As it happens, the coming year, 5782, beginning at sundown on September 6, 2021, is Shmita, the seventh year of the calendar, the “year of release” or “sabbatical year”. Technically, Shmita law applies only to Eretz Israel.
This is one smart tech group! And you, my friend, I’ve got to be near the top. 
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Long time listener, first time poster.…
Regarding the discussion on analogue vs digital. I have tried for many years to maintain digital only life, but as an architect (buildings not I.T.), I have been way too dependant on handwritten notes and sketches. Also we architectural types love paper too much to ever fully let it go. There is also something meditative about handwriting.
My first step on the paperless journey was an iPad with Notability to deal with the copious amount of PDFs (mostly sketches and drawings) architects are issued.
But until I developed my own journalling system I always had stuff falling out of it, whether that was Evernote, Apple Notes, Notebooks or whatever was the new hotness in the note taking world.
What I settled on for the last couple of years is a journaling, project journaling and time-block planner / habit tracking system, based on multiple PDFs that allows for printed page templates that can then be OCR scanned back into your PDF markup tool of choice – meaning I can use digital or analogue – whatever takes my fancy on any day. (In my mind, PDFs are the nearest thing to text files in the visual arts world and therefore more resilient as technology develops).
That means when addressing intensive habit-tracking / forming, I have my journal on me permanently for review, and as notes in Notability can be password protected on my devices, I am not concerned about losing a notebook full of personal stuff. And in that deep habit-tracking mode, sometimes I want to journal during the day.
It also means my project notes that can run over many years are grouped as opposed to just being lost in some random page in a physical notebook.
And yes, I also struggle with the sign-off/shutdown routine. There is always more work to be down isn’t there? 
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@vco1 from Merriam Webster for the word sabbath:
"We tend to think of sabbatical in academic terms, as a school year free from teaching duties that can be devoted to research, travel, and writing. Traditionally, this occurs every seventh year. Because of this scholarly context, we may easily miss what is hiding in plain sight: that sabbatical is related to Sabbath, which refers to the Biblical day of rest, or the seventh day. We trace the origins of both sabbatical and Sabbath to the Greek word sabbaton . Sabbaton itself traces to the Hebrew word shabbāth , meaning “rest.”
After this episode, I noticed I wasn’t happy with how late I was starting my bedtime routine so I created a simple Shortcut which just asks me a series of questions: Bedtime Routine
I just answer Yes or No, there’s no data that’s actually tracked here. If I tap No, the whole thing ends as I really just need a prompt to get going with the few things I have to do before bed. I also have an automation that fires this Shortcut every day at 9:30pm, before my phone goes into DND for the night.
No disrespect at all, in fact, I really appreciate your material but I for one do not need a shortcut to help me get ready for bed. 
I sometimes wonder if we over do the technology some. Perhaps a little less reliance of technology (and I speak as a die hard paperless/tech guy) for the basics of life–getting the day started, turning lights on/off, getting ready for bed might actually be easier with less glitches, tech stress/frustration and a little less screen time?
Just a thought. Again, this is NOT a criticism, just food for thought for all of us.
Totally valid 
I really don’t either, but apparently I do need a reminder in order to do it before 10pm. Just trying to help myself get a bed a little earlier.
@mikeschmitz I have an advantage, my dog starts to stare and bark at me when it is his bedtime. That’s my cue. 
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Something you mentioned @MacSparky was about time tracking falling through the cracks, since getting on all the betas because of Focus modes, I’ve tied in my time tracking with my Focus modes and boy has that made a difference!
I’ve habituated myself in the past couple months and made all the tweaks I could to always be in a focus. Some are more permissive then others. Some are extremely limited to allowing the outside world in.
I split my focus modes to match my life areas of responsibility / never needing improvement.
I think there’s something really cool here. Because Focus is so integrated into the OS now and you can run shortcuts.
Here’s today for example:
all time tracking triggered from focus. Usually Apple Watch but can be any device.
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On shutdown routines, I gotta put a plug for GridDiary app. I switched months ago from DayOne (imported 12 years history) to it and the ability to fully customize them with my questions and make it flow from on to the next is awesome. When you tap on a square it brings it into view and you swipe sideways to to move to the next. It’s completely transformed my journaling and morning and evening reflections. Guided journaling in a way.
I use it with my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. It’s delightful.
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@MacSparky asked for suggestions for his future webinars. Here are my suggestions:
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What your daily shutdown routine is how to do it more consistently.
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The “personal retreat” process you developed that helps people to define their roles, ideal roles (values and mission), and next action steps based on those.
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How you use DevonThink in your work flow. Nice tie-in to release of DevonThink FG.
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How you use the finder/iCloud in your workflow. In one of your podcasts, it sounded to me like when you’re working on a current project you keep many files in the finder/iCloud, then maybe later move them to a longer term storage like DevonThink or Obsidian?
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I think there’s an understandable tension between what seems efficient and what sparks joy, and the evolution of the latter that makes it hard to stick with one system. I’ve been using paper and pen to time block off and on for years,misprint eyeing my friends remarkable 2 and switched to using my iPad and Apple Pencil for now - I made the dot graph bigger in notability and that helped a lot. I think part of it was reducing what I carry as I’m going back to the office some now.
Am I understanding correctly that @MacSparky has gone more digital, but @mikeschmitz is still using his ugmonk?
I’m still using my Ugmonk Heirloom journal, though I just got the new iPad mini and LOVE the size! If anything can convince me to go back to digital, this is it. Jury’s still out, but I think analog is still going to stick.
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