I splurged, sort of. I succumbed and bought a citrus Apple MacBook Neo (the Apple Touch™ model). It’s cheap in the grand scheme of things. Also, I tend to be an “early adopter” of Apple tech. No, it’s never perfect, but it’s pretty good.

Anyway, here are my impressions of the Neo:

- It’s cool! It’s more lemon-lime than yellow. Everything from the packaging logo color to keyboard to wallpapers to selection colors are coordinated. Even the “waxed paper” wrap has a friendly “Hello” on it. It’s the little things that welcome someone to the Apple ecosystem.

So, why did I get it? A couple of reasons:

- I regret getting rid of all of my old Mac hardware, going back to an Apple ][+. I still have my Newton Messagepad and Apple Cube.

- I wanted a “Knock-around” unit to travel with.

- I wanted a light development machine for Python and non-XCode programming.

- I wanted to see how well my own apps run on it (no problems).

So, what are my thoughts, having used it full-time for a day?

- It’s fast. Yup. It handles everything I need. XCode runs on it. Slower than my MacBookPro or Air, but a LOT faster than I imagined it would. It could be my daily-driver.. Games like WoW and League of Legends, have no problem.

- I don’t do any video or audio editing. I’m not an “influencer” and don’t need to be.

- The apps I’ve developed run on it.

- It’s smaller than the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. Perfect for travel.

- It has a nice niche between iPad and MacBook Air.

- It’s cheap, as far as Apple products go.

- The citrus color brings me back to the Bondi iMac days. Fun, and not serious, but can do serious things. It’s a welcome change from the “office-appropriate, corporate” Apple.

 The most surprising things about the Apple Neo:

- It’s faster than I thought it would be

- It’s higher quality than I expected at the price-point.

- It helps me not take myself seriously

- I like it more than I thought I would

Things that are downgrades I don’t miss:

- Backlit keyboard. Nice, but not an issue, since I’m not a spy working in the dead of night.

- Higher quality display. It is good unless you’re picky about that sort of thing and do graphics work. It’s something no one will care about unless they work in digital art/physics.

- More memory/storage. Again, this would be nice. Having said that, I haven’t run into any memory issues. Response time and is equivalent to the MacBook Air for everything I do (again, no heavy video or audio editing and no AI use.). Storage-wise, I’m at about 50% of the drive. I’ve just loaded everything I use every day and a couple of games (World of WarCraft and League of Legends), which takes up about 170Gb of storage, alone. But I have XCode, several IDEs, utilities, and social apps such as Micro.blog, Skeets (Bluesky) and Ivory (Mastodon).

- Trackpad isn’t tactile/haptic. It’s physical, but quite nice and I don’t care.

- Ports. USB-C 2 and 3. I see an earphone jack. Um, why?

Things I wish it had:

- MagSafe charger. I have cats that like to play with cords. And MagSafe is a nice safety feature, anyway.

- MicroSD card reader. I do a lot of RaspberryPi stuff, so having one would be nice to have it built-in.

- An Apple-branded ultra-thin slim case for traveling.

Things I don’t like:

- Boot-up time. This is NOT Neo-specific. The latest versions of MacOS are slow enough to get a boot-up progress bar, even on a MacBookPro. It’s all the AI and LiquidGlass -nonsense. Power-on is instant. Boot up can take up to 20seconds. Yes, it’s a minor quibble for many.

- MagSafe. I want this. I don’t care about a faster CPU for what I do (and I do heavy dev.)

Things I don’t need:

- AI integration. I can do my work, thank you. Apple needs to free up memory and CPU by eliminating AI as an option.

- Allow me to choose which apps I want to have “pre-installed” at initial boot. Yes, Apple isn’t known for spamware/marketing-crap when selling their hardware. But I have no use for FaceTime, GarageBand, etc. I’d like to have an option to delete those on first-launch.

Who is the Apple Neo for:

- Most people.

- Anyone who doesn’t care about feeds/speeds or who doesn’t do video/audio editing because they are “influencers”/content-creators. But even then, it’s fine.

- Non XCode developers. But, as I said, XCode works and compiles within a few seconds of a MacBook Air.

- Students. I think Apple is trying to get back into this market. This is a GREAT student laptop.

- People new to Apple. The Apple Neo is capable and “friendly.” No drivers, no spam-ware, no difficult setup.

- Your mom/dad/grandparent. Anyone who wants an “in” but is not tech-saavy.

- Someone who wants a cheap, but not at the expense of quality, device.

Who is the Apple Neo not for?

- Influencers

- Editors of heavy video

- Someone who can’t focus and needs to run multiple programs.

- Someone who likes having hundreds of web tabs open (PSA: Use Safari. Chrome eats memory).

- Someone who needs to code in absolute darkness.

- Someone who keeps tripping over the power cord.

- Someone who has a ton of money to spend (but even then, you should consider the Neo)

- Someone who wants to use AI to replace their personal brain.

- Someone who hates fun.

OK. The most important question: why did I choose the citrus color?

- As I said, I was tired of the “corporate-ready” colors. Life is meant to be fun (if you aren’t in it for survival.)

I like fruit, the citrus variety. Yes, the other Neo colors are “fun”, but somehow they are more staid.

What’s missing?

