Papierlos Studieren

Kategorie: Workflows

  • Back-Up Basics: Your Guide to Secure Digital Memories on macOS

    A couple of days ago, I received a mail with a question that touches the core of our digital lives: How to backup photos? Shockingly, quite a lot of people do not back up or secure their photos, let alone the remainder of their digital work. Thankfully, that leads to no issues in 95% of the cases. However, for the remaining 5% of cases where it does lead to trouble, the outcry is intense. And understandably, so. Therefore, everyone should implement a backup strategy to secure the things most important to us: Memories and one’s own work.

    Why should I back-up my files?

    But first things first, why are backups necessary? There are three primary reasons: human error, human misunderstandings, and technical wear and tear.

    Deleting a file accidentally happens sooner than you’d think. Normally, it ends up in the system trash, and you can recover it from there. But there are instances where this isn’t possible, for example, when a file is directly deleted due to its large size or when a particular setting has been chosen. You might also realize too late that you’ve accidentally deleted a file, only to find out that it has been automatically purged from the trash.

    Handling large projects, such as academic papers, can sometimes lead to confusion within the line of argument, necessitating a complete do-over. In this case, having a backup to revert to quickly becomes a lifesaver.

    Technical failure, however, is by far the most critical reason for backing up data. Issues can range from file system errors, app crashes, or inexplicably peculiar events causing file corruption and rendering them unreadable. You might be left without your thesis on the day of submission, without any fault of your own – and that’s where a backup steps in.

    The building blocks for an easy back-up solution

    There are three requirements that good backup practices should fulfil:

    1. It should be automatic—you can’t forget something that happens on its own.
    2. Regular backups at short intervals are crucial—a month-old backup serves minimal purpose.
    3. It should be easily restorable without the need for advanced IT knowledge or expensive software programs.

    Gladly, your Mac offer an excellent, simple, and workable solution out of the box that can be set up with minimal effort in basically no time.

    Stowing away backups needs an external hard drive. But keep in mind, you can’t use the same drive for daily work you’re backing up to. So, how to choose the right hard drive for your backups?

    Primarily, you should aim for a disc/SSD twice the size of the drive you’re backing up; let’s say if your laptop has 1 TB of storage, the backup drive should store 2TB. It ensures enough room to not only backup your files once but to store different versions of them over time for added safety.

    Then the choice boils down to HDDs versus SSDs. HDDs contain mechanical parts, whereas SSDs are essentially massively connected flash storage, as seen in smartphones and USB drives. SSDs hold several advantages:

    1. They endure far less wear and tear due to the absence of mechanical parts.
    2. They are silent.
    3. They operate much faster than HDDs.
    4. They are lighter, making them more portable.

    While HDDs still have their merits—cost-effectiveness when it comes to the storage per Dollar/Euro ratio—SSDs have their benefits. Thanks to their greater portability and faster read and write speeds, backup SSDs can easily be repurposed to act as regular external drives. My suggestion is to splurge a little and invest in an external SSD unless you’re either extremely tight on funds or need to backup really large amounts of data.

    Unfortunately, I can’t recommend a specific hard drive due to the ever-evolving market. It’s best to follow rankings, such as those by the Wirecutter.

    One last side note: Cloud storage is not a backup. It’s possible to lose files even in the cloud, although providers like iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox have significantly improved reliability over the years. So, understand this as an additional measure rather than a main backup solution, even though it’s always useful to have it at your disposal.

    An easy built-in solution – Time Machine

    Purchasing a Mac comes with a variety of exceptionally useful software, with Time Machine being one of the most critical. Time Machine facilitates excellent and easy of use, built-in backups without any additional software. Plus, it allows for omitting individual files or folders that may not be crucial to back up, potentially saving some space.

    Once set up, Time Machine automatically „backs up your Mac every hour for the past 24 hours, every day for the past month, and weekly for all previous months“ according to Apple’s support page. The oldest backups are only cleared when the disk is full.

    The setup of Time Machine is straightforward – connect an external hard drive, initiate Time Machine, select a drive as the backup medium, and voilà. Now, Time Machine will continue working in the background, creating backups. Apple’s support article further explains this procedure with tips and tricks.

    Cloud back-up for power users

    For those seeking a more advanced option, I’d like to propose another option: backup in the cloud (not to be confused with the aforementioned cloud AS backup!). This is your insurance for genuine catastrophes like a house fire. Services like Backblaze* offer solutions where you can save a full copy of your computer to external servers — encrypted, of course.

