Summary

The author uses Drafts as a central tool for capturing and organizing thoughts and tasks across multiple Apple devices, emphasizing its integration and efficiency.

Abstract

The article discusses the author's method of using Drafts, an app designed for note-taking and information capture, across various Apple devices, including Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. The author highlights the app's role in their daily workflow, noting its ability to sync text across devices as a key feature. Although acknowledging underutilization of Drafts' full capabilities, such as text manipulation and integration with other apps, the author outlines a personal setup involving a custom "To Process" workspace for new entries. The capture process is facilitated by shortcuts, watch complications, and a reliable dictation feature on the Apple Watch. The review process involves sorting captured thoughts into appropriate places like task managers or note-taking apps during daily planning sessions. The author also stresses the importance of discarding less valuable ideas to maintain an efficient personal knowledge management (PKM) system.

Opinions

The author admits to using only a fraction of Drafts' features, specifically noting the lack of use of advanced actions and app integrations.
There is an intention to explore more of Drafts' capabilities to enhance workflow efficiency.
The author finds the Drafts Watch app exceptionally reliable for dictation, praising its quick and accurate transcription without word limits.
A significant point is made about the necessity of processing or deleting collected information, advocating for a minimalist approach to personal knowledge management.
The author endorses Drafts as a critical app in their productivity system, citing its speed, ease of use, and reliability in capturing ideas without disrupting the flow of activities.
The article suggests that readers should engage with the content by clapping, following on Medium, or continuing the conversation on social media platforms to support the author's writing.

How I use Drafts across Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch

Drafts is an app that I discovered three years ago.

Since then, it has become an integral part of the way that I capture information. From ideas for articles to reminders of things to do, most of them are initially captured within Drafts and then moved into other apps as part of a daily/weekly review.

Disclaimer

I will say up front that I’m very much aware that I only use a small part of what Drafts is capable of.

A subscription tier is required for me to synch text across all my devices but this tier also allows text to be manipulated and pushed into other apps.

I don’t use any of that at the moment, so I’m aware I’m not getting maximum value for my subscription. I’m going to make a concerted effort to get the actions up and running before the end of the year to see if I can make my processes more efficient.

Currently, though, the following process works out very well for me.

Drafts setup

First, let’s look at how I’ve configured the app itself.

There’s not a lot to say here other than that I have created a custom Workspace called “To Process” which houses any untagged files.

My “To Process” folder in Drafts — image courtesy of the author

This means that any new files that are created are automatically housed within “To Process”, which makes it nice and easy to find them all when I want to work through what I’ve collected.

Thoughts Capture

As mentioned previously, Drafts is the gateway for all my thoughts and ideas that are coming into my digital ecosystem.

Wherever I am or whatever I’m doing, I know I can record a thought or an idea instantly using a mixture of shortcuts or the watch complication.

Note: For collecting other people’s thoughts and ideas, I use Readwise Reader. More information on that can be found here.

Mac:

If I’m sitting at my desk, I can use Raycast to get my idea into Drafts without having to lift my fingers off the keyboard.

I simply press CTRL+Spacebar to bring up the Raycast command window.

From there, I type in “Note text I want to be inserted into Drafts

I’ve used the keyword “Note” here, but you can set up any keyword that you want within the Raycast preferences.

The point is that the note gets inserted into Drafts, the Raycast command bar disappears, and I’m back to my work within a few seconds.

Apple Watch:

Often inspiration will strike when I’m out and about. In fact, getting some fresh air is a great way to come up with ideas!

I may well that I get an article idea while I’m out walking in the park. Or I remember something I need to do while walking the children to school.

In that kind of scenario, I have Drafts set up as a complication on my watch. It’s in the top left-hand corner of any watch face I use.

When I want to capture a thought or an idea, I simply need to press the complication and speak the note into my watch. The Drafts Watch app is very reliable when it comes to transcribing dictation. It does it quickly, and accurately and there are no word limits to what I’m saying. On top of that, the note will be available on all my other devices within around ten seconds or so.

IPad/iPhone

To be honest, 99% of the notes I capture are done through my Mac or Apple Watch. However, should I find myself without either of those, then I have built a shortcut which sits on the home screen of my phone and iPad which will capture text and insert it into Drafts.

I say that I’ve “built’ a shortcut, but it’s essentially a one-line script that uses one of the Drafts core shortcut functions.

Thoughts review

Whichever method I’ve used to get my thoughts into Drafts, they now all sit in my “To Process” folder within the app.

Each evening I plan out my my following day (you can read more about my review process here), and part of that will be going through the notes that have been captured in Drafts.

Each piece of information can then be put in the relevant part of my tech stack:

Tasks go into Thing3
Phone numbers will be added to Contacts
Quotes will be added to Obsidian
Article ideas will be added to my content library in Notion etc. etc.

One important thing to note here is that not everything has to have a home.

Yes, 99% of your tasks are going to make it into your task manager, but it’s absolutely fine to realise that a thought/idea that you had earlier on isn’t very good — in which case, just delete it.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you’re evaluating thoughts/ideas for your PKM, then you should be discarding 90% of the random stuff that you come up with during the day.

If you’re unsure, then push the decision back until your weekly review — and if you’re still unsure then, delete it. If it isn’t a “Hell yes!” then it’s a no.

I talk about why you should be picky about what goes in your PKM, here.

Summing up

Drafts has become a critical app in terms of the way I collect and track my ideas.

I’ve found it to be the quickest, easiest and most reliable way to make a note and then forget about it. It has got to the point where the process hardly interferes with whatever I’m doing at the time.

If you want to set up something similar, make sure you put aside some time (it only needs to be a few minutes!) to process/delete everything you collect.

There’s no point paying to collect stuff that you don’t do something with later on.

One last thing

If you found the article above useful, then there are three things you can do to support my writing:

Hit those clapping hands so that other people with your interests will become aware of it. Hopefully, they’ll find it useful too
Follow me here on Medium so that you become the first to know when similar content is posted
Carry on the conversation. Either leave me a message here or get in touch on Twitter/X or Mastodon. I promise I’ll get back to you!