SaneBox – One Inbox, Clutter Free

In continuing with the theme of decision fatigue, I wanted to share a tool that I’ve been using recently that I have greatly enjoyed. In an effort to be more productive, it is suggested one should check email only a few times a day. Personally, I have to keep an eye on work email periodically.

However, I noticed that I was checking personal email on my iPhone habitually. To the point where it was becoming a distraction. Majority of my emails were not from actual people but newsletters, notifications from services online, and other forms of bacn. ( love the term, hate the connotation )

Sanebox is an amazing service. It connects to your email, any provider, and process your inbox into folders. Majority of the bacn goes into a “@sanelater” folder.

It has been super accurate and learns even more as time goes by. The service builds custom rules for you based on whom you send email to most frequently and other set rules that you can establish. If it does happen to misfile something simply drag the email to the correct folder which will “teach” the service what to do next time.

Having your email sorted automatically frees you to establish a set time, perhaps once a week, to “process” email instead of constantly deleting bacn throughout the day. This excited me so much that I had to share. Give it a try.

My Top Apps of 2017

These are short reviews of the apps that I used the most in 2017. I’ll make note of the apps that have been replaced by another app in the same category, apps that I’m using less, apps that I no longer use, and apps that I’m starting to use more.

This year, and in the coming year, I’m focused on consolidating apps. For example, instead of using 3 note apps like I was previously, I’m only using one now.

Apps that I use the most

• Fantastical – Calendar app of choice on iPhone for 3+ years now. Use it a ton on my Mac.
• Outlook – For the day job, the email app that I use for quick notifications and work calendar events. Keeps it sandboxed from the rest of my phone.
• Camera – the built in iOS app.
• Simple – best bank there is. I’m trying out Seed for business banking too.
• Wallet – including Apple Pay via iMessage, the virtual Apple Pay debit card, and using it for companies’ reward programs. Built in iOS app.
• Audible – favorite way to read. Using this daily.
• Instagram – posting more again.
• Inbox – still use this daily. I use classic gmail on Desktop and this app for all my mobile devices.
• Facebook + Messenger
• Swarm – checking in. Helps build my minimal journal.
• Safari
• Slack
• Twitterrific – Really loving the true black theme for iPhone X. It really blends in with the device. In order to be consistent, I’m using Twitterrific for Mac too.
• Way of Life – routines app.
• Paprika – collect and organize my favorite recipes.
• Lose It! – health app, used since 2009.
• Spotify – the only service that I use for Music streaming.
• Headspace – guided meditation for mindfulness.
• Todoist – todo lists, project management, etc. Replaced Trello for me, so far.
• Bear – the best note app I’ve used so far. It has simple tagging, great search, a beautiful UI, and syncs effortlessly between all my devices.

Tag Icons in Bear 1.4: The Tags Edition

Can’t figure out which tag produces an icon in Bear? I was able to dig through the application files and find references to them. I’ve put together this post as a quick cheat sheet or reference guide, which will help us find those elusive bear tag icons.

For a bit of background, the excellent notes app Bear released version 1.4 for iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. With that update came a new feature, TagCons, that assigns a small icon to represent over 100 tags. Unfortunately, there is no official documentation for what the supported tags are.

From their blog:

Once you get a decent tag collection going, it can get harder to find the right one in your Sidebar. To help you do less scrolling and more finding in Bear 1.4, we added over 100 TagCons — small icons for some of the most popular tags we could find.

Universal

With a bit of digging. I was able to find the following:

[code]
#android
#apple
#apple watch#
#bear
#comics
* saitama
* one punch man
* one-punch man
* one punch-man
* onepunch-man
#chef
* cooking
#dev
* development
* it
* itc
#dog
* doggos
#doctor who#
#ebooks
* book
* epub(s)
* ibook
* book
* kindle
#espresso
* coffee
#facebook
#furry
#geek
* nerd
* nerds
* nerdy
#TV
* TV
* hulu
* netflix
#instagram
#ipad
* iPad Pro
#iPhone
* iphone
* iphone 7
* iphone 7+
* iphone 8
* iphone 8+
* iphone x
* iphone7
* iphone7+
* iphone8
* iphone8+
#linux
* debian
* suse
* ubuntu
#lmao
* lmao
* fun
* meme
* rotfl
#math
#mac
* macos
#mario#
* mario kart
* mario odissey — misspelled odyssey
* mario world
* super mario
* super mario brothers
#password
* passwords
#sport
* mlb
* nba
* nfl
* nhl
#nintendo
* nes
* nintendo 64
* snes
* supernes
* wii
* wiiu
#nsfw
* porn
#playstation
* ps1
* ps2
* ps3
* ps4
* ps4 pro
#reddit
* subreddit
* subreddits
#shiny frog#
* shinyfrog
#swag
* fashion
#switch
* nintendo switch
#tumblr
#ui
* design
* ux
#windows
* windows 8
* windows vista
* windows xp
* windows8
* windowsxp
#xbox
* xboxone
#youtube
* youtubers
* youtuber
#zelda
[/code]

Be sure and bookmark this as a reference. I’ll be adding more to the post as I find them.

Jolt

Book Review

Justin Jackson’s book Jolt: Marketing Tactics for Programmers, Designers, Freelancers, Makers, and Entrepreneurs was a great way to start off the year.

It really does give you a Jolt of inspiration.

This book is a great resource for marketing your new product, software, idea, book, or any project that you want to promote. It teaches you to, “Be different, break out of the mold, and surprise folks”.

Justin provides case studies, examples of websites and services using data that you might not known before.

Show Up First

One of the stories he provides is about being first to the party:

There is a first mover advantage that you get on any new platform. In the early days of Twitter, people who grabbed a foothold there were able to amass a big number of followers, even though they might not have been famous elsewhere.

I joined Twitter in May 2007 and can attest to this. Those of us that were there at the beginning ended up with much more engagement with early adopters, forged friendships, and benefited from the platform. Whale is an upcoming platform that I’m seeing the same pattern emerge as I did then.

He goes on to say:

You can set yourself up to create [luck]. Quantity is what gets you to quality. Start placing little bets; try a bunch of things. One of them might work and become big.

This is great. Validate your ideas. Try to see what works, evaluate the data, and keep iterating on what does work. That’s the key. Look back at what you’ve done, revise, and keep pushing forward.

My Top Apps of 2016

Alright, lets take a look at the apps that I used the most in 2016. I’ll also make note of the apps that have been replaced by another app in the same category.

Apps that I use the most

• Fantastical – Calendar app of choice on iPhone for 2 years now. Use it a ton on my Mac.
• Snapchat – Used nearly every day.
• Simple – still love my bank.
• Camera – use the built in iOS app a ton now, sorry Camera+.
• Wallet – formerly Passbook, built in iOS app. Use it for flights, movie tickets, Coca-Cola rewards, and more.
• Audible – favorite way to read.
• Instagram – posting more again.
• Inbox – use this daily. Tried using the new Gmail app. Wish it either had the option to delete ( swipe left ) or archive ( swipe right ). Having one or the other is a ‘meh’ option for me.
• Facebook + Messenger
• Swarm – checking in. Helps build my minimal journal.
• Safari
• Slack
• Twitter – find myself using the native app more. Mainly due to the variety of notifications it gives.
• Way of Life – routines app.
• Castro – new podcast app. Organizes by feed instead of podcast. So far, great.
• Paprika – organize my favorite recipes.
• Lose It! – health app, used since 2009.
• Apple Music – Updates have made the service better, still not great though.
• Robinhood – no fee stock trading.
• Trello – use it at work, and less at home. This wasn’t always the case. Pro tip: don’t create too many boards 🙂