    The idea is straightforward: you install a small program on your computer that then transfers a backup to Backblaze’s servers. Of course, there are other providers like Crashplan, aimed more at small businesses rather than individuals.

    However, Backblaze does come with a cost: $9 per month, or $99 for a full year, or $189 for a two-year subscription.

    In conclusion, let me summarize the essential takeaways about backups:

    1. Having a backup is better than not having one at all. Be serious about finding a solution.
    2. Backups should be automated and work in the background to prevent forgetting to backup.
    3. TimeMachine is an amazing and easy to use built-in solution. Take advantage!
    4. You need an external hard drive, preferably an SSD, and you want to make sure its storage capacity is at least double that of the drive you want to back up.
    5. Clouds can help sync individual files and can serve as an additional layer of protection but cannot replace backups.
    6. If you are **really** serious about backups, you can apply the 3-2-1 rule. It means you should have 3 backups on 2 different media, and one of them should be located outside your home. In practice, the first backup could secure important files and push them to a hard drive connected to your computer. The second backup could be a complete system image copied over the local network to a second drive not directly attached to the computer. The third backup would be stored externally for disaster recovery using a service like Backblaze.

    Points 1 to 5 apply to everyone. Point 6 is for those who want to play it extra safe. If you abide by the first five points, you’ve already taken a significant step towards data security, and you’ve done yourself a huge favor!

    Links with a * are affiliate links where I receive a small percentage if a product is purchased through that link or a subscription is made.

  • Making digital work visible

    The Problem

    One of the biggest problems with digital work for me is that the spatial dimension is not represented, or at least not sufficiently. I have the problem that I can’t think very well in the abstract. I have to see things, arrange them and, above all, write them down in order to achieve insights. And it doesn’t help at all if I have folders upon folders on my hard drive (or in the cloud for that matter), ALL OF WHICH I DON’T SEE. I can’t get a sense of dimensions, relations, relationships. The only thing I can do is click through and remember what to expect where. Now not only do I have the problem of not being able to think abstractly very well, I also don’t have a very good memory. This circumstance was also the starting point many years ago, why I began to deal with to-do apps and digital productivity in general. I simply had the feeling that things kept falling through the cracks. And that’s exactly how I feel with big digital projects, like the university research project I’m working for as a research assistant or my PhD. I just need the feeling of knowing where things are. So my absolute horror would be having to rely only on search. I need strategies to make my knowledge **visible**. This need is also evident in my Obsidian configuration: I don’t (mostly) think much of minimalism or buttons that are automatically hidden. I want buttons, info panels, and click targets.

    What to do?

    To solve this problem, I don’t have THE ONE solution. It always sounds nice when you pretend in blogposts and Youtube videos that you have found the perfect system that covers all conceivable cases, but it is almost never like that in reality. Reality is messy and you have to live with that. The solution is therefore to have different tools in your arsenal and then use the most appropriate one in each case. In the following, I will therefore give an overview of all the visual tools that make working in Obsidian easier for me.

    Graph Views

    The first is the Graph or Graph View. This is what Obsidian always advertises and it might be one of the first things you see when you start using Obsidian. And that doesn’t surprise me at all, because the graph just looks pretty nice, especially if you have a lot of notes in your Vault. The graph maps all the notes and connections between them. And then when you see so many nice points, all connected, it just looks very much like work and productivity. So in that sense, the graph is very valuable: you can better appreciate how much work you’ve already done in Obsidian. However, the value of the graph is quickly exhausted. At least, I have not been able to get any benefit beyond that from the graph.

    My Graph View – Isn’t it nice?

    The Local Graph does a little better. This is a subset of the overall graph that only shows the currently open note and notes associated with it. In addition, you can set it to show further levels of notes as well. This would mean that if I have a note about studying paperless that is linked to the note Productivity, notes that are linked to the note Productivity will also be displayed. This can be quite helpful for generating ideas. Especially with complex topics like my PhD, I sometimes open the Local Graph to see which thematically related topics I still have notes on.

    Kanban Boards

    The next option I like to use are Kanban boards. I don’t have to write much about this, because I already wrote an article about it. However, I use Kanban boards less to map hierarchies or relationships between notes, but rather to track processes. After all, that’s what they were designed for.

    Overall, I have two use cases: First, in my role as a social scientist, I conduct interviews all the time, and a Kanban board is a great way to keep track of which people I’ve already researched, contacted, interviewed, or analyzed. On the other hand, I have a weekly plan in which I note central tasks of the current week, separated by weekdays. This is not a to-do list, but rather a high-level plan to keep track of the most important goals of the week. Although this does not have anything to do with making knowledge visually tangible in the narrow sense, it still serves the purpose of making what I do mentally comprehensible to me in a different way.

