David and Katie sit down again with Merlin Mann. Merlin updates us on his workflows and his latest projects.
Links of note
Merlin Mann
MPU 023: Workflows with Merlin Mann I
MPU 037: Markdown and MultiMarkdown
Merlin’s Time and Attention Talk
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I thought you should know that episode number 46 is not showing up in the list of downloadable episodes for this podcast in iTunes. I was able to get episode number 46 as a subscriber. But if you want to go to iTunes and just download an individual episode you cannot at this time download episode 46. At least not as of March 27, 2011.
Thanks for the note, Patrick. Subscribers should get the show as soon as it’s posted. However, Apple has its own schedule for updating the iTunes store. It can take up to 24 hours for a new show to appear in the iTunes listing.
Katie and David,
The first one of these episodes totally changed my worklife. This episode is even more epic. Thank you so much for Mac Power Users. It’s a must listen podcast.
Ed
Best show notes ever. Thanks, Merlin, David & Katie!
To quote the Ken, you rock!
Seriously though, I just have to learn markdown. I must I must I must…
I think I’m getting tired of hearing about two things, Markdown and
Scrivener. I write LaTeX with a lot of equations so MultiMarkdown really
doesn’t work for me, since it seems I can’t use LaTeX syntax for equations
with MultiMarkdown. I think the MultiMarkdown LaTeX support was done by someone who doesn’t do much in the way of equations. Similarly, Scrivener doesn’t work for me for the same reasons.
Ulysses has much better LaTeX support than Scrivener so I’ve been trying
that instead. Ulysses’ approach works better for a number of situations.
You’re missing “Beyond Bullet Points” and “Presentation Zen” in your
show notes. You probably should have Nebulous Notes as well since Merlin mentioned it several times. You’ve misspelled Brett’s name in your show notes too.
There are a few text editors I like on the iPad. The first is TeX Touch
which natively supports LaTeX and adds to the keyboard to support it
better. The second is Textastic, which has syntax colouring for a lot of
things and also adds a few handy things to the keyboard. The third is
Nebulous Notes, which has macro support, but isn’t as good for LaTeX.
Lastly, for simple note taking, Plain Text is kind of nice. I need to
simplify my text editing on the iPad. I’ll likely stick with TeX Touch
and Textastic.
For normal notes, I’ve been thinking seriously about using DEVONthink to
Go. It supports text notes and they’ll sync back to my DEVONthink
database when I’m back at home. Plus, it supports TextExpander. So,
while it doesn’t support Dropbox, since it syncs to DEVONthink, I’ll
have the latest version on my computer once I’ve synced and it’s in my
main information repository.
I’m a big fan of Instacast. I want to thank Merlin for the pointer to
HuffDuffer. I think adding HuffDuffer to Instacast might be my next
step (if that can be done). For podcast fans with iPhones, I’d also
recommend taking a look at AudioMark which is $0.99 and allows you to
bookmark and make notes while listening to podcasts. It can send the
notes to Facebook, Twitter, or Evernote. Very handy for informational
podcasts.
I’ve been curious about OmniFocus, but I’m a Things user and the cost of switching to the overall solution is a bit of a stumbling block since I’m a poor PhD student. It’s well over $100 for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad apps. I’m a big fan of OmniGraphSketcher, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle though.
While there are parts of a podcast episode I might disagree with, I regularly learn something from Mac Power Users, so thanks for doing it.
Re:AudioMark: thanks for that pick – it looks like what I’ve been searching for. I should be able to simply pause/play while listening to a podcast during a bike ride to easily mark places to go back to later.
Re: MultiMarkdown equation support: It does support it, and it’s getting improved in the upcoming MMD 3, but I generally find MMD hard to use unless you are Fletcher Penney. I’m still preferring Pandoc currently.
Re: Tech writing tools: I understand the frustration. So many tools for writing seem to short shrift technical users. I just want Markdown with equations, but getting equations to work in anything other than a PDF seems so hard as to think there’s hidden forces at work against it.
You can always comment out the Latex equations (or tables or whatever) using and it will be passed through as-is to the Latex parser. Works for me anyhow.
Sorry, part of my reply had the comment tags stripped. Use the HTML comment tags to prevent MMD from parsing whatever is inside. Careful not to use two dashes inside the latex (–).
My interpretation of Time vs Attention is Cutting Trees vs Sharpening Saw
It’s taken me a long time (months) to continually but gradually change my workflow. iThoughtsHD / OPML / Markdown / Scrivener takes quite a bit of passion to discover and make part of your daily ‘doing’ but I’ve found much more efficient than writing in MS Word / Pages because the process is much more effective in helping me to think.
I thought I had worked out the OPML / Markdown / Scrivener thing somewhat on my own, but it great to hear that it’s obvious to other people.
Very happy to get more tips from this show.
I’ve listened to the episode a couple of times, trying to grok how Merlin is working… I would love to see a screencap or two of his RunX (et al) hierarchy.
This is a must hear for all wordsmiths Agree with earlier comment; notes are awesome. Thanks for this contribution to the community.
Oh. My. God!
Epic podcast. Freaking love you, Merlin.
