iPad Pros

Interview

> Welcome to the podcast, Eric.

Eric Bowers

(1m 53s) Eric Bowers:

> Hey, thanks, Tim. I appreciate it.

(1m 55s) Tim Chaten:

> So first, can you introduce kind of your setup and who you are?

(1m 59s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah. So I’m Eric Bowers. I live here in Florida now. I’m originally from central New York, and the weather’s much nicer down here, so that’s wonderful.

(2m 12s)

> It’s snowing up there now. But my setup, so who I am, I actually, I’m a branch manager for

(2m 12s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(2m 21s) Eric Bowers:

> a mortgage company here in Tampa.

(2m 23s)

> And so I have a few branch loan officers that I oversee, as well as my own sales production.

(2m 31s)

> And I’m also, out of nowhere, a few years ago, I became a writer and I didn’t see it coming.

(2m 38s)

> I’ve actually, I’ve been a lifelong musician. I’m a bass player and singer and I can play guitar.

(2m 43s)

> And, you know, but so that was like, you know, the creative side, but out of nowhere,

(2m 50s)

> I just started writing because…

(2m 53s)

> Because I didn’t fancy myself some big English major or something.

(2m 56s)

> It just happened.

(2m 58s)

> So creatively, that’s what I do.

(3m)

> I’ve actually sort of put the music into the background, but running a full-time business as a loan officer and branch manager and writing my next novel, that’s enough for me.

(3m 10s)

> And then I’m a married man.

(3m 11s)

> I married to my wife, Alexandra, for seven years and been with her for about 10.

(3m 17s)

> We have three little dogs.

(3m 18s)

> So just a really good setup and I’m happy.

(3m 23s)

> Healthy and I’m really glad that we’re chatting today because I love technology.

(3m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> That’s awesome. So the book you’re working on is not your first book. You’ve written at least one before.

(3m 27s) Eric Bowers:

> That’s the other end of it.

(3m 28s)

> I have, weirdly enough,

(3m 34s)

> it was called GTD with Things 3.

(3m 38s)

> So I wrote a book about things.

(3m 42s)

> I dropped it on the day that they released Things 3.

(3m 45s) Tim Chaten:

> Are they still on things three or is there things four at this point?

(3m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> I had, they’re on Things 3.

(3m 49s) Tim Chaten:

> They’re on three. That’s what I thought. Yeah

(3m 50s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, but they’ve iterated quite a bit.

(3m 53s)

> and built in some nice features.

(3m 54s)

> And we’ll get to where I am with task management.

(3m 55s) Tim Chaten:

> Yes

(3m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> I’m just going to throw you a curveball again for task management.

(4m 1s)

> So based on our prior conversations.

(4m 4s)

> But yeah, I wrote that book.

(4m 5s)

> And from there, I said, “Whoa, I can actually do this.”

(4m 8s)

> Like I did it in…

(4m 9s)

> I did it self-published in iBooks Author.

(4m 12s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm. Yeah.

(4m 13s) Eric Bowers:

> And I wrote it in Ulysses at the time.

(4m 19s)

> We’ll talk about my writing setup now.

(4m 20s)

> But I wrote it in Ulysses.

(4m 23s)

> Surprisingly, other than the screenshots,

(4m 25s)

> I’m not happy with how the screenshots turned out.

(4m 27s)

> But look, it was my first go.

(4m 28s)

> I was happy with how the book both turned out,

(4m 32s)

> was received, and also performed, quite frankly.

(4m 35s)

> I’m pretty psyched about my first book being halfway a success in my eyes.

(4m 41s)

> And other people found it helpful.

(4m 42s)

> So that’s really the thing that drove me.

(4m 46s)

> And that’s what’s driving me on this novel as well.

(4m 50s)

> We can sort of get into that.

(4m 51s)

> But the novel–

(4m 54s)

> Man, I started thinking about it the second I released the Things book.

(4m 57s)

> I had dreams.

(4m 58s)

> It came to me.

(5m)

> I looked at old notes.

(5m 1s)

> It went through various iterations in 2018.

(5m 4s)

> And so this is like–

(5m 7s)

> I’m trying not to be precious with this novel,

(5m 10s)

> but it feels like if I’m going to get one cool creative thing out that I’m totally proud of,

(5m 15s)

> this would be it.

(5m 17s)

> And so I’m really taking a lot of care with it,

(5m 19s)

> but that’s where I’m at.

(5m 21s)

> So it’s a long way to answer who am I.

(5m 23s)

> And I guess, what am I?

(5m 25s)

> I didn’t even answer what my setup was, did I?

(5m 26s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, yeah, what’s what’s your current iPad you’re rockin?

Current iPad Setup

(5m 28s) Eric Bowers:

> All right, the iPad is an iPad Air 2022 M1.

(5m 33s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay, yeah

(5m 35s) Eric Bowers:

> You know, it’s weird, I stepped down from an iPad Pro,

(5m 38s)

> the 12.9, because at the time I had it,

(5m 42s)

> I was living in Philadelphia and I would take the train into town, you know,

(5m 47s)

> to go to work and sitting there with a 12.9,

(5m 50s)

> It’s kind of unwieldy to just unravel with the keyboard.

(5m 53s)

> And so I thought, man, I would love something a little bit different.

(5m 56s)

> And that was, you know, I had that until we moved down here and then the 2022 comes out and the iPad air.

(6m 3s)

> And I was like, whoa, this thing has an M1.

(6m 5s)

> Let me see if I can just pick up a smart key magic keyboard for it.

(6m 9s)

> So I have the magic keyboard.

(6m 10s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(6m 11s) Eric Bowers:

> I also have the folio, the cover, the smart cover.

(6m 15s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay.

(6m 16s) Eric Bowers:

> So, yeah, exactly. If I want to use it like a book or a true notepad and.

(6m 16s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, yeah.

(6m 17s)

> When you want to be without a keyboard.

(6m 23s) Eric Bowers:

> Or honestly, I’m halfway decent at typing on glass.

(6m 26s)

> I mean, so it’s not the end of the world if I sort of forget the keyboard where the keyboard really comes in handy and it is a total game changer.

(6m 26s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm.

(6m 27s)

> Sure.

(6m 35s) Eric Bowers:

> And I mean that every sense of the word is when I’m using Amazon Workspace for work to tie into a virtual PC setting.

(6m 44s)

> It’s really cool to have a pointer as opposed to using an Apple pencil.

(6m 47s) Tim Chaten:

> Yes. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine that being, yeah, just transforms it to a laptop at that point.

(6m 49s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah.

(6m 53s)

> – Yeah, I’ve nicknamed the iPad my buddy because it is with me wherever I go.

(7m)

> Like, if we’re going out for the weekend,

(7m 3s)

> my job is weird, right?

(7m 5s)

> You have to be available, right?

(7m 6s)

> And so I take the iPad,

(7m 9s)

> I make sure it’s fully charged pretty much all the time,

(7m 11s)

> at least overnight, and I charge it up and I’ll throw it in the trunk and then say,

(7m 16s)

> "Okay, if someone calls me,

(7m 18s)

> “I could literally be at my office,” quote unquote,

(7m 20s)

> with my iPad, and it’s just phenomenal for that.

(7m 22s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. So mortgage lending, that’s the step beyond, like real estate is the actual selling of the house. After that is done, are you the next person in line after the house is sold to like, say, “Hey, let me get the money to fund this purchase.”

Mortgage Lending

(7m 38s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I’m the money guy. So I’m I always put it like

(7m 42s)

> Realtors are wonderful because they are the hopes and dreams people and look at the pretty place and the landscape and I go

(7m 45s) Tim Chaten:

> laughs Yes.

(7m 48s) Eric Bowers:

> That’s all well and good. Let’s uh, let’s see if we can afford that now And and so I dial in the numbers and no and I I’ve I’ve got my my style everyone kind of works differently

(7m 57s)

> but I’m very much a

(8m)

> realist without being overly cautious like I know I know

(8m 3s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm.

(8m 4s)

> Yeah.

(8m 5s) Eric Bowers:

> how to help people enough to get them into the home that they love.

(8m 5s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(8m 6s)

> Yeah.

(8m 7s)

> Yeah.

(8m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> So it’s all well and good, but yeah,

(8m 11s)

> I’ve been doing that for seven years and I’ve worked in finance for 23 years,

(8m 16s)

> like half of my life. So I was, I was in banking prior to this. So, you know,

(8m 21s)

> the least creative stuff that you can think of. So the balance,

(8m 24s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, if you get creative in finance, that probably doesn’t end up well.

(8m 24s) Eric Bowers:

> the balance in my life is always the,

(8m 30s)

> yeah, you end up in an orange jumpsuit somewhere. So it, I,

(8m 34s)

> And I found that the balance of…

(8m 38s)

> having a real creative side like music or writing really did balance out that sort of left brain thinking of finance. So it’s served me pretty well.

(8m 47s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, does the Apple Pencil play a role with like signing documents and stuff in your work or?

(8m 54s) Eric Bowers:

> – Not as much as you would think.

(8m 55s)

> These days, it’s more of a click here, click here.

(8m 57s) Tim Chaten:

> That’s right, yeah, I’ve seen so much that that’s a kind of good to go to with sign

(9m 3s) Eric Bowers:

> Well, here’s what I’ll say.

(9m 6s)

> I have an opportunity to work with different investors,

(9m 9s)

> and if I’m registering on their loan system for the first time, they’ll say,

(9m 13s)

> “Sign here as a loan officer.”

(9m 15s)

> I literally, like, I’ll click a link, go to my iPad,

(9m 18s)

> sign very nicely with a real Eric Bauer signature.

(9m 22s)

> Because otherwise, if I do it on–

(9m 24s)

> on a phone or a Mac, it just looks like I’m, you know,

(9m 26s)

> I had three whiskeys or something, I don’t know.

(9m 28s)

> So I do it on the iPad, so it looks like me.

(9m 32s)

> And then that’s permanently resolved in their system as my signature.

(9m 35s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm

(9m 35s) Eric Bowers:

> So if I do business with them, it’s my iPad signature.

(9m 37s) Tim Chaten:

> Gotcha yeah, and

Air vs 11" Pro

(9m 40s) Tim Chaten:

> Going with the air versus the m1

(9m 43s)

> 11 inch iPad Pro is was it a cost thing or just like you yeah

(9m 48s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I stood back and I’m not one to nitpick about costs or subscriptions.