    Excalibrain

    Excalibrain is the second plugin from the incredibly talented Zsolt Viczian, who also develops the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin. This makes him probably one of the most influential figures in the Obsidian community and he also always has exciting thoughts that he shares on his Youtube channel.

    Excalibrain in action

    Excalibrain is a plugin to put notes in a self-definable hierarchical order. So parent notes can have children, children can have siblings and generally all notes can have friends. For example, one could imagine a case where I write a note dealing with the cloven-hoofed species (parent note) and then other notes dealing with sheep, camels, and hippos (children). A friend note would possibly be one about a different animal species. And these hierarchies are then mapped visually by Excalibrain, which often helps me a lot to keep track of complex relationships.

    Excalibrain can do a lot more, but Zsolt can explain that better than I can.

    Hubs

    Hubs or Maps of Content are central entry points into my Vault. Each of my large projects (or areas of responsibility) has such a hub, where I gather everything possible that has to do with the project. These are usually links to documents outside of Obsidian, central notes of the project, which then branch out further, and also always a section where I note tasks in the project. Hubs are essential anchors for me to not feel hopelessly lost and certainly the notes I open most often.

    Canvas

    Last but not least, a feature that I’m just starting to use more intensively: The canvas feature that was introduced in Obsidian a few months ago. Canvases in Obsidian are, in my opinion, very well implemented, because you can combine all sorts of things: Notes, images, maps. You can even work directly in the notes and don’t have to open them first. This is of course super practical and in my eyes extremely well suited if you want to keep track of a large project. I currently use it as a general overview for the research project in which I am a research assistant and have arranged all research aspects. This gives me an overall picture of the research process and I can always put individual aspects into perspective. For me, canvasses are a more visual and playful form of the hub.

    An anonymized view of the canvas I created for the research project I work for

    Tools for visual thinking

    There are many ways in Obsidian to work with information visually and for me that is an essential part of the process. Sometimes I want to keep track of things, sometimes I want to clarify hierarchies, and sometimes I’m trying to stimulate thinking. Therefore, there is no one solution that covers everything. But when I put it all together I have a fantastic tool box for my thinking.

  • The Tools I use for Writing

    Recently, I wrote about the applications I use for my daily work. Today, I want to follow up with a short post that focuses on the subset of my work: the apps and services I use to write my blog articles. My workbench looks like this: Obsidian, tools to improve style, upload, and publish. What does that mean in detail?

    Planning and Thinking

    I write all of my texts in Obsidian, as it is a fantastic tool. However, what might be more interesting is how I collect and manage my article ideas and track articles through to publication. To accomplish this, I use Marcus Olsson’s Projects Plugin in conjunction with the Metadata Menu Plugin. The two together allow me to work in the way that database-centric apps like Notion or Craft can.

    Projects is a plugin to manage notes belonging to a project or context in different ways. You can configure multiple views and vary them by project, which I find particularly ingenious. For my posts on go-paperless.net, I created four views: a table that lists all posts and ideas that are not yet published, a Kanban board (which is more of a proof of concept), a calendar view where I can see when the next article is planned, and another table where I only see the posts that I have already published. This setup makes my work much easier as I always have all potential and already published articles in view. Of course, you could also use Projects in a completely different way. Especially the Gallery View is perfect to program an overview with movies you want to watch or books you want to read. The possibilities are endless.

    Another small plugin that completes my work in Obsidian is Metadata Menu. MM allows me to assign a file class to a note, which I have defined beforehand. This way, the note ‚inherits‘ YAML fields, including possible values. MM also adds a small icon next to the note title, which opens a dialog box that allows me to manipulate the YAML data directly without having to open the note. In conjunction with Projects, this gives me an item database that I can add to or change in no time.

    Revision

    The draft text is ready, but there’s still a long way to go before the final text appears on the blog. That’s probably the most important lesson you can teach less experienced writers: a really good text only becomes that good because it was revised many times. Nobody writes perfect texts on the first try. In my case, there is also the fact that I am not a native English speaker. I think I have improved my English quite a bit over the years, but it will never be as good as my mother tongue, German.

    So in a first step, I check the text with LanguageTool Pro to avoid unnecessary mistakes or inconsistencies in the style. Then I use DeepL, probably the best translator currently available, to refine the text. I mainly use DeepL for identifying false friends and finding better phrasing. Working with DeepL also helps me to improve my English because I see that it is possible to formulate a certain sentence more beautifully than I did myself.