Amazing!!!
I am going to have to listen to this again! There was so much “stuff” that it made my head spin!!
Great show… Thanks.
Merlin mentioned a comprehensive review of text editors for the ipad. Missed the link. Can anybody link to the article.
If you have the link, post it in the comments and I’ll make sure it gets added. Thanks.
I don’t understand how people could listen to this one. Merlin, though he may have some good info, is very annoying and dominates the show. Where’s the dialog, the back and forth, the give and take? It’s two and a half hours of basically one guy speaking in a hyper fashion about his issues and life. This was an epic fail in my eyes. I’ll not be listening to any future shows he’s on. Looking forward to a return to sanity with the next show.
I am 100% with you on this! It was absolutely atrocious, unfortunately. The man(n) can’t finish a sentence! Crime #1 on a podcast, as far as I am concerned. Frustration levels repeatedly at 110% – just as one of the hosts would say something interesting, merlin would interrupt manically and contribute exactly zero.
It’s the first MPU podcast I’ve ever listened to, I’ll give it another go, but if the other episodes are anything like this one, I’m off to greener pastures. I must be getting old – I don’t have time to sit through hours of something that could be summed up in a couple of lines.
end of grumpy first time listener rant.
Still working my way through this one, and like others, I might have to listen to it again. I have had on-again, off-again fits and starts with keeping a daily work journal, so when I heard Merlin mention the TextMate bundle, I definitely wanted to check it out and see if this might give me the traction to keep with it this time. I found the website, but alas, the link to the bundle no longer works and was wondering if you guys had run across it anywhere.
FYI: You missed Nebulous Notes off the show notes
Got it now, thanks.
Never miss an opportunity to bag on Ommwriter. *rolls eyes*
I think that on the iphone / ipad using anything other that podcaster (or instacast as it gets more recomendations but doubt is it any better) for downloading/ managing podcast subscription is a waste of time.
“go to webpage, click open in, download, sort, etc.” instead of seeing auto push-notification “you got new episode of macpowerusers ready to listen” is too much.
Here’s the note taking apps roundup that Merlin mentioned:
http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2011/02/iphone-notes-app-comparison/
Missing a link to Hazel too.
Awesome episode! Thank you very much, learned a lot.
I have already posted this comment on macsparky.com, but I want to share it here, too, after reading this comment thread.
@MPU in general:
Thank you for your work. It is very much appreciated! By listening to all of your episodes, I have learned a lot and it was and is always very interesting. Both of you are doing a great job. To my mind, David and Katie have unique and different perspectives on many topics. Their unique view of things and them talking about their individual approach to a topic brings a lot to the table and unfolds many solutions I haven’t thought of before. I love it!
@This episode:
). Probably, the toilet break could have been avoided with a little less speaking like a book and doing more of a GTD approach to talking (Disclaimer: I mean this in a positive way, I am no native English speaker. So please forgive me, if I did not find the right words.)… But still, I have to say: I have gotten a lot out of this episode. And also thanks to Merlin Mann for taking the time and talking about his workflows!
I would consider myself a geek. I work as an accountant, I have to use Windows at work and I have been using a Mac for 5 years now at home. I do a little PHP and MySQL programming as a hobby and I love playing with HTML5, CSS3, Right now, I am dipping my toes into design. This episode is a special one. I was able to follow everything. And I think that it is a good episode. Maybe a little too long (it could have been shorter, Merlin Mann does a great job, but it might have been a good idea to use iThoughts HD beforehand on his part…
I also recommend write n type for those writing texts while walking – in shows camera view as background so you will be not surprised by some brick on the road. And it is free for limited time.
Great episode, already looking forward to next year’s visit from Mr Mann. As for the next workflow MPU podcast, how about Gina Trapani?
I already had GoodReader but am looking at it in a whole new light now.
I just don’t get all this Markdown, OPML,LaTeX, moving stuff into and out of a dozen applications. Why are you doing it? Why do you need to – is it because you all have laptops, desktops, iPads, and iPhones?
When I think about my workflow if I have a thought/idea I’ll place it in Notational Velocity, if I want to write a document I’ll go to a text editor like Bean, and if it’s a more involved project I’ll use Scrivener. If I want to move stuff between the three, email it, convert to pdf, whatever it is all text. It’s simple.
So, what are you guys doing that you need all this other stuff and these conversion processes (other than blogging cause I get Markdown and HTML)?
Not trying to rant, but so many of the podcasts seem to repeatedly mention these things and I’m just not tracking with you all on it.
I agree with you Jeremy.
Jeremy – with your NV/TextEdit/Scrivener process you seem to cover the extent of my ‘moving stuff around’ process too. I’m not sure what else over and above that – and also MultiMarkdown etc., which you also touch on – was actually mentioned in this podcast – ? But I have only listened to it once so far.
