Colin Harman

I have done a lot of doodling and writing on paper without much purpose for pretty much my entire coherent life, yet none of it has been in any kind of consistent or single location. Ever. I’ve always kind of thought that a journal was more just a diary for boys, so I just wrote anywhere, but it was always a hot mess lacking organization.

Enter Day One. I have been using this app since the day it was released, and I can only scratch the surface in telling you how much it’s changed the way I record and reflect on my every day.

Having both Mac & iOS clients means that I’m rarely ever more than a few taps or clicks away from recording a moment. Having it be private and secure allows me to reflect honestly and think out loud without clouding my mind with the fear of someone stumbling onto my scrawlings.

In many ways it’s lessened what I tweet (and sadly, also cut into the amount I write here) because I often simply just want to savor a memory of a particular event or experience, but not necessarily broadcast it to the world. I love having it as a journal to record Maria and I’s memories together of the places we go, or the experiences we have that writing/sharing online just isn’t the proper platform for. Even just for personal ideas, or future endeavors, it’s a great place to save such things because it’s completely searchable.

This is only a very small facet of why I highly recommend Day One if you have any desire to create a written or photo journal of any kind. Day One and the fellows at Bloom have offered me a nearly resistance free writing habit that I couldn’t give up now.

I have been a long time iPhone owner and my home screen has gone through dozens of revisions of what wins the prized spots on this first page (of two) that is always within arms reach. I try to run my app repertoire as lean as possible limiting it to only the essentials I use fairly often. Like most, my scheme is to keep the things I use most on the front page, and things I use “second most” just a tap or two away.

Having an iPhone is a blessing and a curse because it leaves me wondering how I went without it before, but also wondering if there will be a time in which I could be less dependent on it. It’s my memory, my link to work, my office on the go, my book, my music source, my to-do list, my alarm clock, my fitness tracker, my podcast player, my RSS reader, my GPS, my Bible, my calculator, my camera, my collaboration tool, my e-mail, my stock broker, my calendar, my catalog, my link to everything at any moment. The only thing that stands in the way of me and the knowledge I desire is a few taps on a handheld robot affixed to an increasingly dense amount of pixels tucked ever-so-usefully behind a glass screen.

I have gone through seasons where my phone was a toy. It was a way for me to always have something to do. God forbid I ever get bored for more than 8.6 seconds.

But the more I become aware of things that are constantly demanding my attention, the more I realize how much I’ve let those things win me over. I’ve discovered I carried this stigma that if I’m always busy, then I can’t be unproductive. However, an iPhone allows you to never be bored, but at the same time accomplishing nothing.

In creative work that I’m a part of everyday, I realize how important it is for my brain to get bored sometimes. I need to let my brain set all the clutter and noise aside to bask in the silence of nothing. I think of times I could just sit outside on our porch and think, and the time since I’ve last done anything like that is pathetic.

I’ve become more aware of the invaluable power of boredom. It is in that time quiet, of hush, of silence, of internal solitude where you can find a place where God can meet you. It’s a place to discover what you’ve been missing all around you. There is so much to think of, to see, to study, to learn, and I don’t want to miss it by constantly burying my face in a handheld robot meant to “enhance” my life hoping it will give me the answers I long for.

Though li’l iPhone has its place, it too must be in moderation. Though it can do a lot of things, it is not meant to do all things. I want to be present, I want to make memories I won’t need to tweet about to remember. It’s time to get crazy, look up from the blue-glowing handheld robot, and live a life worth living.

Here’s to the crazy ones…

Here’s To The Crazy Ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world—are the ones who DO.
—Steve Jobs

I have an iPhone, and I have Flickr. The iPhone has a pretty dang good camera (in the phone camera world), and when coupled with a few extra apps to help with the processing and color correction, you can actually end up with some pretty interesting shots. It has forced me to start looking more meticulously at my surroundings, always keeping in mind that there could be something worth capturing. In the past I have used the excuse of lugging around my mediocre camera equipment as being too much of a hassle to be worth the shots I was able to capture with it.
However, now that I have my iPhone with me at all times, I really have no excuse to keep my eyes peeled for such photographic opportunities. It’s made me more aware of my surroundings, forced me to look for more creative angles, and has kept my mind-gears spinning even when I think it’s just sitting there idle. I plan to take at least one ‘iPhonotograph’ (I made this term up, because I’m a designer and I can do that) per day. I’m going to see how long I can keep it up. I have found a few apps to be really helpful in the processing of photos, which now I shall explain.