(9m 53s)

> I mean, if it serves me, it serves me, but I looked at it.

(9m 54s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, because the main difference is what you get the pro motion display

(9m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> To promotion. Yeah, yeah.

(10m)

> And you can notice it when you first come away from promotion to the iPad Air.

(10m 5s)

> Like, I’ll be honest, I love the form factor and it’s it’s cute, it’s portable.

(10m 10s)

> And then I started scrolling and probably the first minute I go, oh, like that.

(10m 15s)

> It was sort of like not a letdown, but it was like Did I make a mistake? And then I started, you know, you dive into work and ten minutes later You have zero idea anything changed. You just get used to it. I just picked up my wife In fact, I jumped to the 15 plus for an iPhone too. So, um, so from a 13 Pro Max so I’m coming down in the line up and screen sized and my eyes are getting old and

(10m 25s) Tim Chaten:

> Right. Yeah.

(10m 30s)

> Yeah.

(10m 34s)

> Mm hmm.

(10m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> So I picked up my wife’s 13 Pro Max and I was like, oh, that’s what it looks like again, you know

(10m 44s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(10m 44s) Eric Bowers:

> After not using it but to that end man, I really hope

(10m 48s)

> that they have like a 12.9 inch iPad Air this year. That would be super cool.

(10m 53s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(10m 54s)

> ‘Cause you’re ready to go back up in size.

(10m 55s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah you know what it’s it’s um here’s why. I’ll put the 15-inch MacBook Pro MacBook Air on my lap that feels a certain way then you go back to the iPad Air and it feels really almost a little congested with my hands in the middle of the keyboard and it’s like you know what I think I actually would like

(11m 18s)

> to go with the iPad Air. I don’t train anymore. I’m living a different type of life down here. So I think I want that that larger screen size. I’ve got the plus, the big Air. I might as well go with a big iPad Air if it comes out.

(11m 28s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, yeah, for sure. And for me, the keyboard being full, more full size with the bigger iPad.

(11m 37s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, you know, I got I got mad. I’m gonna I’m gonna spoil a little bit I got mad at OmniFocus the other day like it was OmniFocus’s fault and I was tapping I go. Why doesn’t this work?

(11m 45s) Tim Chaten:

[Chuckle]

(11m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> Mr. Mr. Impatience over here and I look down and I’m tapping the caps lock key instead of tab

(11m 48s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(11m 52s) Eric Bowers:

> So that’s a clear indicator. It’s like alright. Listen, if you really want to build in some muscle memory get a keyboard That’s kind of similar to the one you’re using all day. So I think I think the second that comes out I’m all

(12m) Tim Chaten:

> Exactly, yeah.

(12m 5s)

> That’s awesome, yeah.

(12m 6s)

> And it sounds like the iPad Pros are getting even more expensive, so…

(12m 10s)

[laughs]

(12m 10s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I just heard that just I don’t know where I heard it, but I just heard it

(12m 11s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(12m 15s) Eric Bowers:

> but

(12m 17s)

> Yeah, I don’t do enough pro work I’ll tell you what I love though

(12m 23s)

> You know for accessories on the iPad air is like I said the magic keyboard and the pencil the pencil for me

(12m 29s)

> This screen size still serves me well I don’t I don’t know if I could ever imagine writing on a mini

(12m 31s) Tim Chaten:

> – Yeah.

(12m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> With an iPad pencil just because it would feel weird to me even though it’s an awesome device

(12m 40s)

> this I love the pencil because

(12m 43s)

> It’s largely why I’m an Apple notes user still because you could just pick up start writing and not have to think about the structure

(12m 49s)

> It’s just a blank sheet of paper digitally

(12m 52s)

> and and that’s a great the lowering of The the barriers to getting ideas out. It’s super important

Apple Pencil

(13m 3s) Tim Chaten:

> You’ll use that just as you’re out and about or in meetings or.

(13m 3s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah

(13m 6s)

> I do use it in meetings

(13m 8s)

> And then I

(13m 10s)

> will delete the notes after that often or I’ll email them to myself and so I’ll put them in like a company OneDrive file or something like that. And I use the all the the high end. I forget what Apple calls it for the encryption.

(13m 28s) Tim Chaten:

> Yes, the scary one

(13m 30s) Eric Bowers:

> You know, right. The big scary. So I use like, I take that stuff very seriously. I, you know, having been hacked once and having to stop at all that was not fun. So

(13m 40s)

> I take all the encryption very seriously. But yeah, I write on that iPad for just notes because I I love like I use. I use like Baron Fig products to write on and I love the feel of that stuff. But for digital, like there’s nothing better than Apple Notes than an iPad. Yeah.

(13m 59s) Tim Chaten:

> Very nice. I know that company. Are you a fountain pen guy as well?

(14m 4s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I have the I have three Baron Fig squares on my yeah, three different colors.

(14m 8s) Tim Chaten:

> Yes.

(14m 10s) Eric Bowers:

> And literally every product you could want it looks like a store over here. So because, you know, that’s something I I didn’t have to wrestle with much in my life where I just said, you know what, I’m going to do. I’m going to spend money once on nice things that I’m going to enjoy using. Because back in the day, when I was a younger musician, I would buy inexpensive bass guitars, you know, really inexpensive thing and I can I can do it.

(14m 14s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(14m 37s) Eric Bowers:

> you always end up trading to something that’s actually built.

(14m 40s)

> Well, and so I’ve figured the same throughout technology and paper and pens.

(14m 46s) Tim Chaten:

> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And yeah, it’ll last much longer if you buy quality.

(14m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> You know, what the best if you can afford it, you want the best.

(14m 51s)

> So yeah, the exact.

(14m 55s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. So you mentioned the 15-inch MacBook Air. Where does that computer,

How do you use the Mac?

(15m 2s) Tim Chaten:

> what role does that computer have for you versus the iPad?

(15m 5s) Eric Bowers:

> Believe it or not, I use it more like a desktop.

(15m 9s)

> I don’t have an external monitor.

(15m 11s)

> I actually use the iPad side by side with universal control.

(15m 15s)

> I think that is just the best, because it gave all of us multi-device users a second monitor, essentially.

(15m 23s)

> And so I use that all the time.

(15m 26s)

> And the MacBook Air is sitting here on the desk.

(15m 28s)

> And it’s just my big tank.

(15m 32s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm

(15m 32s) Eric Bowers:

> But if I want to go somewhere, that iPad’s coming with me.

(15m 35s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, and as far as the iPad using it for work when did that start was with the when the iPad pros started to hit the scene or

(15m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> You know, funny enough, it was the air, because I felt a little hamstrung.

(15m 46s) Tim Chaten:

> The air

(15m 49s) Eric Bowers:

> But that’s my fault.

(15m 50s)

> I didn’t get the magic keyboard until the air came out.

(15m 52s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, okay, so yeah

(15m 54s) Eric Bowers:

> So I think I could have gone with a magic keyboard with my old iPad pro and said, oh, cool.

(16m 1s)

> And but I like this form factor, too.

(16m 5s)

> This is a great form factor.

(16m 8s)

> So I think I just wanted something more portable.

(16m 11s)

> And then, like, it was a cost thing sort of with the keyboard.

(16m 15s)

> We’re really picked up.

(16m 16s)

> I mean, I don’t know if you want to talk about the apps that I use at this point.

iA Writer

(16m 23s) Eric Bowers:

> But I use like a writer everywhere.

(16m 26s) Tim Chaten:

> And that’s not just for writing your book, but just like as a general purpose, notes and just getting stuff out of your brain.

(16m 26s) Eric Bowers:

> And it’s. Yeah.

(16m 34s)

> Yeah. All right.

(16m 36s)

> Anything that has a purpose like example, I’ll capture ideas

(16m 42s)

> in so many different ways.

(16m 43s)

> And I guess we can talk.

(16m 44s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm. Yeah.

(16m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> About the apps.

(16m 47s)

> But like I’m one to make sure that I can capture everywhere.

(16m 50s)

> So I use a an app called taught by Icon Factory and I’ve got a shortcut on my watch that will capture to taught and

Tot

(17m 3s) Eric Bowers:

> So if I’m going to stop light, I mean, I’m this nutty with it.

(17m 6s)

> If I’m going to stop light and I go and I’m daydreaming, you know for a second.

(17m 9s)

> Well, I’m going to stop with and I think well, this would be a cool idea for a story.

(17m 15s)

> Goes into Todd and when I get back to my iPad Todd’s pretty evident with its with its widgets that you have something sort of in that in that dot that that page that you got text in there.

(17m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm.

(17m 29s) Eric Bowers:

> So it’s sort of like an inbox for me.

(17m 31s) Tim Chaten:

> ‘Cause with T.O.T. you get, what, nine pages, seven?

(17m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> Set seven dots.

(17m 36s)

> I think I think the Icon Factory may have done that just to represent the days of the week, but at some point it’s a design choice.

(17m 42s)

> They just said, well, I mean, you can, I have.

(17m 45s)

> I’ve used drafts and it’s, it’s, it’s a very nice tool, but it’s more than I need.

(17m 52s)

> Like I like minimalism.

(17m 53s)

> And so Todd is again, that sort of blank page.

(17m 56s)

> And it’s just my, my little idea it’s post-it notes that are designed really well.

(18m 1s)

> I mean, that’s essentially what I use it for.

(18m 2s)

> So I’ll capture an idea.

(18m 4s)

> And from there I go, Oh, I’ve got something in Todd and it comes into IA writer.

(18m 8s)

> I mostly just copy and paste.

(18m 11s)

> Once it’s an IA writer, that has its own little smart filter.

(18m 15s)

> Inbox list that I’ve built. And once it’s in there, it’s like I’m baking ideas. Like I’ve got my right now. I’ve got seven or eight short story ideas. Again, these are coming out of nowhere because I’ve grabbed them. I didn’t imagine writing my next book to be a short story book after the novel, but here we go. And so there’s like seven or eight ideas that are baking. Those all started in taught somewhere. And then they

(18m 37s) Tim Chaten:

> Wow. And the shortcut, how does that work? Because will it like replace an existing TOT and wipe out data sometimes when you don’t mean to?

(18m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> You know what? So Todd has something built into the watch and I know this is an iPad show I want to stay centric to that but they have something built in they’ve got their application built in

(18m 51s) Tim Chaten:

> – Yeah, yeah.

