These Traces 096: So Long 23!

Dec 21

Torrential rains have washed away any hopes of a white Christmas, and yet here we are, only a week left as I write this very last Traces issue of 2023.

The end of the year is usually a time for reflection, but that's not where my head is at these days. Frankly, 2023 was just plain weird for me, and I'm anxious to move on. Which probably explains the recent itch I had to—wait for it—revisit my task management system.

Yeah, don't worry, I quickly came to my senses: Things remains firmly entrenched on all my devices. More so, in fact, after this brief bout of uncertainty. [1]

The app isn't perfect: despite claims to the contrary, I do wish Things offered two-way calendar integration; and task duration; natural language input would be nice, too. But, for my use, its core experience remains head and shoulders above everything else I've tried. It's been six years (almost seven now) since the last major version was released, an eternity in this space. And yet Things still feels fresh, clean, and lightning fast—a testament to the strength and clarity of Cultured Code's design. [2]

While revisiting this choice I was reminded of an article I read a couple of months ago, via Nick Heer's Pixel Envy blog, about the beauty of finished software:

“… when it comes to software, we usually have the ingrained expectations of perpetual updates. We believe that if software doesn’t evolve it’ll be boring, old and unusable. If we see an app with no updates in the last year, we think the creator might be dead.…In a world where constant change is the norm, finished software provides a breath of fresh air. It’s a reminder that reliability, consistency, and user satisfaction can coexist in the realm of software development.”

— Jose M. Gilgado

I think this is an excellent point, and I worry that our never-ending expectations may be further exacerbated by the SAS model that's now become the norm. Purchasing software makes it seem finite (although less than it did in the days of retail boxes), but a subscription doesn't feel as valuable, especially if features aren't added regularly. It's software as media content, as opposed to software as a tool.

I'm guilty of this, and need to remind myself that newness is an all too often empty thrill. Life-changing features from five years ago are likely just as impactful today—and this is true for cameras and phones as much as it is for apps. We just get numb.

Quick aside: my Apple Pencil died recently. The nib fell off, leaving a broken piece stuck deep inside the thread, impossible to remove. Anyway, I didn't feel like giving Apple another $200, so I ordered a plain, dirt cheap USB-C stylus instead. It offers tilt but no pressure sensitivity, just like Apple's own recent USB-C model. Perfectly fine for note-taking, and for annotating this year's Inspiration Journal.

But here's where the story ties into Things: I thought Apple's Scribble feature only worked with a genuine Apple Pencil, because the toggle is located in the dedicated Pencil settings on iPadOS. But nope! It works perfectly with the stylus I purchased. I'd actually turned Scribble off pretty quickly after its introduction, but I've now started using it in both Things (to add tasks), and Readwise's Reader (to add notes that sync to Obsidian along with highlighted passages), when I'm away from the Smart Keyboard. It's been converting my terrible, barely legible scrawls perfectly so far.

See? Everything old can totally be new again ;)

🎄

Well, Jack Frost may be lost in the wet and murky woods somewhere, but the Season's here, isn't it? Time for our family to hit its annual reset until early January. Thanks, as always, for sticking around and putting up with my sometimes opinionated ramblings. I wish you the very best of Holidays—with joy and peace and love aplenty.

………………………….

I stumbled on this series of "productivity" articles that made me reconsider the app's extensive keyboard shortcuts, and tag filtering options.
Things has received multiple QOL updates since then, including a massive Shortcuts overhaul this year. This week they even added Quick-Entry with Autofill support for Obsidian (amongst many other apps), which was an awfully nice (and unexpected) surprise.