Session Notes: Hello PitchVision, Hello Sunshine

This session was more time in the middle for batsmen and bowlers, but as always, we had a purpose that went beyond running around in the sun. 

And, yes, there was more sun. This is most agreeable.

The focus for the players was PitchVision, which I had set up on the outdoor net on our practice wicket. For the uninitiated, the system is a ball tracker and video analysis tool. In the coming months I plan to really drill into the functionality, but today was all about using it and getting used to it.

We tracked several batsmen on video, including the club's new overseas player. We also did some basic  tracking of bowler line and length. I kept it to two bowlers in the net at a time, with others doing target work on the outfield.

My original idea was to setup a competition between the first and second team bowlers based on accuracy. However, despite a good turn out, there wasn't enough league level bowling to make this a good challenge, so I abandoned the plan. I still have the data from the session and will take a look to see if  I can use it for motivating players.  I also plan to dish out some individual memberships so we can get data specific to certain players who care more about performance.

The batting was more successful because we could stick to the plan. We tracked the players with video and did a variation on the "intention 12" game. The idea was to give players a focus beyond "having a hit" (a hated phrase of mine) and stay in game mode. I gave each batsman between 4-6 overs of batting, facing just two or three bowlers at a time. I feel like this made it far more realistic and focused.

For batsman waiting to go in, we had a couple of drills going. We did the target hitting game from a previous week to allow some fielding and this drill for working on picking length. I flitted between the stations as much as I could and tried to keep people engaged. It's not easy with a wide variation in skills and around 15 players to one coach, but that is an exciting challenge for me!

Training culture

It's becoming clear that there are two groups to cater for at each session: The guys who are playing Saturday league cricket, and the guys who just want to play, and will make up the 3rd XI Twenty20 and Sunday Development teams. It's important I don't make assumptions about which group a player is in as there will be talented guys who don't care for training, and 3rd team guys desperate to move into Saturday cricket. However, everyone who comes to practice still needs to get something from it and it's up to me to work out how to give the guys what they want and need.

Naturally, a big part of this will be building a culture where players are not afraid to ask for what they want. We are making progress there, with our Development XI captain taking the lead in speaking his mind, challenging my approach and helping organise the recreational guys. At this session he was brilliant in not only running a fielding drill, but also making sure I gave some of the recreational guys a bat and bowl.

They were clearing only having a hit, but they were having fun messing around and not taking it seriously. I loved it, and just stood back and let them get on with it. Sometimes it's not about developing performance, but it should always be about having fun.

Additionally, the overseas player was happy to assist with some coaching too, and ran a few fielding drills after he had his net session. I plan to use him when we have player overflow. He will also help build the training culture.

One or two guys approached me early on to quietly say "I've done all I want, can I go?". This was awesome, and it shows that people are taking responsibility for developing themselves and not just hanging around at training because the coach is still there. On the other hand, I need to be careful this also doesn't fall into "This is pointless, I can't get anything done, I'm going". That wasn't the case with these guys. Nevertheless I made a point of saying that if they needed more we can do some specific sessions outside of the group carnage.

• Good things: Out in the sunshine hitting balls, realistic pressure situations, lots of activity, tracking data and people improving.
• Needs work: Make sure and focus on the needs of the recreational players as well as the league players. Get players to challenge me more.

Session Notes: Middle Practice

I don't know if I have brought the weather for good, but we have had amazing run the last few weeks. Who says Scotland is wet? 

Riding our good fortune, we finally convinced the groundsman to let us on the square. He even marked a wicket for us.  With about 15 down to attend, it was time for my favourite - and most frustrating - training method: Middle practice.

I love middle practice because it's the closest you get to an actual game. It frustrates me because I never seem to get the batsmen enough time in the middle. Nevertheless, this was a golden opportunity.

After a very quick warm up, I set up the practice as a match. The batsmen set their target for the four overs they were batting and we bowled in overs with a full set of fielders. A third batsman acted as umpire and replacement for when a wicket fell. New batsmen rotated in after four overs.

We managed a credible 16 overs in two hours, including warm up time, field changes and changing around between sets of batsmen. During that time I wandered around talking to fielders and batsmen about tactics. I focused especially on the idea of rotating the strike (and preventing it). 

Players stayed focused throughout, even towards then end where concentration starts to flag. Admittedly, four overs per pair is not enough, but even with that limitation we only got through 12 batsman, with quite a few missing out. 

The additional problem here was that we had well over 20 guys turn up, a few for the first time. I would estimate about half didn't get to bat at all. We set up a fielding drill area that some senior guys took upon themselves to run while I was with the middle practice. This must have been a less than perfect experience.  I managed to also give these guys 10 minutes of target practice at the end of the session, so at least they got a bowl.

Despite that, the exercise was super-useful purely because we were finally on grass with some real cricket rhythms. No matter how many nets you have, you just can't recreate a match feeling any other way.

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It's important to set targets and track the results

 I noticed a couple of things as the game progressed that we can take into further sessions.

• Generally, players are better at strike rotation than I have so far given credit. Most people hit their score and single targets.
• Bowlers get frustrated when singles are stolen. That's a good thing to note for bowler's reactions, batter's plans and fielder's sharpness.
• There is a tendency to play forward, even to back of a length bowling. 
• It would be good to find a way to get pairs waiting to bat a way of knocking up, as they tended to just wait for 15 minutes doing nothing.
• I totally forgot we could use the indoor nets as well. In hindsight, some of the more social players who wanted a hit could have done so. Even though I detest mindless netting, it would have been better than two hours of fielding.
• The bowling was understandably rusty in places, and this would be a good time to reiterate the mental process element of bowling that we previously discussed.

Session Notes: Mental Nets

With the weather great I was hoping to get on the square for grass nets, but the groundsman stopped me in my tracks so we had to adapt. 

We still had the indoor nets and the outfield, and so I set a session theme of "mental nets". 

After warming up, we had 17 senior players ready for action. Another stellar turnout. In fact, as a side note I have been impressed by the number of senior players chomping at the bit for practice and games. There is a 12 a side inter-club game coming up and so many people are desperate to play we had to have a full selection meeting. But more on that game when it happens.

West of Scotland players warm up in the sunshine!

In the session, we did a few more throwing drills with the focus on technique. I made a note that the throwing was slightly held back by the guys not wanting to throw flat to a team mate. The drill worked well, but we can make it really good by having some catching mitts to encourage the flatter harder throws.

Then we split up into three groups: 

• Indoors 10 point game nets (see here).
• Outdoors target bowling.
• Outdoors fielding.

Rather than focus on skills, I stressed the importance of mental processes to breed confidence and consistency. To do this we customised things a little, as well as talking through some ideas.

Nets for mental prep

With the nets, I asked the players to bat in threes, with the third batter acting as scorer and umpire. When you are out you rotate into that role. This not only puts pressure on the you when you bat, it also shows how you respond when someone gives you out for a possibly unfair reason! This reaction is a sign of your resilience in tough situations. 

In reality, this plan didn't work out as I couldn't monitor the nets closely enough. Luckily the players switched to a 10 point game instead without prompting. I was happy to see the self reliance. I also got lots of feedback about adapting things further, so it's clear the guys are getting the message that they are leading their own development and I'm the consultant (a Duncan Fletcher maxim). 

I wanted to also talk through the process players have between balls. As it turned out this was not the right platform, so I left it this time. It may be that this element needs its own specific session. 

However, one thing that did work well was another of Mark Garaway's ideas; replacing "last six" with "intention 12". The batsman gets 12 balls and imagines he is hitting out at the death. You get,

• No points for missing the ball
• One point for hitting the ball
• Two points for good contact
• Three points for nailing it (exceptional contact)

This is logged and we track performance over time, rather than blindly hitting out when the call of "last six" comes.

Results of two player's "intention 12"

Bowling with focus

The bowlers did some target work, but I asked them to think about their mental process rather than their techniques.

So I pushed back on technical questions, saying that the session is about learning to focus. I used the old tip that you review walking back, decide at the top of your mark and commit as you run in. To aid this I asked the players to note their review on a pad before bowling the next ball. 

Again, this didn't quite go as as planned. Most bowlers made a couple of notes then went back to bowling. Although afterwards I spoke to a couple of the guys who all said it was a useful exercise, they just had a different focus. One guy wanted to use it as a test of his fitness, another wanted to geta few overs bowled off his full run after being indoors. I feel I can push the mental element harder, but I should have been more specific about who needed it rather than assume everyone wanted that kind of session.

Example of self-reported bowling notes

Players rotated with the indoor guys to make sure batsmen got a bat and bowlers got a bowl indoors. This worked well again, thanks to the focus of the guys on taking responsibility for their own training, and being supportive of the needs of others.

Fielding outdoors

The  final group we're made up of players who didn't want to bat indoors, and were not bowlers. We did a few fielding drills, including Mark Garaway's Monster Machine Gun. Which is a killer!

As I was moving between stations, I again encouraged and saw self-led training. I set them a drill and checked back a couple of times to change it and they just kept powering on. I thought perhaps this group got the least attention from me and they would feel neglected, but when I asked a couple of them individually afterwards what they would do to chance the session, each one was the same in only asking for outdoor nets. 