(18m 56s) Eric Bowers:

> You could tap into dot number one

(18m 59s)

> Then you could tap you could hold down the screen to write and then you could tap the microphone and to me That’s just a level too much of friction. So what I’ve done is I built in a shortcut

(19m 8s)

> Which I can fortunately view on the watch and I open up the shortcut and I click add to dot And I’m off to the races and I always have it look.

(19m 16s)

> at dot number one out of seven, never two, three, four, five, six, seven.

(19m 20s)

> So that’s kind of my like writing idea inbox.

(19m 23s)

> Anything that’s in number one, it goes, it’s going to end up an IA writer.

(19m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay, and you’re just appending to that every time versus wiping things out. Yeah

(19m 29s) Eric Bowers:

> Yes.

(19m 30s)

> I’ll append to that.

(19m 31s)

> Right.

(19m 31s)

> To answer your question.

(19m 32s)

> Yeah.

(19m 32s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay

(19m 32s) Eric Bowers:

> So it always, uh, it leaves what’s in there.

(19m 35s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay for the Amazon workspace

Amazon Workspace

(19m 39s) Tim Chaten:

> That’s is that just a service you pay for

(19m 42s)

> Amazon has a server with this virtual Windows PC that you can just remote into and all your data is kind of there How what is that exactly?

(19m 50s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah Yeah, it is exactly that. It’s a virtual PC

(19m 54s)

> so if I if I have a problem with it’s like

(19m 57s)

> It’s like inception because if I have a problem with the piece the virtual PC, I’ve got to restart the virtual PC

(20m 3s)

> Then I’ve also got to restart Amazon workspace

(20m 6s)

> Which is an app on the iPad?

(20m 8s)

> So I have to restart the workspace and then I can then there’s the third level of like literally oops The app is misbehaving. Let me actually force quit that on the iPad

(20m 16s) Tim Chaten:

> Gotcha, yeah. And do you run any custom, like, really ancient Windows apps for your business?

(20m 17s) Eric Bowers:

> It’s it’s inception

(20m 24s) Tim Chaten:

> Or what are the…

(20m 28s) Eric Bowers:

> You know, I came to my company, I said, the one caveat I have is I’m using a Mac.

(20m 33s)

> I’m doing everything on a Mac.

(20m 35s)

> Because in our business, we get sort of calls to come interview all the time, and so you could go into a lot of different places.

(20m 45s)

> My company’s very, very forward thinking.

(20m 48s)

> They said, “Sure, just use Amazon Workspace app.”

(20m 50s)

> And they put in this virtual PC.

(20m 53s)

> And from there, I only use our loan origination system.

(20m 58s)

> I don’t use Microsoft Word.

(21m)

> I do use OneDrive on the iPad and everywhere to tie in both my Mac world–

(21m 7s)

> because I’m signed into my company,

(21m 8s)

> OneDrive on the iPad or the Mac or the iPhone.

(21m 12s)

> And then that populates into the PC world version of that over in Workspace.

(21m 17s) Tim Chaten:

> Yes, if you save something.

(21m 22s) Eric Bowers:

> And vice versa.

(21m 23s)

> When customers maybe email me a document that’s password encrypted. I’ll open it up.

(21m 28s)

> And then I’ll get it over to the PC world through a OneDrive.

(21m 32s)

> So that’s actually pretty helpful. And Teams I use. And look, I would never use these applications if I wasn’t in this line of business because I’m not a giant Microsoft fan. You know, it just doesn’t feel like Apple to me, right?

(21m 40s) Tim Chaten:

> Sure

(21m 44s)

> Oh yeah, no

(21m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> So, but, yeah, I was just gonna say that. Yeah, yeah, Microsoft is actually making.

(21m 46s) Tim Chaten:

> That said their iPad apps are actually pretty solid as far as the big they’re they’re no Google Google is so much worse than

(21m 53s)

> Microsoft as far as their their app

(21m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> a stab at it. And you can tell. So it’s but that being said, they’re super helpful, because if those got cut off tomorrow, I really have to rethink how I did things. Like, you know, I mean, I guess I can hang out in Outlook on my

(22m 8s) Tim Chaten:

> Right?

(22m 13s) Eric Bowers:

> email and my iPad. It just would give me a headache, but I’d figure it out.

(22m 16s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, even Microsoft will be there on Vision OS day one.

(22m 22s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, oh, good for good. I can look at an Excel table, be 12.

(22m 22s) Tim Chaten:

> Which, yeah, some of the few that are doing that from the big companies.

(22m 28s) Eric Bowers:

> Spot and move it to be 13. Good.

(22m 29s) Tim Chaten:

> Right, exactly, yeah.

(22m 29s) Eric Bowers:

[laughs]

(22m 31s) Tim Chaten:

> So, shortcuts, any other uses for you of that app outside the touch?

Shortcuts

(22m 38s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, absolutely.

(22m 39s)

> So I’m just going to dive into the apps that I’m using.

(22m 44s)

> So I’m going to my iPad right now.

(22m 46s)

> And what I’ve got, I’ve got ones that really do some heavy lifting.

(22m 52s)

> Card Hop to OmniFocus, okay.

(22m 57s)

> So one thing that Things always did, and I guess I’ll give a quick history.

(23m 2s)

> I was a Things user back in like 2011.

(23m 5s)

> That was my first time I really grabbed a hold of a…

(23m 8s)

> quote-unquote, you know, heavy-duty task manager.

(23m 10s)

> And I love the design and all that good stuff that everyone says about it.

(23m 13s)

> But then I was in college. I finished college when I was 35.

(23m 17s)

> Like, I went into the working world first, went backwards, finished college,

(23m 20s)

> got my bachelor’s degree. And I remember one night…

(23m 24s)

> In fact, I pulled up the receipt prior to this. It was March 9, 2012.

(23m 28s)

> So just about 12 years ago. For some reason I was like,

(23m 31s)

> I don’t know. Things feel like it’s forcing me. I like opinionated software but it really wants me to work.

(23m 38s)

> a certain way and so I found OmniFocus and I totally remember thinking like man they really really grabbed on to the purple color with this with this application. It’s everywhere. Like the design on the website at the time was just super purple but I picked it up on the Mac first and I was like whoa this feels weird this feels different weird weird good you know like I don’t know it’s a little over my head. Honestly Tim it took me a year to get a hold of OmniFocus

(24m 7s) Tim Chaten:

> It’s a… it’s a complicated app. There’s a lot in there.

(24m 8s) Eric Bowers:

> to really grasp it. Yeah however once you work that way every other way feels wrong. Now that said again I never want to be beholden to an app to you know I don’t want I’m not gonna let my business fail if an app goes away. Frankly I could work on paper right because GTD getting things done by David Allen if anyone doesn’t know it that’s my backing you know brain system that I operate my life with and OmniFocus was written around that methodology.

(24m 38s)

> task management and life management. So all that is to say, I use an app called Cardhop for contact management and OmniFocus didn’t have a great integration with contacts. You could like mail contact to your OmniFocus private inbox and then go into the inbox and say, you know, call Tim

(25m 2s)

> as the subject and your card would be attached. That’s all well and good, but it also parsed it in ways that looked very…

(25m 9s)

> It almost looked binary to me.

(25m 10s)

> It was just computer speak.

(25m 11s)

> Well, what I’ve done instead is Cardhop by Flexibits.

(25m 16s)

> I love the company and the products.

(25m 19s)

> Cardhop allows you to share the link to the contact.

(25m 23s) Tim Chaten:

> Oh nice, that’s gotta be so handy for us.

(25m 27s) Eric Bowers:

> It is.

(25m 28s)

> So here’s what my shortcut looks like.

(25m 30s)

> Receive any share sheet, quick action.

(25m 32s)

> Receive any input from share sheet or quick action.

(25m 34s)

> So that grabs the link.

(25m 36s)

> I’ve got the clipboard.

(25m 38s)

> And then I ask for text, “What do you want to do?”

(25m 41s)

> And then I ask for text,

(25m 42s)

> “What note do you want to add to the to-do?”

(25m 44s)

> And then I grab the current date and all of that comes in.

(25m 48s)

> So the, “What do you want to do?”

(25m 49s)

> is the subject of an OmniFocus task.

(25m 52s)

> In the notes section of the OmniFocus task that’s about to be created,

(25m 56s)

> I’ve got, I put dash and then the current date gets grabbed with a colon.

(26m 3s)

> And then provided input is the, what do you want to add?

(26m 9s)

> What note do you want to add?

(26m 10s)

> So basically, you know, January 15th, 1030 AM,

(26m 14s)

> this happened with this customer, right?

(26m 16s)

> And I’ll have selected a note,

(26m 18s)

> like I’ll have copied and pasted,

(26m 20s)

> copied a note that I’ve written in Cardhop.

(26m 24s)

> I’ve copied that to my clipboard and I’ll add it to that.

(26m 29s)

> And then I have a link to contact,

(26m 30s)

> which goes and then pastes in the shared link to the Cardhop contact.

(26m 38s)

> Within, it’s a couple of taps,

(26m 40s)

> but it’s way easier than copying and pasting and going in and adding.

(26m 44s)

> I think it’s, I don’t know, three or four taps,

(26m 47s)

> but it does save me a lot of time.

(26m 48s)

> And as a sales guy,

(26m 49s)

> I keep all of my follow-up activity in OmniFocus

(26m 53s)

> because it’s end-to-end encrypted.

(26m 55s)

> And I don’t put anything super personal in there,

(26m 58s)

> but names, you know, Jim Smith, 123 Main Street.

(27m 2s)

> You know, you don’t really want that laying around anywhere.

(27m 4s) Tim Chaten:

> No. And with Cardhop, do you treat that as you’re basically a CMS? Yeah. It’s your

Cardhop

(27m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> Yes, my CRM, yeah, my contact relationship management.

(27m 11s) Tim Chaten:

> Relationship Manager. And does that app… I’m trying to remember, does it… It would be super smart if they added some kind of reminder about people. I know it does that for birthdays,

(27m 12s) Eric Bowers:

> I looked into, [BLANK_AUDIO]

(27m 23s) Tim Chaten:

> but there’s no way to… There’s no reminder system within Cardhop to say, "Follow up with with this person in five days, is there?

