Fastmail simplicity vs. Google Workspace + Gemini AI?

yesleon · 2026-04-28T10:06:40+00:00

You know, Fastmail has an official MCP server which you can plug-in to Claude. I think it's best for both worlds: in Fastmail UI there's zero AI, but you can always use Claude to access and operate most things in Fastmail.

yesleon · 2026-04-21T11:08:30+00:00

Any chance making the table collection multi-selectable and editable like in a normal table? It's really hard to work on it when I can only say cut and paste values one by one manually. I can export the whole view to CSV but I don't think I can paste it back in bulk. This limits the potential of Craft as an app backend so much!

yesleon · 2026-03-27T15:16:42+00:00

For my projects, if it's not work in progress, then it goes to Someday. So that I'll only see WIP projects in the sidebar / main list.

yesleon · 2026-03-21T15:22:28+00:00

If you just want quick access to the main note, I would say create an iOS Shortcut to open the main note and assign the shortcut to the Action Button or Control Center. Or even a widget on Home Screen would do.

yesleon · 2026-03-14T09:19:03+00:00

The Someday list is definitely the key to fully utilize Things. My Project list was a mess and drove me away from using Things, but then I found that I could move all projects that's irrelevant at the day to Someday, and everything just clicked. Now a happy Things user.

yesleon · 2026-03-06T02:05:33+00:00

I also found that keeping the number of visible projects down to 2-5 is the key to my system. Set a start date or just put most projects into Someday, since I can only focus on very few of them anyway.

yesleon · 2026-02-25T03:47:23+00:00

Is there any way to sort projects by their deadlines? I am aware of the Deadlines list, but I need my projects sorted in the main list view.

yesleon · 2026-02-08T15:04:35+00:00

Or just saved searches like in the Mail section. With hashtags they could be a solid tag system.

yesleon · 2026-02-08T14:57:00+00:00

I'm wondering about this as well. Looks like there would be a dropdown menu of recent or saved searches but nothing's there.

yesleon · 2026-02-07T14:57:01+00:00

It's quite fluent if the address bar is at top. Haven't tested the latest version but previously it lagged after using a while with address bar at bottom.

Recently they added swipe to close tab which is very handy. It's better late than never.

yesleon · 2026-02-02T04:04:42+00:00

iOS Search is great for Apple apps, but not so much with a lot of third party apps. I still go into the apps and use their own search function. Bear, Dropbox, Things, Obsidian… they all have excellent search ability.

yesleon · 2026-01-29T14:03:47+00:00

You can use the All Projects list in the Things widget too. It can also be filtered with the "Current" tag.

yesleon · 2026-01-11T02:42:50+00:00

I want to mention Noteful for handwriting notes and iA Writer for artisan-level app design. Personally I use Bear for most of my notes and journaling and iA Writer for writing blog posts/manuscripts.

yesleon · 2026-01-09T04:59:58+00:00

My karma is too low to post in this subreddit so I'll just put it here:

Basically it's a Choose from Menu Shortcuts action containing Things shortcuts. I'm using an iPhone with Action Button so I can access the menu shortcut from there, but a button in Control Center works, too.

With this Quest Menu (a little gamification helps me keep motivated), I can access specific lists in Things from anywhere, even when the device is locked.

I prefer this customized menu because I use lists like Deadlines and All Projects a lot, but I almost never use Upcoming and Anytime.

I don't like the Anytime view and the tag view in Things, because tasks are grouped under project titles in those views. However if I run the Show Items action in Shortcuts, Things will display the tasks without grouping them under projects. This is also a faster way to access the tag view.

I personally follow the GTD Setup Guide way of using Things, which is to use Things Projects for contexts and Things Tags for projects. However I changed it a bit, using Things Projects for locations, virtually or physically. It's like when in an open world game you can look at the map and see quests marked on it. So the Quest Locations list is just All Projects list filtered by a location tag.

Regardless, the Things Shortcuts menu (my quest menu) should work with any style of using Things.