In fact, it's this aspect that I felt most about: We had a dry square, a cut pitch and a bunch of keen players. It was perfect for some outdoor batting. However, I don't have a good enough relationship with the groundsman to push my case hard yet. When I spoke with him he said he was worried the square would get cut up and wanted another clear week. He's the expert so I didn't argue (even though I disagreed, because he is more likely to be right than me). I will be putting more pressure on in future weeks if the sun stays out. You have to take you chances in Glasgow!

• The good:  Adapted to the situation well, strong player-led session overall. The feedback after the session was all positive, with the only negative that we couldn't bat on the square.
• Needs work: The theme didn't come through strongly enough, but that may be due to it being out of context. It may have worked better when we have had a few games to understand the need for a process. Also, it failed on the batting side so I'll cover it again another time. Finally, some mitts for catching practice are a good idea.

Session Notes: Get On With It

The weather was the challenge here. Unlike last week, we had rain in the air and a greasy outfield for this 14 man senior session. 

The good news was that it was just about dry enough to work outside, and we had the indoor  nets as backup. So, after a simple warm up where we rolled and threw a ball round with some movement prep thrown in, we were ready for the main session. 

the theme I wanted to stress was "adversity".

Considering they grey clouds, this was easy for the guys to get into. I wanted to stress that we work in imperfect situations all the time and the best players are those who, as Mark Garaway says, "get on with it". This represents an attitude where we do the best we can with whatever we have. 

The first test of this was a one hand pick up and throw drill. Representing the covers, we rolled out the ball for the player to run on at an angle (rather than the usual drill where you run on straight). The coaching I gave was to get the ball into the hand, and out again throwing at the base of the stump. 

This is a hard drill and I did minimal technical intervention, watching how everyone reacted to the repeated failure. Stumps were hit and missed and the drill took a while to get going, but by the end everyone was working hard and dealing with the multiple points of failure. 

I pulled them together afterwards to stress this was not about being perfect, but about working on a skill that will be worthwhile if we get one more run out via a direct hit.

Then we split into a fielding and batting group. 

Realistic nets

One of my biggest peeves is batting in nets without purpose. It's so easy to revert to "having a hit". So, instead I set up a challenge for the first group in the indoor nets (it was too wet to bat and bowl outside). 

Each net had two bowlers and two batters. The score is 35-3 (or for the tail enders, 90-7). The bowlers set their field and the batsmen were given 10 points each. Batsmen lose points by,

• Getting out -3
• Playing and missng -1

When you get to zero points you are out. 

As we had fields set on whiteboards, batsmen run the runs they think they get based on the field set. 

Whiteboard used for field setting and keeping score.

I generally left them to get on with it without intervention. Mainly because I had to run the drills outside. However I popped back to get feedback. 

the general feeling was that the drill rules gave focus beyond netting for the sake of netting. There was some discussion about the points system.

One negative was the running element. Both nets ingnored the instruction to run realistically and just swapped ends now and again. One player even ignored the game totally and just batted like he always did in nets. I am hoping over time everyone will start to understand that nets must have a purpose. The player who was not focused said he didn't really care because he was a genuine 11. My response was that all numbers are batsmen and even an 11 can win a game with a heroic 50. I hope he heard my message: Get on with it!

However, as the game went on and players got out, others wanted to go in and two guys took over as unofficial game masters; judging runs, ruling on LBW and keeping score. This was excellent leadership from within the group and made the drill better.

I feel this can work even better if we also track bowling and batting from session to session. I am hoping to set up PitchVision this week to get that in place. 

Fielding drills

The guys who were not in nets were keen to field. We set up a bowling station and a couple of guys decided to bowl at a target and the rest went with me. We worked on, 

• Team chasing and returning (including some sliding in the wet).
• Boundary rope catching
• High and flat catching

We didn't track anything, focusing on getting in some activity and volume. If I had done it again I would have worked out a way to track catches and drops. Possibly even setting up a leaderboard of the best practice catchers over time.

Again I was pleased by the overall enthusiasm and commitment. We played on after it got a bit too dark. I was struggling to see the ball thrown in so they were lobbing it gently back for me to hit up! 

• Good: Players dealt with adverse conditions well, nets were focused. 
• Needs work: I need to stress the theme, and the idea that players can lead the drills, even more. Need more tracking in place of catching, bowling accuracy, throwing accuracy and batting performance. Didn't review afterwards (possibly introduce the idea of training diaries).

Surface 3 Could Be A Cricket Coaching Tool

Microsoft have announced the smaller cousin of the Surface Pro tablet/laptop hybrid, and it looks like giving the iPad a run for it's money as a coaching computer. 

My iPad has become a valuable tool for coaching. It's small and light enough to take with me to net sessions without a second thought, meaning I have access to all my Evernote notes, web/email and a decent camera with video coaching tools.

The Surface is capable of all this too, while also offering full Windows for a similar price.

Its a bigger and heavier (140g more in your bag and an 11" screen) device. You might like the extra screen size or you might hate the weight, so this could be a pro or a con, but neither is so great as the be a deal breaker. It has a camera that is good enough for snaps and video analysis, and, unlike the iPad, you can use Surface to run an external camera for multiple angle work. It's fanless so when using it like a tablet it feels like a tablet.

The device becomes a no-brainer if you need Windows. If you run specific software that is Windows only, you can buy this device, use it as a laptop when you are at you desk and switch it to your notes/video machine when you are coaching. 

One area the iPad has not found a killer app is in cricket coaching. Note taking and video analysis are are excellent, but not exclusive to iOS. It's also excellent at "real work" at a desk, but again iOS is not exclusive on this. And as the Surface can be docked to a full size screen, keyboard and mouse, it is better on the desk than an iPad. That means that those who prefer the full legacy desktop experience of Windows (or want a hybrid) now have a tablet that can compete with the iPad.

One of the apps that an iPad can't run right now is PitchVision. As you know, I work for the company that produce this coaching tool. It currently ships with a Windows laptop in the box, software preinstalled. I would be interested to test the Surface with PitchVision. The specs on the device are low, so it might not run properly, but if it does you suddenly have a mobile version.

Compared to iOS, the mobile apps are far less in number, especially the quality apps. There are no Windows Modern apps anywhere close to Dark Sky, Drafts, Workflow, Editorial, Coach's Eye, Pixelmator or many more. On the other hand, the iPad can't compete when you want full power desktop apps like PitchVision Coach, Excel and Photoshop. So you need to assess your requirements.

If price is a factor, a Surface can be your PC and tablet for about £500. An iPad Mini and MacBook Air, as the closest equivalent in the Apple world, are nearer £800. This is slightly unfair as it's not like for like, but it's worth considering.

Overall, the Surface is not going to be an iPad killer for all cricket coaches.  If you live in the Apple world happily, this is not enough for you to switch. However, if you are weighing up your options for either a tablet or computer, the Surface is certainly capable enough to be used in the field and in the office. 

Surface is a handsome, capable device. I'm glad there are real options a competition to the iPad for cricket coaches with portable computing requirements.

Session Notes: Batting Without Nets

The challenge for us at this time of year is to use training time to get some decent batting practice outdoors.

As the weather is good, it would be a terrible waste to use the indoor nets, especially as they are so fast and bouncy compared to early season tracks in this northern outpost. Here's what I did.

We had a group of about 15, a big dry outfield and superb weather.

First we warmed up with some general activity and a good old three point fielding drill.

Then we set up two set of stumps on the outfield and split the group into two. Both groups did an identical drill:

• Two players pad up. One is the batsman, the other is the keeper.
• One person acts as feeder, throwing overarm to the batter. 
• the other players act as fielders. 

The aim of the drill is for the batsman to hit the ball between target cones that had been set up by the group anywhere they like. Both groups chose to set targets at cover and point, while they differed on the third target: One chose midwicket, one chose square leg.

if you are caught or bowled you are out. If you fail three times in a row to hit the target you are out. 

Once out, the keeper becomes the batsman, the batsman becomes a fielder and a fielder pads up to be ready to go. Fielders rotate.

This was more than a compromised version of middle practice though. The aim was to think about pushing the ball into gaps rather than playing technically perfect drives straight to mid off. This is part of my wider aim to improve strike rotation across the club.

Player-led training

I encouraged the guys to develop and adjust the drill, which they did well. They changed the rules to give players a longer bat, and made adjustments to the target areas. I also asked for feedback throught the session on how we could improve the drill further.

we did the drill for about 40 minutes, then I called them in to remind them that my focus is on helping individuals help themselves, as a result my sessions will always have suggested group drills, but will be happy to let people do their own thing if they prefer.

in the spirit of that, I let bowlers and batters go off and work on their own thing if they wanted, while the main chunk of the group did some catching technical work to finish the session. 

• The good: Focused session again with players learning to take personal responsibility. Lots of activity and the general idea of hitting gaps introduced to much enthusiasm.
• Needs work: As the group is split up, I can't give full attention to everyone. Hopefully as players start to understand the way I work, they will realise this is OK. I also need to get to know they players better.

Session Notes: Getting Outdoors

As yesterday was the first outdoor session with West of Scotland, I thought it would be a good exercise to record my thoughts on the sessions through the summer. Part tutorial, part self-analysis. 

First the basics. The club has its own ground and a range of training gear that I am hoping to extend. It also has a two lane indoor net. For this session the weather was set fair and we had full use of the outfield. The square wasn't ready for practice so we stayed off it.

The turnout was 20 or so senior club players. I had never seen any of them before, so this session was about finding out more about the training personality and ability levels of the guys. Spoiler alert, I was impressed with the standards.

