The Ultimate Apple Productivity Setup - Capture, Organize, Take Action

today I now manage two YouTube channels on top of a busy life filled with projects and hobbies so in this video I'm going to talk about how I manage all of this utilizing strictly Apple software split across my main three devices which are my Mac iPad and iPhone now full disclosure for my YouTube channels only there are a few more apps I like to use like things and notion but it's more out of the interest of Science and being able to share new content here everything in this video will be 100% geared to Apple hardware

and software but if other productivity apps interest you hit subscribe and expect more soon so let's get into it when breaking down my system I look at it as three main categories which are capture organize and take action if I can do all three efficiently and seemlessly I know I have a good system that works for me in all honesty one of the biggest pros of using Apple's first-party apps is that they save you a lot of time and the reason is because of the ease of use and that they are so low maintenance from

a user perspective I I don't need to think about app companies being sold or disbanded about extra subscriptions or compatibility issues between all my various devices but before we get into the first step which is capture let me break down my Hardware first and how each is being utilized as a tool in my workflow always with me is my iPhone 15 Pro which is my second brain in my pocket this device allows immediate action whether adding a new tasks and reminders or checking something off as I'm out and about or while working on a project

for me it is an instant resource for anything I need to look up which I'm sure any of us could relate to lastly it is the device that is getting probably 95% of my Siri commands now sometimes I may use my Apple watch Ultra 2 in a pinch but I give the iPhone the edge in reliability for all the requests I put at it and I enjoy the faster more intuitive confirmation that Siri has actually done what I described second on the mobile front is my iPad Pro which is the second generation 11-in version if

I'm not AK this is a 2020 model and while I have major fomo of the latest M series iPad pros this thing has been absolutely solid day in and day out for me the iPad sort of serves as my daily planner it's the first thing I check when I get up for to-dos and calendars and it's the last thing I am on before bed there I'm usually tidying up my to-do list cranking out any last notes for the day doing research and so forth as I no longer have a laptop it is my mobile machine

and I will do things like Ed at photos in Lightroom work on thumbnails or whatever when I'm on the go the Beast that serves as sort as the hub for all of this is my M1 Max studio it has 32 gigs of RAM and 2 tbte hard drive and this thing ensures that everything is centrally backed up in conjunction with iCloud and my Nas the jump to the M series chips from my Intel machine was a huge leap and has been worth every penny for things like video editing for this channel I cannot give it

enough Praises for the intensive and deep work I put it through so now that you know the tools of the trade we start with capture capturing info or to-do can happen in many ways my main app of choice is Apple reminders here I have my list for the day automatically available based on assigned dates if there is a specific activity to get ready for such as a weekend camping trip I'll utilize a shareed list between my wife and I that we can use throughout the week to make sure we are covered if a friend tells

me about a new place to visit or a movie to watch I also have dedicated lists to capture those thoughts all in one place so when the moment is right I have that list at hand Now reminders also has some of this extra muscle that it didn't have earlier on for example if I didn't want to manually organize my reminders in a different list I could do more with hashtags and smart list let's say you use reminders for work and your personal life you could add the tag work to any work related task and those

could all be housed in a single list another neat feature of reminders is viewing your list and its various sections in a combon view I find this view really helpful if items in my list or the project itself has a few different steps or phases and recently I saw a friend use it in a really useful way to see activities in each separate day of a vacation I myself do go back and forth with using this feature with reminders you can also create templates which I'm starting to use more and more let's say you have

the same series of to-dos you want to use over and over maybe for tuning up your yard equipment Every Spring in reminders you can make a template so that at any time you can have a fresh to-do list to work off of those tasks the notes app in comparison to the reminders app is certainly the ideal choice for longer form content whether you want to capture articles recipes guides and more with notes you can also do things like document scanning by tapping the camera icon within a note and tapping scan documents this way if you

wanted to add pages of a manual or something from your taxes to a note you can take a photo and import the pages in a very streamlined way to really speed this up you can hold your finger on the notes icon and click scan document to capture something without actually having to go into the app the last thing I want to mention on capturing notes is the ability to do quick notes if I need to capture something really quick that I want to organize later I've added this quick note icon to my control panel which

