I have watched and learned from Steve since the mid to late 1990's and am always impressed by his empowering and useful tips. Thanks Steve, you rock it, dude!
Thanks, Steve. Half of my students' class time is spent working on Computer Science concepts - lot's of problem solving and debugging. It's nice to have Free@will on while they struggle.
regarding Focus@Will: Great description explaining why you thought this music-therapy-type program creates, via beautiful science-based sound, produces a sense of focused calm productivity... boy do I need that lol!! ! I can't wait to get it (hope I can afford it...). Thanks!
Giving Rescue Time a whirl. Thanks for alerting. How about a short video on tab management? Just installed One Tab but wondering if there is something better to corral the many tabs I have open when researching.
I agree with your assessment of play lists. I find that not only does 'real' music jar me out of focus, it also can affect the nature of my output. I have been using white noise sites, but may give Focus@will a try.
I can also recommend ManicTime Tracker to keep track of activities. It's not using categorization but it shows you when you were using which application.
Loved the video! How do you account for time interruptions? Say you are in a program working, the phone rings or someone pops their head in the door and you have an interaction which is totally appropriate---- you are logged on but the measurement is incorrect. This is something that kills my day--I have all sorts of tricks to handle these--but they are still unavoidable! Thanks
I have used TextExpander in the past and liked it, but for those on a Mac, you can go to System Preferences and to Keyboard and to Text and do something very similar. Not sure what value TextExpander provides beyond what you can do using the approach above. Am I missing something? Are there additional capabilities that it provides?
I used to spend so much time on FB. After seeing the stats from RescueTime (apparently, I was wasting hours of my life on FB at any give day!), I lost all interest.. These days, I have to WILL myself to check my account. I do not miss it and have not missed out on anything.
Not meaning any disrespect here, but I want to mention that I had used TextExpander for a few years. It was a good idea but, it was always crashing, going slow, and it just had too many problems for me to start to trust it let alone to depend on it. Then I discovered Typinator. Typinator does what TextExpander does and yet, it works so much better. One reason is that they are two different types of apps. TextExpander works as an app. This is apparently what it’s relatively slow speed and it’s crashes were about. Typinator works as an extension that you open from the menu or with a hot key. Because of this, it is more stable than TextExpander and much more stable to use. Typinator is much faster than TextExpander. It has even allowed me to use scripts for calculations and other advanced things. The developer has been spot on in his support and his development. Typinator was what finally got me to using this sort of app. I also use KeyboardMaestro and I have to say, KeyboardMaestro and Typinator are two must have apps as far as I can say. Not trying to bad mouth TextExpander here. If you are happy with it then, good on ya. It was just never trustworthy enough for me to use it. Typinator Site: www.ergonis.com/products/typinator/.
I'm a weird duck...I go into my database system for fun. I thoroughly enjoy building the pages how I want them to be and learning the different tricks of it. :D
Fantastic video....productivity is a major issue for me....what platform do you use for your videos...cool the way you slide to get out of the way...nooo the music works subliminally, will definitely take a look at this today. thank you!
Steve. Have you done a comparison of your productivity using resume time before and after using focus at will? Surely you should be able to show a marked difference?
Great video, thx for the tips. My goto focus using is the lost souls album by the doves but I could tell that the music from focus at will would help reduce the paralyzing effects of stress/anxiety so I could see it working. For text expander is this something you could do with the Automator app on Mac? Also it would have been nice to know what the paid version of rescue time offers...I didn't catch it if you mentioned it.
Go to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Text and you can create strings and their replacement text. As far as I can tell it works very similar to TextExpander and you don't have to fork over $40 bucks a year.
A heart with a "non-answer" is an answer all by itself. It says, you love me . . . but you don't really love me lol. "How the heck am I?" you ask? Rejected . . . ;) lol jk
I want to try Focus@Will but I have a hard time taking serious an app that requires you to select a plan and give payment information to be able to start a trial.
Love your videos! However, they are a distraction to my productivity - at least to my intentions to focus! However, I do learn a lot, but not just-in-time learning! Thanks for your tips!
