Here’s a list of tools I found that came in handy throughout 2018 for peace of mind, creation, focus, and pleasure. It’s not exhaustive, just the ones that stood out as the most helpful.
Headspace
I came across this application around a New Year’s Resolution, but really had no intention of buying the product. I did the ten free days and I thought that was going to be all but then — smart marketers— I saw a 40% discount advertisement show up in my social media feed. Suddenly I was ready to take the plunge. And I’m so glad I did. I used it every single day in the last year.
I use this every morning for ten minutes. More if I can, and if I’m absolutely crunched I try to squeeze it in later in the day. I found that if I don’t do it in the morning, it gets harder and harder to make time for it. Even if I just get a minute or two in before bedtime on those tight days, it’s worth it.
Andy Puddicome’s voice is soothing, and British, and his is the only voice on every meditation on the app. So if you don’t like his voice, then this app is not for you. He is a former monk and he has a way of talking about and guiding meditation in a way that really connected with me.
After completing the “foundations” I tried his 30 day meditation of Creativity, though I did not find marked improvement in my creativity after doing it. Ditto with a few of the other “Pro” level meditations. But I also learned, having now meditated over 400 days in a row and over 4000 minutes (the app has a handy tracker which helps motivate me to keep the streak), that if you’re looking for “results” you’re not approaching meditation in a helpful way.
The biggest changes are the littlest things, and that is the big change. You won’t get fireworks— most of the time. But by watching the mind for ten minutes a day you start to really get acquainted with its ways. The “practice” is really letting yourself get comfortable with observing and letting go… of thoughts… of emotions… of control. The practice, is of course, for doing this throughout your day when it matters.
Starting in 2019 I’m committing to 15 minutes each morning as opposed to 10.
AirPods
Man did I shit on these when they first came out. Too expensive, why is Apple getting rid of the 3.5 jack? What an awful decision. So I was wrong. I use these every day and they’ve made listening to podcasts, audiobooks, phone calls, and music both at the gym and around the house effortless.
Goodbye tangled headphone cords. I didn’t think the price tag would be worth it. And had I not received these as a gift I wouldn’t have tried them. As it was, several months later, I gifted them to someone else. You don’t get these for Sound Quality, you get them for convenience, which is what they give.
Productive Morning playlist
I’ve been on this one a while. It’s on Spotify and of all the “focus” and “mood” playlists, this one has just the right amount of ambience and uplifting mood boost to begin the day. I listen to this almost daily, often through my morning pages, my coffee, and just before my meditation.
Una Matina
So I’m super late to the Ludovico Einaudi party. But it was watching SHARP OBJECTS on HBO this year that turned me onto this 2004 album. My goodness, my writing music, my writing music, my writing music. I’m going to explore his entire discography.
Beethoven
Of course, there’s this guy. Rediscovering his 7th Symphony this year has been mind opening. Wherever you are, it is extremely likely that you haven’t spent enough time listening to Beethoven’s Seventh.
Things 3 (Productivity)
I switched to a hybrid Bullet Journal / Things 3 Workflow this year. I’d write a whole post about it, but honestly it’s a little tedious and I’m still working the kinks out of it, and it requires a lot of doubling, which mostly works for me but probably goes against any guru out there.
Things 3 is an excellent Task Management system. I’ve tried several of them out there, but Things 3 just hits the sweet spot. Its UI is gorgeous, it is user friendly, and above all it is one of the few task managers that integrate directly with your calendar (I use Google) without a third party. That last feature tipped the scale for me.
(Note: you can’t schedule your calendar from Things, but it reads and updates it)
So unless you’re on Outlook 24/7 or an OmniFocus nut, Things 3 is probably going to be your most powerful tool out there (Mac and iOS only). It has changed the way I schedule tasks for the future, something that the Bullet Journal just cannot do as effortlessly, a thing I found Reminders and Google Keep and so many other apps cannot do as smoothly.
Fantastical 2
And this is my Calendar App on both Mac and iOS. It has fully replaced my Apple Calendar or the clunky Gmail app. Adding events is a breeze, it knows what you mean if you type “Therapy every other Tuesday at 2pm at 1234 Main Street, Atwater Village.” It crunches that sentence and your calendar is suddenly full. No clicking, no spinning a wheel of numbers. It’s done. Great on iOS and Mac.