    After the revision process is complete, the text is ready to be uploaded. I also use ChatGPT to refine the text even further. AI-supported writing will become the absolute standard in the near future, and I believe it is essential to embrace this technology.

    Publishing

    The text is written, and now it has to go on the blog. I use MarsEdit for the text upload because I dislike WordPress. MarsEdit allows me to create the post and format it before the upload is done. In WordPress, I only need to add some tags and perform some SEO. By the way, MarsEdit is also part of Setapp*, the app subscription service I’ve used and loved for years.

    In conclusion, I sincerely hope that this overview serves as a helpful and inspiring resource for fellow writers. Writing is not a mystical or mysterious activity, but rather a skill that involves various steps and tools. So, enjoy the process of writing and let your creativity flow!

    Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. With a purchase I profit by a small commission without the product becoming more expensive for you. Thus, it is a wonderful way to support my work.

  • How to use Focus Modes on Apple’s devices

    So, I’ve written about how Focus modes really could be a first step towards user profiles on the iPad a couple of weeks ago. In this article, however, I barely talked about how to set them up. That’s why I’d like to give a short how-to and also show my own focus modes to get you an idea of what is possible.

    —

    How to set up focus modes on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

    (This guide has been developed for macOS. The process on iPad and iPhone, however, is just about the same, so the guide should be easily applicable to all of Apple’s devices. If I have overlooked something, please [tell me](mailto:[email protected]).

    1. Open the Settings app
    2. Go to Focus
    3. Tap on Add Focus.
    4. There, you have a couple of pre-configured filters, as well as the possibility to add a custom one. For getting to know the feature, you want to make sure to click/tap *Custom*.
    5. There, you have to enter a name for your new focus mode, choose a color, and a glyph.
    6. When you click *Okay*, you’ll be presented with the actual configuration screen. This screen is split up into three sections: Notifications, Schedule, and Focus Filters.
      • Let’s get started with Notifications. Here, you can decide which people, and what apps, are allowed to send you notifications when a particular focus mode is active. For people, you can either allow certain people, or silence them. The second section then deals with calls. The first setting allows you to determine whether everyone, only people you put on the allow list one step above, favorites, or contacts can call you in this focus mode. The second setting will let you set whether a second call from the same caller will come through, even if they are not in the defined group, or not.
      • Moving on to Schedule. Here, you can set time-, location, or app-based triggers on when to activate a certain focus mode. I, for one, have my reading focus mode to be activated whenever I open one of my reading apps. More on that later on.
      • Focus Filters are a really nice, and potentially powerful addition to Focus. It basically gives app developers the possibility to tie in the Focus feature so that you can configure what a certain app shows you whenever you turn on a focus mode. For example, you could (de)activate your work mailbox when you are in your leisure focus mode, or vice versa. Currently, not that many developers take advantage of this feature, but I am quite optimistic that this will change in the future.
    7. If you ever want to delete one of your modes, you can do so at the very bottom of each focus mode. Back in the main menu, you can adjust two further settings: The first of them being if you intend to share focus modes across all of your Apple devices. What that means is that if you create a focus mode on your iPhone, it will also show up on your iPad, or Mac, respectively. However, it also means that focus modes will be activated across all of your devices, once you do it on one of them. If you don’t like that behavior, just turn it off. The last setting lets you customize, whether other people can see that you have notifications silenced, or not. I am not sure about how many apps this really support. iMessage does for sure. Other people won’t be able to see the name of your focus mode or anything else, just that you have notifications silenced. This can be set on a per-focus basis.
    8. Optional (on iPhone, and iPad): Customize Screens. On your iPhone, you can choose between three screens to customize: your iPhone’s lock screen, the home screen pages that should be displayed, and (if you own one) an Apple Watch watch face.
    Some screenshots to illustrate the process

    What focus modes do I use?

