Thinking in Tools has a Category, Sort of
Posting more of what I’ve been only writing as notes for myself, but also things that start as intended posts, I’ve been updating and adding some categories. One category I thought I have had for a long time is Thinking Tools, which is for tools I think in. I have a regular set of tools I write, think, and research in and many have remained the same over many years.
Prior Thinking Tools Posts
Recently I posted about My Browser Family and I definitely think and work in Safari and Zen in different ways, which I outlined. Also in the Podcast Interviews and Presentations the Last Few Years I mention a little bit about my use of OmniGraffle by The Omni Group and OmniOutliner by The Omni Group. I have brought up Obsidian a fair amount since moving to use it as my regular note making app in June 2020, I got to the point of adding a category for it, Obsidian. But, my writing workflow has at least two markdown apps (including Obsidian) as I edit and work on longer writing pieces in iA Writer as it handles all the markdown I regularly use when writing and it is an interface that gets out of the way and lets me focus on words.
Some Tools I Write to Think In
My thinking tools also focus on adaptability so I can bounce between different markdown apps (adding in MarkEdit, Drafts, Marked, and BBEdit), but also can take outlines in OmniOutliner where I’m framing out ideas and export to OPML and import that OPML into a MindMapping app (my favorite is mostly gone (iThoughts), but mostly use MindNode that sort of fits the bill of need, but not as well). With MindMapping I can see the dimensions and gaps more easily and can relatively easily and rearrange the nodes. Sometimes I go back to OmniOutlines with that output, but either way it eventually makes it into markdown as an outline or headings and subheadings (and or export to Keynote as very rough slides).
See It to Think It More Clearly
When I need to see systems and map out flows and interaction points I often turn to OmniGraffle at some point as I know it like the back of my hand I can get it to do many things quickly. With layers and canvases I can turn things off and on to tell stories as needed or get a solid focus of people in a meeting of lawyers and leaders to get actual understanding and focus on decision points to get the best answers to move forward. Early on I’ll use Apple’s Freeform to roughly sketch things and capture rough ideas, as well as use it as a whiteboard or sticky board wall (I really wish there was a better means to bring the pencil and iPad into Vision Pro with Freeform as it is really close with the pencil shadows and bevel tip orientations, but it needs two more essentials). I also use Obsidian Canvas to lay out elements and components of plans and ideas to group them and understand and see flows and interconnections. Obsidian Canvas (Obsidian Canvas) is now its own Open Source offering, JSON Canvas. Canvas is something I’ll often throw on Vision Pro to work through large systems or flows using the Mac Extended monitor mode an ultra wide screen setup and reference materials on the same screen.
I have a couple others I dip into for visual thinking as well. Keynote is always close and often my Master Deck of 600+ slides is open to quickly reference something. I have nearly 600 keynote desks and I’ve been working on getting outlines of them to see what slides I used in which presentation or deck, but also the Master Deck has gaps and doesn’t have the fully fleshed out versions of idea sets. When I had 200 to 300 presentations the Mac search was quite good at finding presentations that would have a phrase in it, but now it finds a lot and I need to map the uses of a slide and the 25 minute version of explaining a concept or the 2 minute version.
More Thinking in Tools Posts to Come
I have many more categories that are regular parts of my thinking tools and framings that let me go broad and deep, as well as pull on my own work from across the years.
I’m thinking I may do deep dive posts on one tool and/or a set of tools / apps. Also layout my app use that map to long standing concepts like the The Elements in the Social Software Stack, which has a build order that helps social tools for use in organizations, but also personal tools that follow the same pattern are vastly more helpful than those that have some things out of order. The “Action” and then “Share” is essential and the Drafts app became a great example of this process order. Action is capturing an idea or writing and framing something out fully. Then figure out what you want to do with what you just created and captured. This allows you to think and capture fully with out thinking about the social context of where it can go. You can push the full content to your working notes and ideas and then create sub-notes from copying paragraphs into new notes and send those as text messages, post to Mastodon (or Twitter), as well as share in Slack and/or a text message and so much more.
Having this category of Thinking Tools gives me a wrapper to post this and some may also cross post to Personal InfoCloud as well.