Highland 2 Pro
So here’s the big new addition to my Writing Workflow. I wrote a post last year expressing doubt that John August had made a meaningful improvement in a crowded field of writing applications. I bought the product anyway because I did use Highland 1, and I write screenplays and if nothing else I knew it could be a tax write off. I was sure it was going to be a brick.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I ended up writing a seven part series for a studio this year and I used Highland 2 on every single episode. I even encouraged my Writers Room to buy and use it over Final Draft.
Don’t get me wrong, you are still going to need Final Draft when you get into production drafts, revisions, you’re going to need its incredibly sophisticated scene, character, INT/EXT breakdowns. Final Draft isn’t going anywhere, and when you enter truly your “FINAL” draft for a producer, I encourage you to migrate your work here. (Which is a cinch).
But for your FIRST draft, or maybe even your SECOND OR THIRD draft, Highland 2 is where it is at. You have to learn to write in Fountain, which takes all of about 10 minutes, but once that’s over you’ll never want to go back to writing not in Fountain. Suddenly, everything becomes easy and smooth. Where Final Draft demands shortcuts, and gives pop ups in order to navigate elements, in Highland 2 you just WRITE, everything on the left hand margin, and the program knows what to do with it, how to format it. With a single toggle click it shows you what it looks like in draft form.
I was a little bummed that we had a new file name to deal with “.highland,” because that kind of sucks, but the ease of export int .fdx or .pdf is crazy simple. I sent off full drafts to the Studio without ever having opened Final Draft.
I was a doubter, but now a convert.
Scrivener
I’ve been using this program for years and each time I might think I’m ready to move on from it, I find that nothing else compares when it matters. This year it shined as never before.
While Highland 2 Pro was where I did the actual writing of the episodes, Scrivener was where literally EVERYTHING ELSE went. (And after the episodes are written in Highland, I archived them back into Scrivener (Sept Draft, Oct Draft, Nov Draft, etc).
Where else can you compile the monstrosity of what it takes to write a series (or a research paper or novel or anything that has more than just a few documents)? There are original notes, the germs, images, lightning bolt ideas, emails copy and pasted. There’s sketches of the characters, the first pass on the Series Bible, the edit, the notes on that bible, the emailed notes the producers give. V1, V2, notes on V2, V3, V3.1, etc. Also, research upon research, web articles clipped. Episode Outline 1, 2, 3, notes for each outline. Then finally the Draft, V1, V2, and the notes for each, and on and on and on…
Literally hundreds of documents in order to make about 8 good ones.
I’m telling you you won’t keep all this in order in “Finder” with 100 different .fdx and .docx files and filenames. Scrivener takes all this massive info and puts it all in one place with a great file system (and it handles them all). And it is connected to dropbox so I’ll never lose it, even if my laptop falls in the Gulf of Thailand.
And it has a split screen so I can view “the Notes” while I scan “The Draft.” Or I can compare V2 and V3 side by side.
Scrivener gets fair criticism for being bloated when there is so much fad over minimal writing programs (am I’m a big fan of many of these). But when you need the muscle, there is nothing else out there that can handle this much writing and keep it sane and welcoming.
My hat, again, goes off to Literature and Latte.
Bose 35 QCII
I admit I only got these at the end of 2018, but they’ve been transformative. I’m sure there are some audiophiles out there who will tell me exactly why I wasted my money on this product. I don’t care. I love them. I understand there is some considerable competition out there for top dog in this price point, and I’m sure all the products are great, and there are a ton of wonderful comparisons out there (I know, I’ve read them). But I took the plunge on these, and they are great.
Nothing else closes a door at home or a coffee shop or the office like quality Noise Cancelling. I’ve used them on a couple flights to Asia and they drown out all the cabin noise, too. For focus, this tool has been absolutely incredible.
My only complaint is that the bluetooth range isn’t that great. With lesser headphones I could wander around a small apartment with my phone on the counter and never lose connection. The Bose 35 QCII needs the phone really close. Other than that, they are a great compliment to the AirPods.
End Note
There are so many tools and artists that we keep close to us to help us— I don’t want to say be more productive, though that can be a great result, but— get more out of our work. There are more from 2018 that were useful, to say nothing of human connections and trips, and vacations, and good rest, but these are a solid ten that stood out for my year.
Which of these have you adopted or rejected? Which ones did I miss?
-C