Great video on these productivity tools. Re Focus@Will, I had lots of background noise in the Corporate World so when I started working in my home office, the silence was a big distraction believe it or not. I have a news channel running in the background but at low volume and I find I am far more productive when I have it on. Strange eh? Not sure music would be a good fit for me.
Hej Steve, I'm danish and I'm fine (jeg har det fint) ;-) Thank you so much for these great videos you do on apps and programs, I really enjoy listening to you. You remind me of a fit John Goodman, whom I absolutely love as an actor. My question to you dear Steve is, about these snippets in text expander? Couldn't I just use Alfred 3 for that? Hope you have a great day Kind Regards Morten 🇩🇰😎
Nice video! Does Rescue Time also have an app for iOS that syncs with its desktop application? Considering how much time folks spend on mobile, that would seem to be an important feature.
Here's the story. Rescue Time does have a companion app for Android. However, and sadly for me, it does not have an app for iOS. I assume Apple's sandboxing prevents developers from accessing the kind of information an application like Rescue Time would need.
Hey Steve, really like the look of Textexpander. I've been using Autohotkey on PC for many years and it has saved me many thousands of keystrokes. It's free, but the advantage I see with TE is syncing and sharing. Must give it a try I think. Thanks for the tip!
Steve- I have really been enjoying your videos. I was wondering, have you researched the question of whether rescuetime could somehow compromise the privacy of one's computers? I like the idea of being able to monitor my activity, but also am leery of big brother issues
You mentioned an affiliate link for text expander - I wanted to ensure I give you 'credit' for the purchase - if you posted already, I apologize for a second note on this item.
Text Expander is an awesome app. But when they went from a one time fee of $35 for the application to a $40/year subscribion model they priced themselves out of the market of many folks. Of course, that's just my opinion. There are apps that provide a basic "Text Expander experience" at a much lower cost. Would love to hear if Steve has a positive opinion of any of those apps.
Hi Frank, I believe you are right. I apologize for not pointing that out and being so MacCentric! If you google "Text Expansion Apps for Windows" you will see a slew of options. As I mentioned in my initial post, there is much to like about Text Expander. But, at $40/YEAR for new subscribers, it becomes a pretty cost prohibitive solution for many users. Again, that's just my opinion. There was a lot of "hub-bub" when the developer moved from a one-time fixed price to a subscription model. B/c of that they did back track a bit in the subscription pricing for CURRENT users only. Again, apologies for my inadvertent vagueness.
Software as a Service (subscription) was only ever created to milk people for money on a recurring basis. I don't like the concept. Once should be enough to pay for a piece of software
Look at PhraseExpress, for one example. Another is AutoHotKey. Both of these are extensive macro processors that do so much more than JUST expand text. I built a small language translator using AutoHotKey.
With the textexpander, are you able to use that in gmail? To write or 'text expand' canned responses to send quick emails, but also keep the formatting with the text that you wrote?
I use Auto Text Expander for Google Chrome. (Just search for that title and it will be the first hit.) It's a free Chrome extension. Works on Gmail and anything else in Chrome (such as a web-based task manager). One of my favorite uses is to insert a date or date/time stamp to record when I have left a voice mail message, etc.
On a Mac go to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Text and you can create strings and their replacement text. As far as I can tell it works very similar to TextExpander and you don't have to fork over $40 bucks a year.
@@dottotech LOL the excitement did not allowed me to write it right: "Your face is SO drawable" your features are a perfect inspiration for a portrait ;) You are just VERY handsome that way :)
I think another great addition to your list will be StaffTimerApp (stafftimerapp.com/), an Artificial intelligence powered employee monitoring and time tracking software that uses screenshots to get an estimate of billable and non-billable hours.
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
I have watched and learned from Steve since the mid to late 1990's and am always impressed by his empowering and useful tips. Thanks Steve, you rock it, dude!
Thanks Wyatt!
:-)
Where has text expander been all my life???? You are awesome! Thank you for this!