(27m 30s) Eric Bowers:

> No, there’s not there’s not I

(27m 33s)

> So I know I know that would be cool if they had it all built into one because I I’ve Frankensteined my system together Like it’s it’s a CRM But it’s built from a couple applications because an all-in-one application is you just feel very restrictive

(27m 50s)

> So I’ve I’ve decided to lean on shortcuts to do the hard work and

(27m 55s)

> That’s a that’s a good shortcut card hop to omni focus

(27m 58s)

> I

(28m)

> a simple link to

(28m 3s)

> Sorry a simple shortcut that when I add a new prospect a new prospective buyer, you know for realtor calls me it says Oh

(28m 11s)

> Jane Jane Doe wants to be called about getting her first home and they’re like, okay and so I hit this shortcut called new prospect and

(28m 21s)

> It’ll pop and I keep these on the home screen on the iPad

(28m 25s)

> It’ll pop up and it says who’s the prospect and I enter Jane Doe and who referred the prospect?

(28m 31s)

> Barbara Doe and then that goes and launches into numbers and puts in Jane Doe’s

(28m 38s)

> name in the very first line as a new lead and it also enters a task in omni focus that says

(28m 46s)

> Call Jane Doe

(28m 48s)

> Create a note in card hop about Jane Doe

(28m 51s)

> text Barbara Doe with the outcome

(28m 53s)

> update the numbers pipeline and

(28m 55s)

> from numbers I’ve got like what status everything is in is it a new

(29m)

> prospect is it something I need to follow up on after initial conversations so again you can hear it’s like it’s bubblegum and scotch tape but it really works because it’s all based on shortcuts I I don’t have a lot of Alfred or no what’s the automator I don’t have any Apple scripts doing anything on the Mac I figured I want it everywhere like on the iPad so I want shortcuts to do that heavy lifting

(29m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> No, that’s really cool. And I’d imagine it’d be hard to change

Changing task managers?

(29m 35s) Tim Chaten:

> a task manager with all this setup this way, right?

(29m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> So I’ll come clean about what I’ve been wrestling with lately.

(29m 43s)

> So you and I talked and, and I was like, I’m an OmniFocus user.

(29m 47s)

> And then the next day I’m like, I think I’m trying out things.

(29m 50s)

> And I was like really resolute about it.

(29m 53s)

> And, um, it, and so what I came to, so to answer your question,

(29m 58s)

> it’s not hard to change it.

(29m 59s)

> And that’s what I, that’s what I like about my setup.

(30m) Tim Chaten:

> Oh, because like in the shortcut, you basically just switch out apps and yeah.

(30m 4s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah.

(30m 5s)

> You can switch out apps.

(30m 5s) Tim Chaten:

> Because things as good shortcut support as well.

(30m 6s) Eric Bowers:

> You go, Hey, instead of looking at OmniFocus, look at things.

(30m 9s)

> Exactly. Better than OmniFocus at this point, which OmniFocus is leaning on Omni.js. Yeah,

(30m 16s) Tim Chaten:

> Like JavaScript, they have yeah, they have some like universal. It’s pretty powerful, but you have to be a bit

(30m 19s) Eric Bowers:

> yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, it’s funny. So that therein lied my problem. I talked to a past guest on your show, Tim Stringer, and I emailed him and I was like, "Hey, can we have a conversation.

(30m 23s) Tim Chaten:

> Geeky I should say like

(30m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> It’s a great way to get started.

(30m 59s)

> Thanks for watching.

(31m 9s)

> And I’ll see you next week.

(31m 16s) Tim Chaten:

> Does things have a forecast kind of thing that like OmniFocus does?

(31m 35s) Eric Bowers:

> the app. So I…

(31m 39s)

> have sort of rebuilt from the ground up. I actually exported everything out of OmniFocus into a text file. Back in. And then I do some heavy gatekeeping now. So when a task comes in, I’m like, “Is this actually due in three days or four days?”

(31m 57s)

> And I really urge myself to stop creating false due dates. Yeah, so I use Use deferred dates a lot in OmniFocus.

(32m 2s) Tim Chaten:

> Are you using start dates more as a thing? Yeah.

(32m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> What I do is this, let’s say I enter 10 tasks and they’re, you know, call Joe or call Mary,

(32m 14s)

> some variation of all that.

(32m 16s)

> But I know that Joe is like super urgent,

(32m 18s)

> but we don’t have an actual deadline

(32m 22s)

> at which I should be calling him back.

(32m 23s)

> I’ll flag that task.

(32m 25s)

> And then I also have daily routines,

(32m 28s)

> which if there are 10 different subtasks to a routine,

(32m 34s)

> I don’t wanna see, you know,

(32m 35s)

> complete morning routine and 10 subtasks.

(32m 39s)

> I don’t wanna see 11 do items in OmniFocus.

(32m 41s)

> It’s overwhelming.

(32m 41s)

> And that’s actually what had me run for the hills.

(32m 44s)

> I think I got smart enough to figure it out.

(32m 45s)

> Wait a second, OmniFocus is powerful, use it.

(32m 47s)

> So I created a perspective called routines.

(32m 51s)

> And all I have to remember is when I put on my watch in the morning is to check routines.

(32m 57s)

> And the first thing is, you know,

(32m 59s)

> take medication for your eyes.

(33m)

> I have dry eyes, so I take medication.

(33m 2s)

> If I don’t do it, and believe it or not,

(33m 4s)

> even after years, sometimes I’ll just forget, right?

(33m 6s)

> So it’s there.

(33m 9s)

> It’s exercise.

(33m 9s)

> It’s like, you have to look that in the eye and go,

(33m 11s)

> all right, get out there, you know, do it.

(33m 14s)

> So, but without filling up my do spot.

(33m 17s)

> So I’ve created a perspective called focus.

(33m 21s)

> And it’s anything that’s due today,

(33m 23s)

> anything that’s flagged and available,

(33m 27s)

> and any part of my routines,

(33m 29s)

> I have it search for the word routine.

(33m 31s)

> I have a morning, an evening, and a bedtime routine.

(33m 36s)

> So anything with the word routine

(33m 39s)

> is on my focus list.

(33m 40s)

> And that for me has been working amazing.

(33m 41s) Tim Chaten:

> And that list does not show up as like a indicator in your dock with a due number.

(33m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> Right, right, exactly.

(33m 47s)

> It’s the way I have it set up,

(33m 50s)

> and we’ll move on from OmniFocus,

(33m 52s)

> but the way I have it set up is I want it to represent what my day looks like.

(33m 56s)

> That’s one thing that things does very well.

(33m 58s)

> They operate on a time-based system.

(34m)

> So it’s like, here’s today, the every today list.

(34m 2s)

> So I was like, what if I sort of replicated something like that in OmniFocus?

(34m 6s)

> And it’s really made me happy because I’ve–

(34m 9s)

> work down from the–

(34m 9s)

> I go inbox, forecast.

(34m 12s)

> Forecast is literally just do items.

(34m 14s)

> Like, if you just want to zero in on do and hammer through those, get through those today,

(34m 18s)

> then you can feel free to move on.

(34m 21s)

> But then I have it go down to focus, that focus list.

(34m 23s)

> And then after that, it’s like all next available actions sorted by context.

(34m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay

(34m 27s) Eric Bowers:

> So I sort everything by context, again, going back to the GTD.

(34m 30s) Tim Chaten:

> What kind of contacts do you have do you have like I’m out on the road with my just my phone or yeah

(34m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> I have extremely vanilla GTD.

(34m 37s)

> I’m going to read them too.

(34m 39s)

> So, under agendas, I’ve got seven different people that I regularly speak to.

Contexts

(34m 47s) Eric Bowers:

> My wife, a couple of my company owners, my loan processor, my parents-in-law, et cetera.

(34m 53s)

> But then I’ve got calls, the loan origination system I use, errands, home, iPad, iPhone,

(35m 1s)

> MacBook, Safari.

(35m 2s)

> Safari is obviously for online work that can be done on any device, travel.

(35m 9s)

> Well, if I’m not here at home, I’m traveling somewhere.

(35m 12s)

> And if it’s not an errand, like when I just went to my hometown in Ithaca, New York, we just spent a couple of days up there.

(35m 18s)

> Well, I put travel, you know, go get bagels at this coffee place.

(35m 23s)

> Well, I’m in one place at one time, thus travel equals Ithaca.

(35m 27s)

> Okay, so, a waiting for, a waiting for list.

(35m 31s)

> So, anything that I’m waiting for anybody to respond on.

(35m 35s)

> work context so that I’m

(35m 39s)

> not in a hurry. I can print something off my printer at my office which is down the street. Or I also have a writing office where I go to just like I love my family but if I need to just bail and say bye bye I gotta go write and you’re all bugging me. I do a co-work sort of space and that’s been cool. That’s a new brand new thing as of like three weeks ago. And that’s been cool. So those are my tags that represent context. I don’t get much more complicated than that.

(36m 4s) Tim Chaten:

> – Okay, yeah, and OmniFocus 4,

OmniFocus 4

(36m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I was a beta tester, Ken Case reached out to me over Slack like in May of 21,

(36m 9s) Tim Chaten:

> have you upgraded that or are you still on 3?

(36m 14s) Eric Bowers:

> I think it was, he’s like, what do you think about this?

(36m 17s)

> And I was like, holy cow, that doesn’t look like OmniFocus anymore.

(36m 18s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(36m 23s) Eric Bowers:

> And it was just this really early version.

(36m 24s)

> So I’ve been beta testing it all along.

(36m 28s)

> When they had the initial design of OmniFocus 4,

(36m 31s)

> I wasn’t really sure where they were going with it.

(36m 33s)

> And I was like, this looks very complicated, and I bailed.

(36m 36s)

> and I went back to things and I was very, to be.

(36m 39s)

> honest, I was sort of depressed.

(36m 39s)

> I was like, all right, I guess that ended my run.

(36m 43s)

> And then they switched to what everyone’s going to see when they search for OmniFocus for today.

(36m 49s)

> And I said, that looks like OmniFocus.

(36m 51s)

> Like now we’ve got the design principles in place and it’s, it’s just awesome.

(36m 57s)

> Once I figured out, like I said, the recent task management snafu and just sort of overbuilding list was, was on me and not them, I was like, yeah,

(37m 6s)

> I’m never changing from this.

(37m 8s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, and you mentioned when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is look at your watch.

(37m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s powerful.

(37m 12s) Tim Chaten:

> The OmniFocus 4 app on the watch is pretty nice.

(37m 17s) Eric Bowers:

> I have not all the perspectives shown on the watch, but my focus list is there.

(37m 23s)

> In fact, my routines list, which only grabs the routines.

(37m 28s)

> That’s where I start the day.

