Dynalist Tour 2019 | with Herb Caudill

Hello everyone and welcome back to keep it up to YouTube channel, it is Francesco. Today, I am joined, by herb, herb. Was, sat, next to me at the, business. Of software, conference, in Cambridge. And. We. Got chatting about productivity, software specifically. Dinah, lists and what I thought to do today is, allow. Herb to explore, but first have. Maybe it's a good opportunity. For you to introduce yourself and and what sort of field at, you work in. Sure. Yeah I have a small. Software, company in the u.s., called. Dev results and we make software. As a service tool that's, used by NGOs. And humanitarian, projects around. The world yeah, and I. Live. And work and in Barcelona, of the companies, the, team's totally remote lovely. And how long is that been going on for. About. Ten years now. Get. Really call it a startup any Morgan yeah. You can use that. And. Obviously, when we. Were sat next to each other I got, I got an opportunity to see your your. Dine let's set up and it's an app that obviously. Not many people I think know. About it because the first sort of options are no, one no Evernote bear sort, of the basic, three I'd say and. Enable to see what notion but how, did you come across nine list first, because. Yeah. So. I actually came across a, tool called workflowy. First, that's that I think is still better, known it's just been around for. A while and I, used for Chloe for maybe a year, it's very similar like they they kind of invented this category, of. About. Liner with you know some of the UI quirks that we'll. See with, this. But. I got frustrated with workflow at one point is because. It. Didn't seem like the, product had was. Was evolving I, needed. Something that had an. API so that I could automate some things and, there. Are a couple of other things that that. That. It like about it and I just looked around for, alternatives. And. And in this came up and I've been super happy with the you know it's team that's. It's. Been very responsive, and and. Like. The product just keeps getting better okay. So this is this is Dinah list. Basically. It's an outliner. And here's my. Sort. Of outline of things. To maybe mention, here. And and you can see, you. Have, things, within this hierarchy which. So far is you know that's that's something that you can do with. Notepad, or whatever just. Have the the indents. But. There's there's a few things that actually make this a really super. Powerful thing so for example. You. Can. Expand. And collapse at any level and, it lets you you, know sort of globally, expand. And collapse for the whole page. You. Can really easily move, stuff. Up, and down. Change. Where, it lives in the in the hierarchy, like, that. But. I think what really. Sets. It apart is, the, way that you can zoom in on a. Node, so basically. Every. Every. Line that you see here, can exist as its own page. So. If I click here on. This. Little dot, next. To the or. Sorry on this on the zoom. In here. That. Features, node, becomes. The title for that page and then everything, else is is, that the first level so basically you, can have an outline, that goes, as, deep. As you want but you can always zoom in on just the part, that. You're interested in. At. Any, given point in time and and each, of these views has its own URL which, is really powerful so if you have you. Know system, for making shortcuts, or bookmarks, or or. Keyboard. Shortcuts or what-have-you for, for specific. URLs. Then you can have, references. To specific views, of of this wherever you need them. Everything. On here can. Be crossed off like, like. A to-do and you. Can you can decide whether whether you want to see things. That have been crossed. Off or, not. Everything. That you do is undoable, so you know I can here I'm undoing a bunch of things that I've done and now I'm redoing them so, it keeps the full history, of what you're doing and in fact just like Google Docs you can go in and see a version, history. Of. What you've done, in. Revert, back, to an earlier version if you if you need to. When. You're selecting, all with control a or command a on the Mac. It. Does, it in a progressive way according to the to the hierarchy so that the selection just gets bigger and bigger until you've selected exactly, what you want so like if I want to select everything under. Outliner, here, control. A control a oops. Roll. A controller a ctrl a ctrl a ctrl a until, it until, it selects. Everything. That. You have there. And. So on there's there's a lot of really. Nice keyboard. Shortcuts, so like I can duplicate an item with ctrl D and that applies. You. Know to a single line or to an entire section. Right so there I did ctrl D, for. This tab in and out and so I've got two complete, copies, of that, one thing so that's really handy like if you have templates, for like like, I have a packing, list, and.