Thanks, Steve. Half of my students' class time is spent working on Computer Science concepts - lot's of problem solving and debugging. It's nice to have Free@will on while they struggle.
This video is amazing THANK YOU!!! I just started using RescueTime and “awareness” is power indeed!
regarding Focus@Will: Great description explaining why you thought this music-therapy-type program creates, via beautiful science-based sound, produces a sense of focused calm productivity... boy do I need that lol!! ! I can't wait to get it (hope I can afford it...). Thanks!
Thank you for all of your tech recommendations! they make my life a little easier by not having to search out what is new.
Thank you! Staying on task is my number 1 problem!
Thanks so much! You are the BEST at this...
Thanks Danny
Giving Rescue Time a whirl. Thanks for alerting. How about a short video on tab management? Just installed One Tab but wondering if there is something better to corral the many tabs I have open when researching.
I agree with your assessment of play lists. I find that not only does 'real' music jar me out of focus, it also can affect the nature of my output. I have been using white noise sites, but may give Focus@will a try.
Is the text editor more for code... I use SwiftKey which remember a lot of my
previous input...
I can also recommend ManicTime Tracker to keep track of activities. It's not using categorization but it shows you when you were using which application.
Loved the video! How do you account for time interruptions? Say you are in a program working, the phone rings or someone pops their head in the door and you have an interaction which is totally appropriate---- you are logged on but the measurement is incorrect. This is something that kills my day--I have all sorts of tricks to handle these--but they are still unavoidable! Thanks
I am new to knowing of your channel. I must say two videos in, I see the value. Great work!
I have used TextExpander in the past and liked it, but for those on a Mac, you can go to System Preferences and to Keyboard and to Text and do something very similar. Not sure what value TextExpander provides beyond what you can do using the approach above. Am I missing something? Are there additional capabilities that it provides?
I used to spend so much time on FB. After seeing the stats from RescueTime (apparently, I was wasting hours of my life on FB at any give day!), I lost all interest.. These days, I have to WILL myself to check my account. I do not miss it and have not missed out on anything.
Not meaning any disrespect here, but I want to mention that I had used TextExpander for a few years. It was a good idea but, it was always crashing, going slow, and it just had too many problems for me to start to trust it let alone to depend on it. Then I discovered Typinator. Typinator does what TextExpander does and yet, it works so much better. One reason is that they are two different types of apps. TextExpander works as an app. This is apparently what it’s relatively slow speed and it’s crashes were about. Typinator works as an extension that you open from the menu or with a hot key. Because of this, it is more stable than TextExpander and much more stable to use.
Typinator is much faster than TextExpander. It has even allowed me to use scripts for calculations and other advanced things. The developer has been spot on in his support and his development. Typinator was what finally got me to using this sort of app. I also use KeyboardMaestro and I have to say, KeyboardMaestro and Typinator are two must have apps as far as I can say. Not trying to bad mouth TextExpander here. If you are happy with it then, good on ya. It was just never trustworthy enough for me to use it. Typinator Site: www.ergonis.com/products/typinator/.
I have not had any issues with TextExpander, but I also like the tools you are referencing, all very solid choices!
I'm a weird duck...I go into my database system for fun. I thoroughly enjoy building the pages how I want them to be and learning the different tricks of it. :D
Fantastic video....productivity is a major issue for me....what platform do you use for your videos...cool the way you slide to get out of the way...nooo the music works subliminally, will definitely take a look at this today. thank you!
Steve. Have you done a comparison of your productivity using resume time before and after using focus at will? Surely you should be able to show a marked difference?
I haven't been that organized to do that sort of a comparison, But I suspect you would be correct
I'm a real fan of textexpander!
Great video, thx for the tips. My goto focus using is the lost souls album by the doves but I could tell that the music from focus at will would help reduce the paralyzing effects of stress/anxiety so I could see it working. For text expander is this something you could do with the Automator app on Mac? Also it would have been nice to know what the paid version of rescue time offers...I didn't catch it if you mentioned it.