(37m 30s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(37m 30s) Eric Bowers:

> And I just go to it on my watch.

(37m 31s)

> So it’s pretty cool.

(37m 33s)

> But that’s, that is OmniFocus and some of my shortcuts for that.

Sponsor: Glisten

(37m 40s) Tim Chaten:

> This episode of iPad Pros is sponsored by GLSEN.

(37m 43s)

> GLSEN is a different kind of podcast app that helps immerse you in a language you are learning.

(37m 48s)

> GLSEN stands for GoodListen. It is the only podcast player app designed specifically for language learners. Listen to compelling foreign language podcasts on your way to language fluency. GLSEN helps you learn by utilizing repetitive listening workouts,

(38m 2s)

> which are like a trip to the gym for your ears. GLSEN just launched on the iPad late last year,

(38m 8s)

> I’m so happy the iPad version is here.

(38m 11s)

> The GLSEN experience on iPad is awesome.

(38m 14s)

> Most podcast apps, you really aren’t spending too much time in the app,

(38m 18s)

> and spending more of your time just listening to the podcast in the background.

(38m 22s)

> With GLSEN, you are actively listening with the app front and center,

(38m 26s)

> with you doing one of the many audio workouts the app has to offer.

(38m 30s)

> The iPad offers the app plenty of breathing room

(38m 33s)

> to display the transcript of the podcast

(38m 36s)

> and do whatever audio workout you have set the time aside to do.

(38m 40s)

> The color of the iPad Pro lets the app sing,

(38m 43s)

> allowing the podcast episodes to be transcribed

(38m 46s)

> and ready to practice against right away.

(38m 49s)

> The app does support split-screen on the iPad,

(38m 51s)

> so if you do want to put up a dictionary next to the app

(38m 54s)

> or a scratchpad to take notes,

(38m 55s)

> you can very easily do that on iPad.

(38m 58s)

> The GLSEN podcast directory that is optimized for the language you are learning

(39m 2s)

> is also much more friendly to browse on the larger iPad canvas,

(39m 6s)

> discovering foreign language podcasts that much easier.

(39m 10s)

> Glisten also features a super fun high scores tab that encourages you to do an audio exercise every day by showing you your current day streak, how many words you exercised to today,

(39m 22s)

> how many word repeats you did today, and includes the total number of hours you’ve done audio workouts.

(39m 28s)

> The key to stepping beyond introductory language apps is to start listening to native speakers.

Fantastical

(39m 34s) Tim Chaten:

> Glisten immerses you in a foreign language, taking your listening comprehension to the next level!

(39m 40s)

> With Glisten you can learn English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

(39m 47s)

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(39m 50s)

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(39m 54s)

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(39m 58s)

> give Glisten Pro a try to unlock the full feature set.

(40m 2s)

> Learn more at http://www.glisten.ist and look out for GLSEN.

(40m 10s)

> And I’ll see you again on the Apple Vision Pro coming soon.

(40m 13s)

> My thanks to GLSEN for sponsoring this episode of iPad Pros.

(40m 18s)

> Fintastical, that was on the list that you sent to me.

(40m 22s)

> That probably plays pretty nice with Cardhop, I’d imagine.

(40m 25s) Eric Bowers:

> I laugh because I was a Fantastic Al user since 2015.

(40m 26s) Tim Chaten:

> Did you end up using the calendar invite system they have?

(40m 29s)

> What about Fintastical do you love as a business owner?

(40m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> And then when the pandemic hit, I actually worked for Flexibits for like six months.

(40m 44s)

> And I did support for them.

(40m 46s)

> And Michael and I are still friendly today, the CEO.

(40m 50s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, Michael Simmons, right?

(40m 50s) Eric Bowers:

> And they just, yeah, Mike Simmons.

(40m 53s)

> And they, those guys just.

(40m 55s)

> They really care about the outcomes.

(40m 58s)

> They really care about the experience, the user experience.

(41m 1s)

> And so many times per day, I’m just entering stuff and fantastic.

(41m 5s)

> How I do on the, um, on the, uh, on the iPad, I’m just, what is it?

(41m 12s)

> Command N and, and I’m entering a new event and then, you know, hitting slash.

(41m 19s)

> Hey, for that is an administrative calendar item.

(41m 23s)

> Right?

(41m 24s)

> So it’s just super smart.

(41m 25s)

> about the way it finds and parses information.

(41m 27s)

> So there’s no, there’s absolutely no equal.

(41m 30s)

> Um, but Cardhop and Fantastical, those, that makes up the people and the time items in my life, and then OmniFocus, those, that’s the triumvirate.

(41m 38s)

> I mean, OmniFocus is the, you know, the driver of the tasks, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

(41m 40s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, that’s like your, that’s your trio, your workhorse trio kind of.

(41m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> So, but Fantastical, I definitely do, to answer your question, I use the openings feature and I have this cool little

(41m 55s)

> keyboard snippet on the iPad and it populates everywhere across my Mac and my iPhone but if a potential customer contacted me, a great example, Saturday we were out shopping for a bed for my parents-in-law and they were like can we talk and I said I went into the text message that they had sent me and I typed FOPMC and it’s like fantastic help openings mortgage conversation is how I

(42m 25s)

> and it spits out this snippet with my website a link to my openings availability and I love it because it has changed my business I spit that out because it’s also like I want to be available right but I also I’m a married man I have little dogs you know the family I need to live my personal life too you don’t you know call a doctor at 7 p.m. and be like drop what you’re doing

(42m 55s)

> now you just don’t do it so I’m like make an appointment and it’s it’s very it’s a mentality

(43m 2s) Tim Chaten:

> You don’t have to spend hours upon hours every week scheduling, which I’d imagine that can take a long time.

(43m 5s) Eric Bowers:

> yeah yeah yeah yeah you got you get people on your schedule very easily and frankly it weeds out folks that are just sort of kicking the tires versus those that are actually serious so it really does Bye.

(43m 18s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. That a text snippet, is that just in the settings app built in?

(43m 25s) Eric Bowers:

> And so the keyboard text replacement.

(43m 29s)

> So I wish that I could write down on the iPad and have it like night nicely hit return and parse a new paragraph, but you actually have to write it on the Mac in a in a text app.

(43m 41s)

> And place it there and then it populates really nicely formula and formatted to the iPad and the iPhone.

(43m 47s) Tim Chaten:

> – Okay, gotcha, yeah.

(43m 47s) Eric Bowers:

> So with with parents.

(43m 48s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, I know text expander is a bit more full feature.

(43m 51s) Eric Bowers:

> Well, I mean, like a text, um, like even a text.

(43m 55s)

> It, the text edit on the Mac, I can put it there.

(43m 59s) Tim Chaten:

> Oh, to actually save it in the settings where it’ll…

(43m 59s) Eric Bowers:

> I can write it there to actually save it into the settings, right.

(44m 3s)

> To format it nicely so that it’s in indented if you want, or a line break,

(44m 4s) Tim Chaten:

> Gotcha.

(44m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> because otherwise, if you do that on an iPad directly or a phone directly,

(44m 14s)

> it is a run on sentence.

(44m 16s)

> Yes.

(44m 16s)

> You have periods in there, but it’s a run on paragraph.

(44m 19s)

> So.

(44m 21s) Tim Chaten:

> Another app you shared with me was the Focus app, and I had not actually seen this app across, you know, all my uses of different devices here, and it looks pretty solid.

Focus app

(44m 31s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah.

(44m 32s) Tim Chaten:

> Can you walk me through how you’re using this?

(44m 36s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, so I have never been diagnosed with ADD or anything like that,

(44m 41s)

> but I tend to get pretty distracted.

(44m 44s)

> And so Focus has sort of saved me from that.

(44m 48s)

> What I do is I pull out three tasks for the day and I put away OmniFocus for the moment.

(44m 56s)

> I grab those three tasks, drag them into Focus,

(44m 59s)

> the application called Focus by…

(45m 1s)

> …meaningful things and then I just literally focus on those three.

(45m 6s)

> Those are the most important three. If I did nothing else in the day, those three drive revenue.

(45m 11s)

> And so what it does is I’ll select a task that I’ve just dragged in there and they say start working on it.

(45m 17s)

> And then a Pomodoro timer comes up. And so I have mine set to the classic, you know, 25 minutes worth of work, five minute break.

(45m 24s)

> And then I even have a shortcut that will kick on the focus mode.

(45m 31s)

> So I’m not distracted from anything else. Sometimes I forget to do that. I’ll just work right out of the Focus application.

(45m 38s)

> But either way, it’s up in the menu bar and the Mac, I wish they did have a menu bar for the iPad.

(45m 45s)

> But what’s really cool is on the iPad, a large alert will come up and just tell you to stop, chill out and take a break.

(45m 54s)

> And that’s pretty good because I’m one of those people that once I get so focused, it’s like, don’t forget to…

(46m 1s)

> …blink, you know, I get so focused on the screen in front of me.

(46m 6s)

> So that application is really simple and it allows me to just focus on three.

(46m 12s)

> And I have that rule, three tasks per day, because you could put 50 things in there, but then now you’re all over the place.

(46m 18s)

> So I use it just for, I don’t know, maybe, I guess, an hour or two a day.

(46m 23s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, to make sure you finish the things you actually really…

(46m 26s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, they’re a good company, too.

(46m 31s)

> If you delete a task, they have a trash can, but then there was no way to empty it.

(46m 36s)

> And I was like, “I don’t want to see things that were literally trash.”

(46m 39s)

> I was like, “Can I just empty the trash?”

(46m 41s)

> And they’re like, “We don’t have that built in yet.”

(46m 43s)

> And they’re like, “We’ll consider it.”

(46m 45s)

> And then they put it in.

(46m 47s)

> And, you know, it’s like I like when companies listen to users.

(46m 54s)

> Flexibits has added features that many people have asked for.

(46m 57s)

> And I asked for phone numbers in the opening.

(47m 1s)

> And they’re like, “I can have a phone number.”

(47m 2s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Yeah.

(47m 3s) Eric Bowers:

> And then it got added, you know, at some point it just got added.

(47m 7s)

> So I like when companies really listen to their end users and take advice.

(47m 10s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Do you, have you experimented with time tracking at all?

Time tracking

(47m 16s) Eric Bowers:

> I actually used to do it.

(47m 18s)

> The last time I did it was when I began as a 1099 with Flexibits on sort of a 90-day basis.

(47m 21s) Tim Chaten:

> Just so, yeah, they could pay you properly.