I Can just duplicate that to make a brand new copy, of it for a specific trip, and edit, it down however. I want. So. You can also like turn things into checklists. Turn. Things into. Numbered. Lists, what, does that control. X. It. Turns things into a numbered list and then, that stays numbered, regarde correctly, regardless of the order of things and. It also has this nice little you, know collapse button, when your number things. The. Check but. Putting, a checkbox on things doesn't really change anything because it's you know you, can you can mark it done without the without the checkbox and you know when you mark, it down that way does the exact same thing but. In some cases it's nice to. Just. To emphasize you know what's what's. What's actually things that need to get crossed. Off and what's not. So. You also have marked. Down within, within. Each of these lines so when you click on a line. It shows the mark down but then when you when you leave it it it, applies whatever the formatting, is and, of course you can use you know just control, B to, mark things bold or italics. Or or whatever. You, can. Date, to. A thing so here I've, I've. Attached, a date of today, and the way you do that is just typing exclamation. Mark and. And. Then, choosing a date and. You can even apply. Recurring, days dates, to, things so that you know once you check it off then it comes back every week, or or, whatever you need it to you. Can also add internal, links, within, your, whole. Setup so any page. That you have. So. You, know if I wanted to make a lake - I. Don't, know my list, of things to do today. Then. I've. Got. That link so you can cross-reference things. Across across. All of your documents. The. Way that it works and there's a big difference from from, workflowy, where you just have one document, and you're kind of using, the outliner, to. Provide any structure, that you need. Dinah dinah, list has this additional level of hierarchy, where, you have. Organization. Where you can have documents. And you can have documents, and folders. And, some people use. You. Know have lots and lots of documents for each new thing they make a new document, I. Prefer. To have just a handful, of fairly. Basic categories. So like all of my writing is in a single document and then, I just use the outline to zoom in on a particular. Piece. That. I'm. That. I'm working on. But. It's it's really just an, incredibly, powerful. The. Way that you can. Jump. Around you. Know it's oh I've got a lot a lot of stuff in here, and you. Can. Use. The keyboard for example. Ctrl. Shift o. Brings. Up this, open. Box. So ctrl o just like let's me jump to a specific document, and I, can type you.

Know Whatever, the, name of the document that I want to jump to is ctrl. Shift Oh lets me jump to any any. Node, within any, document, right. So I can. Go to the, today heading, under under. My to-do list or you. Know basically to any any. Place that I've that I want to and. Not only that but I can control. Shift em lets. Me. Move. Things. Anywhere. In the. In. My whole setup so I can move something to the end box I can move something. To. Do any any node of any document, within within, the dock within, the the, whole setup and that's really powerful because you don't really have to like. Go, looking, for something you know if you know where something belongs you just say just put this there, and. It and it goes there yeah which is just, very cool. So. Probably. Pause. There and and talk, a little bit about actually. Hell I use it day to day so my, workflow. With, this. Basically. I have kind. Of a loose getting things done type system. And. And. So with that the you. Know the the core of my. Of. My. Daily. Productivity. Setup, is is this inbox so, everything, flows into this inbox and there's there are several ways that I can get things in there so. I have zip, your test set up to. Put. Starred emails in my end button in this end box so, my process with emails is I either archive, it or I store it and, that's. It and so everything that I need to act on comes into the sandbox and then I can decide how exactly to to, handle it otherwise it's archived so I just you know I can get back to our to, inbox zero very, very quickly. Anything, that I highlight, in the Instapaper ends. Up here, anything. That I, favorite. In Twitter ends up, here and, then there's also a. Chrome. Extension. That, you can use to clip stuff. Around. The web so if I go to. If. I'm on a website and I and I and I see something that I want to remember I can. Either just save, the entire page, so, here it's just it's just going to send, this. Title, and the. Link. Or. I can, highlight something, and. Just. Click you. Know clip selected. Text. Into dinah list or there's also accused keyboard shortcut, with. That, where. It'll where. It'll send that text. And. That happens. Instantaneously. So, you can see here this is where I sent. In the. Just. The title in the link and then this is where I sent in the actual, quote I did that twice, and, so what I do once, I've got. All. Of these things. Oh. This, stuff in my inbox is I'll, periodically. Just. Go through it and put stuff where, it belongs and this is where that control-shift-n. Comes. In really handy so, a, lot of the stuff that I. That. I clip, from, the web or from Instapaper, these these quotes and, you know. Clippings. Basically, from from, different places I just. Put them in a place called note, box and then I handle. That. Separately. Put. Those things into categories you, know of like you know what whatever it is that I'm that I'm interested, in so I can go through here and and. Put a bunch of that stuff in there. You. Can also see there's a lot of tweets here and that's basically just you know there was something in that tweet that I wanted to to. Remember and so I'll, have to go to the actual tweet and then you know see what it was that, that. I wanted to do there so in this case it's somebody's playlist. And. So what, I'll do is I'll grab the link to this to. This playlist, and. Come back to the inbox and I'll put it there. And. Then, I'll just send that to my music. List, and then, I can look at that later. And, so on if there's if there's emails, here that I need to deal with so, say. We've got this email here reservation, confirmation. I'll. Put. That in. My. Daily. List. Where, it actually becomes part of, of. The to Do's that I have, here's. Another there's, a note that I made to myself you can also get stuff I have, a an, autohotkey, shortcut. To. Get things into the, inbox. So control, anyway. I've made a shortcut control windows now for whatever that. Pops up this little thing and so I can say you. Know prepare. For. Dinah. Live demo, and, then that goes. Straight to my, inbox, so I can do that without having to open up Dinah list if I just think of something during.