I can access by swiping down if I create a quick note all of them are put into their own C category called you guess it quicknotes at the top of my notes app for easy Discovery often I will go into my quick notes and clean up what appears there by deleting them or moving them to my main notes folder after I've made any necessary additions or edits almost think of it as a simple inbox for a bonus hack if you create a quick note while reading an email or visiting a web page you can easily

add the email or web link to your quick note for easy reference later all I do is swipe again into the control panel and start a quick note while on let's say the specific web page this is just another example of where Apple's first-party apps can really shine my last example for capturing information has to do with continuity features built into the operating systems of my devices if I am browsing a website on mobile but I need to give the page a little extra love and attention I can easily click the browser icon on my

Mac stock to continue what's at hand in a similar fashion if I have copied text on one device I can paste it on a different device in the blank of an eye kids when I was your age we had to email stuff to ourselves to do things just like that seriously now we move on to organize now if I have somewhat responsibly captured information with my devices in the correct areas and with the correct details the organized portion should be easier but there are a few ways to make things even better in the notes app

I will pin things to the top for easy access if they are very important in order to speed up my workflow for example I keep my ongoing Journey Journal of thoughts for this channel as well as other safe passwords and details I need in life as a private note all pinned to the top of the app similarly you can do the same within the reminders app with different lists for me I have all default notes go to a list I've created called inbox which is pinned to the top of my app in notes I can

continue to use hashtags or taging things or easy access later just as I showed earlier with reminders but there are also other tricks up notes sleeve for organizing information one of the those is by being able to link to different notes for example if I was finishing my basement I could have a master note that links to other notes dealing with details on Plumbing electricians tasks I'm going to DIY furniture that needs to be bought and more so that in a way I've almost made my own Wiki where I can easily jump to appropriate notes

in my collection the last thing I will mention for organizing is what I do in calendars for my wife and I having a calendar that we both automatically see without having to invite the other person for each entry as an extra step is crucial furthermore we'll break out our life in extra color-coded calendars revolving around things like our camping calendar or things for the kids like Cub Scouts or Sports so we can easily plan for our weeks the final step of the journey where the rubber meets the road is taking action the first thing I'll

cover is simply getting in the zone if I need to get something done and avoid distractions I'll enable a focus mode which will silence notifications while I work as part of this I can also change things like which apps show on my home screen during a focus mode if let's say I only want my work apps to show while I'm at work once I've turned off distractions I often use the Pomodoro Technique and set a timer with the goal of complete Focus until that timer goes off for those of you that are not familiar with

this concept it literally is the practice of doing work in short Sprints and setting a timer and when the timer goes off you take a small 51 minute break before starting the next Sprint so when my timer goes off I make sure I take a break to stretch stretch get some water and whatever else fits the mood before I dive back in the simplest way for me is just to pick up my watch or phone and tell Ser to set a timer from anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour if I want a little more

background noise but that isn't too distracting I may also listen to a rainy White Noise track or some movie score that has a set length such as a half hour and work until the Music Stops switching topics I find that having widgets on my devices can be a big help my favorite one currently around productiv acity is my reminders widget that utilizes a smart list when you create the reminders widget you have the option for it to show one list and one list only the problem I had with this is not only did I want

to see my inbox because that's usually the latest and greatest things I wanted to tackle that are on my mind but I also wanted to be sure to see my today list in case there was anything scheduled on that specific day that I needed to take care of my solution to this was to go into the reminders app and create a smart list called today/ inbox basically it's one list that I've edited to automatically include both my inbox and the today list once that was created I could edit my widget to utilize my new smart

list in order to see exactly what I want on my home screen my final hack for taking action continues to revolve around these smart themes and just taking things like reminders or calendar items one step further an example of this is asking sirity remind me about something when I get to a certain location like home or having a reminder automatically display the next time I send a text to a specific person if you've never dived into some of these features I highly recommend giving them a shot for calendars it could be as simple as setting

an alert prior to the start time of an event in order to give me time for traveling or getting things ready for me I cannot trust my lizard brain to do it all on its own so I honestly feel like I could create a video on this topic at least three times in length as there's so much more to unpack but I hope this provided some useful tips or inspiration for your ways of getting things done within the Apple ecosystem with a little lock hopefully this further Expos the beauty of cloud-based apps and to use

a buzz expose the synergies of using Hardware all within a single ecosystem if you enjoyed the video please hit the like button subscribe if you want more videos like this and I will see you on the next one