(47m 25s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, exactly.

(47m 27s)

> Yeah, before becoming a full employee.

(47m 31s)

> I don’t do that.

(47m 33s)

> I probably should.

(47m 35s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, I know some people love it, some not so much.

(47m 35s) Eric Bowers:

> But I feel–

(47m 39s)

> Yeah, no, I tend to stay pretty focused because I know a lot of people say, like,

(47m 45s)

> “I’m only in my task list for 10 minutes a day and then I know what I’m doing.”

(47m 48s)

> I’m constantly in there going, “What do I work on next and next?”

Linea

(47m 53s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Another app in your list you sent over by Icon Factory as well, Linnea, their sketching app.

(47m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> >> Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.

(48m) Tim Chaten:

> Do you use this professionally or just like as a catharsis of just drawing and sketching?

(48m 7s) Eric Bowers:

> What’s really weird is like this, so the book that I’m working on, the novel,

(48m 12s)

> it’s called The Mayor of Blackout County.

(48m 15s)

> And in my mind, I’m seeing it as a movie, right?

(48m 18s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm. Yeah

(48m 18s) Eric Bowers:

> I’m just seeing the scenes.

(48m 19s)

> And of course, I’ve never written a novel,

(48m 21s)

> so you have to describe what you’re looking at, right?

(48m 25s)

> So, so what am I, how do I actually describe this?

(48m 28s)

> In fact, there was a scene that was really important that I needed to lay out.

(48m 32s)

> And I, so I, I said, I need to draw, and I started to do it in Apple Notes.

(48m 36s)

> And I was like, ah, this doesn’t feel quite right.

(48m 39s)

> And then I said, oh yeah, Icon Factory’s got Linnea.

(48m 43s)

> And I picked that up, and, and it’s simple enough for me.

(48m 48s)

> But it’s complex enough, I think, for, for someone that wants to go, like, really deep.

(48m 52s)

> I mean, they, they do their own artwork in it, I think, and those guys are amazing artists.

(48m 55s)

> But yeah, I was able to sketch out this scene.

(48m 58s)

> That was super important.

(49m)

> And then I sat there and I looked at the scene on the iPad and wrote it on my Mac.

(49m 5s)

> And I’m looking at it.

(49m 6s)

> I go, yeah, that’s over there.

(49m 7s)

> That’s over there.

(49m 9s)

> So it helps.

(49m 9s) Tim Chaten:

> That’s really cool. Yeah, like kind of like storyboarding how film directors will…

(49m 11s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah.

(49m 14s)

> Yeah.

(49m 15s)

> But, but like I had to draw, it’s a bedroom scene.

(49m 18s)

> It’s just a, you know, kids in a bedroom.

(49m 20s) Tim Chaten:

> – Yeah.

(49m 20s) Eric Bowers:

> Um, but I had to draw something scary happens and I had to draw like what was happening, you know?

(49m 25s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(49m 25s)

> No, that’s really cool.

(49m 27s)

> I’ve not heard that as a tool for writing and novel writing fiction and all that kind of scares me.

(49m 32s)

> It’s like, I don’t know how,

(49m 33s) Eric Bowers:

> – Yeah, well, there’s this thing and this is a sidebar,

(49m 39s)

> there’s this thing called pancers and plotters.

(49m 43s)

> I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this term,

(49m 44s)

> but I realized I started as a pancer,

(49m 46s)

> as in fly by the seat of your pants and start writing.

(49m 50s)

> Just write, right?

(49m 51s)

> Because I had the skeleton structure in my mind,

(49m 54s)

> I was like, I can just do that.

(49m 55s)

> I don’t need to over plan.

(49m 56s)

> That’s always my thinking, I don’t need to over plan.

(49m 59s)

> And then eventually I go, how do I get from there?

(50m 3s)

> And then you go, oh yeah, I got to start plotting this out,

(50m 7s)

> which leads me to Omni Outliner.

(50m 9s)

> That’s when I look at the skeleton of the story, it’s there.

OmniOutliner and MindNode

(50m 16s) Eric Bowers:

> It might start in mind node, which I use also.

(50m 18s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, I was gonna ask is yeah, I’ve written one book in my life and my node was just such an amazing tool Just brained up everything that branching trees based off initial ideas. And yeah, that was powerful

(50m 28s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, you know what it is?

(50m 32s)

> It’s, it’s those two, um, especially now that my nodes got, uh, an outline feature,

(50m 37s)

> it, um, those two can be similar, those two applications, but Omni outliner, it

(50m 44s)

> was an outliner only, and it’s got really nice organizational capabilities.

(50m 52s)

> You can actually record audio, which I do in it.

(50m 54s) Tim Chaten:

> Oh, interesting.

(50m 55s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah.

(50m 56s)

> So I–

(50m 58s)

> So I use both applications.

(51m 1s)

> If I’m– let’s see.

(51m 3s)

> If I’m like in trouble with an idea and I go,

(51m 7s)

> I don’t know how to do this, I’ve got to start somewhere,

(51m 9s)

> it’s probably going in my node.

(51m 11s)

> And then I just spit out thoughts,

(51m 13s)

> and then I organize them.

(51m 14s)

> And then I go, OK, from here, it’s frozen in time as a kind of a 1.0 of the idea.

(51m 23s)

> And I’ll leave it there, and I’ll export to OmniOutliner.

(51m 26s)

> And then from there I can really–

(51m 28s)

> structure, give it some visual elements, and then of course export to OmniFocus if it’s a project. That’s all pretty easy. It’s easy in my note too, but I like using the application. I like using different applications. Like you could use a small hammer and a big hammer and it’s like the big one’s gonna be more efficient for certain tasks. The small one’s nimble. Right, the small one’s nimble, the big one could truly damage your wall and go “oops” so you

(51m 49s) Tim Chaten:

> And it could damage your wall for other tasks.

(51m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> have to be careful. But I use both of those. And actually on the iPad, my note has really gotten all the keyboard shortcuts I think that the Mac has and you could just fly around that application. They’ve done a great job.

(52m 12s)

> Yeah, I like those guys’ ideas on Canvas. They’re just good peeps.

(52m 18s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Is cellular data important for you and I’ve had like being out about is that you have good coverage with where you’re working?

Cellular Data

(52m 27s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah, I’m in, I’m in the Tampa Bay area. So we switched to like a T-Mobile when we got down here. And so that’s fine for here. So the iPhone is providing the internet to the iPad, because I always buy the Wi Fi only. Right. So like, if I’m at home or my office, or my writing office,

(52m 38s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay, so you don’t have a direct to my

(52m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> I of course have Wi Fi. But if some days, I just want to hop on a bike and say, peace,

(52m 50s)

> I’m out of here and throw the iPad in a backpack and go, you know, right in a forest. I literally did that.

(52m 57s)

> Not too long ago.

(52m 58s)

> It was awesome.

(53m)

> And so that I could make sure that my changes were synced, I was getting decent enough cell reception, and I tethered to the iPad and uploaded it all to the cloud, made sure it was on my iPhone before I left, and took off, you know?

(53m 10s) Tim Chaten:

> That’s awesome. Are there any other apps or tools you use for your day job that we haven’t covered yet?

(53m 15s) Eric Bowers:

> So, yeah.

Mail app

(53m 17s) Eric Bowers:

> For the day job, mail is the big one, Apple Mail.

(53m 20s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, I’m wondering, are there emails like, “I need to come back to this,”

(53m 25s)

> and you send that into OmniFocus somehow?

(53m 29s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, so it’s weird with Outlook, which is what our email is based on.

(53m 35s)

> If you forward the email to OmniFocus using the inbox forwarding email address that you get with OmniGroup, it breaks.

(53m 45s)

> I think it like Outlook somehow breaks it to where you could then

(53m 49s)

> archive that initial email and you’re like, OK, cool, it’s an OmniFocus.

(53m 53s)

> I’m going to tap on the link and then you tap on it and go back

(53m 56s)

> and it just jumps back to your inbox.

(53m 59s)

> And it’s not OmniFocus’s fault because iCloud and Gmail all work just fine with that.

(54m 5s)

> So I think it’s an Outlook thing, but I don’t often forward emails because for privacy’s sake,

(54m 13s)

> I mean, again, OmniFocus is end-to-end encrypted, but for privacy’s sake, I just don’t feel good about it. So often I’ll take the… There’s attachments, I mean, that’s a big one with Apple Mail. I’ll just drag those out from the iPad over to OneDrive and put them in the…

(54m 29s)

> customer file. And then I’ll just archive the email. There’s no need to…

(54m 33s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, and I know with Siri and Apple Mail, you can say, “Remind me of this,” and it’ll have a link in the Reminders app, but I think that’s the only way you can get that link and I think it’s probably unique to the Reminders app, maybe.

(54m 48s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah, that is that is true. I when reminders, I guess the most recent version came out maybe in 2019 or so. I tried it and I was like, Oh, that’s cute. But like, but I found that you could do that. Or I think you could drag tasks right over. So if I do, that’s actually the method I use, like, no matter what platform on if I’ve got an email where I go, gosh, this is way more efficient to just drag the email into OmniFocus. That’s exactly what I do. Just drag it. I don’t use the forwarding feature much.

(54m 59s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, right. Yeah.

(55m 19s) Eric Bowers:

> And then I’ll archive the message.

(55m 21s) Tim Chaten:

> Mm-hmm. Anything else outside of mail?

(55m 24s) Eric Bowers:

> For work? Not really. No, just actually see here if there’s anything else. Yeah.

Pcalc

(55m 33s) Eric Bowers:

> pCalc. Yeah, how could I forget that? I use pCalc constantly. Constantly. pCalc.

(55m 34s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, working in finance, I’d imagine you would be doing calculations.

(55m 40s)

> We finally got the calculator on iPad, I think, this year, didn’t we?

(55m 44s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, right, I, you know, I.

(55m 48s)

> James Thompson that develops Peacock is like a wizard, so like, I’ll just, even if they bring it, you know, they bring it, they brought it everywhere, but I’m just going to keep using that because it’s such a, it’s such a cool app. You can do so much. Yeah, yeah.

(55m 57s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, it’s so much better.

(56m) Eric Bowers:

> So I like that and then actually day one, I use every day to journal about my, you know, work successes, for example.

Day One

(56m 10s) Eric Bowers:

> So, I have a work journal and a personal journal, and then a Bowers voice journal, which Bowers voice is my.