The session itself was split into

• Warm up
• Group discussion
• Throwing technique and bowling target practice
• Final discussion

The whole thing took about an hour and a half, and I was pleased to see almost all the guys carry on after the session with some batting drills and high catching work.

The warm up was two simple fielding drills; a zig zag drill to get the heart pumping, and a drill where players had to hit a stump. I made it competitive between two groups. The idea here was to get a look at the movement skills of the players, see what intensity was shown and get some activity going straight away. Everyone got stuck in, no one looked out of depth.

I then sat them down for 10 minutes to chat about expections for the sessions. I also got to see who the more outspoken guys were, and who stayed quiet. I let the less extroverted guys know they can speak to me in a one to one environment.

With that done, I split the group into those who wanted to bowl (about seven players) and the rest.

Bowling practice

The bowlers did some target practice, with the added incentive of keeping score. They set their own score system which was minus three points for a one day wide, three points for hitting a stump, and one point for hitting the cone target on the pitch. They recorded the results on whiteboards.

The point of that was to have a frame of reference for future sessions, and make it a bit competitive. It's based on the idea of "deliberate practice", where you need instant feedback and make small adjustments. 

Interestingly, I got some good feedback about this drill. One player told me he gets more benefit from bowling at batsmen because he uses the opponent as his target. This makes sense. Shorter batters are different from taller, and premeditation is also a factor. I'm going to think about how we can use this in future sessions.

Also, one player said he prefered technical drills to target work. For this big group session it was impractical but we discussed it and - in the interest of player led coaching - he said he was happy to go off and do his drills alone. That's fine with me as players know themselves better than I ever will. I'll make a note to review progress though.

Throwing technique 

The other main part of the session was the throwing technique drills first shown to me by Mark Garaway when we filmed First Class Fielding . These are based on baseball drill to improve power and accuracy. My thinking is that fielding is one of the easier areas to get fast improvements and if we get the techniques down, we will make a difference to opposition scores.

We finished this section with a classic run out game for a fun finish, and I jumped in to act as keeper for the throws.

Some guys asked to do their own work in pairs with some batting drills. I was happy to let them go off and do their own thing. This was ad hoc and at the time I felt we should do something productive rather than just hit a few balls. On reflection though, this was both unplanned and player led so it was fine. In future I may challenge players to tell me the objective first, just to make sure the work is mindful of their larger goals.

Review

We finished the formal part of the session by asking "what can we do better next time?" 

I love this question because it challenges people to think and review rather than just say it was a good session. I got my feedback about the bowling here, and also heard some good comments about setting targets. Off the back of this, I plan to try and set up some one to one chats with people about their aims for the season, and how we can structure training to meet these goals. 

• The good: high energy, good balance of player led and coach led activity.
• Needs work: more personalisation required, need to try and get a practice pitch for the batsmen.

using the iPad for Productivity

This article is part of the "How to Get Real Work Done on an iPad" series. To go to the start, click here.

The iPad is superb for task and project management thanks to the huge variety of apps in this class. You could easily use it as your task manager alone and be happy. The problem is that "productivity" is very personal. One person's system is another's chaos. So, I will give you an overview of how I do things so you can see a specific example of how the iPad can work for managing tasks in general.

The first question you need to ask is "how complex are my task management needs?" for many people, a calendar and simple list of things you need to do is fine. You can use Apple Reminders to make a list, or several lists, and set due dates and priorities for tasks. You can use Apple Calendar for your appointments. Job done.

For others, me included, you have a lot of different projects and tasks to keep your eye on. If you made a list of everything you would be overwhelmed but the sheer amount you have to get done by the end of the day. You need a way to see what you need to do when you need to do it. Your system needs to be more complex to give you peace of mind.

With that said, you don't want a system that is so complex that you spend more time managing your time than actually working. For me, the perfect balance between complexity and effciency is "Getting Things Done" (GTD) by David Allen. Much has been written about the system so I won't reguritate it here except to urge you you buy the book if you are at all interested in being less stressed about your overwhelming workload.

I have an a slightly adjusted implementation of GTD. I have used it with huge success for around 10 years. As I write this I have 24 projects and 71 outstanding tasks. I estimate a further 30 items in my various inboxes that I have yet to check if there is an action to take, and today is a Sunday. You can imagine what Monday is like. Right at this moment this huge and growing list does not bother me in the slightest. I'm doing the very best thing possible in this moment and I'm comfortable with the other hundred plus things I am not doing right now. I know this because of GTD.

Calendar: Hard landscape

The easiest part of GTD, and productivity in general, is your calendar. Everyone has one. We know how they work because it's broadly the same for everyone: If you have a meeting you put it in your calendar. If it's on your computer you can set an alarm for it so you don't forget to attend. GTD calls this your "hard landscape" because its made up of time-dependent events that shape your day. If you miss that meeting it's dead. You have to rearrange it, you can't just do it later like you can with a job like "write the Henderson report".

So, if your calendar has a handful of meetings a week on it you can happily use the built-in iPad calendar. It allows you to enter and move appointments. You can also set a reminder. If you want to go cross-platform, like with a Windows PC or Android phone, it syncs with other calendars, including Google Calendar which works everywhere. It's basic but effective.

I recently changed to Fantastical because I prefer the natural language entry option, but I still have Google calendars at the back running it all so it syncs.

Fantastical on the iPad has awesome calendar entry magic

That ability to have multiple calendars is useful if you want to keep things separate. I have a work calendar using Google Apps and home calendar using Google Calendar. I don't want personal stuff on a calendar shared with work mates but I want to be able to see everything. The iPad lets me do that. I also have a couple of custom calendars; birthdays, travel (with TripIt) and cricket fixtures. I don't always want to see those so I keep them separate and turn them on when I need them.

The one weak area in Apple's Calendar for me is entering appointments and meetings. The scroller is slow and fiddly and you have to open the app to put something in. It's awkward. Fortunately now there are some options for natural language entry including Fantastical and Sunrise. These allow you quick entry using natural language, which is a lot faster.

Capture and Process

Taking a step back, another core element of GTD is getting control of what jobs are coming into your life. This will happen in a couple of ways; stuff you are given (email, phone calls, meetings and so on) and stuff you think of yourself. You can't do everything the moment it appears in your life, so you need to make sure it's down somewhere so you can decide what to do with it later. That's capturing and processing.

We all have a number of "inboxes" where these tasks arrive in our lives. The most obvious one is your email inbox. However, an inbox is any place where you put stuff that you have not decided an action for yet, you just sort of know it's important. I gather stuff into a few different inboxes that I process a couple of times a week into proper to do list items.

Mail

Email is the classic inbox. It's also slightly different as anyone can put something into your inbox anytime. The capture part looks after itself. Some of those emails will be information and require no action, others will need you to do something. There are many ways to manage the flow of mails, and what you do with them. However, the key point to remember is that your email inbox is a place for stuff to pass through, and not to stay.

As a result, email doesn't need a lot of clever features, even if you have a lot of mail to handle. All it needs to do is allow you to quickly view one mail at a time, decide on the action and move to the next. For me, there is nothing better than CloudMagic.

Personally, I don't use notifications for mail, as they are a distraction. So, two or three times a day, I'll "do email" by going into the CloudMagic application and starting at the top. The fastest way is to do it in portrait, with no sidebar and go to the first mail. From here, look at the email and decide,

• Nothing is required, it is information only. Archive it by swiping left.
• Action is required that will take about 2 minutes. Do it immediately.
• Someone else needs to take action. Forward the mail and send it to my task manager app Todoist tagged as "wait".
• Action is required that takes more than 2 minutes. Send it to Todoist as an action and archive the mail.

That's it. This system makes email much easier when handling incoming mails as there are only very quick decisions to be made on each mail. Email time is processing time, not time to do work.

CloudMagic is powerful here because it integrates with Todoist. With a tap you can turn an email into a task in a larger project with a due date. Everything is then in one place when I go to do work, or check on items I am waiting for.

Email integration with actions

I know some people do more with email, including sending mails to Evernote for reference and tagging or filing emails to help find them. As I use Gmail, I find that all reference material is easy to find using the search function and the time cost of filing is too high to bother. I'll occasionally file receipts as PDF files for expenses reasons, but that's about it.

I also have a number of email filters set up to automatically handle a number of work emails that are only ever reference emails. They can be filed right away so I let the system do it to save time. I'm very conservative with these filters as I don't want to miss anything.

A lot more can and has been written about email. Check out David Sparks for a deeper dive. My only additional advice is to keep it as simple as you can by managing the email you can control and keeping a handle on the stuff you can't. You don't need "inbox zero" to feel in control, but you do need to know what's in there, and what you are going to do with it. Otherwise, each email is a tiny packet of anxiety.

Drafts

Another inbox is your own head. You are constantly having ideas, remembering things, finding links online for further investigation and many more inputs. Drafts is the perfect way to capture all that stuff quickly, then decide exactly what to do with it.

Drafts is a note-taking app that opens onto a blank text entry field. If it stopped there it would have limited use, but the power of the app is the ability to swiftly move your note to somewhere else very quickly. It's your raw thoughts put into actionable tasks.

So, from a capture point of view, you can get it down fast, decide what to do with it and get it to the right place fast. Here's some examples,

• Thinking of a new task, typing it into drafts, and sending it straight to my task list.
• Writing up meeting notes and emailing straight out.
• Sending links to another computer.
• Posting to multiple social media at once.

