I’m still getting accustomed to the new Mac laptop, and trying out various pieces of software, but I’m already finding that the Mac productivity tools, software interface and general usability make it a far more productive machine for me. It wasn’t until I started using a Mac that I realized that a lot of Windows applications do things in a clumsy way, or realized that I was using a lot of work-arounds and ‘rigging’ stuff to do the things I needed to do. Not so for the Mac. The Mac tools and software are showing me a whole new way to use my machine, and ultimately making my daily tasks much more simple. What Mac software has really been floating my boat, and how has it made such a big difference?
Stickies for Mac
I was poking around the Apps folder just to see what the Mac comes with when I ran across a program called “Stickies.” Stickies is exactly how it sounds – post-it notes for your Mac. When I opened it, there were a couple of different stickies pre-loaded with options for formatting and instructions for using the app. I immediately proceeded to start using Stickies for pretty much every project.
In Windows, I’d often have a text document (typically WordPad) open with some data that I wanted to reference for the project, such as bullet points for an article or article topics for a large project. I’d have to constantly be switching back and forth between the windows, or I’d have to resize the windows so they’d both fit on my screen. Both worked.
But with Stickies – it’s exactly what I’d want for a task like this. It’s a small little window that is designed to be a small little window, with a simple, clean UI, that can sit on the side of my screen while I work. And since Mac programs typically don’t take up the whole screen by default, I don’t have to ‘resize’ my windows because the window is already sized in such a way that I can easily see the Stickies. It’s a simple program, but it’s drastically simplified the way I work.
Pages
Pages is the Mac word processor – the Mac equivalent of Microsoft Word. Pages has much the same functionality as Word, but the UI is cleaner and more streamlined. Because I’m now a Mac user in a Windows world, I have both iWork (the Mac productivity suite) and Microsoft Office for Mac on my laptop. Honestly, I prefer Pages. It has a cleaner look, and it’s just more pleasant to type in.
I didn’t realize until I switched to Mac how corporate and… stark all of the Windows programs look. Mac programs just feel friendlier; they have softer edges, simpler, clean UIs and are generally less abrasive and more welcoming than Windows apps. Pages gives me this love in a big way. I’ve been doing most of my work in Pages and then saving it as Word files, instead of doing the work directly in word. I find I want to work more when I’m working in Pages.
Things
Since the Mac was doing productivity things so well for me, I decided to try a Mac to-do list program. Before the laptop, I managed my to-do lists (primarily for work) on paper to-do sheets that a friend of mine created. They were self-organizing to-do lists with time tracking, and they really worked for me as productivity tools. But the problem with the paper to-do list is having to carry the list around with you. As a freelancer, I work in many places. I work at home. I work in coffee shops. I work in offices. The fewer things I have to carry around with me, the happier I am. Hence, Things.
I settled on Things after checking out various to-do apps for the Mac. I first went looking for iGTD, but it turns out that iGTD is no longer being developed because the developer went to go work on Things. OmniFocus looks pretty awesome, and they hired the developer who used to work on Kinkless, which is another highly-regarded Mac to-do program, but the price of OmniFocus is prohibitive – $80. Things looked like a simpler, cleaner version of OmniFocus, and with a price tag at $50 – still high for a productivity program but lower than Omni – Things got my attention. I’m currently working on the 10-day free trial, but will probably buy it when I’m done.
I like that Things is based on the GTD methodology. It’s smart; it automatically moves things around and can keep track of stuff so I don’t have to. You can put files or URLs in your to-do reminders, so I don’t have to go hunting for something again when the task pops up – I can just click on the file, URL, or email and everything I need is right there. The dock icon tells me how many pending items I have for the day, and there’s probably more functionality that I haven’t unlocked yet – but Things looks well-suited to my needs.
iBiz
For a long time, I resisted the call of billing, invoicing, and time-tracking software. My business structure is not particularly complex. I’ve used QuickBooks in the past, and if I had a more complex business, I might use it now. But I don’t, and most of the stuff out there seemed unnecessarily complicated, so I created my own home-brew system for billing and invoicing. I used Word documents to generate invoices, and then PDFed them for emailing to clients or printing. I’d then have to remember when to follow up, because I wasn’t using a to-do or anything that would prompt me to follow up.
When I started using the task sheets that my friend designed, I started time-tracking for those sheets, and found that it really helped me to get a handle on my productivity. But I was time-tracking with a timer on my iPhone, and manually recording the hours. On the whole, it worked, but it wasn’t a particularly good system, and it wouldn’t scale up. None of it was meant to be done the way I did it – it was just a cheap, lazy workaround.
