New Year, New Habits: The Ultimate Apple Productivity Setup!

If you are like me, you could ask yourself how you can create systems to do more and achieve what you want in life. It's something I've been thinking about a lot while my channel was growing. And through attempts and mistakes, I discovered some new methods that I want to share with you that have made a huge difference in the way I work. This video is about a mix of Apple devices, a touch of Analogical and, of course, Obsidian. Whether you're trying to level up at work or at home, I think there's something here for everyone. Stay with me as I explain to you four key ways I'm preparing for success in 2025. And if you stay, I received a bonus suggestion from 24 that really helped me stay focused and find new ideas. First of all, let's talk about the process. For me, it's about documenting the formula I use to create videos. There are millions of ways to put together video, audio and points of discussion, but my method has evolved over the years and through a lot of research and practice. I'm certainly not an expert, but I've learned that to stay structured and consistent, I need something repeatable and easy to follow. For example, when I buy a new mirrorless camera to shoot these videos, I need to know if I shot at 24 or 30 frames per second and if I'm using a recording format. On my Mac, when I modify in Final Cut Pro, I have to make sure that the threads of my project correspond to the settings of my camera and that the audio elaboration is perfect with the settings of those threads. So, in my Apple Notes app, I have a folder called Process in which I have subdivided everything into categories and I have notes on the camera settings, lighting, audio settings and even detailed scripting guides. In this way, I always have a resource to turn to when I need to check something twice. For example, I always forget what size thumbnail I need for YouTube or how long a YouTube short film can be compared to an Instagram or TikTok reel. And instead of looking for it on Google every week, I simply archived everything in one place. Honestly, I would never have expected that there was so much to learn on how to make videos on YouTube, but half the fun for me is simply to arm with technology and improve my configuration over time. The next step is planning. I used Laptins to manage video ideas, but I needed something simpler and more targeted. My YouTube channel is rather intertwined with my personal life and I felt overwhelmed by too many lists of things to do and systems. So, I moved my list of video ideas into Apple Notes. And for my weekly video production, I have a weekly video list that includes my Kananban stand. To create it, you can set several sections in a list and then move on to display in columns. It is available on Mac and iPad, but it does not work on my iPhone as a side display. So, I do most of my planning on my other devices. For me, this visual format works great. On the left side of the stand, I collect ideas for the videos. And the nice thing about Apple Notes is that I can add notes, URLs and photos to the Notes themselves. So, if I see a stimulating video, I can leave the URL in the stand along with some thoughts on why I liked it. So, with the week's progress, I move the ideas through the different phases, writing, recording, editing and uploading. I even track B-roll ideas and thumbnails in the same place so that everything is organized and in a single display. And for YouTube short films, I have a separate list for those. Now, let's talk about habits and systems. For me, it all starts with waking up at 5.30 every day. Yes, even on weekends. I use my iPhone to set the alarm and not my Apple Watch. A. I find that having the watch on adds useless anxiety to sleep monitoring and so on. And B. I find it simply uncomfortable to sleep with a watch. The first thing I do is go to the office, run an automation. I turn on the lights for my work scene through Siri on my HomePod. I take my teacher's 1917 notebook. It's orange because it stands out. And I write a bit of a diary. It's quiet and peaceful at that time of the day. And it's when I do some of my best creative thoughts, including coffee, of course. I think keeping a diary helps me stay aware and lucid. Once I enter the office, I follow a system in which I don't immediately turn on the computer. Instead, I take my diary, which helps me avoid anxiety. Now, when I say keeping a diary, I mean, in a way, bullet journaling, planning my week and pulling out ideas. This is not so much about my life, my thoughts and my feelings, what I thought would go well this week and things like that. Overall, I don't just set goals, but mainly habits. For me it was fundamental. For example, waking up early is a habit I've built over time and it helps me stay productive and creative. On the digital side, I used an app called Strix, which you can get for free. Our premise of the app is that you add the things you want to do every day, every week or whatever, like brushing your teeth, exercising, getting up early, reading a book and, when you've completed that activity, you simply touch a circle in the app. The goal is to keep a series. So, for example, you might want to brush your teeth every day. Maybe you're trying to beat your previous 200-day series. You don't want to break the chain and so you do it every day while you watch your stats go up. It was a bit like how Jerry Seinfeld wrote jokes in the comedy. Every day he created an X on his calendar. Every day he sat down and wrote. His goal was not to break that X week after week. There are some reasons why I focus on habits rather than goals. Among these, the fact that habits last longer. They accompany you for life, while goals are over. Habits are also easier to start. You can start seeing results right away. Third, habits avoid the yo-yo effect. You know, once a habit is formed, it continues indefinitely. Finally, habits help you enjoy the present. You find satisfaction in the process, not only in the final result. To create habits, I divide my goals into smaller and manageable steps. Then I repeat those steps in a coherent way until they become part of my routine. You know, I think of these habits as permanent changes, not just something that comes from a list. Now let's talk about taking notes and organization. Apple Notes is my second brain for everything I have to remember. From the weight of the oil for my herbal tosa to the shooting techniques for the aurora borealis, everything is there, but when my notes started to accumulate, especially with all the scripts and ideas for this channel, I found myself submerged in disorder. So, looking for the right information often led to too many irrelevant results. So, I tried Notion, which is an incredibly powerful tool, but it seemed a bit excessive for my needs. And that's when I discovered Obsidian and I didn't look back. The system based on Obsidian's Markdown allows me to archive all my notes locally, even if I'm technically synchronizing them on the cloud. The graphic view is an interesting feature that shows the connections between the ideas, which helps me to identify schemes and relationships that otherwise I wouldn't have noticed. Obsidian has a wide support for plugins and one of my favorite integrated features are the models. Every time I start a new YouTube script, I use a personalized model that includes sections for the title, description, script, tags and other important data. It speeds up my workflow and keeps everything coherent and organized. Now, for the bonus tip, it's something related to my habit of keeping a diary, but with a twist. I also carry a small notepad with me for field notes almost every day. While my iPhone is great for quick notes, I find that there is much less friction with a physical notepad and it helps me avoid distractions, which knows that I get distracted easily. I love to browse the notepad over the weeks to connect ideas and turn them on again. Sometimes it's easier to see the general picture in a physical notepad than on a screen. If one of the ideas is particularly good, I eventually transfer it to my digital notes for future elaboration. So, that's all for today. These are the tools, habits and processes that I am experimenting with to make 2025 an even more productive and pleasant year. If you have any trick or system that you have used, I would like to know in the comments below. Thanks for watching and see you next time.