The Day. But. Anyway all of that stuff that's that's, something. That I need to get, done or something that I need to, pay. Attention to I'll move into, into. The daily, here. And all this other stuff if it's videos to see I've got a list for that if it's stuff to read I've. Got a list for that if it's music or whatever, it is you, know I. Got. A place for it and I make. A point of clearing out this end box every time that I did, I look at it so. That if I go to the daily. One. You. Can see here's, here the tasks that I that, I just added here, so here, I can decide you. Know what the importance of each of these is so. I've just got a. Few, headings and these headings change all, the time and that to me is one of the beauties of having, this super flexible, system. You know if I'm you. Know if I'm if I'm about to leave and I need to make a list of stuff that I have to do before I travel you, know I can say before trip. Or whatever, make. That heading and then I've got you know that list and I can move that up and down and priority. So it's just, very flexible, and allows. Me to you know do what I want without without. A whole, lot of structure. Getting the way so, this stuff I can put in you know target, this I can put in today. You, know this. Actually don't need to deal with so I'm just going to delete it. And I. Keep the today section, just with what I absolutely have, to deal with before. I go home at the end of the day so everything else you, know if I'd like to get it done today I'll put it in target, and, then I've just got other categories. You know decreasing. Importance. You know things that needs to things. That need to get done things. That are waiting for something else to get done and so, on, the. Other thing that I do here I've got a heading, here called Duns and, so, typically with these tasks, that I do during the day rather than check them off I find, it really satisfying, to to. Just move it. To. To. The stuff that I've done that day and so. That way I've got a you, know an. Ongoing record, of of. What I've accomplished, and that sort of you know, mitigates. Against this, feeling, that like you're just doing all this stuff but like you're never getting anything done but then you like you actually look at it what, you've got at the end of the day and you've actually you, know accomplished, them and so important things well like I like, look at this and you know there's other things that I've done so I've so, I'll add you know. You. Know whatever it is that I've that. I've that I've done during that day and. And, that's, useful. For a whole bunch of reasons. Yeah, I mean that's that's pretty much yeah, there's, you know obviously you can see there's a lot of other stuff shopping, list that I share with my wife you know I've got trying, to get my kids to like keep their schoolwork on there so I can see what they're you, know what they're. I really, like the way that you've made, this Ike, it's. Also it's very simplistic in a sense because it's all text.

But. I quite like that it's very like linear and organized, in its fashion yeah it's a really good a really good setup and. One. Of the questions I had was how, do you use obviously you've got like. Some. Some. Context, there obviously someone tagged in it how. Often do you use the tagging, and the app. Mentions, to other people. Is. It a whole lot so the the at. You. I mean these things you can kind of use interchangeably like. The interface is exactly the same, you. Know if I want to put a tag on it something like that I don't use them that much. You. Know this. Is stuff for my assistant, to deal with and so like if I you know so I've got that all in one place. But. But. Yeah I've I found. That. So for example with you, know with with this note box thing which is my. You. Know which is where all of these all. Of these clippings, go at. First I was, like just trying to tag them with whatever the topics, were but then I found that like I don't, know I just found it more difficult that way to, sort of wrap my head around like what. Like. What I wanted to, see like, if I'm writing about. Something or I just want to, sort. Of clarify, my thoughts about something and I found it easier to just to have these top these. Topics, as headings. You. Know and then to you. Know to be able to zoom in to those headings, and see all those things and organize them within that and to subcategories. So. That's been. Yeah. I just you know the tagging is it's. Occasionally, useful for some things. But. I don't really I don't have enough contexts. Or like, you know yeah, it doesn't it doesn't. Fall into the system. You use in but one. Of the questions I had as, well as the the, mobile access do, you find that the app works well or do you do, you feel like you mainly use it on the web or or, desktop. Versions I do. Mainly, use it on the web like, the the mobile app is useful honestly, like, when I'm in the market and and. Shopping, and I just need my shopping list that's, that's pretty much the only time that I did I use it it's, not great like it's not you know it's, not a really, polished mobile. App like. You. Know like like like like you might hope, for I understand. That they're that they're working on it but. It's it's it's kind of just like you, know an application, wrapper of this of the same interface, and there are a few things that are clumsy to to. Do with it. But. Hopefully they don't get better it's not that important to my. To. My workflow, like if I want to add something, to my to. My list when I'm on the go I'll just make a note in on. My iPhone using Siri yeah, and, those are also set up to automatically, flow into my inbox so if I just say you know note you know don't forget to buy, milk or whatever it goes on to my.

Inbox And then I don't, lose it it's really good I really, like I really like your setup and I think it's gonna help a lot of people in, the community there are also. GTD. Users. As well and they're looking for a sort of system that will, help them so I, think it's been really insightful. Thank. You for taking the time out hope I really appreciate it no thank you lovely. Okay, have you got anything any, place, that any would like to find you like Twitter or etc. Yeah. I guess really. It would just be my Twitter. I'll. Make sure to include it. Brilliant. There. We go yep right there, usually. Dynalift. Brilliant. Thank You herb and I will catch you very soon, Thank. You Francisco calculator.

2019-06-01 22:30

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