Enter iBiz. I checked out various billing, invoicing, and time-tracking programs for the Mac. iBiz seemed to have a useful interface, and it could manage most of my needs quite simply. I’m currently using iBiz for my billing and invoicing. The way I run my business means that iBiz isn’t quite optimal for me – there are some things I wish it could do that it doesn’t do, but my needs are atypical, so I don’t think that’s a fault on the part of the software developer. I don’t think anything that’s out there could do everything I want it to do, the way I want to do it. I’m currently still using iBiz on a trial version, but I’ll probably buy it.
Tweetie, Adium, Growl, Mail, iTunes and Google Chrome
Distraction is a danger for any self-employed individual. I find it to be personally even more of a danger, because much of my work requires me to surf the Web for research. I’m already on the Web, so it’s easy to think “Oh, I’ll just look up this one thing” – and then find that I’ve managed to waste an hour while my work is piling up. (Hence the time-tracking.) I love the way Mac manages many of the tasks I would distract myself with, thus negating the distraction.
For example, on my Windows machine, I didn’t have a desktop Twitter client. I just wasn’t all that fond of any of them. I tried a few, but wasn’t “wow”ed. So I’d pretty much check Twitter compulsively between articles, or even while I was doing research, either on my computer or on my iPhone.
On the Mac, I’m using Tweetie. Tweetie sits quietly along the side of my screen. Because Mac windows don’t take up the whole screen, I can see the edge of the Tweetie interface behind whatever window I’m working on. Tweetie has an indicator when new timeline items, mentions or direct messages come in, so I can glance over, see if anything new has arrived, and then keep working. I don’t feel compelled to constantly check Twitter.
Knowing that something is there, I can choose to check it later, which I typically do. Checking it just involves me clicking over to that screen and scrolling; not opening a new browser window, going to Twitter, logging in, and looking for the last message I’d read. Believe it or not, Tweetie is actually a timesaver for me, and it increases my productivity.
Believe it or not, I’ve only recently switched to using a desktop mail client, too. On my Windows laptop, I started using Mozilla Thunderbird around February, I think. I maintain multiple mailboxes for work and personal use, so the desktop client enables me to manage all of my mailboxes without checking on various Web mail pages. The Mac mail program is nice and painless, and I’m happy to use it. I get the nice little number popup when new mail comes in; otherwise, it sits quietly in my dock.
I often listen to music while working, and so iTunes is my go-to program to get me through those slow points in the day. iTunes on the Mac is so much better integrated than iTunes for Windows, and doesn’t seem to cause me the pain upon starting up that iTunes does in Windows. I’ve better-organized my iTunes library upon switching to my Mac, so iTunes is really working for me. Love it.
Adium + Growl is an interesting combination for me. Growl is a notification client for the Mac. Adium is a chat client for the Mac. I have multiple chat protocols to interact with various people, both clients and friends, and Adium lets me manage all of those protocols in one place. I’ve used Pidgin and Trillian for Windows, and they did a fine job – but Adium does well on the Mac, too. As with seemingly all Mac programs, the user interface is simple and clean. And I like that the little Adium icon jumps around and is active in my dock when I receive a new message. Growl pops up new messages in the corner of my screen when they come in, so I can quickly glance at them and decide whether I need to reply immediately, or whether it can wait while I continue working. Adium + Growl = winning combination.
Finally, there’s Google Chrome. Oh, Google Chrome, how I love thee. Mozilla Firefox used to be my go-to browser, and has been for a while. But I noticed several months ago – perhaps around the beginning of the year – that Firefox was having trouble on my machine. Suddenly it was loading slower. Or it would crash. Or I’d have to wait while it switched between screens. It was no longer the superior, wonderful browser I’d always thought it to be. Out of desperation, I downloaded Google Chrome, just to try it.
It was a revelation. Google Chrome was like Mozilla Firefox used to be. It loaded fast, it has a quick, streamlined interface – Google Chrome totally won. I kept both Chrome and Firefox on my Windows laptop, but since switching to my Mac, I’ve only installed Chrome. And I’m totally fine with that. As much as I love Mozilla, and miss the days when Firefox was great, Chrome is definitely a replacement up to the task.
General Thoughts
When I looked at new laptops, I paid particular attention to the OS and software choices. It looked like Mac didn’t have anything Windows didn’t have. You can do pretty much everything you can do on a Mac on a Windows machine. (Although Windows does lack some key pieces of software that I adore for the Mac, such as Delicious Library and Scrivener.) But I’ve discovered, since buying the MacBook, that Mac really does do everything better. The interfaces are cleaner and sleeker. The software is just a *bit* better at doing things I want it to do than Windows software. And it’s a sheer joy to use. I didn’t realize that buying a Mac would drastically change the way I look at my computer, and doing tasks on my computer – but it does.
So yes, Windows can do everything that a Mac does, more or less. But Mac does it better. Including business and productivity.