Drafts is perfect for GTD because it helps you get stuff out of your head

For me the strength of Drafts is that it's always the starting point for text. You don't have to think about which app to open you just open Drafts and start capturing. It's a digital notebook. Once you have got the text out into the world you can then decide where it goes. It might be an article idea, a task, a reference note, the start of an article (I began this article in Drafts before realising it needed more attention in Editorial), a tweet, a Facebook post or something else. The writing and decision making are separated. That fits with GTD perfectly.

Evernote

Evernote is a dumping ground for reference material. For me, this is most saved web pages for things like cricket drills, recipes I want to try and make (badly) and exercises for the gym. I have a Notebook called ".inbox" (the dot is to keep the inbox at the top of the list of notebooks) to capture things quickly for later processing. This is frictionless because Evernote capture tools are everywhere in iOS share sheets.

Evernote works everywhere

Like email, at a separate time I go through .inbox and decide what to do with each item. Most things are filed away in another Notebook as reference material, but if there is an action attached I will add it to the relevant list in Todoist. Unlike email, I very rarely need to share an Evernote note with anyone else and so I don't forward anything (or have any shared notebooks). If I need to share something, it goes into Dropbox.

Dropbox

If Drafts is for text and Evernote is for the web, Dropbox is the place to capture and process files. This can be anything digital; documents, spreadsheets, images, fonts, executables, and anything else that's a file. To allow this make a Dropbox folder called Inbox where everything starts and you can process later. This has a number of benefits.

• Get email attachments. Email attachments have traditionally been a pain on the iPad, but with Dropbox and the IFTTT service you can set up a rule that automatically downloads all attachments into your Dropbox inbox.
• Sharing documents Anything in your Dropbox inbox can be seen on all your devices so it's a handy place to save files to move to and from a phone or desktop. It's a good idea to set up the automatic image upload option in Dropbox so that images you capture on your iPad are sent directly to Dropbox and you can delete them from your camera roll to save space.

The same rules apply for processing as any other inbox. Set aside time to process this inbox, start with the first file and ask yourself "what do I need to do with this file?"

• Requires action: Do it if it takes less than two minutes or add it to your list if it takes longer.
• Requires no action: If it's not important then delete it, if you might want it later, move it into reference material.

Doing it this way, you will find that there is a lot of stuff to process where you just delete. For example, I am emailed several reports a week that require nothing from me but it's good to have them. I have a rule set up in Gmail to automatically file them, so I know they are sitting in my email if needed and I don't need to duplicate the data by filing in Dropbox. I will delete those files instantly. You might want a backup of certain things, in which case you can file them in Dropbox too but I find that just creates work. I would rather just fly through the inbox. The golden rule for this time is "touch it once and get it out of the inbox fast".

Some people also have a lot of rules set up using IFTTT and PC based services like Alfred or Belvedere that automatically file things. Aside from the obvious issue of needing a Mac or PC to do this, I have never felt the need. I have experimented, but I guess I don't have enough files that can be automatically filed to make it worthwhile. I like to be able to touch everything and decide for myself what to do with it. The volume of files I need to look at is still low enough where this is not an issue for me. Perhaps your needs are different, in which case take a look at the above options.

Todoist

Todoist: Projects on the left, tasks on the right.

Todoist is the place where tasks end up once You have processed your inboxes and decided what to do with each one. The app is a project and task manager that has a lot of advanced features. This is great if you have more than a handful of tasks and projects and want to know at-a-glance what you need to do next. Frankly, if you have fewer moving parts (tasks, projects, priorities and contexts) you will find the Apple Reminders app is simple and effective. What reminders can't do is,

• Cross platform: iOS, Android and web versions sync seamlessly (this is why I prefer it to OnmiFocus).
• Tasks can be viewed by project, context, or due date.
• Tasks and projects can be quickly added using the app, Drafts or Launch Center Pro.

You'll notice the last one on the list is a "capture" feature. This is done in a number of ways depending on your needs in the moment.

• If you know the next action you can open the app and put it straight in avoiding the inbox altogether. The app lets you set due date, project and context if you wish. It's not the fastest way, but you can get it all in.
• If you know the project and want to think through some actions you can open up the project and start adding tasks.
• If you have something that might be a task or project but you need to think it through more, you can add the thought to the Inbox. This is an inbox inside Todoist that you can process at a later time.

So, the Inbox is your dumping ground for things that might be tasks or projects but you have not decided about yet. You can add emails into it, send a Draft into it, or open the app and type straight in. This is powerful because you can capture from any source and process it later. For example, say you get a Facebook Messenger or Messages note that has a task in it. The task is complex enough that you can't do it right away. You could leave it in the silo and forget to do it until you get another message. Or you could copy the text and paste it into the Inbox (perhaps via Drafts) knowing you will get to it in a timely manner because all your unprocessed stuff is in there.

I'd love it if Apple allowed share sheets in the Messages app so I could use the Todoist extension to make the process even quicker.

Processing is, as always, a quick decision making process of of moving stuff out of the Inbox and into the right place or deleting (practically nothing in here is either a sub 2 minute task or reference material). Here is my procedure

• If it's a project, create a project in the sidebar and delete the Inbox item.
• if it's a task, give it a GTD verb, due date and move it to the relevant project.

Before we continue, it's apt to have a sidebar here about task and project "metadata". You can add a task then give it a load of extra information:

• Due Date
• Context
• Repeat
• Alarm
• Notes, links and other references

I used to use an app that also gave me start dates, but I tried Todoist and loved it's feature set I decided to try and live without them. As it turned out, using due dates instead made me far more focused and productive. I'm fast and loose with due dates, often casting them far in advance of the real deadline, or postponing when I decide to. But the due date allows me to control what I see far better than start dates without feeling overwhelmed, or letting anything through the gaps. That was a nice surprise.

The other data is mostly self explanatory. However "context" is less clear. For the uninitiated, a context is a list based on restriction. You can't make a phone call unless you are near a phone, so you might have a list called "Calls". You can also set up agenda based contexts for when you are meeting with people such as a boss or spouse. This way, when you are at you phone you can go through your list of calls and not worry about tasks in other contexts.

In Todoist you set this up by tagging tasks when you put them in, then when you come to do work, using whatever context is most suitable for the moment. Tap on "Calls" to see all you calls. This is better than simpler list apps because you can have one task in multiple contexts. It makes it a lot harder to put a task in the wrong place to lose or forget.

As I work at an iPad almost always (and have a smart phone), I don't need many contexts. I have some I use occasionally such as one called "quick" for those unimportant but easy tasks I want to get done when I'm too tired for something epic. In all honesty, I prefer just looking at my list by due date and making decisions at the time rather than tagging when I enter a task. It's nice to have the option to create ad hoc lists from existing tasks though. I'll sometimes create a list called "offline" for when I'm travelling and can't be sure I'll have a reliable wifi connection.

Additionally, You can review papers in a physical, real world inbox and put the resulting actions into Todoist. Even in this increasingly digital world of work, there are dead trees to negotiate. This is best managed by a single place to dump stuff until you get a chance to process it. If the outcome of the processing is an action, it goes into Todoist directly. If it's reference material you can file it. I tend to use old fashioned A4 folders for this as I get very little paper reference material. if the original paper doesn't need to be retained, I'll scan the document, and file it in Evernote. I don't think I will ever be paperless, but the less paper in my office, the better.

More on filing in a moment, but the take home point with Todoist is this; once I'm done processing everything, I have a list of items that need to be done, and I don't see any items that can - or have to - wait. If you have never experienced the mental unclenching that goes with a trusted system like that, you have never lived. It's bliss in the midst of chaos.

Filing with Evernote

Filing is dull but necessary. Some documents you need to keep "just in case" you need it at an unspecified future date. This is why you need something simple to keep your filing that makes it easy to find. That something is Evernote.

Evernote makes filing as seamless as possible. As I've already noted, you can dump anything into it from webpages to video to documents (scanned and already digital). You can throw everything into one big pile and rely on search to find things, or you can sort everything into neat tags and notebooks. Either way, you know it's all in one place and accessible anywhere because it syncs between PC, Mac, Phone and iPad automatically.

My method is mainly "dump and hunt" because the search is so good. It even searches within PDF files. If I ever need anything again, I know it's in Evernote because all long term filing is in Evernote. Most filing will never be touched again, but you might as well keep it in Evernote just in case. The cost of storage is zero.

I also scan in most paper files worth keeping to save physical space. I use the excellent app PDFPen+ from Smile to do this quickly from my iPad. You can scan in papers, crop the image, OCR the text and send to Evernote in one go. Since I bought the app Evernote brought out a scanning app too that looks good but I have not tried it. You could argue that digitising paper is time consuming compared to shoving it a filing cabinet. That's a decision only you can make for yourself, but personally I prefer the minimalist feel of having as little paper as possible (and the knowledge the digital versions are backed up).

I do need to keep a few real items around. Pay slips and utility bills are two examples, asIll occasionally need to show these for ID reasons. Here I have a few A4 folders and a labeller to hand and I keep only what I feel absolutely can't be scanned. If you prefer to keep more paper around, then I recommend you follow the guidelines for filing in David Allen's Getting Things Done..

Todoist for action

The final element in GTD is to actually get on with some work. Todoist makes this easy because you should have in front of you a total overview of what you need to do and what you can do based on the current context.

