Shawn Blanc

Your productivity and your moral character are not intertwined. Meaning: Getting things done does not make you a good or better person. And, conversely, failing to be “productive” does not make you a bad person. Now… There is, of course, a connection…

Here at the Blanc house, we love to grill. We’re also trying to cut out sugar from our diet. Alas, brown sugar is one of the key ingredients in a good BBQ dry rub. So I made my own that is sugar free, and I think it turned out excellent. But! Before I get…

This article by Kevin Kelly is absolutely delightful and fascinating. Don’t miss out on page 2, where he shares a whole bunch of interesting tidbits about his photography and film during his travels: I was photographing with 35mm film. I left home with 500…

Six months and nine days ago it was the first of October 2018 and I decided to do a workout every single day for the whole month. And I’ve been able to keep that streak going. According to the activity app in my phone I am up to 191 workouts in a row so…

Austin Kleon’s new book just came out a few days ago. My copy arrived on Tuesday, and I’m excited to read it. The book starts out with Austin sharing about how he has been writing and making art for over a decade, and yet it has not been getting any…

This is what my Ulysses writing interface looks like on my iPad (which is where I spend about 90% of my writing time): I’m currently using a modified and simplified version of the default Freestraction theme along with the custom font, iA Writer Duospace.…

True story. I was up until 11:45 last night getting a few final details in place for this new course launch. (For context, I normally go to bed at 9:30.) Even though we’ve been working on this update to Learn Ulysses for the past 4 months, a few things still…

Matthew Cassinelli put together this fantastic guide for quick capture in Ulysses on iOS. He goes over the built-in share sheet (which is what I use about 5 times a day). And he also gives several examples of custom Shortcuts (with download links) for…

This is a short video showing a day in the life of Chef Nozomu Abe, who owns and operates Sushi Noz in New York. It is so fascinating and educational to watch and learn the small habits, routines, mindsets, and idiosyncrasies of people who are masters at their…

Over the past two years, my usage between Mac and iPad has flip-flopped. And these days I use my 11-inch iPad Pro for just about everything. Especially all writing. So over on The Sweet Setup I just posted an article that gives a look at what I’m using these…

David and Stephen were generous enough to invite me back onto to the Mac Power Users podcast this week. We spent a fair amount of time talking about my gradual move away from the Mac and toward to the iPad Pro. For those who’ve been waiting for my thoughts…

Over on The Sweet Setup we put together this list of great apps for thinkers. If you’ve got ideas to wrangle, brainstorming to do, and thinking is part of your normal day, then you’re going to want to use some of these apps. I quipped on Twitter that this…


A few months ago I bought one of the best drip coffee makers in the world. Truly, as I was walking out of the store with box in hand, four — (4!) — different people stopped me to say how excited or how jealous they were that I was taking this coffee…

It has now been one month since I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my iPhone. I also made a commitment to put my iPhone into Do No Disturb and leave it in another room of the house during our family evening time. A mere 28 days was no heroic feat at all.…