Plus alternatives to Adobe products, and finding creativity by embracing your limitations
This week —
- How leaning into your limitations can produce extraordinary results
- The best Alternatives-to-Adobe list I’ve ever seen
- How my productivity system is standing up to working away from home while on holiday
Welcome! I’m Ellane, and this is a once-a-week taster of the unusual, the helpful, and the delightfully mundane, as well as the next instalment of my quest to future proof and simplify my digital-analog workflow.
Inspired Productivity
Limitations can boost creativity
I’ve been following Chris Silverman’s daily art on Mastodon for a few months now. It boggles my mind that not only does he create interesting, imaginative images on a daily basis, he does it solely in the Apple Notes app on his old iPhone (no Apple Pencil).
Having everything handed to you on a platter can be a creativity killer, simply because it feels like there’s nothing you need to work for. This is also true in my PKM adventures. I’ve set myself the limitation of using plain text, flavoured only with Markdown and the occasional plugin for convenience, so I have to work harder and think more broadly about how to solve problems, and to consider which problems are even worth solving.
What are your limitations, productivity or otherwise? How can you lean into them, and what might happen if you did that every day for a month?
Alternatives to Adobe Products
Behold! The most comprehensive list I’ve ever seen covering worthwhile alternatives to the Adobe suite. As an Affinity user, I can vouch for Designer, Publisher, and Photo. I don’t currently need replacements for Adobe’s other offerings, but it’s good to know there’s a list like this for when I do.
Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)
It’s travel week. I’m interstate, enjoying time with family, and casually observing what happens to my productivity systems when I’m out of my usual environment.
Here are 5 things I’ve noticed —
- It’s vital I maintain only one space for projects and tasks. I’ve been guilty of maintaining scattered inboxes — this really gets out of hand when things are in upheaval. My one source of truth for projects and tasks is my TaskPaper file, with Reminders and Calendar being the supporting acts for alerts. What’s letting me down are all the pinned emails I haven’t yet put into my system. Bit of catch-up needed that would have been better done before I left on this trip.
- I really need a 1-click place for temporary, important information. Like travel case combination numbers, temporary contact numbers, and non-standard typographical symbols that are easy to forget on Mac, and hard to access on iOS. Drafts inbox is filling that role at the moment. I’ve set up a semi-permanent set of 7 notes, trying to recreate what Tot does out of the box. It’s okay, but not ideal. Maybe Apple Notes would be a better choice?
- Most things are continuing as usual. Other than the above point, I haven’t felt the need to change my workflow. With little time to spare, I was able to publish an article this morning by polishing up one that was sitting, almost complete, in my In Progress folder.
- I really can work from anywhere! It’s nice to experience this, instead of just spouting the theory from my comfort zone. I’m writing this in a co-working session while sitting on my Mum’s spare bed, my laptop on a fold-flat travel table that takes up very little room in my suitcase.
- Paper travel tickets are more convenient than their digital counterparts, especially when it comes to interstate train travel. Paperless is good in theory, but is not always the most practical choice.
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