For me, this means glancing at my list of items due today and working down the list. Inevitably, I'll have "overdue" items, but these are rarely ever overdue in the sense that someone else is waiting for me to complete the work. They are mostly arbitrary deadlines set by me, I'm using them as start dates. The ones that are true deadlines get done in time because I know they are true deadlines (like writing the day's article).

This is so easy, it turns even complex multi week projects into a simple list of tasks that I only see when I need to see it. It's a great weight off my mind and so makes me more productive. I just sit down and decide what's next, then do it. And because it's cross-platform, I can sit down at my iPad, computer or even my phone and know what I need to do.

Viewing today's list of tasks in Todoist

One extra in the app that works is Karma. When I saw Karma I thought it was a gimmick I would never use. In reality, it's motivating to get a few extra things done every day. The idea is simple; you set a target for daily and weekly tasks completed. If you hit the target you get Karma. If you miss you lose Karma. This makes working a game. You have to beat your score to keep your run going.

Karma turns work into a game.

As you can see, I've got a streak going well at the moment with a weekday target of 18 tasks a day (weekends are not counted). And while I realise this is just a silly game that's easy to "cheat", it does motivate me to keep my streak going. I've gradually pushed up both the daily and weekly task target to push myself, and it works. I'll often find myself on 16 tasks at 5pm and will spend a little more time finishing some things to get over the line. It a minor but it's a plus.

I think productivity is my favourite use for the iPad. I know it's possible to do all these things on desktop and even a phone, but when I have my list on the screen, and am choosing the next job then just doing it, I feel like a well oiled machine, operating at the height of my powers.

I can be sat at the big screen computer with the iPad as a companion. I can be in a library or coffee shop with just my iPad and a good cup of Americano. I can even be waiting for a train and glancing at Todoist instead of mindlessly scrolling twitter. It all makes me feel super productive, and gives me the evidence to prove it.

The New MacBook for Cricket

I love the look of the new MacBook. To me it feels like an iPad for people who want a keyboard and desktop class apps: Super thin and light with sufficent power.

If your needs are mainstream it's a brilliant machine. You can easily do browsing, email, office apps, social media, some photo editing, watching Netflix and YouTube, and so on. It's insanely thin and light, meaning it's a great machine for those who travel a lot.

If you use a camera for videoing sessions, there is no manual way to transfer the photos and videos to the MacBook yet. No SD port, no adaptor. Wifi transfer would fix this of course.

As most of this can also be applied to the iPad, it goes to show you don't need both devices, and it become a matter of personal requirement.

If you need expandability, you probably wouldn't want either an iPad or the new MacBook, but there are other options. So, if that's not a deal breaker, it's down to whether iOS or OSX has the best apps for your particular needs. 

I'd argue most of the time the iPad is a better choice, especially as a travel computer. Unless you specifically need OSX.

I could certainly find a use for it in my setup, especially when third-party expansion comes out. My work CMS is designed for desktop browsers, I have never been brave enough to podcast from it and I run a couple of apps that don't work on the iPad. That said, i could do that with any modern laptop, so I can't justify the trade-off in power that the lightness brings.

Its certainly appealing to look at, and I know my girlfriend would love a gold one, but for now I'll stick with the iPad and my work Dell Ultrabook.

Image Editing and Design on the iPad

This article is part of the "How to Get Real Work Done on an iPad" series. To go to the start, click here.

Alongside writing and spreadsheets, design - specifically Photoshop - is the top reason why many people feel they can't abandon a laptop for an iPad on the road. So let's be fair, real designers won't get much serious work done on the iPad. You will quickly bump up against the limitation of the apps. You probably want a bigger screen and finer control that the touch screen gives you.

For anyone else who has more modest design needs - something to quickly produce graphics for articles or do some simple photo editing - you can use an iPad for everything and not have to pay out the fees for a Photoshop licence.

That's exactly how I do it. My requirements are nowhere near professional graphic designer. I would say I am a "power user" or - to be more humble - "advanced beginner" because I read a book and some websites on design. These needs are,

• Graphics and photos for articles and social media (mostly from stock images).
• Cropping and resizing photos for the web.
• Meme style images.
• Simple website graphics such as banner ads, landing page graphics, coach images and so on.

Here are the apps that can get these jobs, and much more done.

Canva: totally cheating

Canva is a cheat. It's a graphic design app for people who can't design but know the difference between something that looks good and something that doesn't. It does it by giving you a bunch of templates to play with. That's a good thing if you are not great at design because you can stick to the template, create a good design and get it out of Canva. They even include a large database of assets you can drop in. This is ideal for all kinds of things: Facebook and twitter posts, posters, infographics, banner ads and anything else where text, images, shapes and icons are found together. Here's a graphic I recently designed and used:

Once you choose a template you can change it by moving, adding or removing assets as you like it. You can add filters to photos (the blur effect looks great behind text). You have a big choice of fonts and a massive choice of lines, shapes, colours, backgrounds, icons and stickers. There are stock photos to use or you can upload your own. The strength is that it's all in the app so you are not grabbing images from Dropbox or the camera roll. Some of the resources are free, while others you pay a small fee (about $1) to use in your design for a one off use. This compares very favourably with stock image sites. So far I have not created anything that cost more than £1.25 and most designs I have done have been free. You can easily pay £5 per image and more on stock sites.

Basically, you can play with it until you get something nice. It won't take long. It's like cooking a frozen pizza. It will still taste good even though you have not needed any chef skills to make it. A real chef would make it better for sure but you are prepared to compromise for convenience.

Of course there are limitations,

• You can't draw your own resources in the app, you have to use the provided ones or make them in something else and import them.
• As it doesn't support iCloud Drive, you end up with the old issue of having files in multiple places.
• As it doesn't support Dropbox either, I have to do a little dance of exporting to photos first before putting into Dropbox for hosting, thus leaving a trail of images behind.
• You can't use custom fonts. The choice of fonts is great but I sometimes want to use one not in the list and get stuck.
• Designs rarely move seamlessly from the web app to the iPad app, even though they are linked. As the web app is more flexible I find myself using that more often but then can't continue on the iPad.

These limits aside, I like to use Canva. It's my first app to choose to knock up a quick article graphic in a few minutes using the provided images and fonts. Then I can export the file to Dropbox and copy the link into Editorial (see above).

I have not thought of a way to prevent the "multiple copies" issue, so I have a recurring task in my task management app, Todoist, to clean this up once a week. As all my images are auto backed up to Dropbox with the excellent "Camera Upload" feature, I can be liberal with the delete button.

Big Boy Images: Pixelmator, iDraw and Photoshop Touch

When you need more power and flexibility in design, the iPad can handle it smoothly with these powerful tools. All three are close to desktop class. These monsters are certainly more that I need and I would guess that even professional designers and photographers can create without feeling too hindered. We are moving from cooking frozen pizza to making a gourmet meal. As the three are similar with slight differences I have put them together.

iDraw

iDraw is a tool for vector illustrations. You can design logos, icons, wireframes and all the usual vector stuff with a ton of shape options. You can also use it for image design as it has a lot of Photoshop style features previously only on the desktop,

• Layers
• Pen and brush drawing tools
• Powerful text tools with custom fonts (alongside AnyFont)

For a while it was the only real option for graphical work on the iPad, so I took the time to learn the basics and it's paid of with some better designs that I used to get on a desktop. The Retina screen is a huge benefit for that, and as a non-designer I didn't have access to Photoshop on the desktop, this was a step up.

Unlike Canva you have much more flexibility. You can export the files in lots of formats from the native .idraw through .psd and .pdf to .jpg at up to 300dpi. The share options are numerous,

• Import and export designs from and to Dropbox directly (no camera roll stop off).
• Export all over the place; email, photos app, social media, a direct print, and - through the share sheet - Evernote.
• It has a share sheet option in other apps so you can open images straight into iDraw.

A lot of my work has moved to Canva recently, but I still use iDraw in the times I need to use something a little more custom, especially around text or annotating an image. I'll also gravitate towards it if I know I'll need to export somewhere else as it's much easier.

Photoshop Touch

Anyone who says you can't do Photoshop on the iPad needs to be gently nudged to the App Store to see Photoshop Touch. It's by no means the full PS experience but it is a lot more powerful than the naysayers imagine.

It does the layers thing, let's you draw freehand, crop and resize photos, add effects (from ugly filters to elegant tweaks), add text with custom fonts, blend photos together and even add or remove objects from photos.

I use it mainly for the cropping and resizing, and the feature that lets you remove the background from an image. There are a few apps that do this, including Adobe's own Photoshop Mix, but Touch does the best job.

It even comes with a bunch of tutorials to help you learn the tools and interface. You'll need that because Adobe have employed indecipherable icons in a nonsensical menu layout. It's all there but hidden until you get used to it. I still have not mastered it fully but I put that down to lack of experience with PS in general. For example, I can add text in any colour or font I like to a layer easily enough but I can't work out how to add effects like a drop shadow. I also can't work out how to change or move the text after it's been added. I'm happy to admit this could be me floundering about in a difficult interface, but it certainly puts me off using it as it's not as easy as other options.

You can import images from the camera roll with the share sheet, or open from within the app, but not straight from Dropbox (another camera roll stop off). If you want to discover images to use, you can find royalty-free images on Google with a built in search feature. I love that as I use a lot of stock images. With this feature you can quickly find something at low or zero cost.

