Posts about The Sweet Setup

Absolutely thrilled to be featured on The Sweet Setup this week. I’ve been meaning to submit my gear to the website for over a year now, and just never found the time. The Sweet Setup is one of my favourite sites, and I’m thrilled to finally see my rig on there.

One thing I wish I remembered to mention: I would love a sit/​stand desk. When Hildegard and I can afford the luxury of a new desk, a Jarvis bamboo desk exists with my name on it. Edit: It turns out I did mention it. Oops. Ah well. I’d really like a standing desk, so it probably bears repeating.

After going through The Sweet Setup’s new Learn Ulysses Course twice, I’ve mulled it over and moved all my writing to Ulysses. Ulysses is a delightful plain text editor with its own built in library for your documents. It’s probably the best writing app for macOS and iOS. For professional writers and busy people alike, it’s well worth the coin.

I’ve been using Ulysses for just shy of a year now. I’m the sort of person that likes instruction manuals, so I read through all the support docs shortly after I got the app. I think of myself as a power user. But this new course from The Sweet Setup (an awesome website if, if they’re new to you) is something else entirely. Whether you’re new to the app or a complete expert, you’ll learn something from their brief lessons. I still learned a lot from the course — particularly about searching for files and keywords across all your documents.

The course was so useful that it helped me re-organize my entire writing system and structure. Previously, some of my writing was in Apple’s Notes app, some was in OmniOutliner, and some was in Ulysses. All these apps are great, but there are serious productivity benefits to having all your writing in one place. Now, using the wealth of keyboard shortcuts and speedy tricks I learned from Learn Ulysses, I’ve migrated everything into Ulysses. This move’s completely removed the cruft from my setup.

Finally, the course has been invaluable in creating a perfect writing environment. I knew all about Ulysses’ customizable themes, but the Learn Ulysses course taught me how to enhance custom themes with settings I didn’t know existed in the app. After some minor tweaking to my setup, I’m able to combine the environments of my two all-time favourite writing apps: Bear and iA Writer. I’ve never been more productive in a writing app before.

Learn Ulysses transformed its titular app from a utility to a dream workstation. The app looks exactly how I want it to look, and the course made me more productive than I’ve ever been in a text editor.

I couldn’t be happier with both Ulysses the app and Learn Ulysses, the course. If you’re a writer, I highly recommend both. It’s among the best business investments I’ve made all year.