    I am a heavy focus user, so it should come at no surprise that I configured quite a lot: seven to be precise (not counting good, old *Do Not Disturb*): Driving, Fitness, Reading, Sleep, Travel, Weekend, and Work. *Driving* is automatically configured by Apple, as it is a system feature. It does nothing fancy, except turning off all notifications while driving. All the other modes are custom-made, and to give you a better idea of what they entail, I’ll summarize them in the table below:









    Focus Mode






    		NotificationsLock Screen Style + WidgetsNo. of Home Screens + which appsWatch FaceScheduleFocus Filters
    FitnessSpouse + Workout-related appsGreen Color Gradient / Activity Rings, Step Count1, only Workout-related appsno changeEvery time when I start a workout on Apple Watch–
    ReadingSpouse + Find MyOrange Color Gradient / no widgets1, only reading appssame face, different colorsEvery time, I open a reading app like Kindle, or Apple BooksNoir: Set Sepia Theme
    SleepNoneBlack / no widgets1, only Sleep-related apps like Clock, Dark Noise, or Booksnight watch face with big numbersTime-based, 11pm-06:30am–
    TravelSpouse + Family, no limit on appsWeather style / Activity Rings, Batteries, Flighty1, only Travel-related apps like Flighty, Maps, Wallet, ticket appsno changeManually–
    WeekendNo limitsPhoto Rotation / no widgetsno changeno changeWeekends from 6:30 am to 11:00 pm–
    WorkSpouse + a couple of work-related appsWeather style / Calendar widget, shortcut to Obsidian Inboxno changeSolar Dial Watch FaceWeekdays from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm–

    I hope this short article helps you to use Apple’s Focus Mode feature, which has become significantly better with the most recent OS updates. They are already pretty useful, and will most likely become even more so with future iterations of iOS/macOS.

  • Add your COVID vaccination certificate to the Wallet app with iOS 15.4

    Add your COVID vaccination certificate to the Wallet app with iOS 15.4

    The latest iOS release 15.4 has a few new features to offer, including the ability to use FaceID while wearing a mask. Also new is the function to import the Covid vaccination certificate (for EU citizens) into the iPhone Wallet and the Health app.

    To accomplish this, you don’t have to do anything other than scan the QR code you received after getting vaccinated – that’s it. After that, you can find the proof in both Health and Wallet.

    With a quick double-click on the side button of the iPhone, you can open the Wallet app.

  • Papierlos Guide (4) – Lernen mit dem Zettelkasten

    Papierlos Guide (4) – Lernen mit dem Zettelkasten

    Ich habe hier schon öfter beschrieben, dass man mit Wissensressourcen arbeiten muss, wenn man sie sich wirklich aneignen möchte. Aber was meine ich damit? Ich möchte die folgenden Zeilen nutzen, um mal darzustellen, wie mich der Zettelkasten von Niklas Luhmann inspiriert hat und wie sich meine Herangehensweise über die Jahre auch geändert hat.

    (mehr …)

  • Der Papierlos Guide (2) – Vorlesungsskripte sinnvoll nutzen

    Der Papierlos Guide (2) – Vorlesungsskripte sinnvoll nutzen

    Vorlesungsskripte sind so eine Sache: Sie sind unheimlich praktisch, da man nicht wie verrückt alles mitschreiben muss. Auf der anderen Seite verleiten sie aber auch dazu, nicht wirklich zu lernen – sondern nur so zu tun.

    (mehr …)

  • Notizen organisieren in Obsidian – mein Workflow

    Notizen organisieren in Obsidian – mein Workflow

    Notizen in Obsidian zu organisieren ist dank Ordnern und Hashtags durchaus möglich. Ich wollte aber einen anderen Ansatz und setze auf eine Mischung aus Inhaltsverzeichnissen (oder auch Maps of Content), Tag-Seiten und ganz klassischen Ordnern. Eine detaillierte Übersicht meiner Dateistruktur in Obsidian

    (mehr …)
  • Wie schreibe ich ein Paper? Teil 4: Schreiben und Export

    Wie schreibe ich ein Paper? Teil 4: Schreiben und Export

    In den ersten drei Teilen ging es um meine Lese- und Hörgewohnheiten, wie ich interessante Passagen für später sichere und welch wichtige Rolle Zotero für mich spielt. Außerdem habe ich ein paar grundlegende Worte zu meiner Notizen-Philosophie verloren. Es wird also Zeit, darauf zu blicken, wie sich Texte mit Obsidian schreiben und am Ende exportieren lassen. Denn wie ein dicker Mann mal sagte: Entscheidend ist schließlich, was hinten rauskommt.

    (mehr …)
  • Wie schreibe ich ein Paper? Teil 3: Zotero & Zotfile

    Wie schreibe ich ein Paper? Teil 3: Zotero & Zotfile

    Jetzt aber mal Butter bei die Fische! Wie lese ich relevante Texte und wie kommt das, was ich wichtig, hilfreich oder interessant finde, in eine Form mit der ich weiter arbeiten kann? In Teil 3 gehe ich auf wissenschaftliche Texte ein und wie ich mit Zotero und Zotfile einen wunderbaren Workflow umgesetzt habe.

    (mehr …)