Productivity Courses: A Brief History For the past five years I’ve been developing and leading productivity courses designed to support people in living balanced, purposeful lives while making effective use of technology. I have led these courses to the general public and to corporate clients at large and small companies across North America. Course participants have included business owners, executives, managers, engineers, accountants, administrators, teachers, artists, parents and even rocket scientists (making it rather tempting to adopt the byline “I teach rocket scientists”). It’s been ..read more

Where it all began… For the past few years I’ve worked as an OmniFocus Coach & Consultant and have had the privilege of supporting people all over the world in living fulfilling and productive lives with some help from OmniFocus. My diverse group of clients spans North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia and includes artists, athletes, administrators, consultants, engineers, entrepreneurs, lawyers and leaders of corporations and non-profit organizations. Despite their varied backgrounds and cultural mix, I’ve noticed that the challenges that many of my clients face a ..read more

An iPad Remote for Mac and Windows I first learned of the Actions iPad app while listening to a recent episode of one my favourite podcasts, MacPowerUsers. This particular episode consisted of series of clever user-contributed workflows and one of the contributors, Jarrob Job showcased this gem from app developer Usefool. In a nutshell, Actions allows you to control your Mac or Windows computer using your iPad and a grid of user-configurable buttons. Among other things, buttons can be configured to invoke shortcut key combinations on your computer that in turn trigger functions in the fo ..read more

I launched the Productivity and Self Management course in 2011 to address a growing need for productivity training within corporations. The course is based on my Holistic Productivity™ approach that acknowledges that people are multifaceted by nature and that a positive shift created in one area of life positively impacts all other areas of life to a large or a small degree. The course encourages introspection, favouring self management over time management and takes a highly practical approach that includes an introduction to David Allen's Getting Things Done® (GTD®) methodology and best pra ..read more

Alfred, one of my favourite productivity apps for the Mac just saw a major upgrade. Alfred 2 is a complete redesign of the app that includes numerous enhancements as well as a major new feature called Workflows. Among other things, Workflows can be used to assign keyboard shortcuts to frequently accessed applications, folders, websites, web searches and system commands. As a general rule, it's much faster to control your Mac using the keyboard than it is using the mouse or trackpad. Setting up and learning keyboard shortcuts takes a little investment in time, and it's an investment that quick ..read more

I discovered Zoom way back in 2013, long before most people had even heard of this service. It's been a transformational technology that has allowed me to work closely with people all over the world, both one-on-one and in groups. Over the past year, I've had the honour of working with many organizations, large and small, as they made the transition to virtual events. These events have included everything from in-depth courses to large conferences. It's been very gratifying to help these organizations not only survive…but thrive in these challenging pandemic times. I've taken what I've learned ..read more

It was a pleasure to join my friend, Dave Stachowiak on his excellent Coaching for Leaders podcast to discuss strategies for leading effective virtual events using Zoom. I discovered Zoom back in 2013, and it’s a technology that’s had a profoundly positive impact on my company and, by extension, on the people and organizations that I serve. What I shared in the interview draws from what I’ve learned using Zoom for my own virtual events combined with insights gained from helping organizations around the world make the transition from in-person to virtual events. Dave and I discussed best practi ..read more

Our Learn OmniFocus website is a membership-based service that centres around the OmniFocus personal task manager for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and the Web. In addition to providing instruction and best practices on using OmniFocus effectively, we often feature complementary productivity apps. Using OmniFocus with <insert app here> We recently started to offer sessions that focus on using OmniFocus + a specific app. Since these sessions spotlight a specific app rather than a collection of apps, we’ll be able to take a deeper dive into the roles that each featured app can play alongside OmniFocu ..read more

Six years ago today we launched Learn OmniFocus, a membership-based site that centres around the popular OmniFocus personal productivity manager for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and the Web. At the time, it wasn’t clear if there would be enough interest to make this a sustainable service. I’m happy to report that Learn OmniFocus has attracted members in over 80 countries over the years and that the future is brighter than ever. We recently launched a completely redesigned website that’s built to make tapping into our growing library of articles and videos easier than ever. Notable new feat ..read more

I recently had the pleasure of joining Rose Orchard and David Sparks on the Automators Podcast. I’m a big fan of the show and was happy to have the opportunity to share some of my own automation experiences. An Automators sandwich. Tim Stringer enjoys a photo op with Automators co-hosts Rose Orchard and David Sparks. Taken at MacStock Expo 2019, an annual conference in the Chicago area. To complement what I shared on the podcast, here’s some information on the automat ..read more