ToDon’tTimer vs Drift

Why? If you ask a creative person, the answer will always revolve around time. We simply need time to execute an idea (and do it well)—more time than we have. A process that takes you from idea to final product can take 3 weeks, but could just as well take 3 months, 3 days, or 3 years. You could even go through the process in 3 minutes: you sketch a few options, pick one, and ‘finalize’ it as much as you can in the short time you have left. The end result of such a 3-minute round could be a clear sketch or small mock-up, for instance. Use the ToDon’tTimer to sketch and test your ideas in a limited timeframe. Decide to add the idea to your ToDon’tList or to spend a bigger timeframe on it. –––– You can use the ToDon’tTimer for all your creative processes. The ToDon’tTimer is also an interesting addition to Don’t/Do This – Game. –––– The Circular Design Process This method requires you to work quickly and roughly, leaving out many details and forcing you to make essential choices. That is why those 3 minutes will tell you a great deal about the overall process: not just what the end product will look like, but also which pitfalls you might encounter along the way. Should the idea turn out not to work or be feasible, then you will only have spent 3 minutes on it, which leaves you plenty of time to start over and try out other possibilities. Of course, you can apply this principle in different timeframes, going from very short to longer rounds. After the first 3-minute round, you might have a number of sketches. After a round of 3 hours, you could have a sketch model. After 3 days you could have a number of prototypes and after 3 weeks you will have an end result without any stress. The great benefit of working in circles: after those first 3 minutes, you can already discuss the project with your client or teacher. And after a few days, you could have some prototypes to present. When you work in increasingly bigger circles, as it were, you have much more space to try out and test things. That way you discover what does and what doesn’t work. Each following round, you bring your experience from the previous round with you.

Drift does two things beautifully. It catches your ideas the moment they arrive, and it gives you a calm, focused place to write the ones worth keeping. CATCH EVERY IDEA Some of the best ideas show up at the worst possible time. In the shower. On a walk. Halfway through something else. Speak a thought or type a line, and Drift catches it, cleans it up, and files it in the right place before you have finished talking. No folders to pick. No form to fill in. You keep moving. CATCH IT HANDS FREE Say "Hey Siri, catch my drift" and start talking. Your idea lands in Drift with the phone in your pocket, the screen locked, and no signal at all. There is a home screen widget and a one tap capture too. AND ON YOUR WRIST Drift is on Apple Watch. Raise your wrist, tap once, and talk for as long as you need. Your arm can drop, the recording keeps going, and the idea is waiting when you pick your phone back up. The phone can stay at home. IT SORTS ITSELF Every capture is read, tidied into clean sentences, and pointed at the area it belongs to. Drift pulls out the to-dos, spots the deadline you mentioned, and writes a clear headline. You keep it with one tap or move it. Nothing is ever filed behind your back. SORT A WEEK IN A MINUTE Ideas arrive faster than anyone files them. Drift deals them back one at a time. Swipe right to keep it, left to come back to it later. What is left is a list you actually chose. A REAL PLACE TO WRITE Drift is not only for catching ideas. It is a serious writing tool. A calm, full screen writer with nothing in your way. Press / to mark a shot, a voiceover, a hook, whatever your trade calls them, and the marks stay part of the script. When you are done, pull every shot out as one list. Focus mode dims all but the line you are on. Find and replace. Export as Markdown. READ IT BACK TO CAMERA A teleprompter scrolls your own words at your own speed. Turn on voice follow and it moves with your voice, waits when you stop to think, and picks up where you left off. YOUR WEEK, WHERE YOU ALREADY LOOK Give a task a time and Drift blocks the hour. Day, three day and month views, and dragging to reschedule. Sync with Apple Calendar one way, so nothing else is ever read, or both ways, so what you already promised sits beside what you planned. TABLES THAT ADD UP Shot lists, call sheets, budgets. Put numbers in a column and Drift totals them, counts them or averages them at the foot, in euros or whatever you work in. Group rows into scenes or days. Send the whole thing out as a PDF or a CSV when somebody else needs it. IDEAS BECOME PROJECTS When a spark is worth more, open it up. A board with tasks, dates, notes and sub projects. Mark an idea Potential, Good or Really good, give work one to three exclamation marks, and filter any list by it. BUILT FOR MAKERS Keep an area for every side of what you do. Your channel, your brand, your podcast, your newsletter. Share an area or a single idea with someone, view only or full edit, one person at a time. YOUR VOICE STAYS ON YOUR PHONE Speech becomes text on the device itself. The recording is never uploaded. A Watch recording waits on your phone only until it has become words. Only the words go on, to be sorted and titled. FREE TO START 10 captures a week and up to 6 areas, forever, with the whole manual toolkit and no card. Pro is 4.99 a month, or 47.90 a year, for unlimited captures sorted for you, areas without a limit, the writing tools and voice follow. The monthly plan starts with a 14 day free trial. Catch every idea. Write the ones that matter. Terms of Use (EULA): https://letsdrift.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://letsdrift.app/privacy