Generally, I think you broach a wider issue that deserves very, very close attention from all of us who graze these pastures. I see the essence of Merlin Mann’s ‘message’ (if he could be said to have such a thing) is that productivity – reading about productivity, purchasing items for productivity, practising productivity – is a giveaway sign that there’s a problem with wanting to do what you want to do. If your child falls over and hits her head, is a five-step plan needed in order to start dealing with it? No, and we need the same instinctive, just-do-it attitude to our cherished personal tasks. And if we haven’t got that attitude, WHY not, and what does that imply about them, and us? Are we in love with the idea of being writers (or whatever) more than we want to write (or ditto)? These are the questions…
I have to admit that I don’t tend to use it much for writing, but the Markdown-aware app Nocs, does one thing I make use of: it can easily save your Markdown text converted to HTML back to your Dropbox.
Of course, this is a pretty plain conversion. What I did with this was to have a Folder Action on my Mac watch for a new .html file (I’m not a Hazel user). This triggers an Automator action that I use to re-convert the Markdown file with my custom settings via Pandoc on the Mac as well as make a PDF version. Both are dropped in the same Dropbox folder, so within a few seconds they appear back in Nocs or other iOS Dropbox-aware app. The steps are here on my blog.
You could obviously have the action do other things like email it. I just found it a handy way to take action on the Markdown file when I wanted to and also leverage the power of the tools on my Mac.
Excellent show. One question: has anyone got the Omnioutliner markdown plugin to work with Omnioutliner standard (not pro)?
Fletcher Penney tweeted that they work with any version but couldn’t remember where to install them.
@Tom: I just can’t even find Fletcher’s export plugin under http://fletcher.github.com/Markdown.ooxsl/ follwing Fletcher’s link here: http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/multimarkdown_and_omnioutliner/ So, could someone provide the link to the plugin?
@Thomas
Get it here: https://github.com/fletcher/Markdown.ooxsl/zipball/master
Thank you very much, Tom. I know i’m a a little bit boring, but for people who don’t know: the unzipped folder must be renamed to something.ooxsl to work properly.
I have listened to the section a few times and cannot for the life of me figure out what Merlin is describing when he talks about his file naming when it comes to his description of TOCx. I think that this could be useful for me but what is he creating or copying when he makes the new TOCx file? Would love to know, since a single note with links all the notes in the search would be good but I can’t see how to do this easily with NV any thoughts.
I liked the interview but it really could be shorter and feels like it truly needs screen shots to help it make sense. But probably it is just because they are talking over my head much of the time.
Yah, I also wonder what Merlin describes when talking about tocx. I keep some saved searches for that, but you’re right “little brown bird”, he seems to save a kind of selection to nv. Maybe someone figured that out?
Wow. Listening to Merlin made my head explode. If he didn’t ramble on and on he’d have 5 minutes of useful information to relate. Not one of your best guests. You two (the hosts) are far more level-headed and interesting on your own. You don’t need guests like this – or any guests, now that I think of it – to provide value to your listeners.
Loving the podcast guys, one link that I wanted to chase down but wasn’t in the show notes was: http://castingwords.com/ — Merlin mentioned them around the 19 minute point of the show, thought I’d leave a comment incase you wanted to add the link.
Thanks for all the time you put into these podcasts!
I’m a third of the way through and although it is great I have to say KATIE where are you? Speak up girl. It’s your show too! Merlin even forgot to mention you once!
Joanna,
Take a listen to the start of the feedback section of MPU048. There’s an explanation of why I was silent for so long. The short version is I unfortunately had to sit on mute a good portion of the show when I had unexpected (and noisy) workmen show up in the middle of the recording.
Just curious, what are folks using as a mindmapping app for the Mac? iThoughts HD, recommended by Merlin is just for iOS from what I can tell.
Merlin is hilarious. It sounds like some low level OCD stuff happening there. I’m sure lots of us listening are all too familiar with what I’m talking about.
While I’m not always interested in the tools you guys are using, I love try to follow the ideas of what and why you’re doing a thing.
The thing I got out of this, far more than any of the tools mentioned (and there are a handful I’ve bookmarked for further investigation), is ‘fiddle enough to get a comfortable flow, then go be an adult and get some work done.’
For that I am eternally grateful.
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Hi guys. This was total nerdy bliss.
Have a challenge for you
Do you know a desktop mindmapper that supports the “_note field” in opml?
Ithoughts HD does this, as does omnioutliner.
I am asking because mm2opml in multimarkdown will convert your markdown to opml. And put the normal text in the “_note field”
And there’s another one that does the opposite way.
Quite handy i think.
But Mindnode on the desktop doesn’t read the note field
Love, love, love the show. Before I go listen a 2nd time, has any one captured all of the different ___X (e.g., “RunX”) notes prefixes Merlin describes? I thought that was super useful. Also, I’m not sure if he mentioned it here, or on Back to Work, but the TK (to come) idea is great. Nut: When you’re writing and notice that you need to look up a fact or check something, type TK, and then search for those at the end. Way less opportunity to go down the Wikipedia ?rat hole?.
Great podcast! What was the Mac outliner recommended in this program. OmniOutliner?
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I listened to this podcast again recently, it was my first introduction to both MPU and Merlin Mann.
Thanks for such an insightful program, much appreciated.
Awesome podcast… just came across it but going to take the time to go though it on my daily commute. thank you guys!