You can export your work as a .jpg, .png or .psdx file to the camera roll (and have another copy). It's supposed to support opening in Dropbox through the share sheet but It has never worked for me. I tap the share button, choose Dropbox and I am returned to the menu with no action. There is also an option to export to Creative Cloud (Adobe's sync service) but without using the desktop version there's no point.

As a non-expert, Photoshop Touch feels more like a proof of concept rather than a useful design tool. It has some brilliant moments that make it seem like a desktop class app, then it makes life difficult (like the interface and the export options) which puts me off. I see it as a utility app that is good to have around in case I need to do something unusual with an image.

Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a recent, and welcome, addition to the design app world. They have had a Mac app for a while and the iPad version takes a big chunk of it's versatility. It's very similar to PS Touch, so much so that you might find you only need one rather than both apps. The feature set is identical with everything from cropping to advanced use of drawing blending, layers, effects and text.

Pixelmator has the edge when it comes to interface, and import and export. I quickly took to the Apple style layout of Pixelmator and found simple tasks fast and easy to complete. After coming from PS Touch, this was welcome and shows what can be done with a touch interface. As an example here is how easy it is to remove the fielder on the far right from this sample image,

I tap "retouch", then "repair".

Then I smudge the player, wait about 10 seconds...

And he is gone!

With my team a man down, I can export the image. The options are excellent: I can use the new iOS 8 "open in app" to put it straight into Dropbox. That's ideal for me. If your needs are different there are options for opening in any app that supports images or just saving to the camera roll. Say, like I do often, you want to put the design straight onto Facebook and Twitter. The option is baked right in.

I'm still getting to grips with it but I want to use it more. Canva just has the edge on speed designing with all it's templates. I sense I will be better in the long run with a "proper" design app as, one thing is for sure, this is as full featured as I - and most people - will need for a long time.

AnyFont, WhatTheFont, Dafont and Coolors: Font and colour geekery

Fonts and colour palettes can make or break a design. It pays to know a few things about how to choose them and put them together for best results. Now, that is a world of insane geekdom and so if you want nice fonts and colours but don't want to get lost in the depths you can take inspiration (copy) from existing designs and try to match in your design. All art is theft.

It's another cheat, but a cheat that doesn't take a lot of work. Here is what I do for fonts,

1. When I see a nice font or font pairing that are unnamed I'll use the WhatTheFont site to investigate and get something close. Often this leads to a paid font which is not in my budget. If I know the font names, I'll skip this step.
2. I'll try to find the font, or something that is free and equivalent using Dafont or Google Fonts.
3. I save the font to Dropbox and install it using the AnyFont app. This adds it to the iPad and gives me access to the fonts in iDraw, PS Touch and Pixelmator (but not Canva sadly).

Remember that any fonts you install will not be carried over if you have to restore your iPad. That means you need to keep them around to reinstall. I keep all my fonts in Dropbox post-install for that reason. It's handy to note down which fonts are in which designs so save hunting about if you forget.

Colour palettes are even easier. I go to the Coolors site. It gives you a randomly selected palette designed but someone who understands colour theory. If I don't like that one I can pick another. Then I use it for the colour scheme for all my designs. Again, it's a cheat, but until I take a proper graphic design course or hire a designer it's the next best thing.

Writing for Web and eBook Drafting on the iPad

This article is part of the "How to Get Real Work Done on an iPad" series. To go to the start, click here.

The iPad is a superb writing tool. I use it several times a week to draft and edit articles. I also use it with longer written documents, mainly eBooks, that are sold in the PitchVision Academy paid section.

The hardware, especially in the iPad Air (I currently use a 2013 model), is perfectly built for writing. The Retina screen is so good you won't want to look at text on anything else. It's also got a 4:3 aspect ratio rather than widescreen (16:9) which suits writing tasks much better. Put it in landscape and thumb type or put it on a desk in landscape. The on screen keyboard is big enough, and customisable enough that you can use it for long typing sessions. If you need a physical keyboard, Bluetooth is supported.

But for it to work well you need to set it up right. I think that's where a lot of people get frustrated.

The out of the box app experience is not as powerful or as easy when you want to get longer form writing done and published online. So I turn to Editorial.

Better than desktop: Editorial

The behemoth of iPad writing is Editorial.

Rather than a straight up word processor, Editorial is a text editor. It uses plain text and the very simple extension to text: Markdown. This simplicity is powerful because you can just focus on getting the words out and making a draft without distraction. Plus, when you need to, you can use Editorial as the hub of your writing. You can pull in resources from elsewhere, make it look good and then push out the end result to anywhere you want.

Let me give you an example: I write a daily article 400-800 word article on PitchVision Academy based on something I have researched. So I look up my notes in Evernote for the basic idea, then open Editorial and start writing. Usually I do a quick outline using subheaders as a guide to where I want the article to go. The markdown syntax allows me to create a subheader easily by hitting "##" on the keyboard. It's fast. Then I fill in the gaps with a first draft. The whole thing takes less than 30 minutes to have a usable draft.

Basic formatting is simple. Apart from subheaders, bold, italics, block quotes and lists have simple markdown codes, so can be handled by any text editor. Why Editorial then? Because it excels in two areas,

1. Text correction and expansion.
2. Workflows.

Text expansion transforms how you type and makes it faster to type on the smaller iPad keyboard but you need to buy into it a bit because best practice text entry is different on an iPad. First there is good old autocorrect. It's imperfect, but once you get the hang of it you can blast out a lot of text without worrying about typos. I find that the more I use it the better I get at noticing where it's put the wrong word in place and correcting autocorrect. Overall it's much faster, especially if you work a lot in portrait mode with your thumbs.

Second is TextExpander Touch. This app is a custom keyboard that allows you to define a small bit of text (snippet) that automatically expands to longer text. It's a huge time saver. Editorial supports snippets whether you have TextExpander or not. One I use every day is ".pva" which expands to "PitchVision Academy". If you find yourself typing the same thing repeatedly then make a snippet for it and save yourself more and more time as you add to the list.

For more complex tasks toy can use a unique feature of Editorial called "workflows". I use workflows every day. Workflows are extensions to the basic functions that make it fast an easy to get a document presentable. One of the best ones is the link function: When I tap the "Search PV" button in Editorial, a box pops up. I enter the term and an taken to PitchVision Academy article search results from the browser inside Editorial.

All good so far, but it gets super slick here,

• From this article slip back to the document.
• Highlight the link text with a double tap.
• Tap the "Link" button and a formatted link pops into place.

Three taps and the link is in place.

Compared to using the web interface of my company CMS (Content Management System) it's about 10x faster. It's also noticably faster than the text editor I use on my PC.

Speed is not the only benefit though. Unlike Word or Pages, it's simple to get the article out onto the internet when you are done. Plain text in the markdown format can convert straight into HTML for putting on the web. With a single tap of the HTML workflow in Editorial your words are reformatted and copied to the clipboard ready to be posted online. If you are writing in Word and have to post online, you probably find that you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get to the same place. I know I used to pull my hair out with formatting issues, but with Editorial that's a thing of the past.

With your fresh baked HTML, You can upload the article. Editorial supports FTP and Wordpress and I'm sure some other ways that I have not discovered. In my case, I use a web based interface. I have set it up to post like this:

1. Tap the "+Story" workflow, which opens the Editorial browser on the web based text entry page of the site.
2. Swipe back to the editor, tap "HTML".
3. Swipe to the browser and paste the code straight in. No messing with formatting.
4. Save and the article is live.

Through no fault of the app, this part is a little less slick. The web form style of the CMS means a couple of extra taps to add the title, the url and the formatting type. There is no way around those fiddles and I happily admit they are designed for bigger screen, keyboard and mouse. I have been known to quickly change to my desktop for this last stage if it's handy. Even here it's Editorial to the rescue, because the app can save files to Dropbox. I just open my PC Text editor and the document is ready to go.

Speaking of easier on the PC, there is also the issue of images in Editorial edited web articles. Images are not as easy as words. You can insert images but to get them in shape you need to,

1. Find or design the image and save it locally.
2. Resize and crop the image.
3. Upload the image.
4. Place the image in the right place in the article.

On the PC you can open multiple windows and use copy/paste with the keyboard to get it done. The iPad needs a bit more work because it's not as good in this situation. Let me show you how I do it for an article that looks like this,

You can see the image on the left with the words wrapped around it. Here is the process. Be warned, it's ugly, but you may have a more forgiving CMS to work with.

I'll start with an image already designed, cropped and resized because I'll go more into the process for that in the Graphic Design section. Once the image is ready to go I'll make sure it's on the Public section of my Dropbox then,

1. Open the Dropbox app to the image, hit the share sheet, then tap the Clips option to copy the unique link.
2. Return to the article and use a TextExpander snippet that generates the right HTML code for the placement of the image and pastes the image link in the right place (in this case it's aligned left with a 10px space, but I have other snippets for different positions). Just for completeness here is the snippet,

<img align=left src="%clipboard" vspace="10" hspace="10" align="left" alt="" />

1. Unfortunately, there is an extra step to make the image work. That's because Dropbox image links need to be converted from "www.dropbox.com" to "dl.dropboxusercontent.com". So I highlight that part of the code and hit another TextExpander snippet that replaces the text.

The reason I use Dropbox is because the image hosting tool on our custom CMS is web based and won't work on the iPad. I'm sure there are more elegant ways that I have not examined,

• Use a CMS with a native app where you can insert the image.
• Upload the image using FTP or Wordpress (Editorial can do both from within the app using workflows that are on the Editorial website).

