Properties in Obsidian, Turning Ideas to Action, and More

September 1, 2023

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Obsidian is Adding Properties, and That Could be a Huge Deal »

Maybe it’s just me, but I often look at Obsidian’s release notes and just think, “that’s nice, but I’ll never notice these changes.” That’s not a fault with the app itself, it’s more of a statement around how I use the app, which is to say I am a pretty basic user. But a recent update really caught my eye, and that feature was properties.

In very short terms, properties could be described as powered-up tags you assign to notes. They could be a status, a person, a date, or a URL, and ideally, they would let you use those properties to do useful things, such as:

Show all notes currently assigned to me
Show all notes published last month
Export all URLs attached to my notes

Let’s jump into how we use properties here at The Sweet Setup, as well as how that does and doesn’t transfer over to Obsidian’s brand new properties.

We’ve Updated Our PKM Primer »

The world of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) has evolved since we first published our PKM Intro for Creatives. So we went back and made sure everything was up to date and included some of the new app updates in the PKM space, including:

Tana
Notion
Ulysses
Bear
Apple Notes

One thing’s for sure: if you’re a creator looking to dip your toes into the PKM waters, there are a lot of powerful note-taking options for you to consider.

The Ultimate Guide to Apple Notes »

If you were to rank all of Apple’s stock apps that receive the most number of updates on an annual basis and poll the experts, I expect you’d find Messages, Maps, and Notes coming in the top three more often than not.

Of the three, Notes is the sleeper hit — with every new iteration of iOS and macOS, Notes gains new functionality that satisfies another wide swath of users. To the degree that now, with iOS 17 in 2023, Notes has become one of the best — if not, the best — note-taking app available for all Apple devices.

How to Make the iOS Mail App More Focused and Efficient »

There are a plethora of fantastic email apps on iOS. We even have a list of our picks for the best email app on iPad and iPhone, and we created a quiz to help you decide which email app is best for you.

Call me old fashioned, but I personally still prefer the default email app that Apple makes. (Shrugs. Then ducks.)

But! I’m not handing in my Nerd Card. Because even though I use the stock email app (like an animal), I have made a few modifications to my iOS email setup to make email on my phone faster, easier, less distracting, and … more calm.

I’ve compiled a few of these tips and tricks here for you in the hopes that you might find them useful and that you too can save some time and be more productive with your email.

What Inboxes Need to be Calmed? »

When I say the word “inbox,” what comes to your mind?

For most people, it’s email, right? Email is the thing we think about when we think of checking our inbox. But the truth is that we all have multiple inboxes. An inbox is just anything that collects incoming bits of information that need to be dealt with.

With all of these various inboxes, no wonder we can feel overwhelmed. There are so many things to check. And so, one of the first steps toward that Calm Inbox life is to know which inboxes you have, and then you can take steps to calm them down.

How to Deal with Distractions and Protect Your Focus »

In a world of distraction, focus is hard. But that doesn’t mean we should fight to protect our attention.

In this post, I want to share some tips for staying focused — and what to do when the inevitable distractions come.

In his book Hyperfocus, author Chris Bailey shares the most effective framework I’ve ever come across for dealing with distraction. It resembles one of those 2×2 productivity grids you’re probably familiar with and is incredibly simple. On the y-axis are Things you control and Things you don’t control, and on the x-axis are Things that are fun and Things that are annoying.

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Interesting Links From Our Friends and Around the Web »

Our Must-Have, Most Used Productivity Apps

We spend an inordinate amount of time sorting through hundreds of apps to find the very best. We put together a short list of our must-have, most-used apps for increasing productivity.

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