Scrivener, my goto writing app

June 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I am finding myself using Scrivener, the writing application from Laureatte and Latte, for more and more of my writing. For a writing application I suppose this is good news, and to be expected. However, I bought Scrivener to write fiction, and now I am finding it useful for almost every piece of writing I do.

I suppose it is the way that the application can be configured in so many ways, many of which I still haven’t got my head around, that make it so versatile. Being a productivity geek, list writer and index card user, I find the virtual cork board a wonderful tool. The variety of export functions from html, epub to standard text formats, means that my finished work can be ready for its purpose. I am able to plan, develop, write and then publish my content all from one application.

I am using Scrivener for fiction, non-fiction reports, research, blogging and general idea development. The list is growing too, as I find out more about the application. I thought it was worth the cost just to write fiction, but now I am using it for most of the writing I do, it has become one of my best buys ever.

Just to balance things out, Scrivener has got a lot of functionality and it can be daunting to get your head around. But, I am a geek, and one of the joys of geekdom is playing with a piece of software and discovering what it can do. There are a lot of tutorials online and that helps, but just to warn you, it may take a while to feel comfortable using it. They do offer a free trial version though, so if you want to see what it can do, you can have 30 days at no cost.

If you want an application that will help the process of writing, then Scrivener could be for you. It was originally a Mac app, but there is a windows version available, and with a free trial available, what’s stopping you form giving it a go and creating something wonderful!

Filed Under: Productivity, Publishing Tagged With: , , , ,

Toggle, the best way to track your time?

February 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Since leaving the cosy world of full-time employment, I have been working on many and varied things. I work part-time for one organsitaion, whilst setting up my own business and also dabbling in other creative ventures.

In short, life has become complicated. I need to keep track of what I am doing and who I am doing it for. Salvation has come my way in the shape of Toggl.

Toggl homepage

Toggl homepage

What is Toggl?

Quite simply Toggl enables you to track what you spend your time on. It is a simple approach to keeping a handle on how long tasks take.

When you start to work on something you set the timer running, fill in what you’re working on and let it count the minutes. This enables you to keep track of all the different projects and clients. Each task can have a title, be assigned to a list or project and also be tagged. In addition you can have several workspaces, so working on projects with teams can be tracked.

This is just the surface of the app though. If you forget to track something it is easy to go back and fill in the details retrospectively. This is really helpful for those of us who often jump into projects when the inspiration strikes, and think about the practicalities later *cough*.

Web, app and offline Toggl

Toggl comes in several flavours. The main app is online, but it has a desktop version and a mobile app. Wherever you are, you are able to track what you are doing. Each version seamlessly syncs, and if you’re offline syncing takes place the next time you are connected.

At the web app you’re able to see at a glance everything you have done and you can find weekly reports, which can be exported as CSV or PDF documents.

All this is in the free version, but for a very modest fee you can go pro. This brings into play, amongst other features, billing, enabling you to cost your time. It also allows integration with a host of other apps including Basecamp and Freshbooks, and the ability to share reports with clients.

Sometimes, and this is rare, I have had some interesting syncing issues, but these have been easily rectified manually.

The benefit of Toggl

The key benefit with Toggl is its simplicity to track your time, while having some very powerful features when you go pro and sync it with other productivity tools. If you do freelance work or work on multiple projects and you need to keep a track of how you spend your time, then Toggl is an ideal starting place.

Filed Under: Digital Tagged With: ,

Having a mid-year sort out

August 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

Well it is more than a mid-year sort out. For a variety of reasons, that may or may not become apparent over the next few months I am having a major reorganisation. This is partly due to an underlying realisation that I have over-complicated too many things, and linked with an interest in minimalism. There is also an inbuilt spiritual dimension to focussing on ‘needs’ rather than ‘wants’. I’ll expand on this in future posts.

stripped_wall

Bookmarks and bookmarking

One of the things that has been bugging me is the colossal number of bookmarks I had collected in my browser. Having a job that demands that I keep up to date with all things internet I had accumulated far too many. I hadn’t organised them and many of the sites hadn’t been used or even visited since I clicked the bookmark button.

So I set about sorting them out. I created folders that related to actions, based on the article by Gina Trapani, and then went through all my bookmarks putting them into the right folders. The only bookmarks (sites) I kept were those I would use.

Google sync vs. xmarks

A while back I switched from xmarks cross-browser bookmarking service to chrome’s built in sync service. For a while I was quite happy with this, until I tried to actually delete a bookmark. It seems the chrome sync doesn’t like deleting bookmarks. There are plenty of forum threads discussing this, but I didn’t have time to look for a solution. So I disabled the bookmark aspect of the syncing service and returned to xmarks.

Long and winding road

I have plenty more to do on my journey to a simpler life, but at least the bookmarks are sorted. I’m sure some are wondering why I didn’t simply delete all the bookmarks and start again? I could have, but I had already tried that some time ago. I put all the old bookmarks into a folder and decided that I would delete the folder after a set time if I hadn’t used it. But I did use it and many of the bookmarks in there were needed. I knew the only way forward was to sort it out, so I did.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , , , ,
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