Other than web articles, I do some other writing on the iPad. I'll talk about these more in their relevant sections: Writing and editing eBooks for eLearning courses, Reference material notes and posting to social media.

Researching Articles on the iPad

This article is part of the "How to Get Real Work Done on an iPad" series. To go to the start, click here.

My job is about spreading ideas.

I don't want or need to keep up with the news because I don't cover that, but I do want to find new ideas that can be applied to cricket to help players and coaches. Eventually the best of these ideas will become content on PitchVision Academy, mostly as articles. That means I need to do a lot of research.

The iPad is just about the perfect tool for the job.

Feedly: The morning sweep

It starts with a daily sweep of the net for ideas courtesy of Feedly. Feedly is an RSS reader that you can load up with sites. In my case this is mostly cricket, fitness, technology and self-help. I have about 80 sites on the list at the moment including those I am interested in personally as well as professionally.

Feedly lets you quickly sweep through dozens of articles a day in no time. My process fr this si simple: Armed with a morning cup of green tea (yes, I'm that guy), I take about 20 minutes swiping and reading headlines. If anything catches my eye I will tap the article and decide what to do with it next:

• Read it
• Save it for later
• Share it

In my experience it works better to avoid getting sucked in to articles that take more than a couple of minutes to read because this part is all about speed.

There are other newsreader apps that you can re-purpose as idea finders: Nuzzle, Prismatic, Flipboard and Random are all good. They all have interesting approaches and certainly broaden your horizons. That said, I have had limited success in finding usable ideas. Feedly remains the cornerstone.

Pocket: The personal newspaper

If article is one that needs proper consideration, tap the single tap it takes to send the article to Pocket.

Pocket is a personal newspaper filled with stuff you want to read. In my case, I am not a completionist. There are dozens of articles in there because I always put in more than I make time to read. That's fine, because it's the place for that stuff to be. I won't read it in the morning sweep because I would still be reading hours later. Instead, I drop into it at down times throughout the week; on a train, in a coffee shop and so on. It's there when I need it and it's not bothering me when I don't want to or can't read it.

Linked apps: Getting it out there

The ultimate aim of Feedly and Pocket is fully fleshed out articles or conversation topics on the weekly podcast. That means getting the germ of the idea out of my reader apps.

I use the PitchVision Academy Twitter account to throw up quick quotes and links alongside general ideas that pop into my head. I want to see how popular an idea is with PV fans because ideas that get read, retweeted and favourited will be popular articles.

It used to be a pain to put a quote, title and link together for a tweet. Copying, pasting back and forth between apps was a lot of friction. But with the latest iOS it's a breeze:

1. Hitting the tweet button in Feedly (after highlighting the text)
2. Hitting the tweet button in Pocket
3. Opening in Safari, and using Linky in the share sheet. With this option you can track clicks on the link.

If there is too much text for twitter and I don't want to edit it down to a tweet then I have a couple of options. I'll send it to a set of friends on Facebook called "cricket" using the built in Facebook share sheet. Or I'll open it in Drafts, edit it, and send it to Google+. These are lesser option as G+ and my Facebook list has a fraction of the audience of Twitter.

Twitter works great as public idea repository. You can use it to refer back to things you have read for stuff to turn into articles, graphics and podcast discussions. You can also use it track the popularity of the ideas, when deciding what to write about in more detail.

Evernote and Drafts: Idea storage

Which brings me onto using Evernote (via often via Drafts).

Evernote is a digital Swiss Army knife, more on that later, but one big use is for storing article ideas that don't need to be put into public. It's a smooth process from the iPad:

1. From Feedly, Pocket or Safari, copy the details (usually with Clips),
2. Paste into Drafts (via the iOS 8 notification centre widget)
3. Tap to append it to an Evernote note called "Post Ideas".

Drafts makes moving text around easy; in the past that was difficult and annoying and would have driven me back to my desktop to do the work. Now its a seamless flow of information from consumption to sharing. I'll provide more examples of how to use it later.

You don't have to use Drafts to store stuff in Evernote. If you read an article that you want to keep for reference but not for an article, use the share sheet in Pocket to send it into the bowels of Evernote with a tap. It saves the entire article in a searchable database.

Kindle: Deeper dives

Sometimes you want to forget speed and get deeper into a topic and that's where to use Kindle.

The common advice is to read widely as it give you a broader outlook. So, keep a long wish list of books on Amazon on a range of topics. For me the range is from fiction (currently reading The Stand by Stephen King) to self-help to straight up cricket coaching manuals. Having everything on the iPad means your books go where you go and you can take a few minutes in the doctor's waiting room or other interstitial time.

Highlight key points as you go through any book so you can easily find it later. Digital reading means searchable, and that means a source of ideas for content. It is possible to get your notes into Evernote, but it's a bit of an inelegant hack. You can make a reminder to go through your notes instead.

Of course, reading is not only for iPads. Use dead trees books for both enjoyment and information too, but that's outside the scope of this article other than to say that you can easily keep book ideas and notes in Evernote.

I'll also quickly mention Audible here. Audio is a different way to consume content when you can't read a book; the gym, washing up, walking around and so on. For that reason, I don't use the iPad for audio books, although I do "read" them using my phone.

How to Get Real Work Done on an iPad

One of the main criticisms of the iPad is that it can't be used for getting stuff done in any real way. I want to prove that wrong.

I believe there is a place for the device beyond the "big phone" uses of games, photos, email triage and social media updates. I use it for a lot of things that even two years ago I would have needed at least a laptop. That said, it's still not the perfect solution in all cases. So, the question is, can you use it to do real work?

I can't answer that directly, but by showing you the nuts and bolts of how I use my iPad to do real work every day, maybe you can get a better idea of the devices strengths and weaknesses.

iPad Use Case

I have an orginal iPad Air in Space Grey.

As you know, I'm a cricket coach for a living, but most of my days are not spent directly coaching players on the field. Day to day I produce coaching material for PitchVision Academy, a website for cricket advice and eLearning. That puts me in a unique position to do lots of different kinds of real work: I write and edit articles and eBooks, I shoot video at locations around the world, I edit photos, audio and video, I create graphics, I maintain social media, I research ideas, I do spreadsheets, I upload a heck of a lot of files to work servers, and I communicate with my work colleagues - and other contacts - across the globe.

I also do actual cricket coaching that is mostly free from technology directly because I deal with players playing for fun over performance aims. Even there it is leaking through more often.

In short, my real work digital demands are very high!

So, the rest of this article will give you a snapshot of how I personally get stuff done and make real things using the iPad. It will also show you the limits of the device in my experience. I hope it will help you, if you are in a similar position, to get the most from your iPad. Perhaps it will help you decide if you should buy one, or something else instead.

As always, your comments, flames, feedback and questions are welcome.

Home Screen

As is customary with such articles, here is my home screen for you to get your bearings:

As a small sidebar that acts as an insight to my personality I'll tell you that everything on the screen has a role and there are few distractions. Yes, that even extends to black wallpaper. The choice is effective and dull over a world of fun distractions.

Lesser-used apps are on page 2 in folders. They are enough of a pain to get that you have to consciously decide to go there (rather than fall into Facebook on accident). You have to move past more productive distractions to reach the unproductive ones. It gives you a better ability to focus on the real work. To help with this, use spotlight search a lot to get to occasional apps. The XE currency converter is a good example. It's needed about twice a month so it's pointless on the home screen, but with a swipe, search and tap it's fast enough.

Using springboard in combination with spotlight search in this way is a fast jumping off point.

Over the next few articles I will go into details on what other work I do on the iPad:

• Research
• Writing
• Image Editing and Graphic Design
• Productivity
• eLearning Course Production
• Communication and Social Media
• Cricket Coaching
• Everything Else

Debunking "Going Quiet In The Field"

One of the popular mantras from the "old heads" at my cricket club is,

"The problem is that you all went quiet in the field. You have to back the bowler!"

Every time we lose, especially batting first, that line comes out in some way or another. And it certainly seems like sensible advice. 

But is it really?

Let's look at the evidence.

Everyone knows that these days a good fielding side work together to back the bowler. You clap, you cheer. You "ooh" and "ahh" when the ball beats the bat. You use well timed sledging to make the batsmen feel like he is taking on a beast with 11 heads.

When I coach I always throw in a line to the boys about encouraging the bowlers. 

And as a 'keeper I am often the last to shut up with the encouragement myself. I feel like it's my job to be team cheerleader so the captain can hatch his plans in peace.

The idea behind this strategy is two-fold:

1. It intimidates and distracts the batsman.
2. It keeps the bowler going.

I have little doubt that a fired-up, enthusiastic side is capable of one or both of these. Think back to a time when you were on top. Wickets fell. The bowler was charging in. You felt like something was going happen nearly every ball. As a result you naturally had greater energy as a team.

But that is also the problem: The noise and enthusiasm came from the fact you were on top. Not the other way around. You can't pretend to be on top when the batting side are blasting you to all corners. So you "go quiet" and the sages on the sidelines make a mental note to criticise your efforts.

That's why you have to know there are times when "going quiet" is a right and proper response. It doesn't mean that you have given up on winning, simply that you are focusing on something more important than making a pointless noise.

When to Go Quiet in The Field

The best teams in the world don't win games through passion.

Passion is important, but it can also cloud the mind. The better teams know that winning is about making a plan then, without distraction, putting it into action.

