it’s been 10 years, and there are a lot more ways to control your inbox. Let’s take a look at some.
Earlier this week, my friend Justin Ferriman wrote a great post called Matt’s Page Builder, where he talks about the block editor trying to be two things: a place to write, and a page builder…and it’s more like the latter.
I’m in agreement. WordPress has considerably shifted from a simple blogging platform. Matt himself has said he wants it to be the, “operating system of the web,” which means a richer feature set, especially around creating and laying out content…but not necessarily writing.
But I’d argue that the WordPress editor has never really been the best place to write.
I have a confession: I love new devices. I probably upgrade too often. And I’m constantly looking for the perfect research companion. I thought it could be the Kindle Oasis, but I don’t reach for that as much as I expect1. Turns out the 11″ iPad Pro has been that for me for a long time. It’s nearly the perfect size.
But when I first heard rumors about a redesigned iPad Mini, I was giddy. I thought a bigger screen, with Apple Pencil 2 support…it would be perfect!
I instantly ordered it when it went on sale last month. After spending some time with it, I’m super happy with the purchase. It’s the perfect size for a lot of things. Here’s how I’m using it.
I had the pleasure of participating in the GoWP Niche Agency Owners Happiness Hour recently and we talked all about tools (I didn’t know that going in, but as you can imagine I was pleased). Something I got to demo was how to turn on iPhone Back Tap (a feature in iOS 14 and up). Since many didn’t know about it, I thought it would be a good thing to demo here.
Read More “Using Back Tap on iPhone”I thought I’d start a new type of post on this blog for stuff I’ve been digging. I’m not the first to think of this concept, surely. But I feel like lately all of stuff I’ve been purchasing, I’ve been really pleased with. So every so often I’ll run a list like this. Here’s 5 purchases I’ve been really happy with for May 2021.
Read More “5 Recent Purchases I’ve Been Really Happy With (May 2021)”Recently on my podcast, How I Built It, I got to speak to Stephen Hackett. During our chat I was reminded of, and subsequently mentioned, the time Phil Schiller (now an Apple Fellow – congrats Phil!) tweeted a link to my blog with the text, “Joe switched!” It was my most popular blog post up until that point, and remains one of the most popular. In honor of that, I wanted to do a new write up: 5 years with an iPhone.
Read More “5 Years with an iPhone”The work from home movement is growing considerably, and for good reason. But with this monumental shift in how you work comes a likely lull in productivity – or at least some growing pains.
As someone who’s be working from home for over half of my live (and pretty much all of my adult life), I know the struggle. But I also know what works. To combat this, there are a few things you can do to help draw boundaries.
Read More “5 Tips For Working From Home”(and use it to your advantage instead)
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