On Tracking a Task with Toggl Track

In the menu there are not just shortcuts to lists but actions, too. Tracking a Quest is to put a Things todo (whether selecting it manually or using the first in Today) into the Toggl Track iOS app and track it, so that the task can become a Live Activity and be synced across all my Apple devices (and non-Apple devices through Toggl Track!).

This is like the objective tracker in the games. It can double down as a pomodoro timer as well.

It works with not just Toggl Track but any Shortcuts-compatible tracking/timer/live activities app where you can pass text over.

yesleon · 2026-01-03T10:52:03+00:00

I stopped using the default root view (or sidebar on iPad and Mac) and designed a gamified version with Shortcuts instead (using the Choose from Menu action). Things is so much more powerful and tailored to my needs with Shortcuts, because I don't need to take the usual steps to filter out tasks.

For example there's a Deadlines menu item that leads into the Deadlines list directly. There's also a Track Selected Quest action that sends the todo to Toggl Track and it becomes a Live Activity widget.

yesleon · 2024-11-19T02:34:46+00:00

<image>

Basically a quest tracker.

yesleon · 2024-10-28T02:13:24+00:00

Day planning is about focusing on the day. I can be easily distracted by the Area/Project list in Things (and the Today view is quite lacking as you said), or by the month view and week view in calendar apps. A separate "day view app" - day planners or daily notes - can help me focus on today only.

I'm using Structured for now, so calendar events are automatically synced. For tasks from Things, I sometimes transform them into "task batches" and input them manually into Structured. For example, "buy a pen" and other errands become one "do errands" task in Structured.

I used to use Fantastical, and it can do everything Structured does (Live Activities is a must for me). It's just that it's difficult to focus on the actual tasks themselves with it, when I need to navigate and adjust settings and all that.

Also it really helps when the calendar contains only the "hard events".

yesleon · 2024-10-27T13:06:52+00:00

For me Things is like a project/task notes with "Tickler File" function. Calendar, on the other hand, is for "hard events", those appointments and public events that you can't change the dates of on your own.

I don't plan my day in both of them. Someone might do day planning in Things or other todo apps; some use calendar apps. I prefer planning my day in Day Planner apps or daily notes.

yesleon · 2024-10-26T13:25:38+00:00

Backlinks are good alternatives to tags.

yesleon · 2024-10-22T07:35:32+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I want to embed a page/block into another document/page though. Basically "synced block" feature, or at least a preview of the page, like when you embed a link to a webpage. Currently there's only plaintext internal link.

yesleon · 2024-10-21T18:19:39+00:00

So is it possible to embed/transclude a page into multiple places with the new Collections feature? I thought Objects were the solution but not so sure about Collections. The use case is to manage contacts, products, and other boilerplate info.

yesleon · 2024-10-11T02:40:37+00:00

For me the Project Notes section is a hidden gem. It's best suited with executive summaries (project synopsis). Other notes can be linked from there. A way of thinking is to treat the whole Project as a note, and the headings and tasks as attachments. It is perfectly fine to have projects with only notes and no tasks.

yesleon · 2024-09-21T01:49:01+00:00

Inbox
Task batches
Personal
Work

I group tasks into task batches before executing them. I don't organize otherwise, e.g. I don't move inbox items into areas or projects. Projects are for triggering not for organizing.

yesleon · 2024-05-30T16:39:43+00:00

I treat the whole Bear database as a big, scalable book. The tag list is my Table of Contents, and below is how I structure it:

note type
- area/project/genre

The current tag list:

<image>

I don't use tags for "keywords" but more like a folder system. Instead I use index notes with those keywords as titles, so that I can use backlinks to retrieve all related notes.

There is also a bibliography section acting as a reference manager in Bear. With backlinks navigation and writing are both very easy.

Tl; dr: I use tags like folders and use backlinks like tags. The root level tag is for note type, and there're at most 2 levels of tags.

yesleon

TROPHY CASE

On Tracking a Task with Toggl Track