What do you do to improve your workflow(s)?
It doesn't have to be on a computer.
On my keyboard, I use left alt as a layer for vim keys outside of vim, caps lock as ctrl, and right alt as escape. I'll combine them so I can move forward and backwards a word or delete/backspace a full word.
What kinds of things do you do?
For a long time I was doing a bullet journal for management and another notebook for notes, written in shorthand. was great for when i worked in an office, didn't have to lug around my computer. The downside was that deep searching for things was impossible. You tell me the day and I could find it but 3 months about at some point we talked about X...
Now that I've been work from home for 6 years I've switched to todo.txt and Obsidian (vimwiki set to output the same location). Syncthing to keep computer and phone working.
i also do 43 Folders for intake of mail and tasks with some sort of physical medium.
As for workflow I have a daily note template that has:
My routine has steps for filling out the rest of the notes and lists, checking emails, 43 folders, etc. This way all i really have to do is follow the steps.
Calendar everything, including focus time.
Limit all functions or meetings to a max of 90 minutes.
Send a bookings link or scheduling poll instead of going back and forth to figure out a meeting time.
When you say bookings, do you mean microsoft bookings? I tried it, but I can't figure out how to get it to use more than one calendar
Yeah.
It’s attached to your mailbox. There’s a shared bookings you can set up for multiple mailboxes.
Every now and then, I occasionally make videos to demo old/modded operating systems on a laptop computer. When I do, it's with a camera, not screen capture software.
So, I like to use Joystick2Mouse to control the mouse cursor and various totally customizable hotkeys using a game controller similar to the PlayStation 2.
That tends to make it easier for me to try to keep my hands out of the video, I can sit back in comfort and control the mouse and regular common hotkeys.
Why not with screencap?
Old system, old software, older operating systems in a virtual machine. Honestly it's just easier to record with a camera.
I use Autokey to automate many, many small things. I have abbreviations I type for words, and phrases and it replaces them for me.
Going further I use talon voice for voice control of the system.
I say things like "check work email" or "search duck" etc, and it does as it's meant to. Took a while to get setup, and comfortable. But now done I am so much faster talking, rather than typing.
In one voice command for example, talon goes to my browser, selects the appropriate tab, finds the search input, enters a search phrase, including using clipboard contents, and then, selects the result, so it can load.
In terms of keys it's maybe (rough count) 21 keystrokes. All one in one voice command. Game changer.
However, talon voice is NOT open source, and I don't love that. As the community put in huge amounts of time and resources to extend it. Which is risky, as enshitification can come on projects like this. For now, things are good.
I use Autokey to automate many, many small things. I have abbreviations I type for words, and phrases and it replaces them for me.
Yes, stuff like this saves me so much time in the long run. I have shortcut abbreviations I type for my zoom link, bookings link, phone number, email. Generic ticket closing response. Hex codes for colors in my work palette. Even kind of long bits of code when I find myself reusing them frequently.
Paper notebooks.
I fully believe we've come full circle in that technology was intended to sort out the mess of physical documents, bookkeeping etc, but now is inherently messier by itself and you should go back to pen and paper.