The frantic realisation that I hadn’t written my weekly post happened about 20 minutes ago. Not that anyone cares but with all the excitement of Apple announcements it completely slipped my mind. So excuse the two week update of what I’ve been up to. Weirdly mostly tech related.
Continue to be awesome, and that’s an order but make sure you take it very easy my friends.
🤙
I have already seen about a billion of these types of posts around the web. So why not add mine, with a twist. Here follows the shortest summery of my thoughts I can make.
There is nothing more polarising in the social media circles I travel in than iPhone announcement day. It brings out the worst in people from both sides, particularly the rampant consumerism and fanboy gloating. However, the thing that annoys me most is the snark that also appears.
There’s nothing wrong with a casual ribbing. Might I suggest that fact that it took Apple 5 years to implement USB-C? Or that Apple claims things like 5x zoom is cutting-edge technology? Choose these things, and you might even find a fanboy to argue back with you for internet points. Though, I’d much rather you let people enjoy what they like and get on with it.
This isn’t restricted to tech, but it seems to bring out the worst tribalism in people. Whenever England are playing football, you see hundreds of posts similar to “yay sportsball”. Obviously, with less tactful word choice. In the same way, people can enjoy watching an Apple event without being a blinded consumerist sheep. They can also enjoy a game of national football without being a hooligan.
The fact that I even need to explain this to people makes me a little sad. Even more so, that I almost wrote a blog post explaining why I am buying a new phone. Undoubtedly, there are people that overstretch themselves to upgrade when they really don’t need to. Marketing and perceived societal pressure can influence some silly choices. The idea of making people more aware that they don’t need to upgrade is important. However, the holier than thou attitude isn’t.
We all enjoy weird and wonderful things in our life. I certainly have some things that others think are odd, but it brings me joy, and that shouldn’t matter to anyone else. I’m a big believer in loving what you love, and hating what you hate, but you don’t need to press those things on anyone else. Be constructive, not destructive.
I read a recent post by Matt Birchler talking about his experiment with going back to Apple’s stock calendar. It sparked in me thoughts about my recent switch (well a few months ago) and I thought I would share my experiences. Not that my lowly blog needs to lend credence to the amazing Matt Birchler, but it is often helpful to see more than one person pointing to the same things.
With that said, Matt and I have very similar jobs. One full of meetings, team catch-ups and projects to complete. I am sure he also has a fair share of family things to keep up with too, and I have all sorts of appointments and meeting for my daughter to contend with. So the benefits felt by perhaps one side of life for some people very much bleed into every part of mine.
For me, my calendar is my entire life and has been for some time. When people turn their noses up at a subscription for “just a calendar app” I do understand. However, I get so much value from Fantastical, it is money I gladly hand over. You see, I could (and have) get by with the stock app, but I’m much better off with Fantastical. You might ask why, and that’s why you’re reading this post, so let me try to break it down for you without being too repetitive.
The pandemic accelerated my already increasing number of virtual meetings. Something I don’t really mind because I’d rather be working from home than traveling all over the place. For some reason, every company seems to use a different method for these, so I have to meet with SEO experts on Google meet, internal conversations on Teams and then move to chatting with event organisers on Zoom. Fantastical makes this a breeze. I don’t need to install loads of apps all over the place, just sign in with all of my accounts and click the join meeting button in my calendar.
Fantastical also integrates with my task manager of choice, Todoist, as well as my Office 365 work calendar, my shared iCloud calendar with my wife and even Meet Up for some sudo socialising! By having everything in one place, I can see all of my tasks scattered across the various platforms all in one full list. Not many apps allow numerous services to be integrated and work together as if they were all in the same place. This works on mobile too by selecting tasks in the top left menu.
Which leads me to my next major feeling point for Fantastical, time boxing is life changing. I first noticed this with Josh Ginter writing about this for Sweet Set Up, and it was the thing that inspired me to go all in on a better calendar app. As you can see from my screenshots, I block out time in my calendar to complete certain types of tasks all at once. Placing DND into areas that I don’t want to be disturbed – but I can do that in any calendar app Greg, I hear you say. Indeed, you can, but the customised colours and templates you can set up make this easy to set up and understand with a glance.
This is where two things come into play and make time boxing effortless for me when using Fantastical. I can look at the upcoming weeks calendar and already all tasks with due dates are present. I can then begin to plan around them, blocking out my day to make sure I know how much spare time I have and what kind of tasks will dominate those days. Pressing CMD + R brings up a list of all the tasks I have outstanding, and I can simply drag these into the places that I have blocked out. For example, above are periods where I have blocked out designing time, and in this 4–5 hours I can get several design focused tasks completed.
Granted, I understand that these things might not make a difference to you. To be honest, there was a long time when I thought they didn’t for me, and now I couldn’t be without it. Fantastical saves me more than the cost of the subscription in time and effort, but I understand it is not for everyone.
I love to try new things. To push the limits of where I am settled and see if new technology can help me out. This usually revolves around phones and for a long time I was, a phrase I coined, a phonehobo. I just moved around all over the place and never had a home. The constant release of Android phones in the early 2010s meant that there was no shortage of new things to try and the constant promise of the new one being the best.
Now I am settled into using iOS devices, I know that the Workflows I have built up and the apps I enjoy using are right for me. That doesn’t, however, stop me trying things out even so often, and if you’ve followed me for more than five minutes you will have seen my occasional dalliance with Android phones. Most of these dalliances are to make sure I don’t fall into the trap of being a fanboy, and can appreciate that different, and at times better, things exist.
Each time I decide to try one, I have the same ideas in my head. That the device will offer me a bit more than my trusty iPhone, and a return of the excited feeling I got every time I unboxed a new Nexus or Galaxy device in the distant past. Yet, a day or so into using them, I rediscover that Android is just not for me.
I like Android. I think it’s a great OS, and each update that Google release makes me wish I could use it. There are no issues with the hardware either, bar the camera, many of the handsets I try match Apple build quality and some are even better. There’s not one big reason why I always go back, there are just lots of little paper cuts that make the decision for me. Small things that I can’t get used to or just don’t work the way I want them to, and no amount of me forcing the issue will change that.
There are numerous things in life that are not for me. Mechanical keyboards. Red wine sauce. Anime movies. I just need to accept that Android is another one of those things. There is a comfort in being comfortable with yourself, maybe I should give that a try!