I have been using Camera Genius as my primary photo taking tool. It is, in my opinion, superior to the iPhone’s built in camera thanks to its “Thirds Rulers”, timer, picture stabilizer (helpful with dark or night shots), big button (full screen button for when your trying to take pictures with you in it), and in rare cases the zoom function can be handy.

For color correction, Mill Colour has some amazing features, and also some pretty great preset effects that prove to be a great place to start from in the editing process. The Mill Colour name has been seasoned with excellence over the years thanks to their stellar color correction techniques for photography and cinema.

CameraBag is another app that I have grown to love. Though it doesn’t have the flexibility of working outside of their presets, they too are a great starting place for some color correction options. There are options within the app to toggle whether or not you want the filter to add an authentic border to your photos that would match the development style/cropping of the particular filter preset.

For editing, I have had great success with PhotoForge. Some editing apps can only do a few things, some can seemingly do too much without keeping the interface understandable for the simple edits like cropping and rotation. Within the app you can actually do some pretty great things with color as well with the built-in curves, levels, contrast, and exposure adjustment features. It has been called “Photoshop for the iPhone”, and while that may be a bit of an exaggeration, it really does do a great job.

And lastly, of course, Flickr. This app didn’t exist for a long time, but it really has made the process of browsing and uploading to Flickr a breeze. You’d have to be a brain damaged moron to not be able to figure out their intuitive interface, and the functionality is effective for your simple tasks of flickr, but somewhat limited in comparison to the website itself. However, for uploading on the go, it’s a more than adequate setup.

That’s my process of photo capture and editing on the iPhone, and here are just a few examples of what will hopefully be a good size collection of photos taken.

My iPhonotography gallery on Flickr.

So I like lists. I love to-do lists. I can’t express the satisfaction I get when ticking off the little completed box on an item in my Things application. I use things everyday, multiple times a day and I’m not gonna lie, though it’s a little bit pricey on the surface, when coupled with it’s iPhone App, it’s worth every penny. It syncs over Wi-Fi using the bonjour protocol, so no matter where I am, I always know what I’ve got on my plate, what’s coming down the pipes, or even what I need to remember to get at the grocery store.

Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other task managers either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Either way you are not getting stuff done. Things instead has the right balance between ease of use and powerful features.

I have tried other apps like this in the past, (Remember The Milk, Process, Curio, Omni, etc) but have never had the experience that I’ve had with Things by Cultured Code. It’s strange because you would think that with an application like this you would think that more is better, but in this case, less is more. It starts with the simplicity of interface design. They understand what it takes to make something minimalistic, but not lacking (that’s a tough balance). The demo is free for the Mac App, and can be downloaded here. I suggest giving it a go, you won’t regret it.

Also for the growing number of you out there that are using the iPhone as your handheld link to the world around you, the Things App for the iPhone & iPod Touch is the perfect companion (or standalone) for the desktop application. Though it’s functionality is somewhat limited in comparison to the Desktop app, it’s still a great standalone application for task management and as a GTD solution.

The interface is simple but effective, which should be expected but in many cases isn’t present in a plethora of apps. Things has received rave reviews and won a good number of awards, and even took home the best in show award at Mac World 2009.

As I’m sure you’ve already gathered, I highly recommend Things, it’s been nothing but the right solution for me since I started using it. Things, you have my vote and my everyday use.

Lastly, if you do plan on buying the iPhone app and the OSX Desktop application, there is a 20% off coupon code for the Desktop app in the “about section” of the iPhone App. Now that’s an even better deal.