I have not used Automator, but I suspect it would be too much effort,
RescueTime includes a full overview of plans here
www.rescuetime.com/plans
Go to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Text and you can create strings and their replacement text. As far as I can tell it works very similar to TextExpander and you don't have to fork over $40 bucks a year.
Love the mic you're using.
Love your channel Steve! Can I ask where you get your digital background overlays from?
A heart with a "non-answer" is an answer all by itself. It says, you love me . . . but you don't really love me lol. "How the heck am I?" you ask? Rejected . . . ;) lol jk
I want to try Focus@Will but I have a hard time taking serious an app that requires you to select a plan and give payment information to be able to start a trial.
Will give Focus@Will a try, looks interesting.
Love your videos! However, they are a distraction to my productivity - at least to my intentions to focus! However, I do learn a lot, but not just-in-time learning! Thanks for your tips!
Kind of ironic!
Thanks , you are unique, always benefit us by your helpful and professional video.
Hi Steve, Thank you for suggesting Focus@will. I'm going thru your link to give it a try and appreciate your review and suggestion to utilize it!
Thanks Darlene, you'll have to let us know what you think of it
Thank you for sharing this information Steve!
Great video on these productivity tools. Re Focus@Will, I had lots of background noise in the Corporate World so when I started working in my home office, the silence was a big distraction believe it or not. I have a news channel running in the background but at low volume and I find I am far more productive when I have it on. Strange eh? Not sure music would be a good fit for me.
Hej Steve, I'm danish and I'm fine (jeg har det fint) ;-)
Thank you so much for these great videos you do on apps and programs, I really enjoy listening to you. You remind me of a fit John Goodman, whom I absolutely love as an actor.
My question to you dear Steve is, about these snippets in text expander? Couldn't I just use Alfred 3 for that?
Hope you have a great day
Kind Regards
Morten 🇩🇰😎
Really useful Steve-- I've been totally underutilizing evernote on my phone, not even realizing it had extensive functionality. Duh!
Glad to have helped, Evernote really comes into it's own on the phone!
👍
Nice video! Does Rescue Time also have an app for iOS that syncs with its desktop application? Considering how much time folks spend on mobile, that would seem to be an important feature.
Here's the story. Rescue Time does have a companion app for Android. However, and sadly for me, it does not have an app for iOS. I assume Apple's sandboxing prevents developers from accessing the kind of information an application like Rescue Time would need.
Hey Steve, really like the look of Textexpander. I've been using Autohotkey on PC for many years and it has saved me many thousands of keystrokes. It's free, but the advantage I see with TE is syncing and sharing. Must give it a try I think. Thanks for the tip!
Let me know how you like it!
Yes, it does work in helping me to focus on task at hand.
That is one of my themes this year, more focus!
Great show brother!
Steve- I have really been enjoying your videos. I was wondering, have you researched the question of whether rescuetime could somehow compromise the privacy of one's computers? I like the idea of being able to monitor my activity, but also am leery of big brother issues
Absolutely there is always a risk of loss of privacy with any cloud service, You have to decide if the risk offsets the reward for every app.
Which software you use to create videos like these .faboulous ..
We use Screenflow, on a Mac, but here is how we do it.
dottotechu.thinkific.com/courses/publishing-online-video-in-less-time-than-a-blog
You mentioned an affiliate link for text expander - I wanted to ensure I give you 'credit' for the purchase - if you posted already, I apologize for a second note on this item.
Thanks Steve, Focus@Will looks the best out of the three apps, but I will have to check out all of them.
Let me know what you think!
Awesome. Focus @ will looks great.
Very helpful. Thank you as always!
Is text expander more useful than text replacement if you do not have a team you're working with?
I think so Angela, probably 95% of my use is as a solo practitioner
dottotech Thanks so much steve! You are AWESOME at staying in touch! Thank you so much! I'm going to check it out!
how do u put your facecam without background over another video ? could u please do a video on this one ? thanks
All great suggestions
I like your 2017 beard, Man! Cool!
Does textexpander work with evernote as well?
Heads up! The focus@will link doesn' t work anymore.