(56m 19s)

> The creative company that I have because I do voiceover work there occasionally as well as writing.

(56m 25s)

> So, I’ll write like wins about the mortgage industry, just because some, it’s a really tough job some days and so you want to come back.

(56m 32s) Tim Chaten:

> I’d imagine the whole housing market’s just been out of whack recently.

(56m 37s)

> I imagine it’s been, could be stressful in that regard.

(56m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah. About half of the people with my position in the US have quit in the past year. Half.

(56m 47s) Tim Chaten:

> just this I imagine just the stress levels trying to like yeah it is hard yeah

(56m 51s) Eric Bowers:

> And the market, it’s just like that right now. 2024 as we speak, it’s really tough. But

(56m 59s)

> those are the apps I use for work. I think where I get more enjoyment out of being geeky with the iPad is the personal side. And then we’ve pretty much talked about.

(57m 9s)

> Like most of the apps, I mean, I use looking at overcast.

(57m 13s)

> I use that, um, for my podcasts on the iPad and,

(57m 18s)

> uh, triode also by the icon factory.

Triode

(57m 22s) Eric Bowers:

> That’s the internet radio app.

(57m 23s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, that’s what I had. I’ve always used broadcast. So I’d honestly heard of Triode.

(57m 29s)

> So it’s like an alternative to that app, Broadcast.

(57m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, it’s very similar, but Icon Factory’s got this.

(57m 38s)

> I cannot ever put my finger on it,

(57m 40s)

> but it’s like a level of whimsy.

(57m 40s) Tim Chaten:

> Their design’s always in another level, yeah.

(57m 42s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah.

(57m 43s)

> Yeah.

(57m 44s)

> That’s just super cool.

(57m 45s) Tim Chaten:

> What do you end up listening to in there? Is it internet radio or is it like live podcasts?

(57m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> So I use all of that.

(57m 50s)

> Oh, no, I listen to internet radio.

(57m 52s)

> So I, years ago, like, I don’t know, 25 years ago,

(57m 56s)

> I worked in radio.

(57m 57s)

> And so I have an affinity for that,

(58m)

> for listening and hearing different broadcasts.

(58m 2s)

> But it’s really cool.

(58m 4s)

> It’s cool to be able to listen to a show from my hometown.

(58m 8s)

> I mean, you know, I can’t get it any other way.

(58m 10s)

> And it’s a live, live acoustic performance show that’s still done at Cornell University.

(58m 15s)

> I just listened to it last night, actually.

(58m 18s)

> And I did it from Triode.

(58m 19s)

> So yeah, yeah.

(58m 21s)

> So I mean, amongst other applications, other stations, I should say.

(58m 25s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. For the book you’re writing, you’re using AI Writer for the bulk of the actual writing?

(58m 26s) Eric Bowers:

> So I use that.

Writing the book

(58m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> Using IA Writer, yes.

(58m 36s)

> And so what I did, I switched from Ulysses years ago to IA Writer.

(58m 42s)

> I used IA Writer first.

(58m 44s) Tim Chaten:

> And I know Scrivener is kind of popular for novel writers because you can keep track of like characters and stuff.

(58m 44s) Eric Bowers:

> And at that point, yeah, that’s like super, super duper.

(58m 53s)

> I started using IA Writer, I think, when it was launched in like, I don’t know, 2010 or 9 or something on the iPad.

(59m)

> And I used that.

(59m 1s)

> And I think at that point, it was iPad only.

(59m 5s)

> It eventually came to the Mac and iPhone.

(59m 6s)

> But they, again, opinionated design, all you get is a blinking Aqua cursor staring at you.

(59m 12s) Tim Chaten:

[Chuckle]

(59m 14s)

[Chuckle]

(59m 14s) Eric Bowers:

> If you go full screen in the iPad, it’s just like, right, right, right, you know?

(59m 16s) Tim Chaten:

[Chuckle]

(59m 20s) Eric Bowers:

> And I like that.

(59m 21s)

> Again, sort of minimalist.

(59m 22s)

> I like that it’s just you and your words.

(59m 27s)

> Alternatives like Ulysses and Scrivener have a really nice library format.

(59m 31s)

> But what I like about IA Writer is…

(59m 34s)

> your data is portable. So it’s all in the Finder or Files app. It’s all in Markdown. So, you know, God forbid they shut down. You could take this somewhere else. And what’s cool is you don’t have to think about your writing first in IA Writer. You could just fire off words. Let’s say it’s a page and you go, “I don’t know where this goes.” And then later you could add that as a as a, I forget what it’s, a code blot.

(1h 4s)

> I forget how they tie it in, but you can hit a certain command and literally start typing the first few letters of what that text document that you wrote previously is called and get it imported into another document so you can kind of glue them together.

(1h 19s)

> It doesn’t matter which order you write things in, you could have some master document later that you could put the structure in by adding different, I keep calling them code blocks,

(1h 29s)

> but they’re not.

(1h 30s)

> They’re writing blocks or something.

(1h 31s)

> Now I’ve got my writer’s…

(1h 33s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Do you expect to be able to do the final output of this book on the iPad? I don’t know if it’s pages. I know they have that EPUB export with an iPad.

(1h 34s) Eric Bowers:

> walk. But.

Final output on iPad?

(1h 46s) Eric Bowers:

> Again, that’s what I love about the iPad if for some reason I didn’t have a MacBook like I would write all the text in I a writer have this story as it should be and then import it into pages and

(1h 58s)

> Say, okay now I’m gonna get it to look like it should and then I’m gonna ship it off to iBooks, you know So that’s an easy way to do it. I think

(1h 1m 6s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, because, oh yeah, even with the pages you can directly upload the iBooks back.

(1h 1m 10s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I I need to experiment with it because I haven’t written a book in six years plus.

(1h 1m 16s)

> So, like, I don’t actually know how that works, but honestly, I didn’t know a thing about iBook’s author and I still got my book out there, so.

(1h 1m 22s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, I miss iBooks Author. I did my one book in iBooks Author, and it had all these fancy widgets and stuff in there.

(1h 1m 24s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, it was cool. Yeah.

(1h 1m 30s) Tim Chaten:

> And Pages has some of that, but it’s just not as powerful with that stuff.

(1h 1m 35s)

> And it’s just sad that they kind of abandoned the more powerful stuff.

(1h 1m 39s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I know. I mean, I get what Apple’s doing and making it more universal, right? But,

(1h 1m 39s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah.

(1h 1m 42s)

> It’s more universal.

(1h 1m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> but, but, yeah, I could, I’ll write the whole thing here and, and then save all my, any screenshot. Well, not that I need to do a lot for a novel, but I would save those in photos on the iPad and then import them into pages.

(1h 1m 58s) Tim Chaten:

> – Mm-hmm.

(1h 2m 2s)

> Do you anticipate hiring someone to do the book cover art,

Book Cover Art

(1h 2m 6s) Tim Chaten:

> or is that something you’ll tackle yourself?

(1h 2m 9s) Eric Bowers:

> I will tackle it myself only because my wife, aside from being an educator, does really excellent photography on the side.

(1h 2m 16s)

> And she took a picture of the place, a place, that the book is centered around.

(1h 2m 25s)

> And I kind of doctored it up in Canva.

(1h 2m 28s)

> I might give it to somebody to say, “Okay, now make it look like a real book cover.”

(1h 2m 33s)

> But the basic element, I would say it’s 70% the cover. I look at it still after three, four years.

(1h 2m 39s)

> After taking these photos, I was like, “Yeah, this is what it should look like.”

(1h 2m 42s) Tim Chaten:

> Awesome. Yeah, I know that that for me was like I

(1h 2m 43s) Eric Bowers:

> So, yeah.

(1h 2m 47s)

> Yeah, I’m like creative with audio, but not video, not pictures.

(1h 2m 53s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, the visuals, yeah.

(1h 2m 54s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, the visuals.

(1h 2m 57s) Tim Chaten:

> And then you mentioned earlier, you record audio and you did this at OmniOutliner.

Audio recordings

(1h 3m 3s) Tim Chaten:

> In your notes to me, you also mentioned voice memo.

(1h 3m 6s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah

(1h 3m 6s) Tim Chaten:

> You’re recording what people are saying in the book, or how’s that work?

(1h 3m 12s) Eric Bowers:

> So behind me I have a vocal studio and

(1h 3m 16s)

> There’s a I’m gonna read the audio book and I have honestly yet to decide if I’m gonna read it

(1h 3m 22s)

> In some version of my own voice or if I’m gonna do characters throughout

(1h 3m 26s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, because that’s, yeah, audiobooks, the performers always fascinate me with, like,

(1h 3m 32s)

> the, you know, change of their voice for each character, remembering what they all sound like,

(1h 3m 35s)

> and, like, that’s, that’s, it seems challenging to me as someone that records a lot of audio.

(1h 3m 36s) Eric Bowers:

> >> Right, right, right.

(1h 3m 39s)

> Well, so that’s the thing.

(1h 3m 41s)

> What you just said, do I want to add that level of complexity?

(1h 3m 44s)

> But what I’m doing is as I go along, I’m recording a character,

(1h 3m 50s)

> you know, that maybe has a heavy New York accent, you know,

(1h 3m 54s)

> Long Island accent or something like that.

(1h 3m 55s)

> I’m like, okay, they obviously have to sound like this.

(1h 3m 57s)

> And so I’ll just spit that out into voice memos.

(1h 4m)

> I’ve started toying with the idea of putting out an Omni Outliner because it records and I can literally.

(1h 4m 6s)

> But, you know, you have to imagine a document where you say characters and you could put all these different names and literally underneath a recording of what they sound like in one document.

(1h 4m 15s)

> I think it’ll handle it pretty well because the average speaking part, just for me to remember how to form my mouth and my nose or whatever that I’m trying to do with the character’s voice probably takes 15 seconds per character.

(1h 4m 30s)

> And if there’s 50 characters, I mean, it’s not that bad.

(1h 4m 33s) Tim Chaten:

> – Yeah, not bad at all.

Print

(1h 4m 34s) Tim Chaten:

> As far as distribution,

(1h 4m 36s)

> is print something you hope to get into at this book?

(1h 4m 40s) Eric Bowers:

> I really do. I really do because I self-published the last one. That was a great experience.

(1h 4m 45s)

> I’m going to do the same thing, I think, but a business partner of mine said he’s got a publisher I think in Manhattan that will help me to get it into physical form. I just don’t know. In my last book, I have literally only one paper copy exists and it’s sitting five feet to my right, just so I can hold it and say, “Hey, I wrote this and I did it on Amazon.”

