A huge attraction of going iOS-only, or iOS-first, is simplicity and focus. iPad can do all sorts of multi-tasking, but for me, works best as a single-focus device.

Accepting that my corporate work is easier done on macOS than iOS, has redirected my thinking on workflows.

E-mail

I have three groups of e-mail addresses.

  1. Lime Consulting (Lime). A family of addresses and domains that all come to me.
  2. Nero’s Notes (Nero’s). As the above, but with some traffic directed to Clare.
  3. stuartlennon.com (SL). My own domain, and several older personal email addresses. G-mail and iCloud, for example.

The Lime addresses were aliases of SL. Nero’s forward to SL. That way, I had a unified inbox. Sent mails all came from SL. (Unless I remembered to select the Lime alias.) It was uncomfortable.

Corporate clients expect e-mail to come from a corporate domain, with a corporate signature. This runs contrary to modern thinking. The fashion amongst the “Techeratti” is to have no signature, or a minimal one. This overlooks the inconvenient fact, that for a UK entity at least, it is a legal requirement to include the registered address and company registration number on all correspondence.

Nero’s customers are less picky. Nevertheless, some wise souls like to have an email chat before sending money to a website, new to them. A reply from a different domain is hardly reassuring.

These issues are easily resolved. I split Lime from SL and then set up all three accounts on Mail. Three inboxes in one. Hmmm….now, I have folders and labels, all over the place. On iPad Pro its a mess. On iPhone, it’s horrible.

I am experimenting with having each group of mails in their own app.

iOS

Nero’s are G-suite addresses – so are a natural fit with the G-mail app.

Lime fits nicely with Fastmail, which feels solid and secure.

SL – these are more personal, less constrained, so I’m trying a variety of apps. Favourite right now, is Edison.

Keeping them separate allows me to segregate my duties. If I’m checking my personal mail, I’m not deluged with corporate stuff. If I’m working on one company, I’m not distracted by the other. There’s work to do on notifications per device, but thus far, I’m enjoying it.

Mac

All accounts into Mail. I use “Mail Steward” to back up messages. Old habits die hard, I guess. It plays nicely with Mail. There’s enough real estate and control to manage the multiple inboxes, folders and labels. Largely, I’m only on the Mac to do the Lime stuff anyway.

HEY

Then, my invite for HEY arrived. New, shiny and different. Will this fit in to my system? Where?

I’ll let you know, once I’ve finished testing it.