Sorted³, my new choice for task manager app @SortedHQ

A couple of weeks ago, I read about Sorted³ in MacSparky’s newsletter and since I had never heard about it, I decided to give it a try.

Their website is:
https://www.sortedapp.com

They have a 2 weeks Pro trial available for their app, and I have installed it on my MacBook Pro, my iPad and iPhone 8. The Pro feature set allows the devices to be in sync with one another using iCloud, among many other features. To me, this is a very important feature.

Over the two weeks I have used the app, I have come to like many of its features, yet the most distinctive one is the usability of the app, enhanced by a very slick UX which makes working with tasks a breeze.

You can have a great idea of how the app looks like in different use cases by checking their website at this link:
https://www.sortedapp.com/how-it-works

As the trial period is almost over, I wanted to do a little more research and I found this recent episode of the GTDJedi podcast, with guests the two gentlemen from Sorted³, Harry and Leo, with a nice and broad discussion about the past, present and future of Sorted³, I enjoyed listening to the interview:

https://www.tekside.net/gtdjedi/2020/12/29/p2gsyhm0no2qeekhtixlq9p4lpxc7a

I have been quite happy with the app so far, and since they provide an extension to their Pro features, I have decided to extend the trial to one full month before deciding on buying the Pro features.

After all, their app also works without the Pro features, that is it’s a FREE app, and that’s great. But I sense that I will be buying the full features soon…

In terms of pricing, the macOS version is a one-time payment of CHF 25 and the iOS/iPadOS is CHF 15 here in Switzerland, quite reasonable given that you are also given lifetime updates, unlike other apps which keep asking money for major updates.

Their support website at https://support.sortedapp.com has a lot of information and their quick tutorials and guides are definitely worth reading!

I look forward to learning more about Sorted³ over the next few weeks, and maybe it will become my main task manager, after many years of (sort of!) using OmniFocus…

2021-01-03 – Today I am grateful to my virtual mentor Hal Elrod @halelrod

“When something goes wrong, it’s OK to be negative, but for not more than 5 minutes“

Hal Elrod

Over the past few years, but especially in the last 12 months, I have read many books and stories and blog posts of people who have overcome different situations in their lives, and have achieved some notoriety because of how they did it, or for what they do after their lives have changed.

The latest personal improvement guru I discovered is Hal Elrod, and for some reason I had never come across his “Miracle Morning“ formula and the many books and speeches he has delivered over the past 10 years.

His personal story is quite something, including an almost deadly car accident and a rough time with an aggressive form of leukemia, from which he recovered.

I like Hal and what he does, and I now am a convinced “Miracle Morning“ practitioner, as over the past two months I have started to do the morning routine that he talks about in many of his speeches and books.

But I what I really found true is something that I have heard just today, in a keynote speech he held in 2020. He calls is the “5 minute rule“, and it’s worth copying again the same quote with which I opened this post.

“When something goes wrong, it’s OK to be negative, but for not more than 5 minutes“

Hal Elrod
The part of Hal Elrod’ keynote speech in which he talks about the “5 minutes rule“ (starts at 37’00“)

This rule alone would impact the lives of an amazing number of people, myself included. Just remember these three words:

Can’t Change It

Hal Elrod

For this rule, for the “Miracle Morning“ formula, for his books and podcast, I am very grateful to Hal Elrod, and am proud to having started to put in practice some of his brilliant advice.

Yo’ pal Hal, you rock!

Social media fasting, starting NOW!

Lately I have been reading different books on how to improve my habits and learn more about how our mind and emotions work.

One of the better books I have read is Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s “Personality isn’t Permanent“, a book I highly recommended also in a tweet which caught the attention of the author, who published it in his newsletter.

In his book, Dr. Hardy makes the case for fasting, something that I had tried only once, and I was convinced to try it again. And thus a new habit was born three weeks ago, with my Wednesdays dedicated to a water-only fasting, from the moment I get up to when I wake up the following day, 24 hours of fasting just drinking a lot of water, and avoiding heavy exercise like running.

So far, so very good! I am happy of the outcome so far, and will keep the experiment running.

Yet, in his book Dr. Hardy makes the case of fasting from social media too, during the day of fasting. And this is the next exercise that I want to try.

As a matter of fact, I was further motivated by listening to this video on YouTube, which is ironic as I have discovered it from YouTube’s suggestions!

Will quitting social media change my life too? It’s definitely worth trying!

A similar case can be found in Nir Eyal’s excellent book “Indistractable“, another book which I highly recommend reading after discovering it from my friend Halelly Azulay’s podcast “Talent Growth Show“.

Also, Dave Rubin of “Rubin Report“ fame goes on a full social media fast for the whole month of August every year, an idea I have always liked, and put into practice a couple of years ago. But then I relapsed…

The time is NOW. This will be my last message on social media for one month. I will be back in mid-August, and am sure that everything will be very much the same in the social media world.

I will have an exception for podcasts I follow, and will strive to also avoid YouTube, though there is a LOT of great content on it!

The risk I run is that I will enjoy being off social media, and that I might NOT come back. Definitely a risk worth taking.

Have a great summer everyone!

(Featured image Photo credit: Sydne Vigille)

Book review: How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: The Original Guide to Living Life to the Full by Arnold Bennet

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: The Original Guide to Living Life to the FullHow to Live on 24 Hours a Day: The Original Guide to Living Life to the Full by Arnold Bennet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

This review is for the Project Gutenberg version of the eBook, which can be found at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274

This short book is a stark reminder of the fact that things have always been quite complicated when it comes to energy and attention management, which are both cornerstones of time management.

One cannot solve the time management issue in isolation from focus and attention, and this book makes it very clear that even in pre-email and pre-social media times, all the sources for distractions were very much there already. Definitely less present than today, but still very much a drag on what we can can achieve, if we fall prey to the sirens…

It is an easy read, and it’s a joy to read an older form of the English language which is still very much modern, though the book was written in 1910.

It contains some good advice, nothing unheard of really, and it focuses a lot on carving more time out of a busy workday, by avoiding distractions in the train to and fro the office, and simply… reading books!

More context on this short book can also be found at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Live_on_24_Hours_a_Day

View all my reviews

Steve Vai’s Top 10 Rules For Success

Steve Vai has always been a hero of mine, ever since I discovered him thru my childhood friend Paolo, who was also a guitar player like Steve Vai.

I’ve watched him play live once in Milan, on November 28th 1988, during David Lee Roth’s Skyscraper tour and since in my 20s I was working as a stagehand at rock concerts, I got very close to Steve and thanked him. I was also able to get a guitar pick of his, with his name and signature on it, a pick which I later brought with me to the grave of my friend Paolo, who passed away little more than a month after that wonderful concert, after a tragic car accident in early January 1989. He was 23.

I thought that leaving Steve Vai’s guitar pick was a much better gift for Paolo, a rock guitarist, rather than just flowers!

Steve Vai has thus been a landmark of mine in my late teens and 20s, and I was very happy when I discovered this video with him on YouTube. It’s been put together by Evan Carmichael, a productivity and improvement personality.

The video is very much worth watching!