- MagSafe™

- A way to attach/charge an iPhone while switching the Neo’s display to the iPhone’s. Yes … I know.

Make up your own mind.

Really.

I’ve come to a conclusion that calendars aren’t meant to be a do-all tool. They are used for time-blocking, appointments, task lists, reminders of dates and times, etc. Layer on top of that having multiple calendars and you end up with confusion. No wonder people feel overwhelmed.

Here is my secret (dont’ tell anyone): Calendars are for determining the day and date.

That’s it!

But what about all the other stuff?

Let’s tackle the big stuff first. Calendars aren’t meant to remind you of appointments, holidays, etc. The key word is “remind”. That’s an active process. Don’t use a calendar. Use a Reminders app to remind you of birthday, holidays, appointments, etc. Reminders are something that need to interrrupt your daily schedule. Calendars have been kludged to do that. Separate your interrupts out of. your calendars and put them in Reminders. Then forget about them. You’ll be REMINDED when you need to be.

Daily schedule? Why do you even have one? If you have a daily schedule that never varies, you either need a habit-tracking, app or just do it. All you really need to worry about are the interrupts, and you have Reminders for that.

What about apointments and meetings? They belong in Reminders. They are interrupts (even if they are on a regular schedule.

What about holidays and birthdays? Again, if you don’t remember when they occur, put them in Reminders.

“But what if I need to know on what day my Uncle Alice’s birthday falls?” Ok, I’ll give you that one. But how often is that really a problem?

“But what if I need to find an empty block of time?” First, if that’s a problem, you have too many meetings, etc. You need a schedule, not a calendar.

“I like calendars. I’m a visual person.” Fine. Keep using it. Personally, I’ve seen other people’s calendars and they are a color-coded mess of blocks. You’re not being productive if you fill your calendar with color (or anything else).

“I like having one tool for everything.” I can understand that. But the calendar isn’t the right tool. You’re using a calendar and everything is a nail. (You get the idea.)

Calendars have their uses, but they are few to the point that I’ve stopped using them as a catch-all.

So what should you use?

• Reminders for interrupts (when you need to be reminded to do something that interrupts your flow.)
• Todo/task lists for the things you need to do which are not interrupts.
• Habit trackers unless you need to be reminded.
• Grocery lists (which really are reminders).
• Calendars for determining the day/date.

I think breaking out of a calendar frees you from “time pressure” and simplifies your tracking flow. Give it a try.

Event: a single time-related task

To do: a single task

Project: multiple tasks to a goal

Calendar: Date-specific (NOT time-related, meaning NOT events) tasks. Do NOT use the reminder/alert function in your calendar. Use Reminders for reminding you.

Reminders: Time-specific (and may be date-related) events and taks of which you are to be reminded.

Next Action is singular. It is the next thing to be done with the highest priority and/or interest across all individual tasks, calendars, and projects. DO NOT include reminders. You'll be reminded when you're supposed to do something by your reminders app–an interrupt. That's why you have one.

if you have nothing to do, do something fun, relax, do nothing, or::

A1 - determine each "next action" for each project

A2 - determine the "next action" in today's calendar (ignore your reminders app).

A3 - determine the "next action" in the task/to do list.

A4 - You'll have three (four at most) next actions. Sort the results of A1-A3 by priority and/or interest. This is the Next Action. Ignore/throw out the rest of the list. Your tasks and priorities will change.

A5 - execute the next action until completion.

A6 - go back to A1.

Interrupts are things that interrupt A1-A5. This could be your wife wanting you to take out the trash, or a reminder going off. When that happens:

B1 - suspend the step (A-A5) and make a note of where you left off.

B2 - execute the interrupt (not your wife), until completion or suspension.

B3 - update your todo, reminders, calendar with any new information that came out of step B2.

B4 - given the new information, reinsert into A1.

NOTE: Hobbies, personal projects, tasks, should be on your to do, reminder, calendar list and treated equally in the process. This guarantees “fun” comes up in the rotation.

#idea #productivity

These aren't resolutions. I don't believe in them. I do believe in goals and plans.

Writing plan for 2025:

— Publish current WIP (pulp)

— Publish “To Preserve Power” - Coins of Destiny II

— write and submit a short story to the C3 anthology

— Write “To Preserve Knowledge” - Coins of Destiny III

— Throw away a ton of lines

— Start another pulp.

— Scan, re-edit , and re-release “Puffin & Griswold In The Tunnel of Darkness”

Programming plan for 2025:

— (Re)learn XOJO

— Convert my personal writing app from XCode,Swift,SwiftUI to XOJO

— Continue working on The Continuity, my internal site.

— Do something with PICO-8 or Picotron

Other Plans for 2025:

— Learn to cook a few more types of dumplings

— Take at least 5 mini-day trips

— Get ebike serviced

— Ride the ebike

— House stuff

— Brew beer and mead

— Be kind, be helpful, be grateful

— Stay healthy. Stay sane.

— Enjoy life.

There are many definitions of success. Most of these definitions relate to what you achieve or chase in life. Your limitations can also define success—not only whether you exceed them, but if you meet them. If you know your limitations, and can hit them, you have done your best. Anytime you can do your best, that’s a success. Everything else you get in addition is just gravy. If you don’t recognize your limitations, you won’t know you’re a success and will chase ideals or someone else’s success.