Great stuff! Thanks for the info! :)
Thanks I wanna get into electronic soft.
Just great!!! Thank you!!!
great video!!!
Civilization V... the struggle is real! :D
It is!
great...
You show the best stuff! Candy for you! XOXO . 🍭
Thx Steve. Great Vid. Greets
You're awesome!
I used music 🎶 as well to get the right brain 🧠 waves 🌊 to help me get in the zone
Good morning , I am trying a get some a good cost estimating.Can you send a list of some free apps I can used .
Thank you, sir.
focus at will link is not working 'The link is not currently active.'
Thanks, I will check that!
Very good content ;-) Thanks Steve
Text Expander is an awesome app. But when they went from a one time fee of $35 for the application to a $40/year subscribion model they priced themselves out of the market of many folks. Of course, that's just my opinion. There are apps that provide a basic "Text Expander experience" at a much lower cost. Would love to hear if Steve has a positive opinion of any of those apps.
For example, the text expansion app "aText" only costs a one-time fee of $4.99 and seems to be favorably received by the public.
Unless I am reading the notes for aText wrong, it is a Mac only tool -
Hi Frank, I believe you are right. I apologize for not pointing that out and being so MacCentric! If you google "Text Expansion Apps for Windows" you will see a slew of options. As I mentioned in my initial post, there is much to like about Text Expander. But, at $40/YEAR for new subscribers, it becomes a pretty cost prohibitive solution for many users. Again, that's just my opinion. There was a lot of "hub-bub" when the developer moved from a one-time fixed price to a subscription model. B/c of that they did back track a bit in the subscription pricing for CURRENT users only. Again, apologies for my inadvertent vagueness.
Software as a Service (subscription) was only ever created to milk people for money on a recurring basis. I don't like the concept. Once should be enough to pay for a piece of software
Look at PhraseExpress, for one example. Another is AutoHotKey. Both of these are extensive macro processors that do so much more than JUST expand text. I built a small language translator using AutoHotKey.
Классный дядька!
Спасибо
With the textexpander, are you able to use that in gmail? To write or 'text expand' canned responses to send quick emails, but also keep the formatting with the text that you wrote?
You can use textTxpander ot Canned Responses in Gmail/
You can also format the text in TextExpander AND include graphics
I use Auto Text Expander for Google Chrome. (Just search for that title and it will be the first hit.) It's a free Chrome extension. Works on Gmail and anything else in Chrome (such as a web-based task manager). One of my favorite uses is to insert a date or date/time stamp to record when I have left a voice mail message, etc.
It's just a Chrome plugin. No need to download anything.
Awesome! Thank you for the info.
On a Mac go to System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Text and you can create strings and their replacement text. As far as I can tell it works very similar to TextExpander and you don't have to fork over $40 bucks a year.
do you know of any gmail drip campaigns?
Check this out
www.bitrix24.com/uses/free-crm-for-gmail-google-crm.php
does rescue time work on android as I use my phone more than a PC?
Yes. You are fortunate. There is no companion app for Rescue Time on iOS. +1 for Android.
It is really good .
OMG your face is DRAWABLE!!!
Not entirely sure what that means, but thanks!
@@dottotech LOL the excitement did not allowed me to write it right: "Your face is SO drawable" your features are a perfect inspiration for a portrait ;) You are just VERY handsome that way :)
Great beard!
Hey its Santy Clause :-)
To good for you explain
LOL from Scandinavia :-)
As a Dane i give you a huge Viking hi five... :) Do you have any danish in the family ?
Not that I know of, but thanks!
Hi Steve! If you are planning an update make sure you give Bitrix24 a consideration. We are free :)
I think another great addition to your list will be StaffTimerApp (stafftimerapp.com/), an Artificial intelligence powered employee monitoring and time tracking software that uses screenshots to get an estimate of billable and non-billable hours.
A BIT CONFUSING 4 A 76 YR. Newby!
Sorry to hear that
Ohh Nice beard ;D
It has it's moments
Distraction? - No problem
See what I mean below--my words are denied!
Watching youtube during working hours isn`t very productive