And that takes a cold, calculating and icy approach that goes beyond shouting "come on lads" after every ball. 

Say it's your strategy to squeeze a side out of the game bowling second. You are less interested in bowling them out than you are in drying up the runs so much that they can't keep up with the rate. What do you need to achieve that?

• Accurate bowling
• Well set fields
• Efficient fielding
• A touch of luck

Which one of those is improved by being loud in the field?

I'm going to go ahead and say that none of them. 

Sure, a bowler might feel encouraged by hand clapping, but he will also feel supported by fielders who take catches, throw themselves into dives to save boundaries and back up the back up fielders: The unspoken code of teamwork.

My point is simple; it's far more important to be well drilled, calculating and efficient than it is to be loud. The latter springs from the former.

Of course, it's also possible to go quiet because you have indeed given up on trying to win. That is not acceptable unless you are truly out of the game (a rare moment). In this case, the team do need to do some artificial encouragement to each other. Remind everyone that it's not over until "the fat lady sings". Even if she is in the wings warming up, she's not showing her pipes yet. Let's get on with it.

The job of the captain, and coach - and even the old heads - is to recognise the difference between getting on with a job and giving up. Then to decide whether going quiet was a symptom of poor team support or just a matter of being focused on the important task of trying to win a cricket match.

Cricket Coaching Lessons I Learned After Passing Level 2

I have been coaching cricket since 1993, taking the "new" level 2 in 2008 and so I have a lot of miles in my coaching engine. I have learned a huge amount in that time and now I want to pass on some of my thoughts.

In many ways it's my open letter to the 18 year old David Hinchliffe about what to expect as a coach. Whether you are newly qualified yourself, or have years of experience, I would like to hear what you think.

Respect Will Make or Break Your Coaching

I'm a total cricket badger. I always have obsessed about technique, tactics, fitness and the mental game. I devoured everything I could about the game because I wanted to improve myself and be able to coach others with the aid of my encyclopaedic knowledge.

What I know now is that knowledge is just the start: Real coaching is about developing respect.

Of course, you still need to get the information right. You will never get respect or results if your abilities to observe, identify and correct are lacking. But players who respect you will listen to you. Players who listen to you have a chance of improving.

That may seem simple, but just because you have a hoodie with "COACH" emblazoned on the back, doesn't mean you will garner respect. That takes a whole different set of skills that are not taught to you on Level 2 because they are highly individual.

How to Win Respect of Anyone You Coach

I've noticed that this is one reason why there are fewer coaches at senior level that at junior level. It's much easier to have respect of a group of 12 year old cricketers than it is a jaded bunch of 20-40 year old cricketers.

But whoever you coach at whatever level, you can gain their respect.

It starts by having the confidence to know what you are trying to achieve. You have to be a very different coach with a very different goal if you are only able to run senior warm ups compared to coordinating a junior rep level side.

And to know what you are trying to achieve, you better damn well know what every individual player is trying to achieve too. I learned pretty fast that my goals rarely matched most of the people I coach. So I learned to adapt. I changed my approach to help players get what they wanted, even if it wasn't the image of perfection that I had in my mind.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

It was obvious that this worked for me. Players respected me more because they saw I was working for them and not trying to force things.

For example, when I started at a new club a few years back I was quickly developing a reputation as the "drills guy with all his cones". The players would rib me for it. I could have given up and fallen in line with the old way of warming up with a few catches before play. Instead, I talked to players. I found out what they wanted to do:

"We drop too many catches in the deep"

So we bought a skyer and made it a challenge to catch as many as possible before play.

"I bowl too many bad balls"

We marked out an area for the bowlers and put flat markers down for target bowling.

You get the idea.

I still go my precious drills, but the guys felt like they were doing them for a reason and so they respected my ability to come up with things that did what they wanted while also keeping them interested.

Better Sessions are About People Not Drills

There is a comedian called Pete Holmes who talks about the idea of the "$10,000 statement". It's the idea that a very simple statement is very difficult to really learn. So it takes $10,000 of therapy to really get it.

My $10,000 statement about coaching is this: It's about people, not drills.

I know it's obvious, but it took me a lot of years - and a lot of sessions - to really understand that fact. I would rather have a few drills and have a real connection with my players than hundred of drills and a bunch of players who are closed off to new ideas.

When you connect with players, they not only learn from you, they learn from themselves because they are open and mindful.

Maybe that openness and mindfulness is only for 15 minutes before your matches in the summer. Maybe it's part of a year long programme of talented cricketers. It doesn't matter because either way you are making a difference.

And that is what it's all about.

Why All Coaches Should Hate Draw Cricket

I love draw cricket, but these days it seems a little pointless to flog the dead horse.  In my latest vlog I take the view as a coach and as a player.

How to Build a Standing Desk for Free

The modern cricket coach at any level spends a lot of time at a computer. From writing reports to working out averages to keeping up to date with emails from players and parents there is always something that needs you to be tied to a desk.

I've wanted to use a standing desk for a long time now. I have been convinced by the research that says sitting is killing you. My job involves a lot of sitting down and I knew that an hour in the gym 3 times a week was not cutting it.

Thing is, I didn't want to pay the hundreds it costs to get a standing solution. Desks can be up to £800 and even cheap desk adaptors are a couple of hundred.

Then I found a site that showed me how to do the same thing for about £20.

It was reading that elegant solution that got me to thinking that I could do it for even less.

Here is how I did it for free. And you can too if you have stuff found in most homes or offices.

Free Standing Desk

You will need:

• A normal desk
• A sturdy box that is about 14" (35cm) high

Instructions:

1. Put the box on top of the desk.
2. Put your laptop or monitor, keyboard and mouse on top of the box.

That's it!

Is it beautiful? I guess it depends how nice the box and desk look to you. But the fact is that it works.

Here is how I laid out mine:

I have been using the desk for a few days now and I can tell you that I can work for long periods standing up with no discomfort.

Customising Your Standing Desk

I was lucky enough that I had a box that was the right height. I can stand with my elbows at 90 degrees and use the keyboard easily. I had to slightly raise the monitor to get it up to my eye line using a smaller box, but I had that lying around.

It's important that the desk is comfortable to use, so bear in mind those factors when setting up your standing desk. You might find that the investment of a a few pounds is worthwhile to get a box that is the right height. Only you can know, but you can still do it for much cheaper than a real standing desk.

I also have a laptop I can put at sitting height. I have found that standing all day is a little tough, so a couple of times in the day I will sit at the laptop and do a specific piece of work like checking email. This has had the added benefit of stopping me idly checking email through the day instead of making awesome stuff for PitchVision fans (more on that topic in another article).

My Standing Desk Experience

The question remains, would I recommend a standing desk?

If you work at a desk quite a lot I would heartily say yes. With a free standing desk you can try it out and see how you feel spending more time standing. My experience so far has been positive, but if I change my mind I can always just take the box off the desk and go back to the old way.

However, when I am standing up I feel more focused and energised. I am able to work at things with less distraction. Sitting down feels like a little treat to myself, and because I have a specific job to do when I sit (email) I can get on with it while feeling good.

It's too early to comment on the actual health benefits, but I certainly feel better about myself for doing it after all these years.

Give it a try and let me know how you go!

5 Tech Devices That Help Cricket Coaches

One of the themes of this site is how new technology can be integrated into good cricket coaching. This video shows you what I am using to balance things out.

About

As this is the first article, you are going to get an introduction to the site. I reserve the right to change how I do things as I go along, but for now here is the past and my ideas for the future at david25.com

What's with the name? 

It's one I made up in 2001 when I joined a web forum on a whim. I ended up working for the site full time and by then the name had stuck. Over a decade later I bought the domain because I figured it would be easy to say out loud to people. Wars have been started on less.

How did things start? 

 After leaving the forum for a networking tech job, I started a little site on the side about cricket coaching called harrowdrive.com which merged with PitchVision Academy in 2008. I became Director of Coaching there and have been living the dream ever since.

 PVA is a huge archive of material written, collected, recorded and edited by yours truly.  I'm super-proud of it and if you play or coach cricket you should absolutely go over there and do a deep dive into the pool of content. But there is also a corporate image to maintain. There are dependencies on other people. I can't always make stuff the way I want to make it. That's not a complaint, far from it, but it means I needed another outlet.

What to expect

So I created this site to be more personal, to put the stuff I would never dream of putting on the "day job" site. Equally, I won't be adding articles and videos that are better suited to PVA. This site is my place to play with formats, take longer to make things and to be more personal.

Franky, its also to show off, to have a lark about and to connect with like minded souls.

 Of course, as a cricket coach with over 20 years experience, and total cricket badger, that means I'm often going to be talking about cricket.  There will be advice and experiences,

So if you want a kind of personal sidebar to PVA, this is the place for you.

And if you want private coaching from me (as a speaker, coach or consultant) you can hit me up without my work cap getting in the way.

I'll also be talk about fitness, food, technology and anything else that swings across my life. My aim is to do it in an interesting and entertaining manner, but also to give you something practical from the site. My first bit of advice is to subscribe via email so you get the site updates when the come out. If you don't like it you can opt out. If you do like it, then let me know!

What's next? 

Honestly, if you subscribe via email you will not miss out. My plan is to update once or twice a week with long form articles, video blogs, how to guides, analysis of trends in technology relevant to cricket coaching. I might change that depending on how well it goes, but I guess that's up to you as much as it is me.

Join me for the ride and we might have a little fun.