(1h 4m 57s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay

(1h 5m 2s)

> Yeah

(1h 5m 5s)

> Yeah, I wish I did that for for my book it’s purely digital and I just Apple still make you get a nice be a number for iBooks

(1h 5m 14s) Eric Bowers:

> They don’t, they didn’t make me, but I gave them one, I believe.

(1h 5m 17s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay

(1h 5m 20s)

> Yeah, I remember I it’s like at the time when I published it was like a requirement

(1h 5m 25s)

> I was like, okay, let me set the body and get.

(1h 5m 26s) Eric Bowers:

> If I have a physical version, it’s definitely going to be required.

(1h 5m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> An ISVN number and yeah, right.

(1h 5m 33s) Eric Bowers:

> So I’ll get all that.

(1h 5m 35s)

> That’s the murky part.

(1h 5m 36s)

> That’s the part that’s got me scared.

(1h 5m 39s)

> So the book went on pause.

(1h 5m 40s)

> Once COVID hit, I got sort of bummed out about where the world was, I think as most people did.

(1h 5m 46s)

> And my creativity just went to the side.

(1h 5m 50s)

> And then it came roaring back, because I guess I also had the fear that I was going to be first in the third act, but I didn’t really have the second act yet.

(1h 5m 59s)

> I mean, I knew what I needed to get to.

(1h 6m 3s)

> But the glue, I was like, I don’t want this to be filler.

(1h 6m 7s)

> And it was that thing where I was sort of forcing filler.

(1h 6m 9s)

> And I just I took a break and I stepped back.

(1h 6m 12s)

> And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

(1h 6m 13s)

> I was like, Okay, that’s what needs to happen.

(1h 6m 15s)

> And I’m in the middle of that right now.

(1h 6m 17s)

> And so I’m in the second act, I’m pretty deep into it.

(1h 6m 20s)

> The third act I could write in a week.

(1h 6m 24s)

> But all that being said, the part of–

(1h 6m 26s)

> me that was the procrastinator was the actual getting the book out to the public.

(1h 6m 31s)

> Like, should I do a new site?

(1h 6m 33s)

> Like, should I just have it, you know, be a site that you can land on, on Bauer’s Voice,

(1h 6m 38s)

> which is what it currently is now.

(1h 6m 40s)

> It’s under my book section.

(1h 6m 42s)

> You’ll see a little snippet about– a teaser about it.

(1h 6m 45s)

> And so, I can definitely do the whole publication, but that part stresses me out.

(1h 6m 54s)

[laughs]

(1h 6m 55s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Do you have a synopsis of the book at this point?

(1h 6m 56s) Eric Bowers:

> But I’ll get through it.

Synopsis

(1h 7m 2s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, so it’s a story about a musician who’s battling alcoholism as well as some unexpected family dynamics.

(1h 7m 13s) Tim Chaten:

> Okay. That sounds interesting. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. No, it’s fine. Yeah.

(1h 7m 14s) Eric Bowers:

> It’s, yeah, there’s a lot more to it,

(1h 7m 17s)

> but I can’t say too much ’cause it’ll give it away.

(1h 7m 19s)

> But I would be excited to see.

(1h 7m 21s) Tim Chaten:

> And then do you have like a, a length in mind? Like as far as like,

(1h 7m 26s) Eric Bowers:

> 300 pages-ish.

(1h 7m 27s) Tim Chaten:

> okay. So decent, decent, a decent length book. Yeah. Okay. That’s awesome.

(1h 7m 30s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, I’ve got like 160 written.

BowersVoice.com

(1h 7m 33s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. And then Dower’s voice is at least one place.

(1h 7m 37s)

> You’ll be able to kind of follow your progress with that.

(1h 7m 38s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, bowersvoice.com. I’ll always link to the book from that. And that’s where I do any blog writing. I’ve written about fantastic Alan Omnifocus there. It’s a little, you know,

(1h 7m 50s)

> my nerdy corner of the internet.

(1h 7m 51s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, and anything we haven’t covered yet that you want to before we wrap it up?

OmniPlan and OmniGraffle

(1h 7m 58s) Eric Bowers:

> Um, the only other thing because I’m such a completionist I’ve got the other two omni focus product or omni group products I’ve got omni grapple and plan and

(1h 8m 5s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah. Do you end up using, like, I want to find a reason to use all of their apps because they’re so great, but I struggle with some of them to like, how do I use this?

(1h 8m 14s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah

(1h 8m 16s)

> I Literally would have said the same thing to you

(1h 8m 20s)

> Two months ago, but I went on this vacation in December and they said alright, I’m gonna shut the world off I’m gonna wear an omni plan I’m gonna

(1h 8m 28s)

> wear in this thing because graffled you know what it does I actually if you see the logo for Bowers voice I did that and I’m the grapple so it’s its only job it’s like diagramming I could do a quick logo like totally cool I get it I’m not an artist but it’ll keep me in perpendicular lines plan I sat down on the plan I sat down and I was like well what’s it good at I’m not managing some you know construction of a 40-story tower but I am

(1h 8m 58s)

> managing my life so what does this look like I was like well it’s all about deliverables and time frames I if I take the cost sensibility out of it the time frame is really important to any project I said what if I just ran a document for 2024 that that was the big project and said okay I’m gonna break down my large milestone projects into quarters and I want to see visually where I am in the year and then it’ll show me in a Gantt chart

(1h 9m 28s)

> what projects where I’m supposed to be in these projects because omni-focus is great you’ve got your all your projects on a list but to see it visually in that way too I mean I don’t I think I paid $100 to upgrade it to the non pro version it’s like that’s all it did I mean I’d pay someone a hundred bucks to give me a kick in the butt and say hey get on these projects so that’s kind of that’s good that’s what plan does for me and I’ve let it be no more than

(1h 9m 58s)

> ten milestones you figure less than one a month some of those are smaller one of them’s published this book you know that’s huge so I wanted it to be realistic as well I didn’t want it filled with 40 projects so I use all

(1h 10m 15s) Tim Chaten:

> It’d be interesting if you could create a genericized version of that.

(1h 10m 20s)

> Because I think a lot of people would be interested in using Plan for that.

(1h 10m 25s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah, I could probably put something together if we if you needed a copy of it or something I could probably put something together

(1h 10m 30s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, that’d be awesome.

(1h 10m 34s) Eric Bowers:

> But that’s that’s it I think we like we covered pretty much everything as I look at the applications they’re here everything Oh one I want to give a shout out to two quick applications that I use all the time on the iPad

Ivory

(1h 10m 46s) Eric Bowers:

> I Don’t love Twitter. I’ll never call it the other name

(1h 10m 51s) Tim Chaten:

> Sure, yes.

(1h 10m 51s) Eric Bowers:

> And so I bounced over to Mastodon.

(1h 10m 55s)

> In November of 22 and by the way, I remember the day that Twitterific was killed.

(1h 11m 3s)

> It was so sad.

(1h 11m 4s)

> It was like the worst, the worst.

(1h 11m 7s)

> But anyway, I bounced over to Mastodon and I picked up Ivory, which I’m enjoying.

(1h 11m 13s)

> It’s a very nice experience.

(1h 11m 15s)

> So Ivory from Mastodon and then Mercury Weather.

Mercury Weather

(1h 11m 19s) Eric Bowers:

> I didn’t see it coming, but Malin from the triple.

(1h 11m 25s)

> Glaze Studios, I think is the name of the company that makes Mercury, was on another podcast with Ken Case and I happened to be listening to that and I was like, “Is this Mercury?”

(1h 11m 33s) Tim Chaten:

> Yeah, Mac Power Users, I believe. Yeah.

(1h 11m 36s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, yeah.

(1h 11m 37s)

> Yeah, that’s right.

(1h 11m 38s)

> So I went and checked it out and I was like, "Whoa, this is a really nice design.

(1h 11m 42s)

> I’m a sucker for design."

(1h 11m 44s)

> And here in Florida, the precipitation in the Apple Weather app, it’s not super accurate because Florida is real finicky.

(1h 11m 51s) Tim Chaten:

> No? Okay.

(1h 11m 53s) Eric Bowers:

> So, Merck–

(1h 11m 55s)

> Mercury is very accurate.

(1h 11m 57s)

> And I don’t know where it’s getting its data,

(1h 11m 59s)

> I didn’t really look into it too much, but I mean, I got a deal on the first year subscription.

(1h 12m 3s)

> I said, “Well, this is my weather app.”

(1h 12m 5s)

> And I’ve got it on the watch, and the iPad, and the phone, and the Mac,

(1h 12m 7s)

> so it’s everywhere now.

(1h 12m 9s)

> I just wanted to give a shout-out to them, but yeah, that’s my stack.

Mastodon

(1h 12m 13s) Tim Chaten:

> Excellent. Yeah. And where can people follow you on a message?

(1h 12m 17s) Eric Bowers:

> I am @eabowers B-O-W-E-R-S @techhub Tech Hub.

(1h 12m 21s) Tim Chaten:

> @mastodon dot. Okay, cool. It’ll be linked to you in the notes.

(1h 12m 25s) Eric Bowers:

> Yeah, that’s that.

(1h 12m 29s)

> Yeah, thank you, but the two at symbols still you could see it’s like a stumbling block for me. I still haven’t. I haven’t said that too much, right?

(1h 12m 36s) Tim Chaten:

> No, yeah, it makes it a little bit more complicated to find people, for sure.

(1h 12m 36s) Eric Bowers:

> I haven’t said that address.

(1h 12m 40s)

> EA Bowers at Tech Hub dot social. That’s the best place and then bowersvoice.com.

(1h 12m 42s) Tim Chaten:

> Cool. Well, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been fascinating learning about how you work. Yeah.

(1h 12m 45s) Eric Bowers:

> You can always find me there.

(1h 12m 50s)

> Yeah. Thanks Tim for having me. I really appreciate it. You got a great show.

(1h 12m 54s)

> I love how in-depth–

(1h 12m 55s)

> I got to say that because it’s a longer form interview and it just leads to some really good questions and

(1h 13m 2s)

> some apps that you’ve never heard of maybe and you dive into. So, thank you.

(1h 13m 7s) Tim Chaten:

> You’re welcome.

(1h 13m 8s)

> Yeah, absolutely.

(1h 13m 9s)

> Well, that’s my discussion with Eric.

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